So guys, about that Dumbledore thing

[evilhippo]

I think probably 90% of my friendslist has mentioned it now, and to save myself from posting a ranting reply to every single one, I should probably give my two cents. (I already ranted at solitaryjane...)

Because (I will probably never be forgiven for this by fandom at large), I'm probably one of the only ones who's thoroughly annoyed at this. Not because Dumbledore is gay (that's kind of cool, and I'm glad Rowling can acknowledge that there was subtext), but because JKR is freaking nuts since she discovered her own fandom and she's been self-indulgently pandering to that group of (rather obviously equally nuts at times) people since then. What's written is written. What's fandom is fandom. The two are separate for a reason, and if I could go back in time, I would personally make sure JKR never discovered her fandom until the end of the books. Because I don't think she thought of Dumbeldore as gay while she was writing the books. I think this is retroactive bull to counteract the discovery that she ended the last book with (and basically stuck completely to) a completely heterosexual "happy ending," and that wasn't likely to be 1) realistic or 2) make the slash fandom happy, and the slash fandom was the only bit of fandom she seems to have ignored. (And that ending read like fanfic, gah.)

And so, I think I should probably read the books again before I completely dismiss JKR, but... let's just say I'm kind of annoyed. You can't retroactively distinguish characters as... anything, really. If (this will be the worst comparison ever, I'm warning you now) Shakespeare had come on stage after Othello and told everyone "Oh hai guyz btw Iago is flaming!" he probably would've been egged. (Or rather, I think the point is that I would've egged him.)

And so... yeah. A really English-major sort of complaint, but... JKR, leave your books alone. (I like overanalyzing things! Definitive answers are not cool! Especially when there's no reason for them.)

Edit (slightly later): After giving this far more thought than necessary I've come to the conclusion that I can prove JKR's retconning in two words: Rita Skeeter. If Dumbledore was gay don't you think she would've said something? (My memory is not perfect, something may have been implied, but I sure don't remember it.) I mean, if homosexuality even existed previous to this point in the HP universe (and I'm pretty sure it didn't), wouldn't that be a pretty good indictment of his character? Hey guys, why didn't Dumbledore marry? Hey guys, don't you think that's a bit odd? I mean, as much as it'd be fun to pretend that she couldn't have attacked his character from that angle in the wizarding world, that they were a group that could accept homosexuality, there's just no foundation for it. There just is. no. gay. in Harry Potter. Except for the bits we have fun reading into. (And maybe this is just a lack of respect on my part, not believing that JKR was writing on multiple levels with subtext.) It's a world where everyone gets married, and lives happily ever after in heteronormativity. I think the epilogue made that abundantly clear. And when it came down to "wow, my world has no gay people," who was left? Who was left that wasn't dead before she could've expressed their love for someone in no uncertain terms, or already attached? It's just Dumbledore. He was the only choice. So there. That's what's got me all riled up. It's straight-up retconning. And that's not cool. Also, it's going to annoy me a whole lot when people start seriously asking questions like "How does this affect the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore?" like they're real people and it's scandalous because behind the scenes Dumbledore could've been hitting on him. Because people will stop seeing Dumbledore as a nice old man with a twinkle in his eye who was eons of eccentric but brilliant, and start seeing him as this label. Because that's what people do sometimes, and there's no foundation against that kind of thinking in the HP universe because she wasn't writing in those terms at all, and so there will be nothing to stop people from taking Dumbledore's homosexuality any which way they want to. I don't want to see Dumbledore become Old Man Sexual Deviant. (I guess the quota of books that were bought just to be burned by religious fanatics wasn't met for the seventh book.)

... I will probably never stop overanalyzing pop culture. Ever. Gah.