Luscious Badboy wonders about Norweigan kitty treats…

Yours: Odd Sverre Hove
Bergen, Norway

I believe Ms. Rowling may end up regretting this revelation. Every future interview she gives is going to zero in on this piece of information and it will simply become tiresome.

Provoking thoughts on the topic, ZoeRose, and I echo your thoughts Eeyore.

“I confess myself dissappointed” – LV

I agree with your observation that a far greater range of active evil is portrayed in the books than anything introduced by the obviously passive, with respect to the narrative, sexual alignment of Dumbledore.

But because every tiny detail is so intricately interwoven in the Potter Saga, I must point out that when you say:

“May I gently remind everyone that the needlework pattern book DD was perusing was Horace Slughorn’s? Of the yucky Slug Club select-group-of-students fame?”

The needlework pattern book actually belonged to the wife of the couple whose house Horace had “appropriated” in their absence. An inattention to detail by your normally hyperattentive self that I can only attribute to an excess of cough syrup and chamomile tea secondary to your current infection.

Otherwise, your post was spot on.

And isn’t it great to get back to picking at nits rather than running around in mystified panic?

Get better soon, and may the kitties not catch what you have.

I’ve read the Leaky Cauldron transcript, Travis’ SoG piece and Amy Sturgis’ eyewitness report. I agree, there were many compelling things discussed at Carnagie Hall.

May I gently remind everyone that the needlework pattern book DD was perusing was Horace Slughorn’s? Of the yucky Slug Club select-group-of-students fame?

And of Gilderoy Lockhart, narcissist extraordinaire, who would have abandoned Harry and Ron to death, to save his reputation and vanity.

And the Dursleys, who tormented and abused an innocent child for 10 years simply because he was different.

And Bellatrix who showed her “love” for another by torturing people…and repulsivley enjoying it.

Who says a gay person can’t be a fatherly, wise mentor? Or show love apart from their sexuality? Or that this revelation shows how flawed DD was? The books are filled with flawed, selfish, dangerous, vain, aggressive, mean, lying, insensitive, egotistical people. And I can be or am all of those things and more.

Rowling has written a complex series with complex people. I have a feeling the unpacking of this nest of Russian dolls has just begun. Thanks, Robert, Travis, and Amy. I really look forward to John’s further unpacking.

Now if I can just unpack Mrs. Fleasley from the lounger so I can rest awhile…

Like many, I fail to see what this revelation truly contributes to our understanding of the character. But obviously Rowling thought the information rather important, stating that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay, and implying that this provided an important matrix through which she developed the character. She further described how she thought this character trait so vital that she rather urgently corrected a screenplay of the upcoming HP movie which suggested that Dumbledore had had, in his past, romantic feelings toward a woman by attaching the marginal note, “Dumbledore’s gay!”

Owing to this, I am not convinced that she intended to suggest that Dumbledore’s homosexuality consisted in only a fleeting attraction to Grindelwald, and that he thereafter throughout life suppressed that inclination, or that the failure of his and Grindelwald’s relationship implies some sort of critique of homosexual relationships. Some have focused on how Rowling portrayed the Dumbledore-Grindelwald relationship as “tragic.” But, I think for Rowling, Dumbledore’s attraction to Grindelwald was tragic not because it was homosexual attraction or owing to any inherent defect with homosexual relationships, but because, blinded by his attraction, Dumbledore fell in love with the wrong sort of person: a malignant person. The same tragic consequences could just as easily occur with misdirected heterosexual attraction: there is no difference.

Given how her Dumbledore revelation was received and her immediate response, then, I suspect that Rowling sees nothing wrong with homosexual relationships per se; minimally she holds them as morally indifferent. Likely she, like many others in the churches today, considers Christianity and affirming homosexual practice as wholly compatible. That is, of course, her prerogative.

I suspect we will learn more in the coming months. I will be very surprised if Rowling isn’t asked (or plied with) more questions about Dumbledore’s sexual proclivities or the history of his love life.

What troubles me most profoundly, however–and some of the comments here have allayed my fear somewhat–is that the Harry Potter series is marketed and directed to children. And I fear that Rowling, by her revelation, whether intentionally or not, is subtly advocating and normalizing the practice of homosexuality in the minds and hearts of millions of young readers–with all the personal consequences that practice can imply. What’s done is done. And her work itself will continue to stand on its own. I remain convinced that it is a great fictional work that has positive ethical and theological value. But I find this whole situation and the partisan spirit it has evoked to be unnecessary and disappointing.

I like in Topeka … home of Fred Phelps and his obscene protesters who have been making nuisances of themselves at soldiers’ funerals. They regularly picket at many of the churches here — including the one to which I belong.

Sadly to much of the homosexual community Fred Phelps and his family cult (I refuse to acknowledge him as a minister or his group as a church; they can claim these things but that doesn’t make it so) ARE the Christian position regarding gays and lesbians. I know a number of people who agree that Fred is basically right, conceding that perhaps he does go rather overboard with it.

So Dumbledore was envisioned as a gay man all along by the author? That revelation neither surprised nor fazed me.

Does this contradict the Christan content of her work? Not in the least. I know too many gays and lesbians who have struggled with faith and sexual orientation to say that homosexuals cannot be Christians or are sinners in a particular way in which the rest of us are not. I also know the Scriptures and contexts and details of translations well enough to know that this matter is nowhere near as clear cut as post-Freudian English translators have made it seem.

Is it an embarrassment for parents? Perhaps. But, like I said, I live in Topeka. I had to explain things to my kids when they were 10 and 8 and we were moving here. If the kids are old enough to read Harry Potter, they’re old enough to be discussing matters of sexuality.

There’s no reason I can see for causing such an uproar at this point, and coming up with this in front of an audience containing children, whose parents were probably not prepared to deal with this on the spur of the moment. We DO have to deal with the complexities of human existence, but when it comes to our children, we need to have time to think about what we want to say regarding tough issues whenever possible. I do not think the reaction was out of proportion to what she said, because I think it was something that did not need to be said in that setting, in that way. She had to have known that this would overshadow everything else that she’s been saying. How could she not?

I used to go out socially with a gay man, who was a high school teacher. In the 70′s he could have been fired on the spot if anyone had figured out his sexual orientation. He was a good and faithful friend and I wished him no harm, although I felt he was putting himself in a difficult position that I didn’t agree with. I had no problems with attending certain functions with him as a friend. If people wanted to make something else out of it, that was fine with me. I’m not just being homophobic, or supporting the Harry-haters on this point. I’m just saying that I too think Jo’s made life very difficult for a lot of people for no good reason.

If she wanted to talk about people who were unapproachable, she could have changed how people saw Slytherins, giants, werewolves, or house elves, among others. She didn’t have to base her message of tolerance on something with sexual connotations.

That being said, I do agree that it adds nothing to the story except to reveal that in the writer’s mind the character was more complex than she led on. JK reveals through her comments that she is a bit like Dumbledore, too–more complicated–and that one must be careful of assuming things or taking things at face value. It was probably unnecessary for her to reveal what she did–and obviously something provoked her to say it that we may never be privvy to–and who knows? Perhaps she is kicking herself today about it, since kids may now come up to her and say “that’s gross,” as the intended audience probably thinks ALL sex is gross if they are the ages of 7-13!

I for one am going to take a deep breath and MOVE ON. I still love the stories and will recommend them to others. But they are JUST stories, and we have a greater, truer love Story to tell others, anyway.