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

[nemesister.livejournal.com]

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

She did. She asked him to Slughorn's party and he said yes, previously to the Lavender kissing.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the correction...but regardless, Hermione's reaction to him dating Lavender would be considered abusive if a boy did it a girl. I wonder why Rowling considered it acceptable for one of her three lead characters to "prove her love" through violence?

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

No, she didn't ask him. They were fighting, she said that she going to ask him, but won't now and he mentioned that he would like to go. They never mention it afterward, so Hermione never truly ask him to go with her, she took away an invitation she never actually gave.

Here I even looked it up:

'We're allowed to bring guests,' said Hermione, who for some reason has turned a bright, boiling scarlet, 'and I was going to ask you to come , but if you think it's that stupid then I won't bother!'
[snip]
'You were going to ask me?' asked Ron in a completely different voice.
'Yes,' said Hermione angrily. 'But obviously if you'd rather I got off with McLaggen...'
There was a pause while Harry continued to pound the resilient pod with a trowel.
'No, I wouldn't,'said Ron, in a very quiet voice.

That's the whole scene and neither of them ever brings the party up again until it's too late. So Hermione never truly asked Ron to come to the party with her and he never agreed to go.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

And this is how this gets dragged out for 7 books. To be honest, even if she'd asked him I could believe him not getting it--they're best friends so it's not unusual she'd have asked him. Harry asks Luna and they're not dating. But this is even more idiotic because instead of just misunderstanding there's misunderstanding+sniping.

Now look at this situation and multiply it by 100 and you probably get an idea of their marriage. Ron feels inadequate because he's not as good as Hermione. Hermione may be better at most things, but soothing someone else's feeling of inadequacy isn't one of them--on the contrary, she has a talent for making it worse (and most times I can remember her *intentionally* doing that it's with Ron). Ron puts down the club and so Hermione because he feels insecure. So Hermione puts him down using his own insecurity, using the party to punish him (taking away an invitation she never gave).

Then there's the whole next problem with Ginny calling Ron a big virgin especially next to sexually experienced (whatever) Hermione, so he feels inadequate again, and grabs some girl who doesn't make him feel inadequate to get experience (more "I'll show her I can snog somebody too" rather than literally making her jealous, I think), but Hermione gets hurt and punishes him again for something he still hasn't yet worked out. I mean come on, a book later we see he *still* thinks Hermione's into Harry, so what did he make of her actions here?

Yeah, this marriage ought to be just great.

[xerox78.livejournal.com]

I just now got to this post after posting up above. Now that you've written the scene out, it's even worse than I remembered! So it's literally Hermione sending the birds after Ron and blubbering all over the place because she thinks she owns him and is enraged to find out she doesn't. Who does she think she is?

Yet we're expected to believe that Umbridge/Riddle Jr. is an innocent, helpless victim and Ron so much as looking cross-eyed in her general direction makes him Scott Peterson. Bull. Crap.

[xerox78.livejournal.com]

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

She did. She asked him to Slughorn's party and he said yes, previously to the Lavender kissing.

I haven't been able to understand why Hermione inviting Ron to the Slug Party = commitment entitling her to attempt to rip his face off for dating another girl, while Harry inviting Luna = charity. Nobody thought Harry was cheating on Luna when he dived down Ginny's throat. Nor was Luna snogging and writing long love letters to another boy. The funny thing is, Harry's invite to Luna was actually nice and befitting a friend while Hermione was the one who acted like she was earning her Take A Loser to an Exclusive Party merit badge and that Ron owed her his eternal gratitude for stooping so low to ask him.