[ SECRET POST #2216 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2216 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 120 secrets from Secret Submission Post #317.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - personal attack ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

She could've, you know, not said it at all. Or even declared him officially straight. Would that have been better?

[(Anonymous)]

Or she could have made him gay in the series.

I mean, she gets some credit for saying he was gay after the fact, just not that much.

[(Anonymous)]

She DID make him gay in the series, she just didn't have Dumbledore's magical coming out party in the Great Hall after the Sorting. Just because she didn't have him waving a rainbow flag all the time doesn't mean that he wasn't gay. Let's be real. She wanted to sell the books. Parents weren't going to let their kids read books about a gay school headmaster. They were already lining up to burn the books because of witchcraft. The woman wasn't stupid, so she revealed that point after the fact, when people had already read and loved the character. I think it was a fucking brilliant move.

[(Anonymous)]

So on your account, we should admire her more because her moral courage ends at her pocketbook? And even if it's the case that she was motivated by money, why couldn't she have mentioned it, even in passing, in the books written after the series was mega-popular?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that she did. It's perfectly understandable, and perfectly fine. But it doesn't make her a LBGTQ hero or a moral saint. She seems like a solid person but saying that Dumbledore was gay after the series finished really just wasn't much of anything. It's just a very inconsequential thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you honestly think that if she revealed that Dumbledore was gay in the one of the last two books sales would be affected at all?

The parents who would be up in arms over that are the same people were already up in arms about the use of witchcraft.

[sensualcoco.livejournal.com]

You seriously think in order to mention a character's gay they have to be running around waving rainbow flag's in the story?

All she needed to do was have a character who knew Dumbledore make a quick little comment about him once liking a guy.

[(Anonymous)]

She could have at least hinted at it like George RR Martin did with Renly and Loras in A Song of Ice and Fire.

[(Anonymous)]

You mean people might have shunned her, how oppressive.

[(Anonymous)]

When exactly was she meant to throw it in? He's a teacher and the books is from a child's pov. It's not exactly appropriate for a teacher to talk about their (past) sex life with a kid.

It's nice she mentioned it at all, although no she's not a lgbt beacon. But I appreciate the fact a well know and loved character was revealed to be gay...after everyone loved and mourned him. They had no chance to complain for a book to change since the series was done and gone.

- from a gay anon

[(Anonymous)]

Discussing homosexuality does not = Dumbledore talking about his sex life, just like Snape being heterosexual/in love with Lily does not = Snape talking about fucking Lily. It's funny that, as a gay person, you're still making the leap in logic that the heteronormative media makes, that a character is somehow sexually explicit purely for being non-straight.

[author_by_night]

Technically she did. She described him as flamboyant in HBP, had him wear a bonnet in one of the books, and I think there were a few other things... but fandom didn't see it because they were too busy making everyone else gay. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

A+.

[(Anonymous)]

Except that flamboyant doesn't necessarily mean someone's gay. That's stereotyping. Not all gay men are flamboyant, and straight men can be flamboyant as well.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, yes, I'd have prefered if she hadn't said anything. If she couldn't find a place to put it in the book, then be done with it and let people draw out their own conclusions.

Now it just feels like she basically said 'but everyone else is straight because if they weren't I would've stated otherwise'.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. There's a bit in the 'Year in the Life' documentary where the interviewer asked JKR if Charlie were gay. Rowling's immediate response is: "Dumbledore is gay."

I'm sure it's not deliberate, but that's cringe-inducingly tokenistic.

[(Anonymous)]

Ew.

[(Anonymous)]

Except she said it about Dumbledore when specifically asked about DUMBLEDORE'S lovelife. Would've been damn stupid to start listing off other characters' sexualities.

[(Anonymous)]

It came out because she told the producers of the sixth film not to make Dumbledore mention a female love interest. You can't extrapolate from that to all of the other characters.

[khym_chanur]

She told the public that in response to an audience question about Dumbledore's love-life. Is she supposed to not answer questions people put to her about the series or the characters?

[(Anonymous)]

I think this is a good post explaining why dumbledore being revealed as gay after the fact is not that great: http://applesarefuckinghealthy.tumblr.com/post/40509280705/i-am-tired-of-people-insisting-that-how-jkr

Basically telling fans (and really only the fans, not just people who read the books) after the fact is not increasing queer visibility in the slightest. And while it may be nice that she thought of him as queer in her head, it doesn't count as visibility unless you write it in the fucking canon.

[lunabee34]

I agree with your last statement there.

I can totally see the subtext for Grindelwald and Dumbledore, but that doesn't make them gay. Text makes them gay.

[(Anonymous)]

If she had written the books with a gay man in a position of authority over hundreds of young children, we would not have had queer visibility in the slightest. We would have had no books whatsoever. There is no way in hell that it would have been published at all, let alone become so wildly popular.

[(Anonymous)]

His teacher's sex life would not have been something that would have been discussed in the earlier books.

By books 5? 6? 7? You were talking about the most successful and popular series in the entire world--in the history of the world. Dumbledore being gay would NOT have pulled them off the shelves.

I don't think she's bad for doing it how she did, but it wasn't, as OP said, some sort of LGBT Christmas miracle.

[(Anonymous)]

Except she didn't reveal him as gay to earn ally points. It was never her stated purpose to increase visibility, considering that she probably didn't know the sexual identity politics behind lit. gay characters.

[(Anonymous)]

Urgh, this reminds me of the current nonsense going on in the Merlin fandom. In the DVD commentary for the very last episode, one of the producers makes about twenty gay jokes - now half the fandom is clambouring that Merlin/Arthur was totally canon, and the other half is (futilely) trying to point out that it's just more queerbaiting.

Though for the people celebrating, it's admittedly more about their ship "winning" than gay rights or visibility. God, it's frustrating.