rymenhild

BETTER THAN IN-JOKES. BETTER.

BEST THING EVER, ACTUALLY.

From:

ex-greythist387.livejournal.com

YAY for the acknowledgment. Yay also for slash being canon, since Dumbledore/Grindelwald is left entirely implicit (IIRC).

--even if JKR is a big fat coward for claiming she would've said it earlier, had she but known. What the hell kind of validation was she waiting for?

Also, apparently one can only really be in the Order if one is modern-day gentry. What?? (That's in the Leaky write-up.)

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--even if JKR is a big fat coward for claiming she would've said it earlier, had she but known. What the hell kind of validation was she waiting for?

I can't imagine what else she needed either. The time to tell us if she'd dared ought to have been in book 7, with all of the rest of Dumbledore's backstory... but maybe they'll make the HP7 movie differently now that they know.

I'm pondering a blog post about silently/subtextually gay authority figures in children's fiction. The most obvious other examples I can think of at the moment are Tom Swale and Carl Romeo in

dduane's Young Wizards books. I suppose the difference between Tom&Carl and Dumbledore is that Tom and Carl have their sexuality signaled in their living arrangements, so we don't have to go hunting for slashy backstory.

Still, as you say, yay for slash being canon. I can simultaneously be frustrated with JKR and absolutely delighted with her.

From:

ex-greythist387.livejournal.com

I'm pondering a blog post

I'd be very interested to read it!
During that sentence, I thought, "Tom and Carl!" and then I read your next sentence. ;) Unfortunately, other examples don't come to mind, which strikes me as strange.

That difference, yes, and their ages. Dumbledore had a mad pash as a youngster, then went all Stephen Fry? which is too safe as putative backstory; OTOH, I guess not everything is a Message.

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It may well just be that I haven't read all of all of the books, but I have trouble picturing Dumbledore talking about romantic feelings of any sort, no matter how open he was otherwise being, any more than I can picture Snape telling Harry about his love for Lily in person. And Dumbledore's Book 7 conversation with Harry he might have viewed it as making an excuse for himself when he didn't feel he deserved one. (Again, this may totally be contradicted by something I haven't read.)

Then again, this may have been the best way to get that element known about the books for those who want to know it, tell their children about it, etc, without having it swamp the story, or at least Book 7, in the public imagination and among people who might then have ignored the other points she was trying to make. Kind of like that woman who spoke to the freshman at our college every year, who only mentioned towards the end that she was gay because, she said, otherwise everyone would have been viewing everything else she said through that prism. This way people have already formed their opinion of the story on its other merits.

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(Also, the fact that slashfickers would clearly be thrilled may not necessarily have told Rowling that a given group of wider readers would be!)

From: (Anonymous)

I think that tons of charactes have tons of back-story, and I think that it would not have helped move the book forward to share that Dumbledore had a love interest - gay or straight.

So I don;t think she consciously hid it - I think it just didn't occur to her that it might be important to other people for reasons other than plot. But even had she known, not putting it in, plotwise, may have made more sense anyway.

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I'm not so sure. We didn't need to know for the first six books, but Dumbledore's history with Grindelwald and the Deathly Hallows was a major plot point in book 7. A mention that Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald was more than friendly would have fit right into the dynamic.

(Is this D or E?)

From:

taylweaver.livejournal.com

I think it might have distracted from the rest of the plot (as in, caused distraction). Had Grindenwald been female, it would not have but, unfortunately, in our society, suddenly revealing a gay love interest would have had that effect. It would have been one thing if Dumbledore had been outed earlier, because then it would not have been news - but as you note, there was no reason to know earlier - and besides, it would have been forced in any earlier book, since Dumbledore sort of presents as asexual throughout. And since it would have made everyone step back and go, "wait - Dumbledore is gay?!?!" and then it would have left Harry having to either accept that casually (not likely considering he was brought up in our culture) or be weirded out by it... I can see why she didn't put it in.

If she ever writes the Dumbledore/Grindelwald story as a book in itself, that would be the place to include it.

From:

taylweaver.livejournal.com

By the way, I think (I am pretty sure) I posted that anonymous comment. Must not have been logged in when I did so. Oops.

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> what was she waiting for
Someone to ask. Since Bk7's publication Rowling has been very consistent about only answering the questions she is asked directly -- which in general I actually really appreciate. If she publishes a HP encyclopedia (a la the LOTR appendices), I'd read it, of course -- but I don't know that I'd appreciate endless extratextual explication via the news media. She couldn't include all her notebooks of character backstory and development and futures in the book, and there's gotta be some logic to what she reveals outside of the text and what she doesn't. I think the "only answers questions she is asked directly" works...

It makes more sense to ask why she didn't share it in the book -- or lament that she didn't, even if understanding why -- but I don't buy the accusations of "coward" for the fact that she hasn't mentioned it publicly before. You could perhaps call her that for not including it in the book, but it does fit in consistently with her general decision not to share backstory about the romantic/sex lives of Hogwarts teachers... and you could legitimately accuse her of perpetuating a heteronormative paradigm within her books and then claiming that her books represent tolerance and diversity based on this extratextual information about one relationship... but I at least think you could say that the question is genuinely complicated. So I guess what I'm saying is that it's possible that one could accuse her of cowardice in regards to this, but only after debate, not casually, off the cuff. Does that make any sense?

Though I sometimes wish she'd done things differently, I generally feel very bad for the way Rowling is crucified (particularly within the chlit critical community) for every single thing she does and says, whether in text, in public, or private. Just because she's so famous, large groups of people are going to hate her no matter what she does... of course, I admit, balancing this out is the fact that she will always be loved by many, many more people, no matter what she does.

Enh. Anyway. I'm delighted by this news, but irked by many of the conversations about it going on in the chlit community -- but I won't post about it there, so it comes out here instead. :-)

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Now I'm really curious. Is there anything you can share about what the chlit community is saying? (Actually, is there any way I can get into your chlit communities? I am coordinating the local discussion group, after all.)

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You could subscribe to the child_lit listserv, although it's huge and quite active and a heckuva time commitment to read consistently, even for those of us who are very invested in it (1,200 member unmoderated listserv -- need I say more?). The info is here: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mjoseph/childlit/about.html ...I could also forward you the last couple days' digests.

There are definitely controversial/negative, but still interesting/legitimate, points to be made/questions to raise about this affair, and I can recognize them when I read them -- but at least in this conversation, they nearly all are so rooted in this disdainful JKR-can-do-no-right, how-stupid-are-you-people, you've-fallen-for-her-BS-AGAIN attitude that it's really hard to take. I'm particularly irritated, I admit, by people who claim to love the books but hate her for for all this perceived manipulation/lies/greed etc (and worse) in any comment she should happen to make that gets reported in the press. Things get distorted so rapidly -- people are already attacking JKR for having made this announcement as if specifically to gain media attention and praise herself for her liberal values of diversity and tolerance, etc. But that's just not the context in which she shared this at all -- in a public interview, she answered a direct question (one that hadn't been asked in the earlier afternoon presentation in the same event). It didn't feel planned or manipulative at all, at least not when I read the transcripts of people who were there (at least two of them on this listserv). And just in general, whenever she talks about her process as a writer, it all rings very, very true to me, esp. when I think about my own process. I'm not always in control of what happens; characters take on a life of their own, and they don't always behave how I would most want them to do in order to push an agenda of my personal values, for instance. And there's not always room in the text for me to explain everything I know, or would like to explain.

It's not that there's not things to criticize in the books -- I definitely see the arguments that her overt liberal values are sometimes undercut by an inherent, covert conservatism in the text... and sure, it would be awesome if she could be Phillip Pullman and either tell people to interpret the books for themselves, or else offer her own ideas about interpretation and character backstory/futurestory as if she were just another reader, and say that her explanations and predictions were no more (nor less!) valid than any other reader's, sure. But can you really blame the average author for not buying into (or even knowing about) the literary critics' idea of the intentional fallacy?

I just don't get all this hatred towards her personally. In everything she's ever done, ever said to the press etc, I see her love and enthusiasm for the books and the fans, a genuine commitment to liberal values, and overall, personal integrity. She may not have written the books some of us would have liked her to write, nor push the agenda some of us so badly wish her to push. The books may do some things she didn't intend them to do, and some of those things may be worth criticizing. But I just don't see cowardice/manipulation/greed in her actions at all, and thus I get frustrated with the conversations.

In the end, the ones who love HP and JKR continue to do so, and the ones who hate HP and JKR continue to think the former are all a bunch of idiots/dupes.

From:

the-paper-nun.livejournal.com

Word. The jealously, the incredulity, the general ugliness of JK haters both infuriates me and bores me to tears.. if people put that much time and energy into Darfur or global warming, the world would be a better place.

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I also wonder if she worried that having Dumbledore's love for Grindelwald be the only/central gay relationship in the story would have lent itself to major misinterpretation among the sorts of people who like to misinterpret things like that (though I guess she could have balanced it out with other gay relationships, assuming she felt the characters were interested). After all, the object of affection turns out to be the evil-wizard equivalent of WWII, and Dumbledore eventually sees his true nature, defeats him, takes his all-powerful wand, and as far as we know never falls in love again. It's not exactly Tom and Carl for positive gay relationships; in the context of the story it may have been at risk as coming across as another character flaw Dumbledore overcame, rather than as an integral, value-neutral part of who he happens to be.

(Though I suppose it could just be me -- I wonder all the time about the multitude of ways characters I write could be misinterpreted, should I ever actually publish anything.)

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No, I think you're quite right. The answer would of course to be to balance it out with depictions of positive queer relationships, but yeah, had Dumbledore's been the only one, that would have been most unfortunate. Worse than Joss Whedon accidentally falling prey to the infamous "dead/evil lesbian" trope of pulp novels -- much worse.

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I also wonder -- and again, this may very well just be my patchwork reading of the series showing through -- is there any other point in the books where the sincere love of a basically good person for someone turns out to have been such an all-around BAD idea, for them, for their moral compass, and for everyone else they know? It doesn't really seem to fit in with the place and message of love in the rest of the series; I wonder if on some level she didn't know what to do with it because of that, regardless of the genders of the people involved.

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That is a really fascinating question. I will have to think on't.

From:

bluesbell.livejournal.com

\o/

The world is filled with joy and happiness.

From:

nigita.livejournal.com

I really wish she'd have made it explicit in the books. So much turns upon love and betrayal in the books, and this pivotal relationship is what forges Dumbledore's character as an adult. So I feel two ways about her mentioning it in an interview, rather than writing it. I'd have liked my kids to incorporate an openly gay superhero into their world of beloved childhood books. I shouldn't complain, though. It is quite nice.

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As I said to

greythistle above, I'm thinking about Dumbledore in connection with other subtextually gay authority figures in children's literature. You might give your children Diane Duane's Young Wizards books. We're never actually told that the senior wizards Tom and Carl are gay, but they live in a house together with several odd pets, and it seems that they've been living together for quite a long time. (Also, Duane's adult series The Tale of the Five depicts a polyamorous society in which everyone is bisexual, so we have external evidence that she's queer-positive.)

From:

nigita.livejournal.com

I've given those to my son! I love Duane's Tom and Carl. Their relationship, though, is only just barely subtextual. If Duane announced that Tom and Carl are partners, I doubt she'd be met with stunned silence. It's hardly fair for me to want more from the single most prominent and influential living children's author (or at least to hope for as much as what Duane gave us with Tom and Carl), but I guess I feel just slightly denied. It's not fair of me--and even less rational, I suppose, since with these books, now, anything she says has as much substance as anything she's written--but given the richness and loving detail she's given to so much of her wizarding world and the relationships of the characters who live in it, that I find it odd that this small detail remained so removed from the written page. The only people who weren't a bit stunned were writers of fanfiction. And not to malign fanfiction writers, because I love them fiercely, but many of them (us) see homosexual relationships more or less everywhere, even where it clearly cannot be, and where it's pretty clear the author would never have imagined it. In my little warped corner of the universe, this comes off a little like JKR publicly writing her own fanfiction. I'm surprised to find myself feeling so strongly about this, since really, it's overall a wonderful thing. I'll have to think about why I should find what is really very good news as oddly disappointing. Perhaps, being given this much, it's difficult not to want it all.

Well, I'm off to grab The Tale of Five--thanks for mentioning it.

From:

flintknappy.livejournal.com

Interesting and cool. That's sad about Hagrid though, I would have liked to think he would eventually find someone. He was such a nice guy and sensative with kids and creatures.

From:

elettaria.livejournal.com

Some of us aren't too impressed.

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I saw that post. Right now I'm working on processing past my immediate delight -- I first reacted to gay Dumbledore as a fangirl, and now I'm beginning to respond as a critic. There should be a less bouncy and more thoughtful blog post in a few days.

From:

elettaria.livejournal.com

Token gay character is one of the most unattractive she could have picked (though largely through being dull) and is kept in the closet in the books; this is meant to be cause for rejoicing?

From:

taylweaver.livejournal.com

Actually, I think he'd only have been a token gay character if he were outed during the series - or if she'd given the reader enough clues to out him.

If you want to complain about the utter lack of gay relationships in the book, and say that someone somewhere in the wizarding world should have been openly gay, I could see that as a possible complaint.

In this case, however, it really does seem to me that this was something she herself discovered about the character along the way, that she felt would not have worked so well to put into the books, for many of the reasons listed above. Plus, I don't think she specifically chose Dumbledore to be gay - I think he sort of just grew that way. (as I said on... actually, it may have been on your blog... I have had that happen to me with a character I was writing, and it was quite a surprise.)

From:

proustian4eva.livejournal.com

But is GRINDELWALD gay? And who ELSE isn't completely straight?

I suspect "yes" to the former and "several characters" to the latter.

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