GET YER RL ISSUES OUT MAH FANTASY
Just caught the news on my flist, and we are super pissed!
In case some of you have missed the latest HP news (yea, I still pay attention once or twice a week or so, but NOTHING like I used to), She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has been going on a tour of the U.S., reading from Dudley Swallows. Needless to say, the only bit I've been interested in with all this (especially since The Bitch has been only allowing friggin' kids to go to these things) has been to see if she was going to release any more info about the characters.
Yea, well, she has, all right. She's either so bloated from the knowledge she's got a higher net worth than the Queen, or the rabid slashers have eaten her brain (Or maybe she's a Replicator!), as she's decided to announce that Albus Dumbledore is gay. (Well, in *her* canon, anyway)
*crickets chirp*
Yea, I only wish I was joking. Also, young Dumbledore/Grindelwald is now pretty much canon. *cries out as my fingers just lit on fire from typing that* WAAAAH!* *BLEEP BLEEP BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP! BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!*
Here's the linkage:
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/10/20/j-k-rowling-at-carnegie-hall-reveals-dumbledore-is-gay-neville-marries-hannah-abbott-and-scores-more
http://hpana.com/news.20228.html
Yea, it's a pretty safe bet that We Are Not Happy. Thankfully, some of those over at Leaky feel the same as me, and here's my personal favorite comment:
"Ugh, I am quite frankly upset at some of these comments. There was NO reason to assume or think that Dumbledore was gay. NONE! People who claimed to have “seen” it, couldn’t have…unless of course they also see Harry/Draco, Severus/Draco, Draco/Lucius, Dean/Seamus, Sirius/Remus, Tom Riddle/Harry, and all the other absolutely retarded fanon ships that have no basing in canon at all. I’m sorry, Jo, but you lose on this one…It really bums me to have to say that too, but there is no grounding in canon at all for this. There’s nothing wrong with having a gay person in the books, or even a strong male nonsterotypical gay person in the books, but there IS something wrong with saying something is there when it clearly isn’t-or if she was trying to put in in there, then she did a horrible job because nobody could pick up on it. Severus/Lily was far more predictable and a until-the-last-minute-dropped-in love story.
And Neville/Hannah? Did they ever speak? That’s also wierd….I adore this story, but I’m not sure how much I want to hear if Jo’s going to continue on like this. It sounds like she’s making it up as she goes to each different place. I want to hear more about what she planned, not more about what she is saying because she has to come up with an answer, like the John Dawlish thing….She has given herself time before the Hogwarts enclypedia. If I waited over seven years for the seventh book, I can wait another few years for a well-thought out backstory for the characters that she has created."
Posted by Tom on October 19, 2007 @ 11:36 PM
Here's some more of my favorite comments, under the cut:
"I think this is the only thing JKR has ever revealed about any of the characters that I wish she hadn’t. It just has nothing to do with the story, so what is the point of adding that after the books are done.
And I don’t want to know about any of the other staff either. We needed to know that Snape loved Lily and alway did as that was crucial to the plot. But Dumbledore? Totally not necessary, and it really spoils the character for me. Sorry, I don’t mean to offend, but what someone does privately is not something I need or want to know."
:-(
Posted by Eeyore on October 19, 2007 @ 10:35 PM
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"But what’s the point of announcing now that Dumbledore is (or was, you know, what with his being dead and all) gay? Did JKR even THINK about giving Dumbledore a sexual orientation when she was writing the books? If so, why bother to reveal it now? I, too, always thought Dumbledore was asexual, and that his friendship with Grindelwald was exactly just that, friendship. I bet JKR went over to FandomWank and read the scandal about HP fans complaining about the lack of gay characters in her books, then decided to be politically correct and make Dumbledore gay. And if I am right (which I sadly think I am, because I see no other reason for this VERY late announcement), then it’s a cheap move on her part, because she did it only to get more publicity, and not because she particularly cares about promoting gay rights or fighting against discrimination."
Posted by Naoko on October 20, 2007 @ 12:10 AM
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"I always thought of DD as asexual. He just seemed above the human desires to me."
Posted by Brenda on October 20, 2007 @ 12:11 AM
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"BROKEBACK POTTER ALERT"
Posted by sarah on October 20, 2007 @ 01:12 AM *snerk*
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"Sorry, if JKR had “guts” she would have done this three-four books ago and faced the opposition BEFORE all of her amazing book and movie deals. She didn’t. This sits entirely the wrong way with me."
Posted by Em on October 20, 2007 @ 01:16 AM
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"“Sorry, if JKR had “guts” she would have done this three-four books ago and faced the opposition BEFORE all of her amazing book and movie deals. She didn’t. This sits entirely the wrong way with me.”"
I agree. This was just uncalled for. It should’ve been done in the books, if she wanted to make a statement about gay rights and so forth.
Danny: "“Just face is. JK said “I’ve ALWAYS pictured him as gay”. Seriously, nothing has changed. You might not like it, but DD is the same man he’s always been. If you let a little thing like what gender he is attracted to get you so worked up, you’ve missed the ENTIRE point of the HP series.”"
How have we missed the entire series just because we’re upset Jo mentions this now, months after the book and series were completed? Just because she’s seen him as “gay” doesn’t mean all the fans did. If she thought his sexuality was an important factor in his character, then she should’ve included that in book 7, when she was revealing his past. His sexuality wasn’t discussed. All we saw was a friendship, not a love affair. And I really would’ve believed that Snape was gay before I would’ve Dumbledore! Mainly because Snape had all that tension towards James!"
Posted by Flush on October 20, 2007 @ 01:30 AM *********************************
"Molly et al., it affects me when it keeps getting crammed down my throat that I have to accept your opinion or I’m a bigot. If it was all just live and let live I’d agree…but it isn’t. The whole point behind making DD gay wasn’t about enrichment of the story…it was about JK being part of the “in” crowd and yelling out “hey…look at me…I’m one of you, then in crowd, the cutting edge…hear me roar.” and getting brownie points for it."
Posted by sally on October 20, 2007 @ 01:31 AM
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This comment made me think "Oh, so *THIS* is how she's going to fill in the plot hole of just why it took 5 years and lots of deaths to get Dumbledore to stop Grindelwald!"
"This news confirms so much I had suspected about Albus. He had to battle the one person he truly loved in order to save the world. That adds SO MUCH to the story, folks. That whole battle scene is so much more raw and gut-wrenching when you put yourself in his place. MASTERFULLY done Jo. Masterfully.
- Just another Soldier in Dumbledore’s Army"
Posted by Joshua on October 19, 2007 @ 11:48 PM
I'm still puzzling through how I feel about this (Other than rekindled loathing and hatred, of course), but I have to say....I would have been perfectly cool with this if we'd known from the beginning, or at least before the last two or three books. This whole bit now strikes me as not only a publicity stunt, but as an attempt for JKR to get some "street cred", if you will.
Lots of other comments over there are going on about how they "knew all along" and about all the (non-existent) subtext and crap (Hey, if my brain can't find any dirty bits in there, then trust, they ain't there), especially how they knew because of Dumbledore wearing the plum-colored robes when he went to go visit the young Tom Riddle at the orphanage for the first time. And they accuse *us* of stereotyping gays? *massive eyeroll, smacks head as eye almost gets away*
Anyway, that's it, guys. We all know how sucky Dudley Swallows was (Well, at least as sucky as *I* found it), but this is absolutely it. The camel's back hasn't just been broken by this straw - the camel has been vaporized. My Gryffindor shirt is going in the drawer, the posters are coming off the walls tomorrow, the books are going out of sight (out of mind!), and most damning of all, I'm deleting all the fan sites from my Favorite Places. We shall no longer be reporting on any of her attempts to cover plot holes any of her interviews, and to be frank, though I feel the tiniest of trickles of curiousity of what *else* she's going to come out with, I'm killing the urge like Chihiro squashed the slug in Spirited Away. ("You squashed it!", lollers)
Teh 'fic is also staying off the internets - it'll still be a fun toy for me to play with and useful for bouncing off new ideas, but thas' it, folks. Damn, all this makes me want to write in a gay character or two just to show her how it's done. :(
Yea, so what's he next thing we're going to find out? That Dumbledore was really a three-headed alien starchild?