Outing the Wizard
Submitted by mwilliams on Mon, 2007-10-22 14:20.Ok, so Dumbledore’s gay. Dare I say that this seems like a great way for Rowling to get herself back in the spotlight?
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I totally agree with Zefrank's comment on this subject. If she didn't write it, she can't decide on it after the fact!
"By the way Professor McGonigle starred in a series of porn flicks before she became a teacher. "Where's My Wand?" was my favorite."
Many fans wondered about Dumbledore after the last book (I was one of them), so for me, this was just validation of something I saw in subtext. I believe it was there to those not coming at it from a heteronormative perspective. It's really startling to me to see so many fans saying what the commenter above me said: "if she didn't write it, she can't decide on it after the fact." We don't know that she decided on it after the fact--that's absolute assumption. That disturbs me. It's disturbing for many reasons, the main one being censorship. Fans want to censor her so she's not allowed to talk about her world and her ideas about the characters after the books? She's the creator and people are acting like she has no right to say these things, unless she wanted to say them in the source, which I don't think is necessary for any author to do.
I like how other things she's revealed--things about heterosexual marriages of minor characters and all the secondary canon released on her site throughout the years is fine and barely getting any commentary! But announce a character is a gay and that's not right, it's not fair, how dare she sully fan interpretation. I've also been following the discussions at metafandom which has many thoughtful discussions (both positive and negative) on why her decision to out Dumbledore is problematic, that has nothing to do with PR or the right of the author to create secondary canon, which I think is sort of muddying the waters--people are missing some big issues.
Also, I wasn't aware Rowling had left the spotlight. She has two more movies and all the marketing that goes along with them that will sell books for her, doesn't she?
Actually, I have to admit you are at least partially right: Rowling included in her statement that she had some reference to a heterosexual fling excluded from one of the movie scripts. She didn't decide on it, she merely revealed it.
I still think, however, that revealing significant things about characters like this is a bit strange from a reader's perspective. Even though most people who read the books probably made their assumptions, an author's statement like this can validate or invalidate someone's imagination.
Rowling's also a bit hypocritical. I would have been fine myself with more explicit references to Dumbledore's homosexual past in the books. But she chose NOT to do that. She had a perfectly good reason for that: she wants to attract the big crowds. And homosexuality is not an accepted phenomenon for some (I feel compelled to say 'sadly' here, so as not to be accused of homophobia). She was pandering, thereby leaving things open to interpretation. Now she's going back and changing at least some people's interpretations (those who read blogs...).
I have to agree that the 'revelation' makes sense and it doesn't change my perspective on the stories. But ZeFrank's comment still stands as well: you don't know what's next and you don't know if it'll still make sense to you.
Now about the other revelations which were less highlighted on the web/in the media: I haven't read any other of her comments about characters, so for me this is the first significant factoid since the last novel that I'm responding to.
Well, it might be my background. I come from fandoms where a huge chunk of my entertainment (video games, Final Fantasy in particular) has secondary canon. They release the games in the west after releasing in the east, and unfortunately for Western fans, they then release what are called "Ultimanias" with differing amounts of secondary canon that some fans who speak Japanese or have easy access to translations will take as source canon, while others are left to pick it up from fanon and discussion. It's a fact of my fannish life that I have to deal with secondary canon I don't care for, that I think should have been in the games.
This seems like the same sort of situation to me, and possibly why I'm so boggled it's such a huge deal. I'm so used to picking and choosing secondary canon to take as fact as a fan that the idea that an author making closed-canon commentary is going to disrupt imaginations. That's less an problem with her making the statements, and more of an issue of fans taking closed-canon commentary to heart when they shouldn't. I think imaginations would be better benefited learning to deal with closed-canon commentary, basically.
I don't know how to make links or I'd point to the discussions I've been reading over the last few days. I still really think authorial right to comment is only one problem with the entire revelation.
If you take the view that characters can grow, then there's no reason why Dumbledore cannot evolve into a homosexual. A good writer will create a world and populate it with characters then, like God, give them scope to interact and develop. A good writer will not pre-determine how a character will behave in xyz circumstance as that needs to flow organically from the psychological make-up of the character. And while I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan, I do think that Rowling is a fairly good writer.
Fiona
www.thecraftywriter.com
Also. Yawn.
Who cares? Potter is like, so over!
yes! :-)
C'mon guys. Potter may not be making the headlines everyday (which is btw what I meant by the spotlight), but it's far from over. As Bookninja's remarks indicate, there are still a gazzilion fans out there dissecting the works, much like the Lord of the Rings followers are still doing, or Shakepeare fans for that matter. (Not that I'm comparing Potter to either in terms of literary merit). And if it generates literary discussion, it can't be all bad.
On another note, I don't see why the 'revelation' should generate such a furor anyway. There are plenty of gay characters. I'm wondering if perhaps by celebrating it so much we're not giving it more attention than it deserves. By now such a thing as a gay character should be simply accepted as commonplace, not out of place.
There is no thief like a bad book
--Italian Proverb
The furore, rightly or wrongly, is probably because the target audience is children. Consenting adults and all ...
It feeds into the notion of parental censorship. And I agree with you Mary, Potter aint over. Some people may be flitting after the next big thing, but firm fans will remain (I'm not one of them). I think it's whether you see the Potter books as works of fiction that can be returned to over and over again or just a literary movement. Perhaps the bandwagon is moving on, but the books still remain. Whether they have longevity as literary works in their own right can only be judged by the next generations. By the way, did you see Nancy Drew has been resurrected? :)
Fiona
aka The Crafty Writer
Yeah, I saw that there is a movie and video games, but you know, I was never a fan of Nancy. I was actually a hard core Hardy Boys fan in my youth. Maybe I had a sexist upbringing, but I always thought of Nancy Drew as a stupid girl...lol. But most likely it was because my brothers read the Hardy Boys and my brothers were my heros. I collected the entire set and, like the Potter fans, couldn't wait to get my hands on the next one. In later years, the Nancy Drew televison series did very little to change my opinion of her. I thought she was portrayed as pretty snotty...never did resonate.
Who knows where Potter will end up fifty years from now? I wonder what kind of new technology there will be for a ressurrection of him. The movies and video games have already been done. As you say, we can only wait and see if the series stands the test of time. I can't say I'm a fan (I've never read a Potter book), but my guess is that it will, given the overwhelming and longstanding response of young people to the work.
There is no thief like a bad book
--Italian Proverb
I've always had the impression that Rowling stole a lot from Roald Dahl who was one of the greatest British children's book writers. He was of Norwegian origin and his books have the same quirky style the Potter books, but they're more creative, fantastic and just plain better.
I hope Dahl will stand the test of time, rather than Rowling, because his writing deserves it.
Rowling isn't particularly original. Not a single one of the elements of her books is something that hasn't been done before. But, she's a pretty decent storyteller and she does a pretty good job of knowing how her characters should act at their ages (though I think she gets her adults wrong).
Roald Dahl will hold up though.
Rat's Reading - http://reading.kingrat.biz/
I think she can decide, it's her creation.
The power an author has over his/her works has always been something I've been fascinated by. The fact that YOU wrote the story means YOU have the power to decide how it goes... and it's not like most laws, which are legally binding, but few people unquestioningly follow like sheep. Take for example, you read a book and a character dies, it wrenches your heart but you can't do anything about it. The character dying is as solid a fact as that the earth is round and the moon is not a cheese.
Think about it.
This is not a natural law but it might just be, considering there are no exceptions (that I know of). Take for example fan fiction, which often challenges the author's work or opinion about things but it's still *fan* fiction, not the *real* story.
Collaborative fiction where a series of writers collaborate with different stories to build a wider epic follows the same law but more loosely. Still, the individual authors have final say over their own contributions.
An author is truly godlike in the realm of his/her own fiction. I think it was this idea of the law of an author's godhood that inspired Jostein Gaarder when coming up with the plot for Sophie's World.
If JKR thinks old Dumbly is a sucker for male flesh then that's the way it is unless anything in what she has written so far contradicts it. I applaud it, the world of children's books needs to get more rooted in reality overall and more open to concepts like physical and mental handicaps and other sexual orientations and family constellations than mommy-daddy-kid. It seems some people want us to raise kids as if we lived on another planet... well, if they really want that, they can create their own fictional galaxy and rule it like gods. I don't care, my mind won't ever travel there.