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HogwartsProfessor.com Blog Archive "I always thought of Dumbledore as gay." [ovation.]


I traveled by car to Lexington, Virginia, last Thursday to give a talk at Washington and Lee University about The Literary Merit and Religious Undertones of Deathly Hallows. The event, sponsored by the Catholic Ministry on campus and spear-headed by Hog-Pro All-Pro Nadja Wolfe, was a delight for me and a wonderful success. We had a large crowd, they enjoyed my frenetic talk about the Five Keys and how they help unlock Deathly Hallows, and we met for two hours after the talk in the student center for Questions and Answers for brownies, butterbeer, and spirited discussion. A good friend, David Baggett, editor of Harry Potter and Philosophy and a Philosophy professor at nearby Liberty University, was there for dinner, the presentation, and the questions; he wrote me a note yesterday saying he was as impressed by the quality of the questions and discussion from the W&L students as I was. Their hospitality, intelligence, and excitement about ideas and Harry Potter made it a speakers dream date; thank you, Nadja and Josh, for inviting me to W&L! After Parents Weekend events at the Virginia Military Institute on Friday and Saturday, I drove home yesterday with my three boys. It had been a delightful week; Ms. Rowling had acknowledged the Christian content of her work during her Open Book Tour, I had a great time at W&L, my daughter Hannah seems to be thriving at VMI (if anyone can be said to be thriving as a Rat straining at the Institute), and we enjoyed our weekend family time in Lexington, thanks in large part to the hospitality shown us by nearby All Saints of North America Orthodox Church. With confirmation from the author about the Christian parallels and obvious religious meaning of her books and seeing my daughter happy in a very difficult school situation, I couldnt remember a fall week I enjoyed more. Thats saying something coming from a former Cross Country runner who has never had a bad autumn. I came home after a six hour drive last night to find my email inbox filled with questions about a comment Ms. Rowling had made after a reading at Carnegie Hall. The AP newspaper headline was Dumbledore is Gay, which I think one NYC paper served up as Rowling Outs Dumbledore. Having read (1) the full response Ms. Rowling made to the question Friday night that was posted at The Leaky Cauldron, (2) Dr. Amy Sturgis eye-witness report on the Carnegie Hall event at her website, and (3) the remarkable outpouring in the comment boxes at Sword of Gryffindor, I went to bed with a peaceful heart and still very happy about the week. Ms. Rowlings comment doesnt rock my boat or fill me with angst as a Christian, as someone who enjoys reading and talking about the Harry Potter novels, or a person that argues the books are as popular as they are because of their spiritual value and timeliness. Why doesnt learning Dumbledore is gay upset me? The short answer is because this not-very-surprising revelation confirms the importance of one of the five keys Ive argued is crucial in understanding the Harry Potter novels. The spiritual undertones and Christian content of the books serve a religious function in a

secularized culture, the argument I made in Looking for God in Harry Potter via Eliades thesis about modern entertainments, but this content alone doesnt explain Potter-mania. If it did, Pilgrims Progress, Paradise Lost, and Dantes Comedia would still be on the bestseller lists. As I explained in Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader, it is the combination of her postmodern themes with her Christian artistry that explains the popularity of Ms. Rowlings stories. As a writer of her times writing for a postmodern audience, the themes, symbols, and meaning drawn from Ms. Rowlings faith would fall flat except for her using them to answer the question and concerns that consume our historical period. Ms. Rowlings answer to a question from a 19 year old woman at Carnegie Hall about Dumbledore and his love, frankly, is just what I would have expected her to say. The media presentation and the reaction of some Christians, unfortunately, was also predictable from previous experience; remember Pope Condemns Harry Potter in 2005 and the fallout then? I do. Lets look at what she said and at what a scholar, Christian, and thoughtful reader who was present made of the answer Ms. Rowling gave. Context is important in these things and I think it wont be a waste of time to explore the contexts of the event, the specific question asked, and the meaning of the word gay to Ms. Rowling, to the reporters present, and to Americans on both sides of our Culture War. From The Leaky Cauldrons rushed transcript of the Friday night Q&A event at Carnegie Hall that was posted the very next day: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself? My truthful answer to you I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that [sic] added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extend [sic], 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. Yeah, thats how i [sic] always saw Dumbledore. 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 [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, Dumbledores gay! [laughter] If Id known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago! Dr. Amy Sturgis, a scholar and Christian who has taught at Vanderbilt and Belmont Universities, by some happy providence, was in Carnegie Hall the night Ms. Rowling said this. Dr. Sturgis is a friend of mine and we correspond frequently about Harry Potter and other subjects. She had won one of the Open Book Tour Sweepstakes set of tickets to the Carnegie Hall event and went with Dr. Kathryn McDaniels of Marietta College (whose The Elfin Mystique: Fantasy and Feminism in J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter Series in Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis I admire very much and discussed at length in Unlocking Harry Potter). Unlike what you may have read in the papers, Ms. Rowling was not speaking to an audience of 1600 children as she was in LA and New Orleans. Drs. Sturgis and McDaniels were there, too, among many other adults who won one of the 1,000 prize ticket pairs. Dr. Sturgis posted her report of the event on her Tolkien and fantasy website, Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft. How does she remember the Dumbledore is gay

exchange? Question: The next question was asked by a teenager who prefaced her question with thanks to Rowling for inspiring her to have ambitions, and to care, and to be herself against overwhelming odds. She did not go into details, but it was clear she had faced a difficult personal struggle, and the books had been a source of strength for her. It was a very poignant and serious comment, and both the questioner and Rowling seemed very moved. Then she asked if Dumbledore ever had the chance to fall in love. Answer: Rowling replied by saying that the young lady who asked the question deserved an honest answer. Rowling always thought of Dumbledore as gay. Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. 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 with Voldemort, he was drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Thats how she saw Dumbledore. Recenty she read the script for the sixth film, and the writers had Dumbledore saying to Harry, I knew a girl once, whose hair. She had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, saying Dumbledores gay! When the audience laughed and applauded, she said, The fanfiction, eh? She also joked that she would have mentioned this earlier if shed known the audience would react so positively. Dr. Sturgis wrote a further note about her experience at Carnegie Hall and the fallout from the news reports of it here at Hogwarts Professor: To be honest, Im quite appalled by the reporting of and reaction to the news. Just to clarify, for those who did not read my report: Ms. Rowling didnt come on stage with the purpose of making this announcement. She said she was willing to answer any question, and many of the questions dealt with the characters lives that we did not see described in full in the text, including the love lives of three different characters: she was asked specifically about Nevilles, Hagrids, and Dumbledores loves (or lack thereof). She explained about Dumbledores love of Grindelwald, and compared it to the tragic love of Bellatrix to Voldemort, only in response to one persons question about whether or not Dumbledore had ever been in love. The individual who asked the question prefaced her query with a very poignant comment, and Ms. Rowling responded, as I understood it, very honestly, with what I thought was tremendous generosity. I think she was completely serious, but this point, like many others she was asked about, did not require inclusion in the books (although there are allusions to it, for those who look - I found it to be quite fitting and unsurprising, as well). That was the entire point of the Q&A: people didnt ask about things she had already spelled out completely in her fiction. They were asking her to fill in the gaps, as it were. It was very clear throughout her answers that she knew her characters - their back stories, their future lives, their symbolic meanings - in great detail. To be honest, I also thought her comments about Molly Weasley, and perhaps even Draco Malfoy, were at least as provocative and thought-provoking as the one about Dumbledore.

From what I can see, her point was taken out of context, and furthermore, stripped of its larger meanings (how Dumbledore could be blinded to Grindelwalds evil plans by his love - something that is a recurring theme about Dumbledore; how Dumbeldores love paralleled Bellatrixs; how powerful Dumbledores ultimate faith in love must have been, considering his own early, bitter experience), by the way the press has reported it. As [elmTree01] said, she didnt preach, one way or the other she just wrote the character. So, the first context of this answer, absent from the AP report and the Leaky Cauldron transcript, is the emotionally charged atmosphere created by a young woman asking a question of an author she says inspired her to have ambitions, and to care, and to be herself against overwhelming odds after a difficult struggle. Dr. Sturgis reports the questioners preface was somber and poignant and that she and Ms. Rowling (and the audience, too, of course) were very moved. Ms. Rowlings first sentence in response, that this young lady deserved an honest answer, suggests Dr. Sturgis is right in her description; Ms. Rowling seems to have been jarred from her script of things to say and things not to say. We know from her story about the Hollywood writer and her writing him a note rather than speaking aloud, that revealing Dumbledores sexual orientation was not on her to-do list, at Carnegie Hall or elsewhere. Bloggers who have suggested this was a publicity stunt on a promotional tour I guess are obliged to believe Ms. Rowling has Machiavellian and expert handlers who plan her every move (including the embarrassing ones?). From what Dr. Sturgis describes, this answer was spontaneous, heart-felt, and a surprise even to Ms. Rowling. One news report said the audience was silent on first hearing Dumbledore is gay, one said there were audible gasps, and every report notes there was then a prolonged ovation. The working assumption among the reporters and the readers who read their articles seems to have been that the Carnegie Hall audience was delighted, even ecstatic, to learn that Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the age and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, was gay. I dont doubt that many people there were happy to learn that Ms. Rowlings gang of heroes included a gay man. At the Prophecy 2007 conference in Toronto one of my more interesting discussions was with a leader of the group that sponsors these conventions. She expressed her disappointment that Ms. Rowling had not delivered on several of the homosexual story-lines that were evident in the books (Lupin is most often mentioned by serious readers as the obviously homosexual character in the Potter storyline). This woman, I think, is representative of much of Harry Potter fandom, and, as this group made up a large part of the Sweepstakes winners at the event, it would have been remarkable if this honest answer had not been greeted with great applause. But I dont think this was what caused the ovation. Dr. Sturgis said the young woman speaking to Ms. Rowling and Ms. Rowling herself were very moved by their exchange. Ms. Rowling in response said something she had not planned on saying, something that was unexpected and shocking to the people there (you dont gasp if youre not surprised and shocked, right?). The applause had two other likely causes, then, in addition to the satisfaction of those who wanted to hear Dumbledore (or any character) was homosexual. The first is just the crowd dynamics of an event like this. Believe me, the Open Book Tour Sweepstakes was something like the contest in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate

Factory. Every Harry Potter fan who won two tickets to the Carnegie Hall reading and Question and Answer session had to have felt like they were touched by an angel. I know I would have! And, like attending a championship series baseball game, folks in the audience had to have been hoping for a dramatic and heroic event to take place Friday night that would justify their excitement and expenditure to be there. The Carnegie Hall crowd was primed for a happening or revelation from Ms. Rowling that they could tell their friends about or that would make the newspapers or that would change their understanding of Harry Potter in a flash. The second reason for the ovation is that the crowd thought Ms. Rowling delivered on their expectation of a wow via this Dumbledore comment. The poignancy of her exchange, the evident personal connection between author and reader, and Ms. Rowlings preamble that this woman deserved an honest answer, cued the crowd that the moment they had hoped for was at hand. The revelation itself I think was secondary or tertiary to their relief that Ms. Rowling had said or done something more newsworthy and memorable than her public reading of The Silver Doe, the chapter I have written and said is probably the best single chapter in the series. Ms. Rowlings comment that she would have revealed Dumbledores orientation long ago if she had known she would have received such a positive reaction suggests she misunderstood the ovation as a hurrah for homosexuality or for tolerance or for the closeted Dumbledore. Her misunderstanding and seeming delight with the audience response then confirmed in the reporters and their readers minds that Ms. Rowling, too, was advocating homosexuality as a lifestyle and preference. If Ms. Rowling has a gay agenda, however, I would be very surprised. I doubt she has a homophobic cell in her body but I doubt advancing the causes of homosexual people everywhere is one of her priorities. I worked for four years at Whole Foods Market in Houston, Texas. My friends there liked to tease me that I was the token breeder, the married, white, male, heterosexual Christian with seven children and stay-at-home wife, that Whole Foods kept on staff to say they had one. Most of the team members and leadership at the store where I worked, one of the biggest and most profitable stores in their national chain, was homosexual. In this environment, a little different than my years in the Marine Corps, you learned quickly that homosexual orientation meant different things to different people. My experience after years of friendly conversations with homosexual men and women above and below me in the Whole Foods chain of command was that homosexuality meant any of several things to them, all of which meanings, unfortunately and with inevitable confusion, were described most often by the word gay. The three broad distinctions were SSA, homosexual, and gay. SSA or same sex attraction meant the person was attracted to people of the same sex and either acted on this attraction covertly, chose not to act on it from conscious decision or from fear, or was bi-sexual. Homosexual meant the person was convinced that their sexual orientation was for the same sex, that this was not something regrettable or that they could change, but which was only one aspect of their lives and not the most important aspect. They had homosexual relationships, often of many years, but didnt think of themselves as primarily, exclusively, and politically defined by their homosexuality. Other Whole Foods team members, those I thought of as gay, were those people to whom their same-sex orientation was the single most important part of their lives and what was always the subject or periphery of conversation with them. Most of the homosexual team members I

knew at Whole Foods were SSA or homosexual in the way I have defined those terms here and relatively few were gay. As with heterosexuals, homosexual people I worked with were embarrassed by and uncomfortable around men and women who trumpet their sexual preference everywhere and anywhere as a raison detre. Signe at Sword of Gryffindor writes this is a commonplace in the writing of Fr. Neuhaus of First Things. I hope he explains it better than I have; my apologies in advance if I have offended anyone with these broad brush statements. These are distinctions and not rigid categories, of course, but they are useful in understanding this tempest about Ms. Rowling saying that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay. The word gay, because it is used to describe the entire spectrum of homosexual life from SSA and abstinent to NAMBLA and hyperactive, has triggered a response not unlike what the word Sorcerer did in the first Harry Potter title when Arthur Levine changed it from Philosophers Stone to Sorcerers Stone. Gay to Americans consumed or just concerned about homosexuality in the Public Square means the gay agenda in general and, specifically, the advocacy of the position that homosexual love is natural, blessed, and equivalent to heterosexual love, a position contrary to Christian scripture and American conventions. Saying that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay, consequently, pushed the buttons of many of her readers whose inclusive understanding of gay causes them to think her describing Dumbledore with that word means Ms. Rowling is making substantial contributions to Gay Marriage advocacy PACs. I guess this sort of thing is to be expected in an election year, but her comments, understood in the context of the exchange with the woman who asked her, of the event, and the Culture War, dont support that interpretation. Certainly the Skeeter-esque headline and write-ups of the story make an ugly sort of sense. Ms. Rowling has been a media darling, their hero-martyr in the never ending battle to reveal the theological lunatic fringes secret plot to return America to the Puritan era of Harry Potter-free libraries. Could the fourth estate have been embarrassed by Ms. Rowlings comments in LA that her books were Christian in content and meaning? Embarrassed or not, they certainly lunged at the first opportunity to alienate Ms. Rowlings Christian fans and to reclaim her as an icon of liberal humanism at war with the Church. The Harry Haters, who are as well-served by this nonsense in rallying their congregations as are the media mavens and academic atheists, are doing their part to paint Ms. Rowling now (via Dumbledore) as the gateway to sexual perversion as she was formerly the gateway to the occult. But as ZoeRose on this site and Jamie at Sword of Gryffindor among several others have pointed out, Dumbledore is hardly the poster child for homosexual love. On the spectrum of meanings given the word gay, he obviously is at the SSA and abstinent end. He fell in love with a brilliant young man, a love that was unrequited and which ended in the tragic death of Albus younger sister. If his homosexuality is evident in the books, it is only between-the-lines and cause, perhaps, for his understanding of and compassion for those who are different and excluded. Whatever SSA he feels, he has not shared these feelings with others that we know of, and, if it had been even the subject of speculation among witches and wizards, it would have been in Rita Skeeters expose, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. This is part of Ms. Rowlings Headmaster back-story, and as consistent as it is with the back-stories of Harry Potter characters we know (all heroes must be other with respect to the metanarrative) and as illuminating as it is about Dumbledores agony over Grindelwald and the death of his sister, that he loved another person of the same sex once, without acting on this SSA, hardly makes

him a bath house pedophile, martyr to political and social exclusion, or a gay agenda shining light that well see on a float in next years Mardi Gras orgy/parade (or whatever mental picture the word gay brings to mind for those immersed in either side of the Culture War). I do want to say that I would not be at all surprised if Ms. Rowling supported gay marriage, abortion rights, and the ethical treatment of animals. If she were a Greenpeace, NOW, and PETA hardliner and bank-roller or a Bush Republican wanting to cut down every tree before the Parousia, however, it wouldnt make a difference to me. The questions I have been after in everything Ive written about her books for publication in books or online have been Why are these books so popular? and Whence Potter-mania? Ms. Rowlings private beliefs, even her specific religious beliefs except inasmuch as they bleed into and show themselves substantively in her novels cannot help answer that question. Her readers dont know and cannot know what she believes so it cannot be what is driving the counter-cultural popularity of these books about the purity of soul and the power of love over death. What does help explain Potter-mania world-wide is the postmodern quality of Ms. Rowlings works. Like all movies and stories of our times, they advocate skepticism about the Grand Myth or metanarrative defining good/evil and those who belong/those who dont (the others). All the good guys in Ms. Rowlings books are other; Harry grew up among Muggles, Hermione is Muggle-born, Ron is poor, Sirius was a blood traitor and Azkaban prisoner, Lupin was a werewolf, Hagrid is a Half-giant, Snape had a broken heart, etc. In the Historical Period in which minority perspective is considered as important or more important than majority opinion because it sees more of the whole from the periphery than what those in the center can understand, Ms. Rowling celebrates a rainbow coalition of the disaffected against those claiming special privilege and power as their birth right. We love these stories in large part in so much as they reflect and resonate with the Rights and Justice questions and concerns of our times. The special resonance of these novels with women despite their being largely a boys story speaks to this postmodern quality. As of last Friday nights revelations, we now know that Dumbledore loved Grindelwald and regretted the consequences of this unrequited love his entire life. The Headmasters SSA as a young man and his remorse set him apart as much as his talents did and completes Ms. Rowlings Hall of Heroes, in which Dumbledore had been the odd man out for not being a freak in the eyes of the world. I suspect one more cause of the Carnegie Hall ovation was the relief and delight in that audience that this great man was also one of us in being different, imperfect as the metanarrative defines perfection, and in having a secret. The first literary key I discuss at every talk I give about Deathly Hallows is not postmodernism or Christian symbolism; it is narrative misdirection. The big twist of the last book consequent to Ms. Rowlings plotting and Harrys restricted vision was about Dumbledores identity, that he wasnt the god Harry and all others had imagined him to be and that his Machiavellian character and failings with regard to the use of power made Harry a better man than his mentor. This was a stunning revelation, and, as Robert Trexler has written, it is these failings that Ms. Rowling has offered in her story for our reflection and discussion, not his adolescent SSA. That the reporters at the New York event missed revelations and equally large ovations, as Dr. Sturgis noted, that were more meaningful than the Dumbledore one to

focus on this comment and to score culture war points is no surprise. That some Christians have become worked up by it and even become downcast is more disappointing but also anything but a change in routine (arent we all Daily Prophet subscribers and believers?). My hope is that, because of this media flare of little substance, though, that more serious readers will understand how it is the combination of Ms. Rowlings postmodern themes and her Christian artistry that have made her novels so popular. The headline Dumbledore is Gay obscured for most the fact that 1,000 sweepstakes winners from all over America flew to New York with a friend to hear an author read part of a chapter from a book and to answer questions. Not a cheap trip, right? The incredible event the reporters missed Friday night was what brought these readers to NYC. The power of these stories to engage hearts rather than anything that was said in Carnegie Hall was the big story they overlooked and the one-liner that became a headline is more important as a pointer to the magical power Ms. Rowling has given her Harry Potter novels. The Dumbledore story will fade. The larger story will not. My conclusions about the Dumbledore is gay media event and Fandom tempest, then, are: (1) The meaning of Ms. Rowlings words are best understood in the contexts of her connection that night with the 19 year old woman who asked the question and of the dynamics of the crowd at this Open Book Tour event; (2) The media presentation of the event as Ms. Rowlings endorsement of homosexuality and an anti-faith agenda was straight from Rita Skeeters notebook and part of their endless campaign to convince the public that Ms. Rowling is the enemy of their enemy, namely, the Church; (3) The anguished and disappointed response of many Christian readers to these reports was also according to Culture War formula and in keeping with a hyperextended understanding of the word gay; (4) Dumbledore is gay no more makes the books an invitation to homosexuality or contrary to orthodox Christian belief than Sorcerers Stone made them a gateway to the occult; and (5) If you want to understand the ten qualities of postmodern story telling and how Ms. Rowling weaves her engaging stories using all ten, you need to read the Postmodernism chapters of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader. (Id blush about the shameless plug except its the only thing I know in print or online that covers this subject.) Thank you to all the readers who wrote me yesterday asking for my opinion and for your patience in waiting for this response. I covet, as always, your comments and corrections.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Hog Pro Notes, Postmodern Polly, Unlocking Harry Potter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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