There is also the fact that Rita Skeeter wrote a tell-all book about about AD. The exact content of the book was not revealed, but it did talk about the nature of his relationship with Grindlewald, and that his affection for Hairy might be less than savory. I don’t think it’s any stretch at all to presume that there was some truth that Rita was perverting. I wondered that when I was reading the book- it seemed pretty plain that the implication was there, given the pretty obvious (possible, from the text, platonic) crush he had on Grindlewald. Clearly, not everyone interpreted this that way- but, unlike with shakespeare, as someone mentioned, JKR is still around and determined to publish an encyclopedia that will give this (I imagine) as well as lots of other backstory.
What Matt said. Rowling clearly understands her characters and their motivations…she was the one who wrote them, after all, and authors usually give their characters backstory that isn’t always explicit in the text, but that the author uses to help them write the character.
I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t been said already, but I’ll throw in my two cents anyway.
In the Deathly Hallows discussion thread, there is a [post=8831986]link[/post] to a chat where J.K. Rowling reveals many things that are not in the book. Also on her website, she has mentioned extra details about several of the characters (Theodore Nott, or Dean Thomas for example.) None of those garnered the attention of this one comment that Dumbledore is gay. I think it’s sad that everyone is focussing on this one element, which should actually be not much more important than any of the other revelations. Why should this be such a big deal compared to all her other postings stating facts that were not in the books?
In my case, it doesn’t bother me if she wants to give additional details. If she ever sits down and writes her Harry Potter encyclopedia, I will buy it because I would be interested in knowing more about the world she created.
I also find it puzzling that others seem bothered by her revealing things after the fact. Heck, if she wants to re-edit the books and republish them with corrections or modifications, I wouldn’t be much bothered either. I can read my original books if I want to. Though I think it would be more interesting for her or for us if she wrote something different rather than revising these books multiple times.
Interesting choices, but I’m going to go with, “That’s how she created him.”
And if she says he’s a wizard, it’s because she thinks of him that way. And if she says he has a beard, it’s because she thinks of him this way. And if she says his name is Aldous Dumbledore, it’s because she thinks of him this way. All the characteristics Dumbledore has, he has because JK Rowling thinks of him that way. Some of the things she thought about Dumbledore ended up being included in the books. Some of the things she thought about him did not.
So, other than the fact that she has not written (yet!) any stories in which it is explictly stated that Dumbledore is gay, what’s the difference between Rowling saying, “Dumbledore is a wizard!” and “Dumbledore is gay!”? If either of those statements are crazy, surely it’s the first one, because it includes two impossible things: the character of Dumbledore, and the concept of wizards. The second statement includes fully 50% less imaginary things in it, because there are, at least, actual gay people in the real world.
Now that I think about it, if Rowling has written a story about Dumbledore being gay, and just not published it yet, does she stop being wacky? Is it the act of writing an idea down that removes it from crazy cuckoo land, or is the imprint of a publisher a necessary step in the road to sanity?
I suspect that’s a distinction that exists primarily within your own head.
No, because it’s in the text. It’s wacky to assert things about a character that aren’t supportable by the text, even if you’re the author, because… guess what? Dumbledore doesn’t exist outside those books. People have a really hard time accepting that, which is why fanfic exists. But the bottom line is, all we really have to go on is the books. Some people wanted to hear about this very important aspect of Dumbledore in the actual books. I don’t think that’s weird or wacky or whatever.
Hey, you know, OJ Simpson is a real person. So things about him that aren’t written down or proven can still be true. Things about Dumbledore, not the same, because he’s a fictional character who exists within the parameters of the 7 books JK Rowling wrote. Everything outside that is just talk. It’s not part of the text, and it’s really intellectual masturbation.
Your comparison of OJ Simpson and Dumbledore is simply absurd. Do you make no distinction at all between real and fictional characters? Saying something about a fictional character in an interview doesn’t make it so, even if you’re the author, because fictional characters only have the qualities and characteristics given to them in the text. It’s apocryphal at best, and if you really cared about that aspect of the character, fucking write it in the books.
If you can point to parts of the text that indicate, support, or prove that Dumbledore is gay, then it’s a reasonable assertion. If you can’t, then you’re making shit up about someone who doesn’t exist. Don’t you think THAT is weird? And I’d say that about any retcon Rowling or anyone else chooses to make about any text, not just the Dumbledore being gay thing.
Also, why aren’t people more aggravated that Rowling is apparently too cowardly to write openly about Dumbledore being gay? If she felt it was true strongly enough to tell us all later, why couldn’t she just put it in the damned books? We’re talking about YA lit, too, so saying “homosexual subtext, it’s there but sooo subtle” ain’t gonna cut it either. It would have been brave and meaningful for her to have a beloved mentor character turn out to be gay. Instead she went the weasly (not Ron) route and copped to it later. Not admirable.
Rubystreak, can I refer you to my post earlier on this page, and Malthus’s post just before it? Thanks.
I just don’t understand your assertion that an author cannot have a more fully fleshed-out understanding of her character than what she ends up putting down.
As far as I can tell, in order for the character to seem real and be well written, you basically have to do that – imagine the character as a whole person with a whole personality, and then imagine how s/he will react in the situations you set up. In fact, a lot of those situations will be guided by the character’s personality, otherwise the book will ring false. Such character-driven stories basically delimit what’s been considered “the novel” for the last five hundred years.
That’s why it’s not at all wacky that JKR should have a more complete view of Dumbledore’s character than is in black and white; she would have needed one in order to write the book. Accordingly, she can discuss that construct in as much detail as she’s imagined.
Only if it’s necessarily the case that she was intending to make some sort of point. If she wanted to make a stir, there would have been more audacious ways of going about it. If she simply wanted to make a character, well then.
(Also, a friend points out that the books are written from Harry’s point of view, and as far as students are concerned, the teachers don’t have personal lives, until they should become relevant to the storyline (as Dumbledore’s relationship to Grindelwald was, and then not until the last book). You’ll notice that we know all about the students’ relationships and families, but very little about the personal lives of any of the other teachers. If there was no plausible way to introduce it into the story that, say, McGonagall is married, or that Flitwick is divorced and shacked up with a woman half his age and twice his height, stating outright that Dumbledore is gay was probably equally improbable.)
Huh? You’re welcome. ???
She can think and say whatever she wants. That doesn’t make it canon. It’s just talk unless there’s text to back it up. And I don’t think being gay is just some extra tidbit about a character. I think it’s pretty important. This idea that it was not relevant and therefore it’s not significant that she never wrote it down seems like a rationalization about her being too cowardly to write an openly or admittedly gay character in a YA book. And it seems unlikely that you’ll convince me otherwise.
As for assuming he was gay or straight, you do have to admit that most readers would assume straight, just like they do in the real world, esp. kids who don’t know much about gay infatuation or subtext in novels. I didn’t assume anything either way, and I wouldn’t. I’d suspect, and maybe say that’s what I thought, but if it’s not actually there, then it’s just that-- my thoughts and suspicions. I think it’d be nice if she wrote him as gay, if just in the last book.
I’m not upset with J. K. Rowling for not putting in the books that Dumbeldore is gay because I’m not certain, as other people seem to be, that she did it out of cowardice. As I mentioned before, there are many characters of which she has a more complete and rounded view than what is presented in the books. Dumbledore is just one of them.
Everything Rowling wrote or said about Dumbedore was “making shit up about someone who doesn’t exist.” That’s what writing fiction is. Before Dumbledore existed in any of the books, he existed in Rowling’s mind. She created him, and when she did, she gave him a background, personality, interests, motivations, attitudes, a sexual orientation and so on. She did the same with Harry Potter, Ron, Hermione, Lord Voldemort, and all the rest of her characters. She then wrote her books. Some of this information about the characters wound up in the books. The rest didn’t. Either there was no space to fit it in, or it didn’t add to the story she was telling, or it was cut by her editor, or she never intended to put it in or whatever. But it exists. There’s information about these characters that’s only in Rowling’s head and in Rowling’s notes. Dumbledore’s sexuality is part of that information.
So, btw, is Voldemort’s. She’s said, in response to the question, “Did Voldemort ever love anyone?” that he never did, and that, if he had loved someone, he never could have become the person he was. Now, this is never directly referenced in the book. Nobody ever says, “You know, He Who Must Not Be Named has never had a girlfriend” or something, but obviously it’s a piece of background Rowling finds important to understanding the character and why he is the way he is.
Do I wish that Rowling had made Dumbledore’s sexuality explicit in the book? Sure, if she could have done it without compromising the story she wanted to tell. But the fact she didn’t do it doesn’t mean that that’s not part of the character she created as she created him.
Canon is what the creator says is canon, though.
Thanks for the lecture about “what writing fiction is.” Now look at the second word in that phrase. “Giving interviews about stuff that didn’t happen in your fiction book” =/= “writing fiction.” I think Dumbledore being gay is important. It’s not just a detail to be accidentally or incidentally left out, in context. That’s just my opinion.
If Voldemort is indeed a sociopathic personality, then the fact that he could not love anyone is not a big stretch. In fact, it’s not a stretch at all.
This is really more about your philosophy of what is and isn’t text. If you consider her interviews to be part of the text, then sure, this comment about Dumbledore is part of it. I don’t. I want to be able to read the books and know what I need to know. If my kids read the books, will they know Dumbledore is gay? Or will I have to be sure to tell them when they’re done? And do you see how that sort of defeats the purpose of writing the books, if people need to read all your interviews and shit to get the point you were trying to make?
HAN. SHOT. FIRST.
No, it doesn’t. And this is not just a personal quirk of mine. This is how most people read text-- they read the text, and that’s it. They don’t read interviews and all that other, apocryphal stuff. In 100 years, if someone picks up the series out of their grandmother’s attic, will they know Dumbledore is gay? Maybe they’ll suspect, maybe not, depends, but unless Gramma printed out that interview and slipped it between the pages, the kid probably won’t know this very important fact about Dumbledore. That’s why it ain’t canon.
ETA: Justin_Bailey fuckin’ gets what I’m trying to say.
The reason I think all of you who are protesting so loudly over this little tidbit are aghast because of the GAY is because you all seem to either not understand the concept of backstory or think JKR should have kept the backstory to herself-- but only when it comes to this little bit of information. And I know you are much too intelligent to not know about or, at least understand once explained to you, backstory.
And nobody has given one sixthousandths of a fig about Longbottom marrying Hannah Abbott or this particularly juicy bit of backstory:
Totally, completely wrong in my case and in the case of most, if not all, people posting to this thread. Homophobia and an inability to understand this “backstory” concept aren’t the problem. Homophobia may be what kept this key bit of info out of the books, though, eh?
There is a big difference between talking about what happens to a character in a future not yet written (Neville and Hannah) v. redefining/revealing a major part of a focal character’s life, which would have been relevant in the context of the books themselves. Aberforth? Not a very major character. So I think you kinda missed the point of what is being argued here.
The post you’re responding to was written specifically for CC, who thinks that the way Rowling phrased this revelation of Dumbledore’s backstory indicates that Rowling is unable to tell the difference between reality and fiction. Generally speaking, I agree that, as a reader, you should judge a book by what happens in the book, not by any extra-textual statements made by the author.
However, I don’t think it’s unusual or wacky or a sign of mental illness (as two posters have suggested now, apparently with a straight face) for an author to have additional ideas and motivations about a character that did not make it into the text, nor do I see anything remotely objectionable in mentioning those facts in a public forum. I don’t consider the statements to be in any way binding on the book’s readers, but they can still be an interesting insight into the author’s intentions and creative process.
Yes, that’s why I used OJ Simpson as an example: to demonstrate that how I phrase a statement about a particular person is not reflective of that person’s reality. Saying “Dumbledore is gay,” doesn’t imply that Dumbledore is a real person, no more than saying, “I perceive OJ Simpson to be a murderer,” indicates that I think OJ Simpson is fictional.
So, er… how does that make it different from the stuff in the book, exactly?
Snape kills Dumbledore in book six, right? Now, I’ve heard that Rowling plotted out most of the HP books long before she started writing any of them, and I have to assume that such a major plot point was part of her long-range plans. If, after the first book had come out, Rowling had said, “Snape is going to kill Dumbledore at some point,” would this have been “wacky,” because it wasn’t yet supported in the text?
No, I think that’s fiction.
Okay, but I still don’t see why that’s a bad thing. I mean, inventing a story about a young boy with magical powers studying to be a wizard is okay so long as you put it in a book, but saying anything about those same characters and not publishing it is weird? Does that strike you as a somewhat bizarre and arbitrary distinction between normal and weird?
I dunno. Perspective, maybe?
If that’s what you were trying to prove, you ended up looking like you don’t know the difference between fictional characters and real people. I wouldn’t go as far as CC to question Rowling’s sanity, but talking about a character’s life outside the text is cause for scepticism.
But Dumbledore is a character in a text. He’s not real. So unless he’s written in the book as being gay, that will always be ambiguous, no matter what the author says later on. Several people in this thread have posted to say that they didn’t realize Dumbledore was gay just from the books, and I bet most kids didn’t either. And they’re not wrong to think that he wasn’t, because it was, and still is AFAIC, not clear.
I’ll say it one more time, as clearly as possible: the stuff in the books is IN THE BOOKS. The stuff Rowling says? Ain’t. See what I mean? I’ll repeat what I said in earlier posts: future generations reading this won’t know Dumbledore is gay unless they do research. That’s apocryphal, not textual.
What’s weird is making stuff up about characters in books outside the books and talking about it as if it’s real, or it actually happened. That’s why people are saying Rowling is nutty. Dumbledore is only what it says he is in the books.
But she’s not doing that. She’s talking about the characters she created in teh context of how she imagined them. Her exact words were “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” These are the words of an author in full control of her faculties, able to separate fact from fiction.
You are trying way too hard to blame other people for your fucked up dislike of Dumbledore, the character, being gay. Just admit that you don’t like the idea that he is gay, instead of this ridiculous notion about authors not knowing their own creations that you’re trying to make up, and we can all just go home.
I don’t dislike Dumbledore being gay. AT ALL. I love it, in fact, and have said so many, many times in this thread. Your accusations to that effect are attacking me instead of my argument, and I think it’s bullshit. I wish you wouldn’t do it. I dislike that Rowling didn’t have the balls to make him gay in the actual books. I want to see a strong, beloved, admirable gay character BE GAY. Just be outright, acknowledged gay, not implied, not innuendo, not some subtext that most of the books’ readers will miss. I want him to be GAYER, in fact. So please, don’t try to twist what I’m saying. You are 100% wrong, couldn’t be wronger. Ultimately, my criticisms are of Rowling, not of Dumbledore. I’d have the same reaction to any retcon of a major character. Show me, don’t tell me.