I am so happy. There is a gay couple in canon after all.

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 178145


> Ceridwen:
> We didn't need to be told this.  Canon is closed.  It's like any other 
> information from interviews: superfluous.
> 
> Unlike other interview information, this actually sheds some light on 
> canon for me.  Dumbledore and Grindelwald had their falling out 
> sometime in the late 1800s.  After that, GG wreaked havoc without 
> opposition.  People begged DD to do something.  Fifty or so years 
> later, he did.  I thought that DD having feelings for GG was the most 
> likely reason.  He would have wanted to avoid a confrontation on many 
> levels.  Being outed, if this was a big deal in the WW of the time, 
> would only be one reason.  There are all sorts of emotional issues for 
> DD tied up in this.
> 
> It's too bad she didn't actually make this canon.  Interviews are 
> secondary at best and will probably be relegated to footnotes or 
> snippets of information in prefaces of future books.  Not everyone is 
> an obsessive footnote-reader like me.
> 
> Ceridwen.
>

I completely agree.  If the books survive and people are reading them
decades or even longer from now, what is anyone to expect?  That
people will read with some huge "The Annotated Potter" collection,
looking up all of JKR's explanations and often contradictory comments
from old interviews" along the way?  Of course not.  Even if such a
book someday exists, it will be the rare new reader who would use it.

If JKR felt readers needed to know something, she should have
explained it in the books.  Dumbledore's relationship with Grendelwald
*would* be newsworthy information for the Prophet, regardless of the
Wizarding World's views on homosexuality.  Good grief, Grendelwald
became an evil Dark Lord!  Of *course* it would be important if
Dumbledore had more than just a friendly relationship with him.  If
JKR chose to -- rather unrealistically -- have Rita not print anything
implying such a relationship between Dumbledore and Grendelwald, yet
tell us later in interviews that such a relationship existed, I
personally think JKR has reached the point of augmenting her novels to
the extent that it's harming rather than helping.

Besides, I just don't think it's a good idea to finish out the series,
allow readers to read and process the books, and then start dropping
information that forces readers to reassess main characters, their
actions, decisions, etc.  If it was that important, she could have
taken some more time over the last book and included it, perhaps along
the way completing the job of editing which was so poorly done as well.

wynnleaf, who is starting to wonder if JKR will, like George Lucas, go
on about so many extraneous "facts" that readers don't need to hear,
that she'll completely ruin any suspension of disbelief necessary to
enjoy the story.