Just because the final book in the Harry Potter series has been released, that doesn’t mean we’ve heard all of the story. While appearing at Carnegie Hall to a full audience, noted author J.K. Rowling answered an audience question on whether the infamously dead Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore ever found “true love” with the surprise reveal that “Dumbledore is gay.”
This elicited both gasps and applause from the audience. Rowling explained that Dumbledore actually had romantic feelings towards his rival Gellert Grindelwald, a character killed in a battle between good and evil. Sadly, the two were on opposite sides, leaving Dumbledore “horribly, terribly let down”.
This underlying tragic romance had remained unspoken and unknown to the general audience… at least to some. “Oh, my god, the fan fiction,” Rowling was quoted with a laugh, proving that the woman truly knows her audience.
From the Yahoo News article here.
October 21st, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Wow, a HEATHERS reference. Nice!
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:02 am
I, too, quite enjoyed the Heathers reference.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:52 am
I didn’t really want to know this.
Not that I care that a Harry Potter character could possibly be gay, but rather that it’s thinking of Dumbledore in a sexual way at all. It’s like seeing your grandparents doing it. Or finding out Santa Claus used to be quite the pimp in his younger days. Or that Papa Smurf was getting freaky on occasion with Smurfette. Or that the Pope… well, best to leave the Catholic jokes alone.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:34 am
Oh god, great Heathers ref. And it ain’t just Dumbledore [grin]:
comic strip
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:43 am
Best Title Ever.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
So it’s revealed in a news conference, not in the actual books? Yeah, Rowling’s a towering literary genius. She’s NOT a media whore, not at all.
I’d think homosexuals with half a brain would bemoan the way their “lifestyle” is constantly used for cheap attention. I think it’s funny, personally.
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Sean, somebody asked her a question and she answered it. Don’t overthink things.
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Meh, I didn’t pick that up from the books. So I think she might be wrong.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Authorial interference from outside of the text always annoys me, even (apparently) in children’s books. Let the text speak for itself!
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:06 pm
The text does speak for itself. If you don’t want to think about anything that wasn’t in the book itself, don’t read anything that an author says other than the books. Don’t read blogs, don’t go to sites like newsarama.
If you *do* read blogs, con reports, and sites like newsarama, that’s where the problem is, not in the author. Some people do want to see the behind-the-scene’s stuff, and one of the primary jobs of those kinds of sites is to provide it.