“J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore and Grindenwald had ‘Incredibly Intense’ sexual relationship”
Freudian slip?
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More like the Hitler character.
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Everything you say about your art that isn’t in your art is criticism of your art.
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I get it, it’s a valid criticism. But I also feel our culture has changed at a rapid pace since the 90s. She’s a straight white woman and considering LGBT issues just wasn’t on her mind. Remember when it was a huge deal when Ellen came out, now it’s not a big deal at all. I’m not saying that as an excuse, just that it’s not just her, it was the whole culture that made these things hard to talk about. And I’m very glad it has changed. She’s apparently trying to “have it both ways” or maybe she’s just trying to keep up in a ham handed way. I dunno, I feel it’s better than her being very anti-lgbt and denying that exists at all in her characters in the wizarding world. My guess is if she started writing the series in 2015 or even 2010 she might have included some LGBT representation… or not… what do I know…
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Her books are rabidly heteronormative. Straight arguments that these were kids books and that sexuality does not make an appearance ignore all the cis-het nuclear family representation, all the adult cis-het couplings represented, all the juvenile cis-het courting skills development, and all the primary character cis-het relationships by the end of the series.
Queerness in the wizarding world is rendered utterly invisible, coincidentally along with the wizarding artist/performing arts students.
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I also wonder, if you spoke with her candidly if she wouldn’t admit that it IS a (valid) criticism of her art?
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There are more issues with Rowling.
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I’m not saying the books aren’t heteronormative. I’m saying the stories are structured in such a way that it makes sense how the main character would know little if anything about his headmaster’s past sexual relationships.
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That’s fair, but there’s also a third-person seemingly omniscient narrative perspective in the books (e.g., the opening paragraphs of the first book) which also does not know of any queer characters.
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Those passages are few and far between, though.
I think of it this way: I attended middle school and high school around the same time that the Harry Potter books are set (late 80s to mid 90s). If one was to write a series of novels based on that period of my life it would include several LGBT characters, but only a handful who I knew to be LGBT at the time because A) I was a naive kid who didn’t think about it much and B) at that time our society was still much less open and accepting about that sort of thing. Now imagine a society where many of the social norms are still literally stuck in the Middle Ages and it’s not hard to imagine why a character like Dumbledore would keep quiet about his sex life, especially around his students.
Even real-life magician and warrior against ignorance James Randi didn’t come out publicly until 2010 at age 81.
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She should have said that they were in the closet due to the societal discrimination that extended to the Hogwarts Board and the Ministry of Magic - and show what happened to some employed at both places that were outed.
Which is why some joined Voldemort- he didn’t give a shit.
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Duchamp decided on the title “L.H.O.O.Q.” (a phonetic pun which translates to “She’s Got a Hot Arse”).
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Interesting. But in that theoretical book about your life, just because a particular character is ignorant of something, doesn’t mean the reader can’t be shown what’s really going down.
Second, “it would be a realistic reason” doesn’t wash for Harry Potter. Very little of it is “Middle Ages” in a realistic sense. The world of He-Man is more “realistically” Middle Ages than the land of Harry Potter, in a lot of ways.
More simply:
She could’ve done more, but she didn’t, which is her prerogative for her own thing, but that means she’s not going to get full credit for doing something she didn’t fully do. (She can still have some credit for the parts she did.)
She can choose less, but that doesn’t mean she had to choose less.
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…you’re right. I’m pretty sure I misclicked which entry to reply to, though I don’t recall 100% who I did mean to reply to.
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I agree, but again I don’t see her holding up Dumbledore as an example of how she was ahead of the curve on including LGBT characters in literature. More like “this is where my mind was at when I imagined this character’s backstory.”
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Dumbledore and Grindenwald had ‘Incredibly Intense’ sexual relationship
Hmmmm, ya don’t say.
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Once again, she highlights a sexual dimension to her characters that surely motivates them, yet—for reasons unexplained—remains unspoken and unseen.
Oh, I think I know why: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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Because this isn’t the Harry Potter books, it’s extended universe stuff (the new Fantastic Beasts series). Previously, Grindelwald was not much more than a bit player in the last HP book/movie (well part 1 of the last movie 
).
Yes.
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