A Gay Potter Character?/I'm so happy

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 178200

> Magpie:. 
> (And I disagree with the recent comment somewhere else about how it 
> would be inappropriate for Dumbledore to mention his love to Harry as 
> part of explaining his pov--I don't see what's inappropriate about 
> telling a 17-year-old you were in love with somebody. I can remember 
> a few times teachers in school mentioned girlfriends or people they 
> had crushes on to the class.) 

Pippin:
Maybe times have changed? There was a time when gentlemen
did not kiss and tell, and it was considered indiscrete to discuss your
love affairs of whatever persuasion with anybody.  Also, I think JKR 
wanted the emphasis on Dumbledore's unwillingness to fight 
Grindelwald to be on Ariana because the theme is familial rather 
than romantic love.

Though there are lots of moments in canon where romantic attraction
is going on, overall the work is an epic and in epics romantic attraction
is at most a waystation or an obstacle on the way to the creation or 
reunion of a family. 

> Nadine replies:
> 
> I wonder if it is the other way around? What if it is completly
> normal and therefore not worth mentioning it in a special way?
> 
> Magpie:
> That's how race is, and this isn't handled like race. We know there 
> are people of different races (in Muggle terms) in canon, but this is 
> not remarked upon by the characters who have different distinctions. 
> In order to do that with gay people they'd have to be there 
> explicitly and not remarked upon. As it is in the books there are 3 
> mentions that I can remember that refer to same sex pairings. There's 
> Dudley (not a wizard) snarkily asking Harry "Who's Cedric, you're 
> boyfriend?" That's supposed to make Harry feel embarassed. There's 
> also Ron's comment that Percy and Crouch are going to "announce their 
> engagement any day now," which implies the same sort of attitude in 
> the WW as is often found in the Muggle world. Ron is mocking Percy's 
> attachment to Crouch by saying they should get married when they're 
> two men.

Pippin:
I thought he was mocking them by saying that Percy's attachment to
Crouch was so intense that it might as well be romantic, not that
there was anything wrong with a romantic attachment between men
per se. So for me there was a marked contrast between the homophobic
remarks in the Muggle world (you left out Vernon's reference to nancy
boys) and the absence of such remarks in the WW.

The taboos in the WW that we know of are dating more than one
person at a time, predatory sex, and getting married when very 
young (though that is relaxed in time of war.) It would have been
easy to work in a taboo against same sex relationships -- it's
not so easy, I think, to work in the absence of it. 

The trouble is, while it's easy to show racial differences that have
no effect on lifestyle in the WW,  it's hard to see how you could depict
gayness in the same way, especially if you're sensitive to the issues 
of tokenism. 
 
Magpie:
 And then there's Rita's nasty implication that Dumbledore 
> has a bad interest in Harry (does she actually say unnatural)? This 
> is more a charge of an adult preying on a child, but in this case 
> it's a same-sex predatory relationship.

Pippin:
"Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story,
but there is no question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in 
Potter from the word go. Whether that was really in the boy's
best interest --well, we'll see. It's certainly an open secret that
Potter has had a most troubled adolescence." -US DH  p27 

It stands out to me that with all her hinting about scandal, Rita
doesn't hint that there's anything scandalous about a same
sex relationship -- it's Dumbledore as predator that she's 
concerned with. She doesn't, for example hint that Darling
Dodgy had a romantic interest in Dumbledore, despite
their plans to travel the world together, though it seems rather
obvious now.  

Pippin