I haven't said anything about it here before, largely because I've never read the books (though I do know the character from the movies). So I didn't think I had anything to say that you couldn't probably guess if you've been reading this blog for any period of time.
And then I came across this quote from Rowling responding to critics of her announcement:
"He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say what I say about him"
As a "straight, for the rainbow" (I think I just made that up) but also as a writer and maybe especially as a writer who's written about gay people in love...I like that quote. I like that quote a whole, awful lot.
Keitha: Look who's talking about people who are obsessed with homosexuality.
Annabel: Shh!
4 comments:
My thought on this was that it came out of left field and was completely unnecessary. It doesn't matter to me (that he's gay), and I didn't need to know that to understand his actions. Dumbledore may be gay, but for me, that "fact" doesn't explain anything about him that she didn't put in the books. It wasn't like it was a central piece of his aura that had been missing, if you know what I mean. I sort of felt like she "outed" him, almost without his permission, which is silly, because as she rightly points out, he is HER character.
I feel the same as jeopardygirl. I don't think it needed to be said. She's finished her seven novels, and didn't feel the need to discuss his sexuality before, so why talk about it now? I think JK Rowling's just having fun with the idea of her stories and characters becoming loved by so many people around the world; she's drunk on her own power.
I think that if you're a writer many times there are things that you know about your characters but which never find their way into anything that you write about them.
Even if, or especially, you've written about them for seven books.
When asked a question about her character's love life, as she was, what would you have had her answer?
It would have been pathetic for her not to say who he was.
She did say his love life was not a happy one, but it followed her mention of his homosexuality--almost as if his being gay was the reason he'd not had a particularly happy love life. I'm sure that is the case for a lot of people, but it's not always...ask your girls.
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