11 replies on “More on Dumbledore”

  1. Great marketing Ploy!!
    If nothing else, it certainly has gotten Rowling and the Potter Books in the news again!! :)

    *shrug*

    Honestly, makes no difference to me. Doesn’t change the books any. Still a great story! :)

    k

  2. Frustrated
    I’m a little frustrated by this "outing". In this piece, Rowling says, "Its my character I can do what I want," but that is only partly true.

    Authors give their characters _to_ their audience. In giving Dumbledore to us, she as an author gets to use only her writing, our imagination fills in the rest. She never said in her writing that he was gay, so in my mind the interpretation of him is whatever I, the reader, want to make it.

    However, as the author, she is certainly completely in her right to envision the character however she wants to and write that character from that mindset.

    All that said I think it was very wise of her to not be overt in Dumbeldore’s obsession with Gridenwald and hit the reader over the head with it. And its appropriate for her to state her idea of the character.

    But in the end Dumbledore to me is what I, the reader, make him out to be from the words on the page. And quite frankly as the reader I could care less about his orientation…

    This whole argument is just a tempest in a teacup.

  3. In other news …
    Nearly Headless Nick is a bisexual transvestite who struggled with weight issues in life, Hermoine had a brief crush on Cho Chang, and Ron Weasley will vote liberal democrat in the upcoming Muggle election. I get this feeling Rowling’s filling in the blanks after the fact to suit her own beliefs.

    Dumbledore is gay. Good for him. A lot of us are gay. On the other hand this has nothing whatsoever to do with most of the millions of kids who read about Harry. Some parents will just use this as an excuse to persecute the books even more, and in the process they’ll teach their children more fear and hatred.

    JK, leave this stuff to the readers’ imaginations. Stop feeding us superfluous "facts". The Harry Potter books are finished. Please feel free to stop talking about them at your earliest possible convenience. :)

    Don’t you have an idea for an adult crime novel, a murder mystery? Don’t you have a date with a pencil and a pad of paper in a coffee shop somewhere in Scotland?

    -Joe

    • Re: In other news …

      Nearly Headless Nick is a bisexual transvestite who struggled with weight issues in life, Hermoine had a brief crush on Cho Chang, and Ron Weasley will vote liberal democrat in the upcoming Muggle election. I get this feeling Rowling’s filling in the blanks after the fact to suit her own beliefs.

      Dumbledore is gay. Good for him. A lot of us are gay. On the other hand this has nothing whatsoever to do with most of the millions of kids who read about Harry. Some parents will just use this as an excuse to persecute the books even more, and in the process they’ll teach their children more fear and hatred.

      JK, leave this stuff to the readers’ imaginations. Stop feeding us superfluous "facts". The Harry Potter books are finished. Please feel free to stop talking about them at your earliest possible convenience. :)

      Don’t you have an idea for an adult crime novel, a murder mystery? Don’t you have a date with a pencil and a pad of paper in a coffee shop somewhere in Scotland?

      -Joe

      Great post, dead on too.

      Rowling will get no benefit to herself as an author continuing to walk in the Harry Potter universe. I really hope as a writer she doesn’t get stuck there.

      I would very much like to see her silence some of her critics by just getting on with writing that "gritty" crime novel.

      I know I’d be in line to buy it.

    • Re: In other news …

      JK, leave this stuff to the readers’ imaginations. Stop feeding us superfluous "facts".

      It is no more "superfluous" than the fact that the hero of the Earthsea novels (one of, if not the, greatest works of fantasy ever) is a brown-skinned fellow. (Ignore the travesty of the TV movie.)

      Readers who aren’t rascist or homophobic can pass by such facts with no more than an "oh, that’s nice". Those who are beyond hope will burn the books.

      But the many people in between, especially young people who may have picked up some bigotry from their environment but are not saturated with it, might just be prompted to think.

      I wondered what was up with the Dumbledore-Grindelwald relationship when I read Deathly Hallows. I remember thinking that Dumbledore’s description sounded a little…overwrought. Now we know why. Rowling it telling us how to connect the dots, but the dots were there in the story, not an afterthought.

      The Harry Potter books are finished. Please feel free to stop talking about them at your earliest possible convenience. :)

      Authors only stop talking about past works if they were failures. Should Neil Gaiman never talk about Sandman again?
      (Speaking of which, Neil’s take on this is at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2007/10/flowers-of-romance.html.

      • Re: In other news …

        Authors only stop talking about past works if they were failures. Should Neil Gaiman never talk about Sandman again?
        (Speaking of which, Neil’s take on this is at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2007/10/flowers-of-romance.html.

        Rowling is at a very precarious point in her career. She has already written a very successful set of works. But…. Elites in the media (NYT looking at you!!) have relegated her to second class (childrens literature). Now I completely disagree with this view, but Rowling really at this time needs to get a novel out there that proves shes got more than just Harry Potter to write about. True the New York Times will probably critically pan her first "adult" novel, but they’ll still be forced to put in at #1 on their bestseller list.

        She does have to move on to new things as an author.

      • Re: In other news …

        It is no more "superfluous" than the fact that the hero of the Earthsea novels (one of, if not the, greatest works of fantasy ever) is a brown-skinned fellow. (Ignore the travesty of the TV movie.)

        The difference would be that LeGuin didn’t "out" Ged at a high profile reading, in a very public forum. The brown skin quote is in the story. Authors frequently use their works to pursue a social agenda, and if they have grace they do it in such a way to not distract from the main story.

        JK would have also been one of those authors had she simply waited a while, published her next work, and then, maybe in an essay, alluded to Albus. I don’t mind Dumbledore being gay, in fact I think it’s wonderful and yet, I question both JK’s method and her motive.

        Authors only stop talking about past works if they were failures. Should Neil Gaiman never talk about Sandman again?
        (Speaking of which, Neil’s take on this is at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2007/10/flowers-of-romance.html.

        Oh boy, this next paragraph is going to get me some heat. :(

        I’ve never read Sandman. In doing some quick research, I would say the difference between what Gaiman has done and what Rowling has done is that Gaiman has created a work that is different enough to essentially redefine its genre or create a new one. As much as I love Jo Rowling’s work, her work is highly derivative. Its originality comes from the peculiar alloy Rowling creates from familiar elements liberally borrowed from many other cultural sources. As works of fantasy her stories are certainly highly readable, and quite fun, but are they genre-defining? The childrens’ horror genre has been well-mined by R.L. Stein. Children’s fantasy has been alive and well for decades in the works of writers like LeGuin, and Piers Anthony.

        But this is a digression.

        You can tell the authors that continue to grow as writers. Every six months to a year they have different stories to discuss. I see Mr. Gaiman has gone on with his career since Sandman. If she wants to be more than Harry’s creator (which, on its own, is not a bad thing to be,) isn’t it getting to be time for Ms. Rowling to do the same?

        -Joe G.

        • Re: In other news …

          You can tell the authors that continue to grow as writers. Every six months to a year they have different stories to discuss. I see Mr. Gaiman has gone on with his career since Sandman. If she wants to be more than Harry’s creator (which, on its own, is not a bad thing to be,) isn’t it getting to be time for Ms. Rowling to do the same?

          -Joe G.

          While I agree, it doesn’t always work. Consider how Doyle’s efforts to distance himself from his most famous creation turned out.

        • Re: In other news …

          If she wants to be more than Harry’s creator (which, on its own, is not a bad thing to be,) isn’t it getting to be time for Ms. Rowling to do the same?

          It’s only been three months since the last Potter book came out! Both it and the boxed set are still on the bestseller’s list in the top 30. I think she’s entitled to talk about it, roll around in her big piles of money, and just enjoy herself for a while, before anyone gets to seriously ask her "yeah, but what have you done lately?"

          • Re: In other news …

            If she wants to be more than Harry’s creator (which, on its own, is not a bad thing to be,) isn’t it getting to be time for Ms. Rowling to do the same?

            It’s only been three months since the last Potter book came out! Both it and the boxed set are still on the bestseller’s list in the top 30. I think she’s entitled to talk about it, roll around in her big piles of money, and just enjoy herself for a while, before anyone gets to seriously ask her "yeah, but what have you done lately?"

            True. But it seems like this Dumbledore stuff came up at just the right time to stir up more interest in the book. She certainly didn’t say it earlier….

            • Re: In other news …

              True. But it seems like this Dumbledore stuff came up at just the right time to stir up more interest in the book. She certainly didn’t say it earlier….

              She said it in a direct response to a relevant question from a reader. This may be the first time such a question has been asked since the last book came out. (Before that was published, she could have avoided this, and all other "relationship" questions, with a "wait and see.")

              Personally, I think it just turns into one more example of the "power of love" series present from start to finish in the series. It adds that one element to one plotline, and detracts from nothing.

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