Albus Dumbledore was... (shocking news inside!!)

Cafe Society
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I’m not going to call you a homophobe. Why would I do that? Are you one? Again with the protesting too much.
You have explained your reasoning and I have explained why I think it’s silly. It is absolutely silly and YOU trying to make believe it’s some complex literary theory that I’m too dumb to understand, well that ups the silly factor a hundred-fold.

Let’s look back. You have no problem with Dumbldore’s brother fucking goats, even though it wasn’t explicitly stated in the text. You have no problem with Longbottom marrying Abbott, even though that wasn’t stated-- or even elluded to-- in the text. But you have a problem with Dumbledore being gay. Even though it changes not one whit of the text written. Even though, when the text was written, he was gay in the creator’s mind.

But when I suggest that the only thing that has changed was your perception of the character-- well, let’s get all hysterical, why don’t we?

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Then what exactly is it that I’m saying that you don’t believe? I said I don’t have a problem with Dumbledore being gay. You said you don’t believe me. Why not? Explain, or leave me alone.

You think it’s silly, and I’m totally OK with that. But that’s my reasoning. That’s how I feel about authors screwing around with books I’ve read in interviews after I read them and the series is over. So, if I’m so silly, then please just ignore my posts and stop trying to assign completely incorrect and frankly offensive motives to my reactions. That’s not so hard, is it?

Did I say that? Or are you reading my mind? Making shit up? Yes, that’s what you’re doing, and what you’ve been doing this whole thread, with regard to me and what I think. Could you please stop? Because you don’t know me and all your guesses have been wrong.

I don’t have as much of a problem with authors talking about the futures of their characters that take place after the books are over, because it’s not relevant to what’s in the books and you don’t need to know it to get the books. Neville and Hannah, eh, whatever.

I will say it for the last time. I have no problem with Dumbledore being gay. I have a problem with Rowling for not making it clear in the books so that kids who read the books would know it. If you can’t wrap your head around that, and are going to continue to pursue ad hominem attacks while ignoring the actual content of my posts, then you are just willfully degenerating this already fucked up thread into a flame fest.

You just don’t get what I’m saying. You’re pointing hysterical fingers at me, making up reasons why I disagree with you. Can’t keep it on an intellectual plane, must make personal attacks. What is your problem?

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I do not believe that it isn’t the gayness of the change that’s bothering you.

But it IS hard. Rowlings screwed nothing up. She changed nothing. Nothing is different AT ALL, except YOUR perception. You changed, not Rowling or the character.

I’m not making shit up about you. This thread isn’t about you. This thread is about Rowlings revealing that Dumbldore is gay. You are not the only one posting in this thread. I did not make up the whole “since it’s a minor character, it isn’t important when the author spills some backstory”. Perhaps you should go back and read the thread and not be so egocentric about it.

No where did I say you were a homophobe. No where. I do think you’re problem with this one tiny bit of information is because you do not like how it makes you think of Dumbledore. Am I wrong? Because that’s what you keep saying. You don’t like having to rethink a book once it’s written and an author who does this is some how ‘wrong’.

I pointed NO hysterical fingers. None. You need to calm down.

I did say that I think all of those in this thread who are jumping up and down about Rowlings revealing this tidbit have a problem with what was contained in this particular tidbit. Because, I’ll say it again, nothing in the book has changed.

Let’s repeat because this seems to be lost on many of you who detest authors who change books after the fact— THE BOOK HAS NOT CHANGED. Only one thing has changed, and that is the reader’s perception.

I’d also suggest you go back and read this thread to look to see who it is who is getting hysterical. It is my perception that it’s you. But then no one can control how someone else enterprets the written word. Not even Rowlings.

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It isn’t. It isn’t. It isn’t the gayness.

Yes, you are wrong. No, that is not not NOT what I keep saying. Reread my posts and you will see very, excruciatingly clearly that I am not saying that. That is the end of the conversation, because you don’t believe me no matter how many times I say it. So is that all?

225

This…

does not jive at all with what you’ve said in this thread. In fact, earlier in that same post you said…

That sounds pretty much like a finger wagging “Ruby’s a homophobe!” to me. Man, this thread is just all kinds of fucked up.

And can I just say (sheepishly at this point) that I’d prefer it if Dumbledore wasn’t gay or straight. Look at Obi-Wan Kenobi. You kind of get the feeling that he cares about Padme (more than a Jedi is expected to care about another person), but you never get the feeling that he looks at her as anything more than a friend. He’s an asexual wizard more concerned with protecting the universe and fighting for truth, justice and the Corsucantian way.

Dumbledore was the same way and this does change that.

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as Dumbledore said to Grindelwald the first time they got naked together.

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To my mind it all comes down to this: is it okay for an authour to resolve an ambiguity that exists in her own book?

It doesn’t fuss me, for the simple reason that I can take it or leave it - the book is, after all, a work of fiction.

It is however of interest to know that the authour, in the moment of creation, had it in her mind that a character was gay - and that this affected how she perceived the character and that character’s motivations within the work.

I really do not understand this controversy. What is wrong with an author sharing what went into her own creation?

It would certainly be unfortunate if the author said something that contradicted stuff in the work - for example, if the author subsequently announces that the hero is in fact the villian or whatever. But in this case, she is merely explaining how she visualized stuff that is in the work.

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Because I missed the edit window: for the record, I don’t think anyone in this thread who doesn’t like the fact that D. was announced as gay is a homophobe. I think it is merely a difference of opinion as to how books are created and interpreted.

229

On the livejournal community devoted to this pairing, several people are wondering if Albus had a relationship with Elphias. They have some cute SFW fanart.

I did think Albus’ relationships with both Elphias and Gellert very, very gay, but I’m a slash fan (goes back to writing her Snarry) and assumed I was reading into things. I’m shocked and delighted to know that I wasn’t!

230

Nothing I’ve posted in this thread depends remotely on the content of the books. We’re discussing a methodology of approaching any sort of text, regardless of the content. I don’t need to read the books to have an opinion on the validity of extra-textual information in evaluating the worth or meaning of a text. If you disagree, feel free to point to an argument I’ve made that would be altered with direct knowledge of the books in question.

Somehow, I find that highly unlikely.

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On the livejournal community devoted to this pairing, several people are wondering if Albus had a relationship with Elphias. They have some cute SFW fanart.

I did think Albus’ relationships with both Elphias and Gellert very, very gay, but I’m a slash fan (goes back to writing her Snarry) and assumed I was reading into things. I’m shocked and delighted to know that I wasn’t!

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I’ve got nothing else to say to you in this thread, since you have no idea what you’re talking about by your own admission-- how refreshing. I feel free to talk to people with an informed opinion, though.

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I think where we differ is how she should resolve that ambiguity. It’s a matter of personal preference for me-- I don’t like having to keep up with apocryphal information to know important things about characters. Also, having something like that be ambiguous seems like shoddy writing to me, or cowardice about writing something controversial. It seems like a cop-out to reveal it later when it could have been really meaningful and ground-breaking if she did it in the books. That is just my opinion.

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Speaking of cop-outs…

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Ahh. Now, at least my part of this thread has been resolved. She didn’t say “Dumbledore is gay,” as I had thought she had. She referred to her own thoughts about him. That’s an important distinction, and one that I had questioned when I first heard what she said - or I thought that’s what she had said. As I posted, and others here agreed, asserting something about a character as if he has a life separate from the book is a little strange (if “wacky” is too strong a term). On the other hand, if an author says “this is how I think about this character,” it’s an entirely different matter. That’s a distinction, by the way, that I’d imagine most mental health professionals would acknowledge, too. xo, C.

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Keep taunting me if you think that’s the best use of your time. You’re still expounding on topics of admitted ignorance for yourself, and I’m still not bothering with you.

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Rubystreak, I think I follow your argument and I don’t suspect your motives. :slight_smile:

I have several problems with New Criticism, specifically with the dismissal of authorial intent. Is Frost’s Stopping By Woods a description of a cocaine overdose or a description of a snowy evening? Are both explanations equally valid because a reader could conceivably generate either?

Most of the literature papers I wrote in high school and college dealt with questions of authorial intent. Why did Jane Austen keep sending male characters on mysterious trips to London? Explain with textual clues. Provide historical context. Secondary sources, biography, letters, juvenalia may be helpful. Using these clues we can construct arguments as to why the author phrased something the way she did, or why she chose to portray a character that way.

The cool thing about living authors is that sometimes they can answer our questions directly. That’s SO much simpler than research and/or pages of speculation. (I hope Rowling doesn’t get tired of answering questions because I still have a few I want to ask.)

Rowling directly, honestly answered a question posed to her by a fan. To me, that’s the literary equivalent to a director’s commentary. Is the commentary the movie? Of course not. The commentary reveals some of machinery churning away behind the movie. I like that stuff; it makes my movie experience more meaningful. Some people don’t like it. That’s okay too.

Rowling didn’t explicitly reveal in the text of her books that Dumbledore was gay. That makes sense: who was going to reveal it? Grindelwald wasn’t communicating from beyond. Possibly the chatty Aberforth suspected, but why would he have told Harry all about his brother’s sex life? It just wasn’t pertinent. Albus himself wasn’t exactly the confessional type. He only ever told Harry what he thought Harry needed to know. At times he let Harry know that he’d gotten a bit too nosy (wool socks).

So Rowling included in her story only the points she thought were necessary to the story. She also answered a question posed by a fan afterward. Both fine with me; I don’t understand the brouhaha.

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I differ in how “ground-breaking” and “controversial” the notion is.

Given the fictional setting of the book, D. would have been, in effect, existing in an upper-class British setting (or its “magic” equivalent) in the early 20th century; at that time, at least as interpreted in popular literature, the notion of crushes between young men were not unknown - the notion is, in effect, something of a literary cliche. I think she had something like this in mind: Brideshead Revisited - Wikipedia

Note that this book was published in 1945. There is still ambiguity in that work - whether the two ever had a physical relationship - and of course that same ambiguity still exists in the case of D. as well.

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I topic I’m expounding about it literary criticism, about which I know a fair bit, not about the specific plot elements of Rowling’s novels. Nothing I’ve said here required any more knowledge on my behalf than what was contained in the article linked to by the OP. If you think I’m wrong about that, why don’t you show me where anything I’ve said in this thread would be altered by direct knowledge of the books? That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

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Just so I get this straight - when someone asked J.K. Rowling in her interview “Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?”, what answer could J.K. Rowling have given, in your view, knowing that she (Rowling) herself had his past firmly embedded in her mind when she wrote the books?

a) Supposing he wasn’t gay: “Yes, he was married when young but his wife died and he remarried.” or “He had a girlfriend but he never married” or “He was in love with Bathilda Bagshot but she never requited his affection” or something like that:
This would be objectionable because kids who read the books would not know that Dumbledore was heterosexual?

or

b) I had an answer in my head but it would be unfair to say it out loud, only if it’s written down in a book would the answer count and not be a travesty of the unwritten contract between author and reader

or

c) I could tell you, but the rules of New Criticism require me to be silent

or

d) Won’t someone think of the children who never read this interview!

or

e) Fuck off, it’s none of your business

OK, my post is partly tongue-in-cheek, but what would the right answer be to make you happy?

I’m not accusing you of being a homophobe, but I disagree on pretty much everything you are saying in this thread:
a) Rowling is wacky for having more backstory in her head than she put in the books
b) Dumbledore being gay is a major fact that would cause someone reading the books to interpret many important scenes differently
c) Children not knowing that Dumbledore is gay will be missing an important part of the story

The only thing I partly agree with is that, from a civil rights or activist point of view, it would be nice if she explicitly said Dumbledore was gay just as an object lesson to kids that gay people are OK. But I’m not going to go so far as to say that she was a coward for not doing so. I’m willing to believe that she had other, more literary, reasons.