In which I'm again disappointed by JKR explanations

[sistermagpie]

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!

Comments

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

Well, people have already mentioned that JKR only picked DD as her gay character because he's old, single, dead and pretty much asexual. But it's still sad to see it confirmed by her. Also, if DD and GG didn't have sex, GG might not even be gay himself. And DD not having another relationship in his life means that Elphias Dodge probably isn't gay either. I also couldn't get over her comment when asked if Charlie is gay because he didn't marry. She said: "No, Dumbledore is gay." not simply "No, he's just not interested in getting married and starting a family." What does DD being gay have to do with Charlie potentially being gay? Nothing, except for her there can only be one gay person at a time and that person is definitely not sexual in any way.

And there is something else that I noticed and already mentioned at FAP. I thought love was this big power, the power the Dark Lord knows not and what made Harry so special. But you also get the feeling that the characters in HP are only allowed to fall in love once in their lives (crushes not counted here) and if they happen to pick the wrong person for that, well, they never get another chance at love and have to stay single forever. (Maybe that was why Ginny and Hermione were so insistent on snagging Harry and Ron. They knew it was either being with them or ending up as lonely spinsters.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! I didn't hear that--"No, Dumbledore is gay?" It would be one thing if she thought the person was confusing the characters--like if somebody said, "Is it true you outed Charlie Weasley?" and she said "No, it was Dumbledore." But that's a very telling answer. Only room for one gay person in a cast of hundreds. Only room for one old, dead, a-sexual gay character.

Ginny and Hermione both did seem to get that it was Harry and Ron or nothing, didn't they? They started scheming early. More than that, they're both kind of characterized as knowing this is what's supposed to happen and they just have to wait for the guy to come around. There's frustration, but no real fear that maybe the guy will fall in love with somebody else. I mean, Ginny and Hermone are both "hilariously" jealous whenever another girl looks at their man, but there just doesn't seem to be any real vulnerability (once Ginny changes her personality) that any other girl could be "the one" for him.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I also do not for one minute believe that a voracious reader and powerful witch like Hermione would *stay* with Ron for the next twenty years. They have zero in common, and after the sexual fireworks ended and the kids came, they would have had one of those awful marriages where they would stay together for the kids and then either quietly divorce or quietly hate each other after they were alone in the house.

Ginny, OTOH, would turn into a complete Molly clone; she's the first girl in five generations and would have no models of what it was like to be anything other than a wife and mother in her early life. I'm just surprised that she and Harry only had three kids, not eight or nine.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time imagining Ron and Hermione as anything but divorced. It just seems so natural to me--no, for both of them, really.

But Ginny, yeah. She's pretty much just an extension of Harry anyway. Though I admit I imagine the two of them being a pretty awful couple that people would probably want to avoid.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Oh God...I have this image of people doing everything they could to *avoid* "those awful Potters. All she can do is prattle about her children, unless she's drunk - "

"Is that when she starts whinging about being a quidditch star until she got pregnant?"

"The very same!"

"He's even worse, you know. Insists that he's fine, just fine, even though his godson was caught running drugs for the Muggles - "

"He wasn't!"

"He's perfect at it, you know, being able to change his appearance, and the Aurors actually *caught* him morphing into Richard Nixon."

"His mother must be rolling in her grave!"

"I'm sure."

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! I always picture Ginny showing up to the Wizard equivalent of PTA meetings and ordering everybody around and reminding everybody her husband's Harry Potter as if they care.

[saylee.livejournal.com]

*snicker* I love that mental image, only of course it would never happen, because only evil parents get involved with their children's school, after all.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

And yet Ron and Hermione interacted more (and more cordially) than Harry and Ginny did in that woeful excuse for an epilogue. I don't think Harry and Ginny had one word to say to each other. They only communicated through the kids

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I noticed that too--but it's not surprising. H/G in the books is always about being told how they're great together, but Ginny mostly just is there to say whatever Harry needs/wants to hear at that moment. People hung onto her "Lucky you" comment in OotP as a sign that she'd disagree with him, but that's just there because the author thinks Harry needs that at the time. It's not really a sign that she thinks he's arrogant or doesn't think about her. It's like just proof that she's supposedly spunky, but most of the time she's just going after people he's annoyed at. Unfortunately this doesn't leave much for them to converse about besides how awesome it is that they're a couple. Ron and Hermione at least have their constant bickering about whatever Ron did lately.

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

I also do not for one minute believe that a voracious reader and powerful witch like Hermione would *stay* with Ron for the next twenty years. They have zero in common...
Oh, thank God... so I'm not the only one that saw this? I could cry! Seriously, I've been shouting this into the void for years. Do people really think they'd make a good lasting couple? And why? Maybe if others were around, but other than that, no.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Hehe. I think you're in the wrong corner of fandom ;-) It's a rather prevalent view amongst my friends. I feel your pain!

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

Oh, then lead me to your corner, I beg you! Shine a light from the lighthouse and let me join team epilogue. I've been stuck here for far too long. I can tolerate anything, anything save for R/Hr.

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

Here's the clip from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXeFQyPw4xw
She said it while drawing her family tree for the next generation. And it becomes rather clear that in big parts she's making up stuff on the spot.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I got the feeling she made *all* of her post-DH stuff up on the spot. I mean, come on. Would she *really* have named Draco's wife "Astoria" if she'd taken five minutes to Google and found out that it's a part of Queens?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I so love that. Because if you live in certain areas--like I do--you just can't hear it as anything *but* Queens. So it has a very different association than she wants it to have. (And if you don't think "Queens" you probably think "Waldorf-Astoria hotel.")

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that Astoria is named for John Jacob Astor, who was a Muggle businessman. NOT precisely what a Pureblood family would name their daughter, methinks.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Astoria? I hadn't heard that! I don't really follow the interviews unless people on my flist post about it.

Now I"m imagining Draco naming his kids (besides Scorpio) things like Jackson Heights and Flushing.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Me too. Or else, since as Ellid pointed out Astoria is actually named after John Jacob Astor, maybe they're called Carnegie and Rockefeller and Morgan.

Oh, and since I think Scorpius' middle name is Hyperion maybe the other kids are also named after publishing companies as well. Little Morrow and the triplets, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

"Potter, Albus Severus."

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Malfoy, Far Rockaway!"

"HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER"

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

They started scheming early. More than that, they're both kind of characterized as knowing this is what's supposed to happen and they just have to wait for the guy to come around.

Yeah, she definitely buys into the idea that women always know what's going on in romance and can read the male mind with ease, while men are just helpless, clueless darlings who need to be lovingly manipulated by the right woman. This bugs me. Not only is it hackneyed and potentially harmful (for one thing, this assumption of female omniscience leaves women easily open to the charge of "leading him on" and suggests that if a man wants a woman, it must be because she's doing something to make him want her), but it rings so absolutely FALSE.

To me, the most striking quality about high school and junior high romance was how completely insecure and uncertain I was about everything--were we a couple, did he LIKE me like me or was he just being nice because we're friends, did it MEAN anything that he always sat next to me in class, etc. And not just me, but all of my female friends. If anything it felt like we were always even MORE clueless and uncertain than the guys we crushed on (which was probably just insecurity on my part, because my male friends were definitely clueless as well).

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I'm also still very, very displeased with Hermione attacking Ron for the sin of actually dating another girl. SHE'S allowed to visit Viktor Krum in Romania, but Ron can't neck with Lavender?

And Tonks. First she's a Riot Grrl and a punk fan, then she's an unprofessional mope because her boyfriend rightly points out that they're not compatible, then she gets pregnant in a war zone despite a very shaky marriage, and then she abandons her month-old baby to follow her not-very-good husband into a battle, where she's promptly killed by her aunt. She isn't a character, she's a laundry list of Bad Plot Devices.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Hermione and her birds pissed me off, too. I get that the books rely on physical and slapstick humor a lot, but what exactly is supposed to be funny about having your flesh torn apart? It's not exactly slipping on a banana peel. And it wasn't even described in a funny way. If Ron had done it to Hermione, you can bet that everyone would rightly call him abusive, which is precisely why JKR would never have Ron do it to Hermione.

I think Tonks started off as JKR's attempt to answer those people who criticized her for not having strong female characters, and then she just sort of became an irrelevance.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

If Ron had done it to Hermione, you can bet that everyone would rightly call him abusive
I think the (really infuriating) point about this was the fact that it only could be deemed "cute" because it's seen as pathetic on her part. You know: a girl CAN'T really hurt someone - just like you sometimes get in film where the female love interest starts hitting the hero with her fists (oh so small and cute!)where it is clear for everyone that she is incapable to inflict any real damage. That's why she sent sweet little canaries instead of an eagle owl...

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

SHE'S allowed to visit Viktor Krum in Romania, but Ron can't neck with Lavender?

Well, we really don't know that she actually visited him, only that she was invited, and then they're penpals in OotP.

Personally, I think Ron deserved the canaries if only because he's so clueless!!

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Viktor - I believe there's a reference to Hermione and her parents actually visiting the Krums.

Ron - Seriously? You think that a boy who doesn't go out with the girl who wants him to go out with her, even though she's never said a word, deserves to be physically attacked? Possibly scarred?

That's called "assault and battery," I'm afraid. It's not acceptable in any context, and as someone pointed out, if Ron had done this to Hermione he would rightly be considered abusive. Why is it all right if *she* does it to him? And what does that say about her "love" for him, that she feels compelled to attack him?