Again about JKR and Dumbledore

[fpb]

In her private life, JK Rowling is a fairly typical, though not slavish, member of the moderately educated left. Her honesty to her own imagination, though, has been leading her in all sorts of directions which seem increasingly incompatible with the ordinary sort of left-wing attitudes prevalent in Britain. In her private life, after a few

Comments

[solitary_summer]

The other thing I take issue with is the 'seduction into evil'.

Now I at least partly agree with you and everyone else who (if maybe for reasons different than yours) said that the ill-fated Dumbledore/Grindelwald romance isn't the positive representation of a gay relationship one might have wished for, but I believe JKR is seeing the whole thing a bit differently and less negatively than you do.

What said was that being blinded by love does excuse Dumbledore to an extent, meaning the real problem was a different one and lay deeper than that. The arrogance, the dangerous intellectual pride were already there before meeting Grindelwald, and while he may have been (willfully) blind to some the extremes the person he loved was ready to go, he was far from innocent. And this, in JKR's eyes, was his sin, not falling in love with another boy. She repeatedly puts the emphasis on a meeting of equals, and it's noticeable that no one who might have had an interest in doing so - not Bathilda Bagshot, not Aberforth, not even Dumbledore himself, casts him in the part of the seduced victim in this scenario. And this is the reason for his reluctance to take over political power, the fact that he knows himself and his weaknesses. It's not love he subsequently becomes suspicious of, it's power.

One may or may not agree with this stance (personally I mostly do), but it's clear from the books, starting with Harry' sorting, that JKR is deeply suspicious of the combination of ambition and intellectual brilliance, unless it's couched within a firm framework of ethics, tempered by a certain amount of humility and self-questioning, or, better still, counter-balanced by love, friendship and an innate sense of what's good and right.

You might say this is splitting hairs and that it amounts to the same thing in the end, but I believe in JKR's eyes these differences are relevant, and you're making the whole thing sound quite a bit dirtier than need be.

[johncwright]

"the positive representation of a gay relationship one might have wished for..."

Why in the world would one wish for a positive representation of a gay relationship? It is like wishing for a positive representation of adultery, or paedophilia, or incest, or bestiality, or bondage fetishism or any other unhealthy sexual abnormality.

Worse, it is like wishing for a positive representation of pride, gluttony, ire, envy. Lust is a sin even when it is natural.

The idea that homosexuality is healthy or good for you is a lie: it destroys marriages, destroys lives, leads men to abandon their young children, leads men to regard young children as sexual, and it offers nothing but pain, sorrow, and self-loathing.

I see nothing amiss with tolerating homosexuality; but you are very wrong to encourage it, to tell people it's okay. You might as well offer a drunkard a drink, or tell someone addicted to gambling that betting on the ponies is a sign of bravery.

[solitary_summer]

I'm commenting merely to acknowledge that I've read your reply, with no little amount of disgust I might add. Our opinions on this subject differ so far that I see no point wasting time and energy arguing with you.

[fpb]

John, this is not only rude but disastrously silly. IN case you had not noticed, solitary_summer (who, for your information, is a fine person and a first-rate artist) does not agree with you that homosexuality is a sin. For that matter, neither does the Church - homosexual PRACTICE is what it condemns. Your coming on like a steamroller, expecting everyone to even understand, let alone accept, your categories, is not useful, and will only lead her not to listen to you in any other context. And incidentally make matters harder for anyone else who wanted to argue with her. If you want to intervene on my LJ in the future, kindly do so politely and with an effort to understand the other person's position, or else, much though I like you, I will be forced to ban you.