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.