sistermagpie | In which I'm again disappointed by JKR explanations

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In which I'm again disappointed by JKR explanations

So here's what JKR has recently said about Dumbledore, getting more into his sexuality:

"I had always seen Dumbledore as gay, but in a sense that's not a big deal. The book wasn't about Dumbledore being gay. It was just that from the outset obviously I knew he had this big, hidden secret, and that he flirted with the idea of exactly what Voldemort goes on to do, he flirted with the idea of racial domination, that he was going to subjugate the Muggles. So that was Dumbledore's big secret.

Why did he flirt with that?" she asks. "He's an innately good man, what would make him do that. I didn’t even think it through that way, it just seemed to come to me, I thought 'I know why he did it, he fell in love.' And whether they physically consummated this infatuation or not is not the issue. The issue is love. It's not about sex. So that's what I knew about Dumbledore. And it's relevant only in so much as he fell in love and was made an utter fool of by love. He lost his moral compass completely when he fell in love and I think subsequently became very mistrusting of his own judgment in those matters so became quite asexual. He led a celibate and bookish life."

Clearly some people didn't see it that way. How does she react to those who disagree with a homosexual character in a children's novel? "So what?" she retorts immediately "It is a very interesting question because I think homophobia is a fear of people loving, more than it is of the sexual act. There seems to be an innate distaste for the love involved, which I find absolutely extraordinary. There were people who thought, well why haven't we seen Dumbledore's angst about being gay?" Rowling is clearly amused by this and rightly so. "Where was that going to come in? And then the other thing was-and I had letters saying this-that, as a gay man, he would never be safe to teach in a school."

So this is how a lot of this doesn't fit with my own interpretation. EtA: It's been pointed out to me that this line caused some confusion--I'm not disagreeing with "He is a character that just happens to be gay" or that Rowling concurs with that idea. I'm saying I had a different interpretation of why he'd be attracted to Grindelwald's ideas based on what I read in canon. So I took out the last paragraph of the quote, which wasn't really needed.

As an aside, if Dumbledore is celibate and maybe never consummated his relationship with the evil Gellert, that actually *is* the point according to many people, because as many will explain, the problem isn't having "gay feelings." The problem isn't love. The problem is you're having sex with someone of your gender. If you don't "choose to sin" by actually having sex, you're not entering into that wicked "lifestyle" they don't like. Dumbledore's done just what a gay man is supposed to do according to many anti-gay opinions. It actually is about sex: a-sexual gay men are always more acceptable than sexual ones.

But the weirdest thing here to me is in the second paragraph, where Dumbledore is apparently an "innately good man" who only flirted with essentially *being a Nazi* because he became a "fool for love." This is bizarre to me because frankly, I don't have any trouble trying to figure out why Dumbledore would have flirted with taking over Muggles. This is a guy who's constantly manipulating everyone, thinks he's smarter than everyone else, treats them as pawns that are morally inferior to himself...why on earth would it be hard to imagine him deciding to dominate Muggles "for the greater good?" Of course he would think the answer was having the right people in charge.

But it's disappointing in a familiar way, the way that once again something that seems to be an inherent flaw in a character on the good side that totally mirrors the evil they're fighting, the author wants to make it the fault of the evil characters. Dumbledore's "love" says no more about him than Harry's Voldemort sliver. It takes the blame for unacceptable behavior. Suddenly Dumbledore's real racist tendencies (unlike Snape's) don't come down to his own desires or his own personality. He's acting unlike himself because he's been vaguely "made a fool by love." And love, as we know, is just some random thing that hits you like Cupid's arrow or the author's pen. It's not even presented as something you can analyze in terms of...well, why exactly did you find Hitler so attractive? Doesn't that say something about what calls to you? (Without even getting into the fact that this most poisonous loves is the one gay one.)

The author here seems to be saying that she needed or wanted Dumbledore to have flirted with all of this, but then needn't to figure out why he would do it. Rather than looking at the character and saying, "Ah, I can totally see how this guy would be attracted to this." Instead it "just came to her" that "he fell in love." It's about someone else, something beyond his control. It's about this other person. He "lost" his moral compass because he fell in love (which was beyond his control to begin with)--his compass never truly pointed to this.

Dumbledore himself even agrees! He becomes mistrustful not of his moral compass, not of his own abilities to know right from wrong. No, he becomes asexual, deducing that the problem is that he needs to keep himself pure from others so that he can always be sure he's relying on his own "innately good" moral sense. He's got more reason to keep secrets; he doesn't decide he maybe ought to keep other people around to make sure he's not going down the bad path again. Listening to other people can only be trouble.

Well done, Dumbledore! Way to be morally superior about your own past as a wannabe Nazi!

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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.

Thank you! She treated him simply awfully. There was not a glimpse of kindness from her anywhere in those flashbacks. And I remember, after I had first read OotP, how I went back to the Snape's worst memory scene, and read it over and over again looking for clues for a possible Snape/Lily friendship. Finally, I put the book away, satisfied that there was nothing in there that in any way hinted at friendship. She appeared much like somebody who would try to save a wounded rat from drowning in the sewer. Filled with contempt and disgusted, and very much aware that this thing was beneath her, but nevertheless doing it because it was right.

If it were my best friend, I would have been livid, not casually strolling up and and in an off-hand manner suggest that they release him.

I wonder if she suffers as the same problem as Ginny who's supposed to be coming across as "warm" and "compassionate" in the very book where she treats everyone like dirt--but is nice about Luna. Maybe the mere fact that they say nice things about losers they're totally superior than is supposed to be enough to show they're compassionate instead of just condescending?

And that is just plain disturbing, isn't it? For school girls, perhaps unsurprising though not inspired towards sympathy, but for an authorial view point not to grasp this... I can't help but wonder if JK's success and improved monetary situation did not change her for the worse.

I'd say it was the same problem: the author thinking she's showing us something she isn't. Ginny's X-treme make-over made her a thug, not a princess. The more time we see Lily on-page, the worse she comes off. It isn't what you say, it's what you do and how you act. Words are just bandages to try and fix the cosmetics.

Well, sometimes it's what you say. For instance, when someone in your immediate family brings home the person he's in love with, and you make it clear with your every word that you despise her, constantly calling her by a disgusting, extremely juvenile nickname, that's technically words. But it still says a *hell* of a lot about who you are as a person and your level of maturity and morality that you would do that.

And I agree for Lily as well, that she's supposed to be great, but everything we actually see contradicts that. As soon as Slughorn started talking about Lily in HBP, I knew she was intended to be the same type of girl that JKR clearly loves and most of us hated -- I commented at the time that she was probably going to be described as "spunky" next. I didn't think much of her intervention in the OotP flashback. She came of as better than the folks who were torturing some kid just because they didn't like him, but the driving force was obviously, "What's that Potter prick up to now?" (which in JKR's world is a form of flirting, anyway), rather than, "OMG, that's my best friend up there," or even, "This is wrong and why is no one stopping this?" I suppose in that case, the action was technically right, but not really right enough, you could say.

Well, sometimes it's what you say.

But then, you have the whole dynamic of history behind you and the person making the snide comments about the GF. It's the level of knowing someone, I suppose. We don't know the characters in HP except what is shown to us on the page. Any grand speech by any one of them will be contradicted by things the author shows us. I guess I need to qualify that words are just there for the author to try and patch up what she's shown us. It falls flat to me.

And I agree for Lily as well, that she's supposed to be great, but everything we actually see contradicts that.

The words people use to describe her - yeah, "spunky" does come to mind, along with "pert" and "sassy", or as Slughorn fondly recalls, "cheeky". What we're shown is a different sort of flower, more like a weed that won't go away. Sure, she did a good thing in protecting her child, but what mother wouldn't? It was the way she treated her sister and her friend that turned me off of her, as well as the way she used James's torturing of Snape to flirt with the torturer in OotP. That one incident started me on the sour taste for St. Lily. Until then, I was ready to believe in a really good person who was still human. I've known people like that and enjoyed their company. I couldn't enjoy Lily's, she'd be too full of her plots and plans for my taste. Oh, yeah, and her own greatness. Could control magic even before Hogwarts. What a pain!

Right, she just tried to stop them like any prefect ought to. There was nothing to suggest that they were friends, or that they knew each other since before Hogwarts. I don't know where the Snape/Lily shippers got their suspicions, but it couldn't have been from Snape's Worst Memory!

Some friend. Even hiding a smile at his predicament. I'd sure not have a friend if I acted that way when my friend needed help. Instead, of course, Snape tried to hang on. It's pretty clear that she just used him for information and because he was the only WW child she knew - as soon as she met others, he was done for in her book.

What the scene came down to for me, after all those re-readings, was that Lily and Snape clearly had a problematic relationship based on a mutual but not particularly personal animosity. A history of insults and dislike as that between any muggleborn and aspiring Death Eater. But that Lily felt that this situation had gone too far and therefore decided to intervene. There was nothing to dislike about Lily's characterisation from that. But to find out that they were supposed to be best friends shines a whole new, repulsing light on that scene.

Lily/Snape shippers were already rampant at this point, hence my intrigue with the chapter :)

I had entirely forgotten about the smile! Repressed it, probably. What kind of friend does that? I would have been hurt and humiliated on a friend's behalf, amusement would have been the farthest thing from my mind. I do not understand what that reaction is supposed to show us at all. Imagine how Ron or Harry had taken if it had been Hermione!

Lily just came off as cold to me. I do not understand why she befriended him at all. She certainly was never any friend to him.

Harry would have stood around angsting over whatever was happening to Hermione; Ron would have yelled her name - at least according to DH. Harry had a "saving people thing", so in other circumstances, if he wasn't locked in a dungeon, he might have fought for Hermione. I doubt if either would have suppressed a smile. (If they did, I can just imagine what Hermione would've done to them - canaries would be the least of the choices)

I think Lily befriended Snape because he knew what it was she was. He had information she needed. She could control her magic at age nine or ten (floating from swing, animating flower), so she didn't understand accidental magic when it happened by Snape against Petunia. She censured him for the branch incident. She was in with him for reading Petunia's letters, but blamed him for it all. As the person who lived in that house, as Petunia's sister, it was up to her to stop any incursion into her sister's stuff, but she knew what was in the letter so she was in it to her eyeballs. But, it was Sev's fault. As for whatever Mulciber etc. did to Mary MacD, I doubt if it was nearly as bad as trying to kill her by werewolf, yet she didn't want to hear about St. James and St. Sirius being that bad. She had already chosen her friends by then, and it was the glorious Gryffindors, not her oldest friend in the WW. She got what she needed out of him, then tossed him aside. If you ask me, she'd have done well in Slytherin.

They would have been livid. Nay, exploded. And vice versa.

Like I say further down, I understand that she didn't want betray her sister, either, but in a conflict of loyalty between sister and best friend, there is usually a conflict.

As for whatever Mulciber etc. did to Mary MacD, I doubt if it was nearly as bad as trying to kill her by werewolf, yet she didn't want to hear about St. James and St. Sirius being that bad.

Yes, what was that? No, seriously, what was that?

As I said above, with the flashback scene, Lily clearly demonstrated herself to be better than the jerks who were torturing some kid because they didn't like him. But not that much. Her motivation obviously seemed to be "What's that Potter prick up to now?" (which in JKR's world is a form of flirting, anyway), rather than, "OMG, that's my best friend up there," or even, "This is wrong and why is no one stopping this?"

And yes, it's only in the very earliest scenes of their "friendship" that she comes across as at all *friendly*. Not that Severus is doing a great job, but it's obviously up to him to bend every step of the way -- including not being friends with any of his own housemates. Because he's a Slytherin, she might still be willing to call him a friend (in the most condescending way possible), but basically only if she's his *only* friend, or if she gets approval or veto power over any other friend he may want to have.

...only if she's his *only* friend, or if she gets approval or veto power over any other friend he may want to have.

Oy, you're right. Rowling does love those manipulative sorts, doesn't she?

(which in JKR's world is a form of flirting, anyway)

Yes. Schoolyard bullying. The ultimate turn-on. The only thing hotter I can think of is mugging an old lady. *rolls eyes* (at JK, not you :) )

And I agree. The only I way I could reconcile that half-smile of Lily's was to imagine a history of animosity between them. As it stands, my reaction is more along the line of, "Bzuhah?"

I don't think she even came off as very friendly then. She turned her back on him immediately whenever there was a conflict. I understand that she didn't want betray her sister, either, but in a conflict of loyalties between sister and best friend, there's usually a conflict.

Not that Severus is doing a great job, but it's obviously up to him to bend every step of the way

I completely agree. He is always supposed to be sorry, while she can treat him any way she likes. If you ask me, half-smiling and walking away while somebody is threatening to take somebody's underwear off, never mind your supposedly best friend's, is far worse than an insult slung out under great distress.

Because he's a Slytherin, she might still be willing to call him a friend (in the most condescending way possible), but basically only if she's his *only* friend, or if she gets approval or veto power over any other friend he may want to have.

What's scary about this to me is that that is one of the classic red flags for an abusive partner. The first thing they do is try to isolate you from your friends and family. If you think about, she's trying to separate him from his parents when they're ten years old. Subtly, but it's there.

Of course, sadly, it makes sense that Severus would go from his dysfunctional family to a dysfunctional relationship with Lily.... to a dysfunctional gang of Death Eaters... to the dysfunctional relationship with Dumbledore.

I think one of the things that makes it odd, too, is that in this case obviously Lily's right. If somebody is starting to hang out with skinheads you probably would say something about it. But there's that odd idea that Snape's somehow doing this *for* her in the author's mind or something, so it doesn't really ring true as how a Muggleborn would really be reacting to this. Is Lily supposed to be just actually scared of these people and worried about Snape, or is she just supposed to be somebody who is a much better choice of people and the real danger isn't clear yet? (Heh. Too bad she didn't give that speech to James about Peter, I guess!)

If you don't mind me jumping in to add my $.02,

I actually made an entry in my LJ, post-Book 5, speculating on the Lily/Snape unrequited love rumours that had been circulating in the Net based on OotP. There is nothing in that scene that points to any kind of friendship on Lily's part. The most telling of it all is when she smiles a little at the sight of Snape's underpants. Harry who hates Snape had more sympathy for Snape than his supposed "best friend". Which makes me believe that either Rowling's ideas of compassion and friendship are vastly different from the rest of humanity or ... the Lily/Snape dynamic like Tonks/Remus was a concept she plucked out of the Internet.

Quite the contrary, I love hearing different people's opinions :)

...the Lily/Snape dynamic like Tonks/Remus was a concept she plucked out of the Internet.

*laughs* That...actually makes a disturbing amount of sense!

It did honestly come out of nowhere. For Tonks/Remus there was no hint (even though it would have been so easy!), but like you say, in the case of Snape/Lily there seems to be something directly contradicting it. There is no suggestion of friendship, or even common human decency in that scene! For another example of ~~plot~~ character development out of the blue, see Sirius. From being the man of the profoundly deep, "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals," about Crouch's treatment of Winky, to mistreating his own house-elf one book later! I know that explanations can be offered for this, that one can be blind to one faults where one can see them clearly in others, but when you have to do that much interpreting/explaining away, it's a sign that there's something wrong with the text.

I don't have so much trouble with Sirius, because he is a bit of a hypocrite. Although, maybe that's partly due to JKR's consistency problem. I mean, he tells Harry that Snape was part of a gang--and goes on to name all these people that Snape supposed hung out with, without naming the one person we know Snape had a friendship with--and neglects to mention that one of those people was Sirius's first cousin. But then, maybe JKR hadn't decided yet to make Bellatrix Sirius's cousin.

As for Tonks/Remus, I do believe that she didn't come up with the idea of them together until HBP, hence the lack of hint in OotP. JMO.

As for Lily/Snape, I'm sure that was all in the cards from the very beginning. She just didn't reveal any of it, because she wanted that big surprise in "The Prince's Tale." Well, I suppose that big surprise worked for some readers. For those who had figured it out, most seemed to have been dreading it. But they don't seem to have been as disappointed as the ones who actually liked Snily.

I kind of came to Lily/Snape late because I bought that whole who would want Snape in love with them line. However, it did seem the most plausible explanation for SWM was that Lily and Snape did have some kind of a friendship. And that it was kept secret from the Marauders (and probably everyone else in school, too, since even Slughorn didn't know about it).

It was in working out that idea that the thought of Snape crushing on Lily (I never thought it would be requited) actually started to make sense.

But I was very leery about it ever becoming canon because it took a lot of set up. I think JKR did an okay job in the early scenes.... but I think she should have put one or two more in for the break-up part, and made it clear that Lily and Snape's relationship was not known to anyone but themselves. It just makes every adult that Harry's met into a liar and an idiot.

Oh, I agree that it's a lesser problem, but there should have been something in the text that acknowledged this double-speak, not Dumbledore-exposition style, but some hint of authorial awareness.

Not to mention the fact that according to JKR's Black family tree, Bellatrix was born in 1953, whereas Snape was born in 1960, making Bellatrix finished with school before Snape even started...

But they don't seem to have been as disappointed as the ones who actually liked Snily.

*laughs* Because again, it's true ;)

I don't think I ever had any strong feelings about the probability of Snape/Lily, but I liked the idea. It was one of fandom's most widespread.

It is a bit funny, seeing one's thoughts being expressed by somebody else :) Because I too have thought about and found the fact that nobody has ever mentioned Snape's and his mother's friendship to Harry unconceivable. Sirius's, Pettigrew's and Remus's friendship with his father being able to stay hidden, I could understand. It was during the war, ended in betrayal... Painful and awkward and people wanted to forget. And Harry was only 12. But for nobody in seven years to have let a casual remark fall? It could have been as simple as one of Harry's classmates or housemates mentioning that his mother and Professor Snape used to be best friends, "Isn't that funny, Harry?" It's just... I don't buy it.

The problem with JKR is that ever since she abandoned the "surprise endings" of the first four books (a mistake, if you ask my personal opinion) she seems to have made up other "surprises" instead, believing them as clever. The problem is that was she sees as to her readers unexpected character development is pretty much plot devices thrown out of nowhere. It's like she laughing at her own cleverness and saying, "Look! Look! I tricked you! What you thought was actually purple is blue! Blue!" And our reaction is pretty much, "But... You've told us that is was red. You've shown us that it was red. There was never any hint of purple anywhere."

A good unexpected plot twist makes you slap yourself on the forehead and think, "How could I miss that?" because the clues are all there. Like in the first four books, or the first time you read Emma. (

mistful actually has an excellent post about this, using as an example the idea of a murder mystery in which the butler Who Did It turns out to be King Arthur, clues along the way being sudden exclamations along the line of, "What sister? I don't even have a sister!" :) )

The only problem with thinking that no one knew about the friendship is, Lily and Snape were together on the train the first day of Hogwarts, sat together, and left the compartment together when James and Sirius started teasing Snape for wanting to be in Slytherin. Then there was Snape camped out at the door to Gryffindor tower and refusing to leave until Lily came out to talk to him. I thought the discussion not mentioning the Prank and talking about Snape's friends and Mary MacD was more or less public, not that they were hiding. YYMV. Anyway, what sort of friend hides that she's a friend with someone? What kind of friendship is that?

I think the reason no one mentioned it to Harry was because Rowling wanted to keep it a secret. If one's Creatrix closes one's mouth about a subject, there isn't much one can do. It does make everyone who must have known, especially Sirius, look like either clueless idiots or blatant liars, but IMO, Rowling wanted the big reveal on her time schedule.

I, too, thought there might be an unrequited crush on Snape's part. Lily had been talked up as some kind, sweet, desirable girl so of course everyone and their rivals would crush on her at one time or another. I thought it would be a hoot if they knew each other before Hogwarts, but I didn't think it would happen. I did like that touch, it was a good surprise. But to try and imply that no one knew about it, that Lily was so savvy that she dumped the Slytherin as soon as she was Sorted into Gryffindor, was just nasty on the author's part, IMO again.

...the Lily/Snape dynamic like Tonks/Remus was a concept she plucked out of the Internet.

*laughs* That...actually makes a disturbing amount of sense!

Believe me, I've thought about it. I might even meta it someday... "Harry Potter & The Plots Fandom Wrote".

For another example of plot character development out of the blue, see Sirius. From being the man of the profoundly deep, "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals," about Crouch's treatment of Winky, to mistreating his own house-elf one book later! I know that explanations can be offered for this, that one can be blind to one faults where one can see them clearly in others, but when you have to do that much interpreting/explaining away, it's a sign that there's something wrong with the text.

:D That is such a brilliant perception on your part. I had completely forgotten Sirius' profound "if you want to know what a man's like..." You are, of course, completely right in that there is a sharp disconnect from a man that says something like that and a man that treated Kreacher the way he did. Of course, one can say that that's Sirius being a hypocrite, but even then, it's strange that Harry never thought so. Even the Omniscient Dumbledore when he's blaming Sirius for his own death, doesn't say "Sirius should have known better".

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In which I'm again disappointed by JKR explanations

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