So, over the weekend, JK Rowling told a crowd in Carnegie Hall that she always considered Albus Dumbledore gay. And the audience cheered.
I've really been postponing writing this post while I think about exactly what to say. This is why I'd never become an A-list blogger - I'm not into timely punditry. I like to have days and weeks to process information fully before I write anything. But enough of that. Let's see ...
If I'd been in Carnegie Hall that night, I would have cheered, too, and this is why: not because she says she secretly wrote somebody or other as a homosexual, but because she finally admitted that sexuality exists!
I'm sure you noticed how strait-laced the HP characters are. Except for a little teen snogging, no one seems to have a single thought about sex until and unless they're married. Almost nobody hooks up after high school. There are no trysts at the Leaky Cauldron. Nobody is a member of the Gringott's "Mile Below Club". (Heh.) No children are ever born outside of wedlock - even Tom Riddle's mother, a young woman who endured abuse and calamity all her life, managed to get a ring on her finger right before getting knocked up. There's never a breath of a word about sexual relations ... children just spring forth in subsequent chapters, as if by magic. (Sorry.)
I'm not complaining whatsoever. The Harry Potter books are children's literature, whatever you may think of the dark nature of the later books. And in children's lit, they never talk explicitly about sex. It's just not done. Hell, traditional children's books never mention peeing, either.
(By the way, what's up with that? Doesn't anybody ever need to pee at Hogwarts? As near as I can tell, there are only two bathrooms in all of Hogwarts. One is for snobby prefects only. And the other is never used because it's haunted by Moaning Myrtle and it smells strongly of Polyjuice Potion. Oh, and it has a bloody great snake slithering through it sometimes. I guess I'd forgo peeing for an entire school year, too, under those conditions.)
We have indulged our inner kids, and we have loved us a very good series all these years. So to hear JK Rowling invite us to revel in a moment of adult sensibility, must have been exhilerating.
Now. Is Dumbledore really gay? I say, not necessarily. Stay tuned.
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