One reporter reacts to JKR's revelations

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie"
<sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> > Del replies:
> > Thanks for the clear answer!
> > 
> > I guess my next question would then be along the lines of:
> > "what do you call "trampling on my rights?""
> > 
> > Let's take the example of homosexuality, since it is the 
> > one creating so many waves in the HP fandom lately: how 
> > does saying "I think homosexuality is wrong and I don't 
> > like the idea of DD being gay" trample on anybody's rights?
> 
> Magpie:
> I would guess what was being said wasn't that it was trampling on 
> rights to say that, but that the reason you were saying it is 
> bigotry because you don't want gay people to be represented in 
> literature the way straight people are, or portrayed positively. 
> they ought to not be allowed in books that you want to read.
> 
> That's if your objection is bigoted, of course. If your objection 
> is, for instance, that you liked to imagine marrying DD and now you 
> feel like he wouldn't be attracted to you, then it's no different 
> than being upset at learning Neville married Hannah Abbott instead 
> of you!

Carol responds:
There's also, of course, the question of whether sexuality of any kind
belongs in books for young readers at all. (It isn't in the books
themselves, except for snogging in hallways, only in the post-DH
interview.) Setting aside the 115-year-old DD, some parents are
concerned about the behavior of the younger characters. (JKR herself
said that she didn't want Hermione to become pregnant as a teenager.)
I'm pretty sure that those parents were happy to see sixteen-year-old
Ginny left behind to attend school (at least until it became too
dangerous) and Ron and Hermione holding hands and hugging but saving
their first kiss until the end of the book. Note that all of the
characters who have children, even Tom Riddle's parents, are married.
It may be a conservative view of sexuality, but it's a safe one for
parents who don't want their children to engage in sexual activity,
and particularly not to become pregnant or impregnate another
teenager, until they're emotionally mature and out of school. And
suddenly, into this apparently safe model world, comes the suggestion
that the aged mentor may have had sex with another teenage boy, one
who was sixteen at the time. It isn't in the books, but many parents
may now have a different view of the books and wonder whether they're
safe for their children to read after all. (The level of violence in
HBP and, especially, DH, may be a more legitimate concern.)

My own concern, however, is with JKR's confusion between the
characters who exist in her imagination and the characters who appear
on the pages and her lack of respect for the reader's freedom to
imagine them on his or her own, without after-the-fact pronouncements
by the author.

Suppose that, when confronted with the question about DD ever loving
anyone, JKR had said, "Well, as you discover in Deathly Hallows, he
once had an intense intellectual and emotional fascination with
another brilliant and arrogant boy, whose faults he refused to see
because he idealized him. That's as close as Dumbledore ever came to
loving anyone. After that, he shut himself off from intimate
relationships of any kind."

The questioner might then ask, "You mean he was in love with
Grindelwald?" And JKR might answer, "Well, he was infatuated with him,
anyway. But the blinders came off after Ariana's death."

And the questioner might say, "Are you saying that Dumbledore is, or
was, gay?"

And JKR might say, "That's how I imagine him, yes. But it's up to the
reader to imagine the relationship for him or herself." (She did say
that children would imagine it as a friendship. Apparently, she didn't
realize that many adults would also see it as a friendship, in my
case, as an intense intellectual friendship in which each saw the
other as a mirror of himself.)

IOW, she should have left the door open for other canon-based
interpretations, including those in which sexual attraction plays no
part or only a small, unconscious part.

FWIW, I don't like adult books that bring in a lot of sex, especially
detailed sex, either. Some things are best left to the reader's
imagination, or the reader's discretion. And JKR did that part well,
keeping the DD/GG relationship off-page where each reader can imagine
it for him or herself, or not imagine anything beyond what's on the page.

Personally, I'm a lot more interested in what made Grindelwald go bad
(and what exactly he did that got him kicked out of Durmstrang,
another detail that JKR kept off the page, perhaps wisely).

It's not about prejudice; it's about people's comfort levels and their
expectations for a particular book. And it's about the author not
knowing where her "authority" ends and not respecting canon-based
interpretaions that don't incorporate her post-publication remarks.

Carol, really wishing that people would not assume that a person who
disagrees with them is a bigot and would consider the possibility that
the other person might actually have legitimate concerns