The Quad

Issue date: 10/29/07 Section: Entertainment

Dumbledore, arguably the second most important character of the phenomenally best-selling children's series "Harry Potter," was outed (post-mortem) last Friday - by his author.

According to "The New York Times," J.K. Rowling, in response to a fan's question about Dumbledore's love life at Carnegie Hall, answered, "Dumbledore is gay." As a teenager, he fell in love with a brilliant boy who would grow up to be the wizarding world's Hitler. Rowling called his love his "great tragedy."

This international news, predictably, horrified conservatives, although given that the books have already been banned in some circles - namely the ones which don't believe in homosexuality any more than in magic - you might think that the objectors would already have exhausted their quotas of offense. More interesting, though equally predictable, is the liberal response. The wrathful conservatives probably think they're up against a universal "Yeeeah!" - but a number of liberals are rather offended themselves.

While many reactions are generally positive, there are quite a few which state that Rowling did not go far enough. For these, the "blinding normativity" of the novels, which do not feature a single divorce, teenage mother, or almost even a single parent, is not particularly countered by a mere vocal assertion of a homosexual character.

"She had seven huge books to mention it - what good does it do us now?" There are also complaints that not even the vicious reporter Rita Skeeter makes any accusation - whereas she does call Dumbledore's relationship with Harry "unnatural." That the only reference to Dumbledore having a relationship that was in any way non-normative involves a minor is, to some, too close to the homosexuality-as-pedophilia charge for comfort. In addition, some may see the nasty character Dumbledore's love interest grew into, and the fact that Dumbledore himself had to put a stop to his evil, as conforming to an apparent theme of punishment for homosexuality.

There are even those who find the evidence in the novels so lacking (despite the many comments of "Well - he did like to knit" or "There was that flamboyant plum velvet suit he wore") that they lean toward the modern stance of de-privileging authorial intent. To many contemporary scholars and readers, an author's true intent is so generally unknowable, given that so many authors are dead, contradictory, or simply silent, or may express more than they even realized in their work themselves, that any reader's interpretation of a work is as valid as the author's. In other words, if a reader does not find enough material to interpret Dumbledore as gay - well, then, maybe he isn't.

Continued...

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