JK Rowling is a Fucking Coward (Dumbledore’s Sexuality Edition)

JK Rowling could have made Dumbledore canonically, texually gay but she chose not to because she was afraid of backlash.  She was writing books for children in the 90s – sexuality was a hot topic but the acceptance of the new millenium had not yet arrived.  Making a character Gay – especially one of the main characters, the wise old mentor that the protagonist leans on – was risky business.  You could argue that she obviously meant Dumbledore to be gay, it was just that she couldn’t imagine a time in which that would be accepted in a children’s book series.  The argument can certainly be made that there were – vague – hints to Dumbledore’s sexuality in the books.  His clothing as described is certainly flamboyant (at one point his suit is literally described as “flamboyantly cut”).  He is single and there is never any mention of a past wife or lover.  His pet was a phoenix, which is literally famous for being flaming.  The argument can be made that the clues were there.  

But that is not the argument that I am here to make today.  The argument that I am here to make today is that there was no reason to not make him canonically gay – except JK’s own cowardice.  After all, she built the entire wizarding world from the ground up – prejudices and all.  Why could she not choose to leave out homophobia, to model a new and safer world for her readers?  The only reason for not doing so was cowardice, and the knowledge that she could never sell anyone on a book where the wise old mentor – the Gandalf character – was gay.  She chose marketability over a central tenet of her character, and I cannot let that go.  

Now, for the purposes of this essay, I am only considering the books (and, to a lesser extent, the movies) as canon.  This is important, because if JK was not a coward, she would have put it in the damn book.  Headcanons are wonderful – I have enough to fill a book of my very own – but for right now I am strictly focused on canon.  JK Rowling tweeted it?  Doesn’t count.  Mugglenet.com or Pottermore articles confirm it?  Doesn’t count.  If you can not point to literal textual or film evidence (although I hold evidence from the films at like 75%) I do not want to hear it.  Now.  Let us go through Why Dumbledore Should Have Been Canonically Gay.

First of all, the obvious: Harry Potter is, at its core, a story about tolerance.  JK set up a world with a deep-seated prejudice that has boiled over into open violence, and then set her protagonists to the task of healing those wounds.  And they did a wonderful job of it.  And it is very clear at every single point of the story that what Harry and his friends are doing and standing for is Right, and what Voldemort and the Death Eaters are doing and standing for is Wrong.  Dumbledore is the central figure to the side of Good – he is the literal leader of the wizarding justice system until the government is infiltrated by the Bad Guys, at which point he steps down to be the leader of The Resistance Order.  It would have been an amazing extension of that metaphor to have him been an openly gay man, especially if she had subverted the existing structure by having homosexuality be accepted in the wizarding community.  Seeing the main leader against the bigots be an openly gay man would have been an amazing symbol for the young, non-cishet folks reading these stories.

Secondly, her excuse for not making him openly gay is just full on bullshit.  It wasn’t important to Harry’s story?  Was the fact that Neville couldn’t hold onto his own goddamn toad for thirty seconds important to Harry’s story?  Was the fact that Lavender called Ron Won-Won important to Harry’s story?  How about the fact that the Black family beheaded their dead house-elves and displayed their heads in the hallway?  Were those facts that were important to Harry’s story?  No, of course they were not – but that does not mean that they didn’t have their place.  Their place was to develop the characters other than Harry.  The series may have been named after him, but he was hardly the only person in the wizarding world.  The fact that Tom the Leaky Cauldron bartender only had a few teeth certainly didn’t affect Harry’s journey – after all, he was still able to communicate, to speak to Hagrid during Harry’s first journey to Diagon Alley, and to give Harry a place to stay after blowing up his aunt in Prisoner of Azkaban, was he not?  But by physically describing him, and including that detail, Rowling gave us a fuller character.  We know by her description that he’s an older man, probably lower class, probably does not physically take care of himself well.  Neville losing his toad cements him immediately as someone who is easily flustered and easily distracted.  Lavendar calling Ron Won-Won tells us that she’s a sentimental person who wants to give her significant other nicknames, and Ron not stopping her tells us that he fears conflict and isn’t confident in relationships.  The Black family beheading their servants tells us they are morbid and possibly abusive.  It’s a richer story for knowing those details.  Similarly, knowing Dumbledore’s sexuality would give us another dimension of him as a person, instead of having him come across as a slightly neutered elderly person.  By denying us that information – canon, as a part of the story – JK denies us knowing her character as a fully fleshed person.  

The secondary argument against including Dumbledore’s sexuality is made by fans, not JK herself.  It’s an argument made by people who wish to hand-wave away the problematic decisions JK has made regarding the wizarding world.  “Why,” they ask, “would Dumbledore, a 100+ year old man, discuss his sexuality with a teenager (pre-teen in the earlier books), especially one who was his student?”  Well, first of all, that question immediately assumes there is something wrong with homosexuality, or that it is something that should be kept hidden.  Again, as discussed above, JK had the opportunity to make a homophobia-free world, with the leader of the Resistance Order living as an out gay man as proof.  She chose not to do that, so I could buy that Dumbledore would hide the details of his relationship with Grindlewald from his discussions with Harry -after all, there is no textual evidence of any of the other teachers having spouses or children, and Dumbledore wasn’t exactly the most forthcoming of characters.  Do you know who I cannot buy did not discuss it, though?  

Rita Skeeter.  Rita Skeeter wrote a full tell-all book dragging every one of Dumbledore’s dirty little secrets into the light during Deathly Hallows.  Regardless of the wizarding world’s views on homosexuality – it would still be a juicy little detail that Dumbledore was in a relationship with Grindlewald, who ended up being the most evil wizard of his time, and who was eventually defeated by Dumbledore himself.  Textually, in the books, there was mention of some “whispers” that Grindlewald could have been defeated sooner, if only Dumbledore had stood up to him sooner.  You don’t think that would have warranted a mention in any  of the books Hermione had read?  That the so-called greatest wizard in the world could have stopped a major genocide?  And do not tell me it was not a major genocide, because first of all he is directly linked to Voldemort, whose whole schtick was killing Muggles, and secondly he is clearly written as a direct parallel to Hitler.  Regardless of what the attitudes surrounding homophobia were in the wizarding world – and again, I would love to believe that wizards focused their bigotry on blood status and not on sexuality but there is no actual evidence of that – Dumbledore allowing people to (probably) be killed or (at minimum) harmed because he was afraid of standing up to his boyfriend would have been a very big scandal and nobody would have believed he was on the right side.  Honestly even if he did eventually defeat Grindlewald I don’t think he could have come back from that big of a scandal.

Now, a slight departure from the books.  And by a slight departure I mean we are leaving the plain of textual evidence and jumping right to film.  First of all, it must be said – by the time the movies, especially the later ones, were being made, the tide had well and truly turned on attitudes on homosexuality, and JK could have very easily earned quite a lot of goodwill by addressing Dumbledore’s sexuality head-on in the original eight films.  Even a sidelong reference, a passing note while Dumbledore had one of his Long Important Discussions with Harry would have gone a long way towards making me believe that Joanne is not a coward.  

Again, however, I digress, as my next point is not about the original eight films as they stand, but slight conjecture about the new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series.  Now, full disclosure is important here: the 2nd movie has not yet come out as I write this, and I have absolutely no intention of going to see it when it does because the continued support of Johnny Depp has disgusted me to the point of no return.  But JK has come out and confirmed that there will be no discussion of Dumbledore’s sexuality – and by extension, his relationship with Grindlewald – in the series.  Somebody please make this make sense.  The series is an overall look at Grindlewald’s rise and fall – and how Newt Scamander fits into it – but you are not discussing the fact that he had a youthful relationship which many believed to be True Love with the wizard who eventually brought him down?  Is that right?  You are focusing on the rise and fall of Grindlewald without focusing on the basic thing that allowed him to have a rise in the first place?

I hope I’m wrong.  I hope that the statements JK made were simply to throw everyone off the scent and that Dumbldeore and Grindlewald have a relationship to make fanfiction writers blush in the movies (fluffy obviously smutty would never make it past the censors and fanfictions writers don’t blush at smut anyway).  But for right now, she is refusing to allow anyone to consider it.  So even if it does happen, my thesis still stands – because what she is doing right now is reassuring homophobes that there won’t be any dirty nasty gay stuff in her movie, so she will still get their butts in seats.  I would even go so far as to make the predition that if (and it’s a B I G if) there was any non-heterosexual content in the FBWTFT movie series, it comes at the very end, as a big “ALWAYS” style reveal.  Not only will she get to bask in the glow of everyone who said they were right to believe she was a hero for the LGBT+ community all along, but she will have already gotten the money from all the homophobes who would otherwise boycott the story.  

Horror

It really, truly, deeply struck me this time ’round how horrifying the infiltration of the Ministry must have been for Hermione.  The majority of those scenes are – obviously – focused on Harry seraching for the Horcrux & snatching Moody’s eye back out of Umbridge’s door.  But its mentioned that Hermione has to follow Umbridge down to the courtrooms, and when Harry finally catches up to her, she’s sitting in on the trial of Cattermole’s wife (i.e. the wife of the man Ron’s impersonating).

Hermione is a Muggle born witch.  Even if she wasn’t in league with Harry Potter, this was her fate in the wizarding world if Fudge / Umbridge kept power.

I don’t know why it hit me so hard this time ’round.  Harry is, well, Harry, and it’s the Ministry’s own damn fault he’s against them.  Ron has the privilge of making the choice – to be with the Ministry or against them – and he chooses his best friends (and his own sense of morality).  Hermione doesn’t have a choice.  Sure, if she wasn’t helping Harry she wouldn’t be hunted down by name, but she still would have been hunted down as a Muggle-born, subjected to a dehumanizing trial, and probably stripped of her wand and thrown back out into the Muggle world.

I just…cannot wrap my head around how fucking traumatizing that must have been for her.  To see, played out, in living color, in front of her own eyes, the fate that awaits her if they lose this war.  Like, no wonder she was so convicted and passionate about it.  Harry may have given his life for the cause, but Hermione had the most to lose.

Name Game

I know this gets talked about – like, a lot – but I have a bone to pick with the entirety of the Potter-Weasley clan.  Harry and Ginny get a lot of shit for their kids names (ALBUS SEVERUS REALLY GUYS) and that’s all well and good, but the rest of these kids don’t get off so easily (I guess Charlie does, since canonically he never marries or has kids, but I digress).

None of you fuck waffles named your child after your father?  Really?!?!   Your father, who slaved away at the Ministry of Magic to raise you ungrateful little bastards, to put food on the table and robes on your back – even when he was a known associate of the Order of the Phoenix and going to work could have gotten him captured or killed?  Your father, who was attacked by a giant snake trying to keep your friend – and later husband / brother-in-law – safe and alive?  Your father, who taught you how to be a good person and that everyone – even Muggles – deserves fair and equal treatment?

I do wish that Harry and Ginny had named a child after Hagrid – I wish it so much, particularly because Hagrid didn’t have any children of his own – and I get the idea that Harry left Remus for Teddy to use for his future children  – but I’m personally offended by the idea that NONE of Arthur’s five children (who had children of their own)  named a child after him.  NOT EVEN A MIDDLE NAME, GUYS, COME ON.

Just rude as fuck.

((For the record, 1) Percy named a daughter after Molly, and 2) in real life, one of my twins is named after her (deceased) grandmother and the other is named after her (deceased) great-grandmother.  Family names are important.))

Perfection

This scene takes place at the beginning of Deathly Hallows.  I honestly don’t know how  I missed it before, with my Hermione obsession (or, more accurately, my obsession with all the female characters).  Then again, she’s just filled with so much awesome it isn’t that surprising.  What am I talking about?  The fact that apparently Hermione knows which wild mushrooms are safe to eat, and – while Ron and Harry were just chilling, being useless, collected them and cooked them dinner (never mind whether it was good or not).

Now, there’s plenty that can be read into this scene from a feminist perspective (why was it her job to cook for them?  Did Ronald not think to ask his mother for a few recipes before they left?), but I’m just going to be over here basking in the never-ending glory of how perfect Hermione is.

Like A Girl

I love feminist Ginny Weasley.  I know I’ve talked about how much I love her before, but while I was reading HBP, I was reminded of what a good feminist character she is.  She doesn’t let her brothers push in on her social life – she soundly tells Fred & George to mind their own business, and straight up puts Ron back into his place when he tries to butt in.  It’s very clear that she’s the only one in charge of who she dates and she’s not going to put up with her brothers trying to get involved.

When Harry breaks up with her for “her own good”, she’s obviously not happy about it, but she agrees with his reasoning (it’s not his decision alone!) and she doesn’t let it stop her from going about her life.  Rather than simply hanging around waiting for Harry to return and pick her up like a lost piece of luggage, she teams up with Neville to reactivate the DA and fight against the Death Eater’s reign at Hogwarts.

In pretty much every conceivable way, Ginny Weasley is a girl – growing into a woman – who lives on her own terms and refuses to allow other people’s expectations of her bring her down; the expectation of her brothers that she’ll date at a pace that’s comfortable for them, or the expectation that she’ll be an easy target because she’s a girl are disabused with the same casual confidence.  I just honestly love her so much, and she’s the girl who I wish I was at her age (mixed with a little Hermione, though).

Randomness

Random Notes as I finish Half Blood Prince and prepare to crack open Deathly Hallows:

• Ugh Romione 4eva.  His whole thing with Lavender just made me so unreasonably irritated.  Like, I know sometimes it feels like options are slim for gingers, but….just….ugh
• I feel like it’s significant that Harry begins and ends the  year immobilized under his invisibility cloak, listening to Draco discuss his plans and plots, but I can’t quite make the connection.
• Dumbledore searching for the door to get into Tom Riddle’s horcrux cave was super reminiscent of Gandalf trying to open the gates to the Mines of Moria, and I’m shocked at myself for never noticing this allusion before.
• It’s mentioned prior to Dumbledore’s funeral that Harry had never been to a funeral before – I guess in this case I can let it slide, because he’s never had any family or friends, but goddamn I’d been to a few by the time I was his age (he’s 16 in this one) – why do authors do this?  Are funerals not inherently sad / awkward /  uncomfortable enough, you need to make it worse?

And, not specifically related to HBP, but a friend of mine is sending me actual scholarly articles on Hermione through a feminist lens and I’m just super geeky nerding out over it.  Cannot wait to get them.

Ugly

Today on obvious things I should have picked up sometime in my first twenty-two readings of Harry Potter:

Tom Riddle starts out as a very attractive young man, but as he becomes more and more outwardly evil and caring less and less about hiding his actions, his physical appearance deteriorated until he eventually ended up looking subhuman.  Throughout Half-Blood Prince, we (and Harry!) get to see Tom Riddle through the years – he starts out as an attractive child in the orphanage, grows to a good-looking teenager and young adult during and immediately after his Hogwarts years, but has started to lose his looks just a few years after that – when he comes back to ask Dumbledore for a job, and it’s clear that he’s no longer particularly trying to hide his actions, at this point, because it’s the reason Dumbledore gives for not giving him the job.

It’s all very reminiscent of Dorian Grey, and the idea that your character defines whether you’re ugly or pretty and the only reason to be a good person is for the aesthetics.  From a literary perspective, I think it’s great and I love the reference and that it’s subtle and not super-in-your-face.  But from a social, general-reader perspective I’m kind of over the whole pretty=good, ugly=bad dichotomy and would honestly like to see it just die already.

Cruel Intentions

It’s commonly accepted that the Weasleys are a big family – SEVEN kids.  SEVEN.  That’s just…so many – but I don’t think it’s ever really mentioned much when people talk about the Weasley kids and their personalities.  The fact is, growing up in a big family is totally going to shape your personality – the same way being an only child will shape your personality.  Ron in particular – as the only one we really get a deep look into, personality-wise – has a weird combination of cruelty and loyalty that, when looked at in the context of his home life, makes much more sense.

The first time I read Harry Potter, I didn’t find Ron to be mean, or cruel at all.  It wasn’t till I  re read the books a few times – and discussed some of the characters with my friends who are HP fans – that I recognized that he had the tendency to thoughtlessly fling insults at people.  If I put on my armchair psychiatrist hat for a second – I’m totally qualified in the wizarding world – I’d have to say it’s a function of growing up in a large family, where love is so assured that flinging insults is a natural form of communication (not that I know anything about that).  For proof, I give you Ron standing up to Snape for Hermione when Snape covers Defense Against the Dark Arts in Prisoner of Azkaban.  At this point, I don’t think Ron had any feelings towards Hermione other than friendly – possibly even sisterly – affection, but when someone else insulated her (using the same insults he uses himself) he jumped to her defense.  It reeked of “I can say that because she’s part of my family, you’re not a part of this you don’t get to say that”.

Which ties directly into the second piece of Ron’s personality that I think is directly tied to his large family – his intense loyalty.  Particularly after the first half of Goblet of Fire (when he openly doubts Harry and for a time doesn’t even talk to him), Ron is always, always, always on Harry’s side.  When Harry is going on a life-threatening trip to destroy the most evil wizard of all time, Ron is not about to stay home.  Even when Ron doesn’t agree with Harry (ahem Malfoy ahem) he still at least attempts to support him – and defend him against Hermione.  It’s very clear that Ron sees Harry – and later, Hermione – as a part of his family, and is as intensely loyal to them as he is to his brothers.

Slugs

One of my many favorite things about the Harry Potter series is that JK mostly refrains from making her characters either completely evil or completely good.  Her heroes – Harry, Dumbledore, Sirius Sirius – have flaws.  Her villians are either humanized – Voldemort, Malfoy – or non-Death Eaters – Umbridge.  Slughorn continues this grand tradition by giving us a character who is ostensibly one of the good guys, while being truly impossible to really like.

Slughorn is, at his core, just a really selfish person who doesn’t really care about anyone else in the world as long as he’s comfortable.  Harry thinks of him as a giant spider, collecting his “prizes” (former students who went on to do great things) in his web and twitching the strings to ensure his comfort, and I think that’s pretty accurate.  He obviously isn’t evil – after all, he’s horrified at the idea that his advice could have led to Voldemort’s seeming immortality – but he just doesn’t care much about the big picture.  Slughorn has no interest in serving a greater good or offering his talents to the world – as long as he has his crystallized pineapple and oak-matured mead and a comfortable, safe place to stay, he’s pleased with himself.

It’s another friendly reminder from JK that the world is not split into Good People and Death Eaters (simple as that may be), and that just because someone isn’t a Death Eater doesn’t mean they’re implicitly worthy of your trust.

Balancing Act

I’m really curious about the Muggle born students who go to Hogwarts and how they interact with the Muggle world when they’re on holiday.  Like, obviously there has to be some sort of provision in the International Statute of Secrecy for the parents of Muggle born witches and wizards (and my research on the subject tells me Hogwarts / the Ministry send a representative to explain things to the parents rather than just sending the standard owl when the kid’s 11), but what about their friends and extended family?  Do all of Dean Thomas’ cousins and aunts and uncles just think he goes to some random boarding school?  Don’t they ask him what he’s studying?  Does Hogwarts send home notices to Hermione’s parents letting them know what their daughter is getting up to during the school year? Did Lily Evans ever have a summer romance with a boy who didn’t understand why she couldn’t call or write when she went back to school?

Harry’s life in the Muggle world is terrible, so he’s all too happy to cast it off and jump feet first into the Wizarding world.  Lily & Hermione both ended up marrying pure blood wizards and leaving their Muggle lives behind, despite not having any trauma (that we know of), but there’s no reason why that should be assumed to be true of all the witches and wizards born in the Muggle world.  I’m just very curious as to whether any of the Muggle born students at Hogwarts ever tried to balance both sides of their lives, and how it worked out for them.