Dumbledore is teh ghey

JK Rowling outs Dumbledore as gay

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has revealed that one of her characters, Hogwarts school headmaster Albus Dumbledore, is gay. She made her revelation to a packed house in New York’s Carnegie Hall on Friday, as part of her US book tour. She took audience questions and was asked if Dumbledore found “true love”.

“Dumbledore is gay,” she said, adding he was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago.

The audience gasped, then applauded. “I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy,” she said.

I always wondered about this but the books are fairly unclear about his relationships. The most I could get from it was that he was a “lifelong bachelor,” which can be code for “gay as a maypole” but could also mean he just never married. It’s nice that Rowling came right out and said this but why didn’t she put it in the books? I don’t think there are even any gay characters in there aside from the now-outed Dumbledore, so I figured it was another one of those fantasy worlds where everyone has “normal” sexuality. Maybe the wizarding world is just as homophobic as the real world, so Dumbledore covered because he didn’t want to get fired from his teaching job. This still leaves the question of why it wasn’t mentioned in the books. It wouldn’t have taken much either, maybe a line or two about how much Dumbledore loved Grindenwald. I hope it wasn’t just so she could trick homophobic fans into buying Deathly Hallows.

This revelation raises some interesting questions, chief of which is “who else was Dumbledore nailing during the intervening years?” Snape, perhaps? Hagrid? Or maybe Dumbledore schooled a young James Potter in the ways of manly love. I bet the fanfiction people have written all that and more, even before Rowling dropped this bombshell. Who knows, there might even be a T.H. White and Dumbledore slash out there. Maybe that’s where White got the idea for the Merlin character in his books. Or maybe Dumbedore is another one of those sexless, non-threatening gays that keep showing up in conventional fiction. The more I think about this, the more annoyed I get at Rowling for not having the strength of character to put this bit of story in the book. I think it would have done kids some good to see a positive portrayal of a non-ambiguously gay character. Oh well, we’ll just have to hope they get it right in the movies.

Ultra Massive Harry Potter spoilers! (for real this time)

I know I said I might write about the new Harry Potter but I don’t really have anything new to say. I read it in the bookstore (it took several trips) and it ended much as you’d expect, with Harry winning, Voldemort losing, Snape being nobly redeemed and a big battle at the end. Since I first started reading the series I kept expecting Ron to eventually die. He’s just a sidekick, thus his death will provide Harry with the motivation to kill Voldemort, only at the end Harry will realize that doing so will turn him to the dark side and he’ll pussy out. That didn’t happen – Ron didn’t die; actually, nobody too important to Harry died except maybe Fred (or was it George), Lupin, and Dobby. Oh yeah, and Mad-Eye. Except for Fred-or-George, these characters have not had a lot of contact with Harry outside of the books they were introduced in. Neville would have been a bigger blow, or Ron’s mom and/or dad. Having Ron kick the bucket just as he finally got together with Hermione would have been a nicely bittersweet event, so I’m kind of disappointed. I guess it couldn’t have ended any other way since my preferred ending is too harsh for a kid’s book.

My biggest disappointment is that Harry didn’t end up with Luna. I guess it’s too much to hope that he end up with the weird nerd girl but I thought she would have been an interesting match. Instead he ended up with Ron’s sister Ginny; at the epilogue we’re even shown that the two of them got married and had kids, so Harry is a poor sap who married his high school sweetheart – just like his dad, I suppose. No hints on what Harry did after graduation, which is just as well since it would be kind of weird to find out he ended up managing a supermarket or something.

What do you know, I did end up saying something about Harry Potter. By the way, check out the Deathly Hallows dust jacket if you want to see an ugly cover. Apparently, this is the UK kids version, which was also used in the Canadian editions.