Warning: there are spoilers to the Harry Potter series as written in this editorial. If you haven’t finished reading the books, you may want to bookmark this page until you do finish.
If you’ve been anywhere near the popular media news in the last day, you’ve probably heard that author J.K. Rowling dropped a bombshell on her Harry Potter universe: to wit, that Albus Dumbledore is gay. She made the revelation at New York City’s Carnegie Hall last night during her Open Book Tour. Following the announcement, I had several phone calls and emails from people who wanted to make sure I knew, in order to announce it on SFScope.
But my immediate, visceral reaction was “I don’t think it’s news.” Upon further reflection, I’ve reasoned out why I felt that way, and I still feel it. Whatever the author now says about the characters in her books, whatever motivations she wants to impute to them, or proclivities, or secret alliances, it doesn’t matter. If it’s not in print in the books (and she’s not planning to rewrite them, a la George Lucas and his movies), then it doesn’t really matter. During my conversation with Rowling’s US editor, Arthur Levine (at the time Deathly Hallows was published), I asked if he felt an emptiness, the end of something with the publication of the final volume. He sagely told me that, though the books have been written, there will always be readers for whom they are new, and that ten years from now, a ten-year-old will pick up the book for the first time and be entranced. Hearing of Rowling’s decree today reminded me of that ten-year-old a decade from now: he won’t have heard this bit of information, won’t find it anywhere in the books, and won’t have the experience of reading them for the first time damaged in any way by not “knowing” Dumbledore is gay. So it doesn’t matter for the artistic integrity of the books.
Even from a retcon point of view, I don’t see that the revelation changes anything I thought of the books as I read them. None of the adults in the seven-book series have any overt sexuality, other than the presence of spouses: we know Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are married; Tonks is smitten with Lupin; Harry’s long-dead parents obviously had a sexual relationship, as do the Dursleys; and Hagrid is smitten with Madame Maxime. But beyond those few couples, no adult does anything the least bit sexual—McGonagle, Snape, Rosemerta, Sirius, Voldemort, and every other adult we come into contact with—if they have sexual lives, or even sexual feelings, our main viewpoint characters don’t know, and the presence or absence of those feelings has no effect on the tale Rowling has told.
To now come forth and say “Well, Dumbledore was gay,” doesn’t matter in the least. Whether he loved Grindelwald sexually or platonically as a friend, the result of Grindelwald turning to the dark side is the same. Dumbledore makes no sexual advances to any student we’re aware of, nor to any teacher or parent. He’s completely nonsexual, but that’s fine. The books are told, by and large, from the point of view of students growing through their teenage years: parents and teachers, from that point of view, are never sexual.
Perhaps what has me most “upset” about this revelation is that it strikes me as a back-sliding from our growing culture of acceptance. And maybe my views are tempered by living in New York City, but I truly thought we were evolving cultural mores of acceptance. I know in my life, I don’t think of my friends’ and acquaintances’ sexuality unless it’s overtly part of our relationship or otherwise made explicit. But when I meet somebody for the first time, their chromosome complement or interests don’t impinge on our relationship unless they make it so. But to have Rowling come out and say “this character, who never had sex in my seven books, is one way or the other,” for no good reason that I can see, strikes me as wrong. Perhaps it was just a flippant answer to a question that she hadn’t answered in the books (because it wasn’t part of the story), and if that’s the case, fine. But it has the feel of a revelation made for no purpose.
So I say again: can we conclude from the books themselves that Dumbledore is straight or gay? No. But do we care? Does it matter? Again, no.