It just seems suspicious to say it's "no big deal" when it's obviously treated differently than other tragic romances in the same book.
It's treated like it isn't there until the post-series interviews, then it's all over the place. While it didn't impress me as anything that could have enhanced Dumbledore's apparent natural greed for manipulating things and people during his dalliance with Wizarding Supremacy, it explained a lot to me in Dumbledore's too-long wait to face Grindelwald in 1945. Sure, he could have been ashamed that he'd strayed down that path as far as he did, but not wanting to face the great Love of his Life (TM) adds another dimension to it. I wish it had been in the book, not in some interview where the author yet again expects us to read her mind instead of her books to divine her intentions.
It's just that if you listen to this version of the story where DD's supposed to be acting totally out of character simply because he's fallen in love with this guy then she's totally left out what she claims the story is and substituted something else *(snip)* --it was all about the intellectual stimulation of having a smart friend for once, DD had this sister that got attacked by Muggles, his father went to jail for it etc.
I completely bought Mr. Too Smart for Anyone Dumbledore being intellectually swept off his feet by a dynamic, brainy wizard he'd only just met, and buying the whole "enslaving Muggles for their own good" line. It makes sense on its own. The Dumbledore backstory itself supports such an attraction. It wouldn't make a difference to the motivations, I think, if the sexual attraction was revealed or not, with the exception of Dumbledore's not going to bat for the WW sooner. But, to explain his lack of action when it was clearly past time, the affair or broken heart or whatever it was supposed to have been gives a crucial motivation for keeping out of Grindelwald's way. I avoid my ex-husband, and I'm sure a lot of other people do. It's visceral to want to avoid people who have hurt us that deeply. It should have been in the books, and a lot sooner than DH. Hermione could have read something, or Harry and Ron could have overheard something, that was then expanded on in DH. This whole reveal is big news now, but later on, once the furor has died down, it won't mean anything. No one will know that was (part of?) the motivation because it isn't in the books.
Granted, Lily/Snape isn't presented as flat-out romance either.
It was more fleshed out as a friendship and as a crush, at least on Snape's side, much moreso than Dumbledore and Grindelwald was. Don't get me started on the awful way Lily treated her supposed friend Sev, though. Poor guy was given the bum's rush, then crushed, then made to feel eternally guilty. Lily the Saint just doesn't fly, except in a religion where knifing friends in the back is a good thing.
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It's treated like it isn't there until the post-series interviews, then it's all over the place. While it didn't impress me as anything that could have enhanced Dumbledore's apparent natural greed for manipulating things and people during his dalliance with Wizarding Supremacy, it explained a lot to me in Dumbledore's too-long wait to face Grindelwald in 1945. Sure, he could have been ashamed that he'd strayed down that path as far as he did, but not wanting to face the great Love of his Life (TM) adds another dimension to it. I wish it had been in the book, not in some interview where the author yet again expects us to read her mind instead of her books to divine her intentions.
It's just that if you listen to this version of the story where DD's supposed to be acting totally out of character simply because he's fallen in love with this guy then she's totally left out what she claims the story is and substituted something else
*(snip)*
--it was all about the intellectual stimulation of having a smart friend for once, DD had this sister that got attacked by Muggles, his father went to jail for it etc.
I completely bought Mr. Too Smart for Anyone Dumbledore being intellectually swept off his feet by a dynamic, brainy wizard he'd only just met, and buying the whole "enslaving Muggles for their own good" line. It makes sense on its own. The Dumbledore backstory itself supports such an attraction. It wouldn't make a difference to the motivations, I think, if the sexual attraction was revealed or not, with the exception of Dumbledore's not going to bat for the WW sooner. But, to explain his lack of action when it was clearly past time, the affair or broken heart or whatever it was supposed to have been gives a crucial motivation for keeping out of Grindelwald's way. I avoid my ex-husband, and I'm sure a lot of other people do. It's visceral to want to avoid people who have hurt us that deeply. It should have been in the books, and a lot sooner than DH. Hermione could have read something, or Harry and Ron could have overheard something, that was then expanded on in DH. This whole reveal is big news now, but later on, once the furor has died down, it won't mean anything. No one will know that was (part of?) the motivation because it isn't in the books.
Granted, Lily/Snape isn't presented as flat-out romance either.
It was more fleshed out as a friendship and as a crush, at least on Snape's side, much moreso than Dumbledore and Grindelwald was. Don't get me started on the awful way Lily treated her supposed friend Sev, though. Poor guy was given the bum's rush, then crushed, then made to feel eternally guilty. Lily the Saint just doesn't fly, except in a religion where knifing friends in the back is a good thing.