TBAY: Curiouser and Curiouser

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 71825

***Little disclaimer: The main discussion of this post comes from a 
private email correspondance I had with Bonnie. The form of this 
post is Lewis Carroll's. I've begun to wonder if I have a single 
original thought in my head... Kirstini***

"Kneasy," Kirstini sighed. "I've already told you that I don't 
believe Snape *did* abandon his family. Now, will you take this 
child off my leg so that I can be on my way? I'm more than a little 
worried about the heavy artillery over there –" here she gestured 
over into the bay, where on the SILK SHIRTS a tiny figure in a 
captain's hat was being forcibly restrained by all the other crew 
members, who were shaking their free fists in the direction of the 
FADED SCARF. 
"Fine," Kneasy said, sulkily, muttering an incantation under his 
breath. To Kirstini's great relief, the hook-nosed child shot off 
her leg, and landed on the deck of the barge in a puff of dust and 
splinters.
"Eugh!" said Kirstini, surveying the grease-stains on her overcoat. 
However, Kneasy had begun to act very strangely. Taking her arm, he 
began to escort her off the barge. Kirstini immediately clamped her 
hands over those pockets with valuables in them.
At the jetty, Kneasy faced round and said, "A pawn goes two squares 
in its first move, you know. So you'll go *very* quickly round 
Theory Bay – by railway, I should imagine – and you'll find yourself 
in the Royal George in no time – but you make no remark?"
"I – I didn't know I had to make one just then," Kirstini faltered 
out.
"You *should* have said," Kneasy went on in a tone of grave 
reproof, "'It's extremely kind of you to tell me all this' – 
however, we'll suppose it said."
He did not wait for Kirstini to curtsey, but walked
quickly back to the gangplank, where he turned for a moment to say
`good-bye,' and then hurried on to the deck.

  How it happened, Kirstini never knew, but exactly as he came to
the deck, he was gone.  Whether he vanished into the air,
or whether he ran quickly into the cabin (`and he CAN run very
fast!' thought Kirstini), there was no way of guessing, but he was
gone.
"Thank goodness I'm off that barge." Kirstini said to 
herself. "Crying Sirius fan indeed. I think I'll go down the other 
way,' she said after a pause:
`and perhaps I may visit the  George later on.  Besides, I do
so want to get back to  the Souvenir Shack!'
With this she ran down the hill and jumped over the
first of the six little brooks.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

  `Theories on potentially homosexual characters in the 
Pottersverse, please!' said the Mod, putting her head in at the 
window.  In a moment everybody was holding out a theory:  they were 
about the same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill
the carriage.

  `Now then!  Show your theory, child!' the Mod went on, looking 
angrily at Kirstini.  And a great many voices all said together 
(`like the chorus of a song,' thought Kirstini), `Don't keep her 
waiting, child!  Why, her time is worth a thousand Galleons a 
minute!'
`Umm, alright then,' Kirstini said in a frightened tone: 
`Ultimately, as I said in my earlier post, I don't believe that 
there will be a gay character in any of the books. I think that the 
series itself is far too conservative in its depictions of social 
strictures to go this far. I think Sirius and his utter lack of 
interest in girls, combined with his ongoing devotion to James, is 
as close as we're going to get. '  And again the chorus of voices 
went on.  `Yes, but what about his relationship with Remus? One 
brotherly embrace is worth a thousand Galleons an arm !'
`I shall dream about a thousand Galleons tonight, I know I shall!' 
thought Kirstini.
All this time the Mod was looking at her, first through a telescope, 
then through a microscope, and then through a set of Omnioculars.  
At last she said, `You're travelling the wrong way,' and shut up the 
window and went away.
`I do not believe that Remus and Sirius were ever a couple.' said a 
woman sitting opposite Kirstini, dressed in white paper. `Mostly, 
for one reason. In POA they "embraced like brothers." After that, I 
always had a familial relationship in mind when I thought of them.'
 A Sirius Apologist, who  was sitting next to the woman in white, 
shut her eyes and said in a loud voice, ` Yeah, but this is Harry, 
thirteen years old, totally inexperienced in these matters, 
observing two men whose history with each other he 
knows nothing about. Of course he's not going to look at them and 
say, "Gosh, they embraced like two old lovers reuniting."'
"Marina?" said Kirstini, nervously.
  There was a Dreambeliever sitting next to the  Apologist (it was a 
very queer carriage-full of passengers altogether), and, as the rule 
seemed to be that they should all speak in turn, SHE went on with ` 
It seems to me by reading all these posts that a majority of the 
characters in HP are gay. Lets see, we have: Sirius, Remus, 
Dumbledore, Harry, Voldemort, Snape, Grubbly-Plank, Tonks, etc. etc. 
etc. JK will probably mention in Book 6 how Sirius was in love with 
a woman but she was killed in the Order. I would do it if I were her 
also, because this subject is getting talked to death and if she 
read these posts (which she probably does) she probably would get 
tired of it.'
Kirstini couldn't see who was sitting beyond the Dreambeliever, but a
hoarse voice spoke next.  `Fanon Draco--' it said, and was obliged 
to leave off.
`Yes, but then we get into slashing debates,' Kirstini thought to 
herself.  And an
extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, `You might make a 
post on that--something about slash and the differences between 
reader interpretation and authorial intent, you know.'
Answering the Dreambeliever, a very gentle voice in the distance 
said, ` Not at all! It's just an interpretation of the text. Most 
cases will likely neither be confirmed or denied unless it becomes 
relevant to the plot in terms of their motivation or background. But 
I said before and I say again, to crassly heterosexualize a 
character for no reason except to stop people saying they're gay is 
a clumsy, pointless trick which I don't think JKR would resort to. 
And what's more, it doesn't work. It has that "protest too much" 
quality that makes people go "Ahhh, but!" Besides, why would she get 
more tired of people speculating about same-sex ships than girl-boy 
ships? She'd have no reason other than plain spite and prejudice to 
do this.'
`You might make a post on THAT,' said the little voice close to
Kirstini's ear:  `something more about conservatism in the series, 
you know.'
`Don't tease so,' said Kirstini, looking about in vain to see where 
the voice came from; `if you're so anxious to have a post made, why 
don't you make one yourself?'
  The little voice sighed deeply:  it was VERY unhappy, evidently, 
and Kirstini would have said something pitying to comfort it, `If it 
would only sigh like other people!' she thought.  But this was such 
a wonderfully small sigh, that she wouldn't have
heard it at all, if it hadn't come QUITE close to her ear.
  `I know you are a friend, a dear friend, and an old friend.  And 
you won't hurt me, though I AM an insect--' the little voice began, 
when it was drowned by a shrill scream from the engine, and 
everybody jumped up in alarm, Kirstini among the rest.
The Apologist, who had put her head out of the window, quietly drew
it in and said, `It's only that the Seagent Majorette has proposed a 
split in the thread. We have to jump.' Everybody seemed satisfied 
with this, though Kirstini felt a little
nervous at the idea of trains jumping at all.  `However, it'll still 
take me back to the Souvenir Shack, that's some comfort!' she said 
to herself.  In another moment she felt the carriage rise straight 
up into the air, and in her fright she caught at the thing
nearest to her hand. which happened to be some listie's latent 
homophobia.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *
  But the prejudice seemed to melt away as she touched it, and she 
found herself sitting quietly under a tree--while the Ant-Bee (for 
that was the insect she had been talking to) was balancing herself 
on a twig just over her head, and fanning Kirstini with her wings. 
She certainly was a VERY large Ant-Bee:  `about the size of a 
chicken,' Kirstini thought.  Still, she couldn't feel nervous with 
her, after they had been talking together so long. The insect began 
to speak again. 
"Call me Bonnie," she said. "I'm a long time lurker but I'm usually 
too scared to post on the main board. Anyway, I think that JKR might 
mention a character being gay in the series, though it probably 
won't get much coverage in the books. Now the person that I believe 
will come out is somewhat surprising, and there's not really much 
subtextual evidence there like one could argue for Sirius and Remus 
possibly being gay. Also, I must warn you that my theory on who the 
character will be is based on Lissa's B theory on Harry being 
Voldemort's father, and I know you're  a particularly vocal opponent 
of that one. Anyhow, this is a portion of my essay on the main 
theory about Harry maybe being Voldemort's father, but I talk about 
the character who I think will be the token gay character." She 
handed Kirstini a pamphlet, and sat back to let her read.

"In PS/SS, the reader gets to meet Vernon and Dudley Dursley, who 
are Harry's uncle and cousin, respectively. Now, both Harry's aunt 
and uncle spoil Dudley mercilessly, but it is important to note that 
his father never babies Dudley the way that his mother does. In 
fact, he fits into the stereotypical mode of the macho father who 
emphasizes his son maintaining his masculinity above everything 
else, sort of like the father who is always on the sidelines at his 
son's sports game, yelling at the coach for not putting his son in 
such and such a position, yelling at other parents for their son 
being bad at the game, and yelling at his son for not being tough 
enough. I wouldn't be surprised to find in either book six or seven 
that Dudley turns out to be gay, since the son killing the father 
either literally or symbolically has been such a major theme. So 
Dudley coming out to his father would definitely kill his father on 
one level because of the type of nasty father that he is. I doubt 
that Dudley's worst fear when being attacked by the Dementor was not 
being turned into a pig or the tongue-toffee incident but having his 
parents, especially his father, find out he is gay. Also, there are 
certainly a few signs that Dudley could be gay. His mother babies 
him; his father wants him to be manly; he bullies weaker males 
probably because he's attracted to them when he doesn't want to be 
or because he feels that if he beats them up he'll beat his 
own "weakness" out of his system; he projects himself onto Harry 
when he says that Harry was calling out his boyfriend's name. Yes, I 
think that Dudley might just be gay, and Uncle Vernon is going to go 
through the roof when he finds out, probably either blaming Harry 
for his son being gay, or going into complete denial altogether."

Kirstini looked up from the pamphlet. The Ant-Bee was watching her, 
with a worried look on her face.
"That's brilliant!" said Kirstini. "it fits right in with my HUMBLE 
theory too – where Umbridge not being a DE is the beginning of  a 
gradual push away from right and wrong as black and white. I felt 
that we had to have either a Slytherin or one of the Dursleys turn
out to be good, or at least more textured. I was banking on Petunia, 
but this works just as well, if not better. I feel that the series 
is moving away from cartoon excess into an increasing maturity of 
both protagonist and narrative style in the final books. It's 
interesting when you think that the Slytherins are always compared, 
physically, to Dudley, because it means that the reader, if not 
Harry, would have to experience some form of sympathy, and therefore 
expand their own tolerance."
Bonnie looked pleased. "I'm glad you liked it," she said, shyly. "I 
was going to mention something about JKR saying things like the 
reader should have sympathy for Dudley too, but it didn't really fit 
in with the rest of my essay. As for Petunia, I'm still banking on 
her being the person to do magic later in life just because that 
also fits in with my theory of Harry being Voldemort's father 
because history will be repeating itself again sort of, when a close 
minded muggle like Vernon discovers that his wife has magic in her 
just like with Riddle, Sr. My speculations are probably way off 
though."
"You really shouldn't put yourself down so much," said Kirstini, 
slapping her heartily on the back.. "Ooh, sorry about your wing 
there. Anyway, I might not go with the Harry-is-Voldy's dad theory 
myself (all those Time-Turners give me a headache), but this Dudley 
theory doesn't necessarily have to exist together with that. It can 
stand on it's own too. There's so much canonical precedent for 
family members disappointing each other – Sirius and the Slythy 
Blacks, Percy and the rest of the Weasleys, plus all those 
disappointing fathers. I think it's great, really. You should post 
it, Bonnie!"
"Oh, no. I couldn't!" said the Ant-Bee. There came another one of 
those melancholy little sighs, and this time the poor Ant-Bee 
appeared to have sighed itself away, for, when Kirstini looked up, 
there was nothing whatsoever to be seen on the twig. Still clutching 
the pamphlet, she got up, and decided to make her way back to Theory 
Bay and spread the word...as soon as she'd figured out where on 
earth she was.