Harry Potter: JK Rowling Reveals Dumbledore was Gay | /Film

My thoughts:

1) Why is this news? The past two days I’ve been seeing this story all over the internet, even on so-called “legitimate news” sites. What is wrong with people that someone talking about something that’s not even in the book can cause such an uproar?

2) I’m sorry that the world has largely stopped talking about you, J.K., but that doesn’t mean you get to start making news by just declaring things about the fiction you wrote. I have no problem with Dumbledore being gay, but for goodness sake, PUT IT IN THE FLIPPIN’ BOOK. Don’t say you’re done with a series of books then come out with all sorts of “oh yeah, one more thing:” stuff to shake things up. Write another book. Sure, you’ll be a hypocrite, but I’m OK with that. That’s a lot better than someone who is quite obviously just trying to milk this for all its worth without actually expending any of the effort required to legitimately do so. Either write more books or shut the crap up. (I’d prefer the latter. Thanks.)

With the world hinging on the outcome of Harry Potter’s saga, J.K. was in a position to do some really interesting things with the characters and the universe. Were there problems with the stories, the universe, the plotting, etc? Of course there were; there usually are. But with all eyes suddenly upon her, she could easily have explained away many of those problems and made the weary, irritated Potter fans like myself happy. For instance, I had really hoped that the reason behind the childishness of the magic universe (Hufflepuff Expellaramus Jiggledylicker!) was due to the fact that the battle Harry had been fighting was one with terminal cancer alone in a state-run orphanage, that creating a world inside his head where he is not only unique, but SPECIAL helped him to cope with reaality. Personifying his illness into someone he can fight, and BY GEORGE ensure that no other kids have to deal with it. (Seriously, it makes sense.) If not terminal cancer, at the very least awareness of the plights of unwanted orphans could have been raised, sparking thousands of children to pester parents into getting one of their very own. All that money wasted on stripey scarves, wands and Bertie Botts Beans could have been much better suited to making the lives of your own little orphan better — not to mention it probably would have been cheaper. (I have, after all, purchased more than my share of those damned over-priced beans.) Sure, I respect the cool things J.K. did manage to put in, I just wonder how much better they could have been had they been written by someone else.

Sadly, it turns out that it’s all silly childishness because that was the best she could come up with. Look, I enjoyed the Potter books quite a bit, but that didn’t stop me from wishing that they were actually well-written and not something that I’d need to feel ashamed about reading. Compare the Potter books with something like Philip Pullman’s fantastic His Dark Materials trilogy and they just look like something out of my 10th-grade creative writing class. (Full disclosure, I was not IN said creative writing class, I was a TA. This means that I got to read ALL the things that were written by the students.) If you enjoyed Harry Potter even remotely and would like to experience something similar, but that also touches upon many aspects of the human condition, faith, responsibility and subjugation — and would like to be emotionally affected by them and made to think — then you simply can’t go wrong with His Dark Materials. (Plus, there’s only 3 books, and they’re already written. At at LEAST a 12th-grade level. And the tragically identifiable gay people in those are actually gay IN the stories.)

To re-iterate: it is really lame to write some books and then to go around talking about things that aren’t actually in them. Unless you are George Lucas, you don’t get to add stuff. Once people have stayed up all night drawing lightning bolts on their foreheads (and their children’s foreheads) wearing stupid glasses and scarves to read the words you worked so hard to sell to them, then that’s it. You had plenty of opportunity to put those things into the books where people who care about them (and could conceivably change their outlook on life accordingly as well. “Hmm, Dumbledore was a great guy, and HE was gay… maybe my gay neighbors are all right too.”) could read them, but YOU DIDN’T. So either write another book and put anything you’d like to add into that one, or SHUT UP. Better yet, do both.

Defined tags for this entry: books, Harry Potter, j.k. rowling