Monday, October 22

The Real Albus Dumbledore


All search engines and blogs have been raving about this... 'Dumbledore gay' and I being a gay man and a Harry Potter fan, I thought I would put in my two cents. My dad was first to alert me to this news. Now, articles write 'Dumbledore is gay,' but isn't he dead? shouldn't it be 'was'? Anyhoo, this news makes sense. I remember in reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," something seemed to be omitted. They would talk about how Dumbledore had his rival Grindelwald and they were friends and he never realized he was bad. Then when he found out the truth, he felt betrayed. Harry felt betrayed too, in hearing his mentor was friends with this bad dude. J.K. Rowling says Dumbledore was actually in love with Grindelwald, which makes sense. I think that fills in the plot. Jo said, "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!" Maybe she was afraid, not from what the fans would think but the rest of public. It is easier now that all the books are done, for her to announce it.

Some might think it is tacked on, that none of the other books showed any evidence of him being gay... but, I did notice some innuendo in the last book. Though her saying it now, after the fact, sort of feels ingenuine. He never mentioned a woman in his life either. I would have liked more about his sexuality in the books but I think it is fine how it is. Because, the last book was all about Harry finding out more about Dumbledore and at one point, feeling he really didn't know his beloved mentor. Some smarty pants would say that they always knew Dumbledore was gay... come on, the robes and half-moon glasses!
About the sixth film, she said, "In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying, "I knew a girl once, whose hair..." I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" The scriptwriters always want to add things here and there and I am glad they listen to Rowling. I hope they took this seriously. It is most likely they won't blatantly say he is gay in the movie.

What is great from what Jo said, is this: "To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him." I think it is a great untold story. It is a tragedy as she said, it is un-requited love and he had to kill the one he loved and was betrayed by. I mean, it can sort of be seen but the reason or answer is left in the air. I think she meant it to be ambiguous. I usually pick up on gay innuendos, I sort of did in the back of mind that there was a romantic connection between Dumbledore and Grindelwald but never thought Jo would openly say a major character was gay. And there we go, now she said it. And Dumbeldore is definitely a major character. So analyzing all of this and looking back through the story, it does make sense and have basis.

G4tv opinions
Mugglenet has a snippet about it
FoxNews.com article
Full transcript on Leaky Cauldron

Most fans are like, "Oh, and Dumbledore was gay..." Awesome reaction. Like it's not a big deal.