Comments on: Bootboy: There’s something queer about Harry Potter

By: Dumbledore is gay! « Tut. Sulk. Tut.

Dumbledore is gay! « Tut. Sulk. Tut. — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:45:37 +0000

[...] Oct 21st, 2007 by nadineoregan Yes, indeed. At a recent talk, Rowling revealed that Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. Turns out Dumbledore was in love with his great rival Gellart Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago n a battle. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, saying that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.” It’s a great twist: you wish, though, there had been a way for her to make it more apparent in the books. There was a very interesting article on the subject published by Dermod Moore of Hot Press recently. Check it out on his blog here. [...]

By: Ronirokit!

Ronirokit! — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:02:02 +0000

Seems he fell for the wrong guy though.

…and then she said:

“If I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!”

By: Dermod

Dermod — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:40:09 +0000

Of course it helps, Ronirokit!!!! Fresh off the press, Dumbledore is gay! Makes perfect sense to me. The staggering thing is why something so vital to his character, that adds such a poignancy to his struggle, is left out of the books themselves.

By: Ronirokit!

Ronirokit! — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:28:25 +0000

Just an update for you... maybe you've already seen it. Having not read the books I don't know if this helps any.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:54:37 +0000

I haven’t read JKR, but I have heard Stephen Fry reading one of the books on the radio in my car, which was a queer experience, albeit in a sexless fashion.

Perhaps JK was leaving the field open to all those female slash and fanfic writers who have eagerly filled in the missing queerness.

Or maybe she was just being a very shrewd marketing woman. Homo stuff in kids books isn’t perhaps the best way to make yourself one of the richest women in the world.

By: George Reilly

George Reilly — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:16:48 +0000

Well said. Homosexuality is indeed conspicuously absent from Potter’s world. The struggle for identity amongst LGBT youth should resonate with Harry.

If you’ve seen the X-Men movies, the correspondence between teenage mutants and young gay people is clear to those who are paying attention. One boy’s mother asks him if he has ever tried not being a mutant. No surprise, really, given that Bryan Singer (director) and Ian McKellen are both openly gay.

There are at least two more glaring absences in Potter’s world: religion and America. It’s inconceivable that religious bigotry wouldn’t be a problem for the witches and wizards if the muggles became aware of them: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Moreover, they celebrate the Christmas holidays in a completely religion-free way.

European countries are mentioned regularly, and some of the Hogwarts’ students are clearly of Indian descent (the Patel twins) or Chinese (Cho). But there are no Americans or Aussies, or even any hint that other continents exist.