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

Here from d_s (1/2)

[raisin-gal.livejournal.com]

Wonderfully put! Forgive me for commenting without reading the other comments.

The situation about HP and JKR's public comments is fascinating to me, in an extremely morbid kind of way. Because I constantly find myself going into the story and finding messages -- excellent messages -- that I think are buried there, in plain sight for all of her readers to work hard and find. And then the author sends out interview statements that contradict my assumption that it had been the author's *intention* to send those messages. Dumbledore described as "innately good" from her lips is one breathtaking example.

After all, the series has always had an aspect of morality-related mystery and hidden truths buried all over it, which readers were sometimes made to guess at for a long time before the next book came out to give answers. And the constant theme has been: You can never tell if somebody is good or evil, because appearances can be deceiving -- Snape vs. Quirrel [PS/SS], Tom Jr. vs. Hagrid [CoS], Sirius vs. Peter [PoA], the true nature of "Moody" [GoF], the true nature of the James vs. Snape interactions and James' characteristics [OotP], the moral nature of Snape [HBP-DH], and finally, for the grand finale, the true moral personality (and, less importantly, criminal history) of the patriarchal symbol of omniscience, Albus Dumbledore [DH] ...Or so I thought. I felt that final Dumbledore reveal was done spectacularly well, actually, with Snape's POV memories revealing down-right cruel (and utterly unnecessarily so in cases like the Yule Ball scene) sides of Dumbledore that were news to us who assumed Dumbledore was supposed to be unquestionably "good." Those scenes made us realize suddenly that the same character traits have been hidden right there in plain sight all along. Such as Dumbledore leaving Harry on his deceased mother's sister's doorsteps without even bothering to knock, or him telling Harry a straight-forward lie about why Snape was protecting him in PS/SS, of a type that was completely uncalled for even to keep his promise of secrecy, and served to make Harry under-appreciate and mistrust the man Dumbledore *knew* to be willing to live and die for the boy.

Which I thought was marvelous. Way to shift the paradigm, and ruthlessly, daringly send us a message saying: "Hey, even people you are led to believe are *impossible* to doubt can be extremely different inside from what they project themselves to be! In fact you have to be *especially* careful about trusting exactly *those* people!" So I thought JKR was sending a wonderful message by making Dumbledore out to be such a despicable person who just *happened* to end up saving the world out of sheer luck (or fated destiny or whatever it was). I thought we were finally given a crucial piece of the puzzle that shows us Dumbledore's words cannot always be trusted, especially where they concern love and morality. He's right about a lot of things but wrong about some -- as you point out, he's disastrously wrong about close attachment and romantic love for him being destructive.

Yet, just as soon as I think that I have finally solved JKR's grand mystery -- which I found it marvelous that we still *had* mysteries to solve post-DH -- she turns around to us, smiles, and *agrees* with the bad side of Dumbledore. And I'm head-desking like mad and my brain hurts. Because it's not like the text of the books suddenly changes; the wonderful messages I found are still *there*, it's not like they disappear, but suddenly they're not the Authorial Message. Or is it? Is she just teasing us? But does she think it's a good idea to *tease* there, have all the children who read her books believing Dumbledore's newly-revealed characteristics are actually in any shape or form "good" until they grow up and (if they still have passion in HP) figure out for themselves?

Re: Here from d_s (1/2)

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Every once in a while I hear people arguing that this is her authorial intent. That she is being deliberately existential. Or that this is all in order to get us to question our assumptions about good and evil. Which I could believe.... except. Except it doesn't really seem to be. And, if that's the case, then she's really not doing a good job for the younger readers, because all that questioning stuff is going to go right over their heads.

You know, all they are really going to get is a contempt for authority in general--teachers, government workers, etc. I guess this is good, but it's what kids get from all truly popular culture. That's just what everyone thinks kids like. So, whether it's the Bad News Bears (or whatever film is currently ripping it off), or Ratatouille, or rap songs, kids are always getting the message that grown-ups are stupid, and so are the rules they come up with.

Rarely are there stories which ask the reader to confront their own prejudices. If that was what JKR was really doing, I think she needed to have Harry actually do that. Instead of instinctively getting to the point where he got the benefit of re-evaluating his positions without having to do so. Or... maybe it's just that he never needed to re-evaluate anyone who was actually alive. He didn't have to examine the relationship between goblins and humans, he just took advantage of the goblin in front of him, and, subsequently had the WW's bad opinion of goblins reinforced when Griphook ran off with the sword. He re-evaluated Dumbledore (that was his main angst-object) and Snape--after both of them were dead. He didn't have to change his views on Narcissa, like Griphook, she presented an opportunity for him to take advantage of her concern for Draco--without them having to relate on any kind of a personal level.

I'm rambling. But I'd love to believe that JKR had this big ulterior motive. If she'd never given these interviews, I might believe it. But everything she says leads me to think that she did view her story in a very simple, straightforward way and that the wonderful, quirky, complex, infuriating moral messaging is accidental.

[raisin-gal.livejournal.com]

Wow, very insightful comment about HP and contempt of authority (which JKR has once stated somewhere that it is actually her intent to question in the books -- although I think it may have been before DH, maybe even way before) and the way that relates to all other pop culture.

I never thought I would ever be saying this: "HP is feel-good food." But it is, in a way, isn't it? In the worst way of that word possible.

I'm still mystified, though, as to how things like Dumbledore's characteristics came into being. If that wasn't supposed to send some message or other, why was it in there? Never mind "machiavellian manipulator" which JKR seems to acknowledge she wrote him as; the way he treats Snape and Harry -- sometimes with no political/strategic merit whatsoever -- with such cruel disregard for their feelings as only someone with serious problems with their empathic or socio-cognitive abilities could conceivably do, has way less to do with "machiavellian" that "dysfunctional," or so it seems to me... What's that whole thing doing in there? It's *extremely* consistent and we can easily read all sorts of messages into it *and have them supported by canon* -- if that was accidental, WHY did it happen? HOW??

Sorry, I'm rambling too...

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

My honest feeling (and it's just a feeling, I don't think there's any way to verify it) is that JKR works a lot on instinct in her writing. She isn't doing a lot of thinking about it. Which is great. I don't think a writer ought to overthink their work.

But then, she's put into the position of having to answer--over and over again--questions about the work. She has to come up with reasons for why Harry does such and such. Or whether Snape is evil or not. Or whether he was loved. And her relationship to the work is very different from our relationship.

It bugs me that the series is so flawed. But in an odd way, I'm glad that it is, because it does make me think. I think someone else, far smarter than me, compared it to a symphony that you think is going to come to a resolution, and instead it goes all discordant. Because of that, the audience is forced to create their own resolution or else remain unsettled.

Discordant music can bring about riots. It did when Stravinsky debuted The Firebird. So, maybe we're just in a midst of our own riot... we can't help throwing bricks.

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

>What's that whole thing doing in there? It's *extremely* consistent and we can easily read all sorts of messages into it *and have them supported by canon* -- if that was accidental, WHY did it happen? HOW??

OMG I know I know! I was whiplashing all over the place on my first feverish reading of DH. I kept getting up and pacing around because I was so confused. I think I was a good 2/3rds of the way through before I really started to feel the ground slide from under me. Even at the epilogue I was... wait, is this like 1984? All is well? He loved Big Brother?

Dumbledore is still the most thrillingly-- and yeah, like Montavilla I find it kind of thrilling-- double experience. Because the character is PERFECT. Even by the Prince's Tale-- by which point I think I'd realized the moral compass of the series had entered the Bermuda Triangle-- I was like, "Oh my god, Dumbledore's an ASSHOLE! That's AWESOME!" And then he's so incredibly creepy in the King's Cross chapter, fawning over Harry in that revolting way and childishly looking for reassurance and slowly convincing Harry to ignore the flayed baby in pain while congratulating him for his Awesome Compassion.. like, whoa. He's just a fantastic villain. A perfect portrait of the charming cult leader and I never saw it coming. Except.. except he's not. Harry loves Big Brother.

There's still stuff that I find almost impossible to believe is actually in there, like Harry's last thought after the battle being maybe he could get his slave -- who has just fought plenty harder in the SAME BATTLE-- to GET HIM A SANDWICH. While musing about how Nobody Understands How He Suffers. I was like.. what? Wait.. what? I HAVE to be missing something... surely... this can reverse in the last ten pages, right?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's a masterpiece in the way that it's not like it just kind of falls flat, it's that it winds up saying all sorts of bizarre things--stuff that you'd never think you'd see in a book in this century. And it's all "La la la...it's very moral." I love the interview where she says the house elves are slaves and she assumes "we all" already have "strong feelings" about that already. And then she has the kids living in a cozy house with their fawning slave and ends the whole freaking book with that sandwich line. It's like throughout the consistent plea seems to be that good people should be able to enjoy terrible things while still being really good because they'd obviously not want them if there was any way not to have them.

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

It's like that thing where she was all, "Of course Lily was kind of turned on by James beating up on the omega-male geek! You're a woman! You know what we're like!" "Of course slavery is wrong, but c'mon-- you know you really want an inferior race that lives to serve and fawn on you! You're a human! You know what we're like!" Nudge nudge! There's a dark place that these books mine their fantasy from that few, few indeed, have dared to go in the last fifty years or so. And she only dared to go there because she's so.. okay, totally making assumptions here about someone I know nothing about-- but she seems so totally secure in her position as a Good Person that it doesn't even seemed to have crossed her mind that she's writing nostalgically about racial attitudes somewhere down the river of "Gone With the Wind". It's kind of really perverse and fascinating. You could make a list of this stuff-- like how Harry just hates having power and rejects it, and that's why he's this one in a million Good Guy who then goes on to run the wizarding KGB. Sometimes she comes off as one of those people Orwell talks about, who smugly hated Hitler but fell for Stalin because he dressed up the power and cruelty with vague talk about the Brotherhood of Man.

Sorry, that was so off-topic... Ahaha, I still get such a kick out of hating this series! :D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm kicking right with you! It is fascinating...it's kind of like...so have we gotten to the point now where we just really want this? Like we're far away enough from certain moments in Civil Rights that we should be able to be nostalgic?

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I think I need to get a kick out of hating where the series went. I can't believe half the stuff that ended up as canon. The saints are cruel and aloof and the sinners are the only ones really worth redemption. Our Hero should be sent to bed without dinner and tried for using Unforgivables, but instead he gets to run the entire law enforcement branch without training. Riiiiiight.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

All that practice he got choosing what was easy over what was right, I guess.

Somebody quoted that line today and I just thougt wow, it's like the whole series was mostly about proving that you really don't have much hope of changing yourself or your life through choices, and that if it's easy, it's right.

Wandering freely away from the topic at hand

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Which is odd, because somehow, when Unforgivable curses were first demonstrated to us in book 4, I really didn't get the impression that they were *easy*. But then, that was before Harry showed that he could do complex Imperius curses with no practice, or that the true hatred and rage to sustain a Cruciatus curse, which couldn't quite be found for the woman who murdered his friend and father figure, was easy to bring up for someone who was, you know, kind of nasty and rude to a teacher he'd liked but never particularly cared about.

I know a lot of people have a problem w/McGonagall's "gallant" response. I had assumed she was being slightly sarcastic -- like she wasn't going to really object or deal with it due to the impending battle, but she was going to subtly let him know that she *didn't* approve, or she thought it an overreaction. For one thing, the slight sarcasm seems more in line with her character than calling a student "gallant", no matter *what* action she was talking about. The other possibility is that I totally projected that response because she's one of the few characters I still really liked at that point of the series. Did anyone else see it the way I did?

Re: Wandering freely away from the topic at hand

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I did see McG's response as an impending battle response, but not as sarcasm. In another circumstance, I thought she might have given Harry a lecture, but with the whole Facing Death etc. in front of him, she gave him a break.

Of course, that's NOT McGonagall. That's some ringer author insertion, which I had begun to see more and more of during the course of DH. No character moved from what they had grown into in the previous books to something logical in DH. That was one reason I thought portions of DH, not just the epilogue, were written well in advance of all the subtleties, growth, life arcs, etc. that happened between PS/SS and DH. The characters all seemed to revert to tentative frameworks instead of fleshed-out personalities. The McG who called Harry "gallant" was, to me, more akin to the McG who said Dumbledore was too noble to use certain methods back in chapter one of PS/SS than to the McG who fought Aurors in OotP and Death Eaters in HBP.

Did anyone else think parts of DH were pre-written early on and not edited to conform to the new realities of the series?

Re: Wandering freely away from the topic at hand

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I could definitely imagine her being sarcastic about it, myself, but even if she is being sarcastic she's shut down anyway--as often happens with McGonagall. Because she says it's gallant but is really going on to say that it was bad because it was stupid. I forget what she says exactly, but it's something like "Do you realize..." and he says "Yeah, I do." And that shuts the woman up. Hero saving the world here, don't presume to teach him anything about ethics or good battle strategy. (Even though McGonagall's not the one who's been sitting on her butt for 9 months.)

I think what you're saying about UVs is true--I wasn't so bothered by Harry's Crucio, but I think peoples' objections to it are totally true--it's more like I just gave up by that point. It's another instance of magic just changing to suit whatever storyline's going on. If Harry had never used a UV I've no doubt that would be considered proof of his goodness. It's just that when he uses it it has to be reimagined as something that's cool. That's why I always find JKR's "he's never been a saint" funny, because she *is* setting him up as a saint--or as a Christ figure, at least. Usually saints have to live up to the title. (That is, when the title is being used the way it is here--I'm sure at least some actual saints could be jerks when they got impatient with people for not listening to God's word, but that's a different thing.)