Written by ALEX DUNKIN
For all of those who haven’t been following the craze that is Harry Potter it is time to hear that the powerful headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, is gay. He is no longer in the closet having adventures in Narnia thanks to the author of the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling.
The outing occurred during a book reading when a 19-year-old fan asked a question. “Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?” asked the fan.
“My truthful answer to you…I always thought of Dumbledore as gay,” said JK in response.
“Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald (ex-best friend turned evil wizard), and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.
“To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent, but he met someone as brilliant as he was and, rather like Bellatrix, he was very drawn to this brilliant person and horribly, terribly let down by him,” she said.
“In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying, ‘I knew a girl once, whose hair…’ I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, ‘Dumbledore’s gay!’”
The fact that Dumbledore wears purple dresses and has a flaming bird, a phoenix, as his pet never held relevance to Dumbledore’s sexuality until it was specifically stated by the creator of the character.
Once said it raises a lot of questions about Dumbledore being gay, not so much about why he is gay, but why we need this extra bit of information about him.
Some would say there was no need to know the headmaster’s sexuality because Dumbledore is such an almighty and wonderful character that he doesn’t need to have a sexual preference.
On the other hand giving Dumbledore a sexuality humanises the character. The possibility of such a wizard existing is emphasised by placing a common human element to him which allows the readers to feel closer to the character.
Either way having a gay role model, even a fictional one, is a leap forward for our society in showing acceptance to those who have a different sexuality. The powerful figure of Dumbledore is not impacted by his sexuality. This can reflect into real society and we can see that who a person is does not alter according to sexuality or gender.
For all of you who are reading this and never received the letter of invitation from Hogwarts don’t worry. I am sure that your letter is just lost in the mail and they would accept mature aged entries.
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3 Comments
“My truthful answer to you…I always thought of Dumbledore as gay,” said JK in response. LOL really? wow.
Pretty sure this ‘gay’ revelation is common knowledge. This article is a bit, shall we say, behind the times. No pun intended.