Lupin and Tonks WAS: I am so happy. There is a gay - Triumph & Tragedy

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178291

Carol:
> Re DD's sexuality, some posters are complaining that he wasn't shown
> to be gay. Surely, the fact that he's 115 or 150 (depending on 
whether
> you believe the old interviews or the website, which matches better
> with 107-year-old Auntie Myrtle knowing the young DD but nevertheless
> gets his death date wrong) and the fact that Harry perceives DD as
> someone who was born old (there's a statement to that effect in DH
> though of course I'm paraphrasing wildly) has something to do with 
how
> he's depicted? And if he were openly gay, wouldn't JKR have been
> accused of stereotyping, what with the blue boots and knitting
> patterns and colorful robes?

Magpie:
She's already made him a stereotype by having him a-sexual and 
celibate and only in the subtext. My preference would be that 
Dumbledore didn't have to carry the entire weight on his shoulders--
I'd have liked some regular students in the background as well with 
all the openly straight people. I've got no problem with him dressing 
flamboyantly, personally. Being a snazzy dresser isn't so hurtful a 
stereotype (especially in a world full of stereotypes) that it's 
better for his orientation to be hidden so that it doesn't exist at 
all. I mean, nobody noticed his dressing being enough of a deal that 
they thought he was absolutely gay as it stands. DH is mostly about 
his past, not his senior years, anyway. The Grey Lady's been dead for 
hundreds of years and she dumps her romantic past on Harry.

Miles:
b) Could JKR have told us about it before DH? And/or in DH?
No, I don't think so. 

Magpie:
I do. She could have easily fit in something in HBP, which is full of 
romantic hijinx. Dumbledore could, for intance, have responded to 
something Harry said or something they saw by sadly saying that 
sometimes you fall in love and the person turns out to be a bad person 
or whatever. You have to put your values over your personal love--just 
like Dumbledore's doing with Harry too. Harry would no doubt wonder 
what woman had done this with Dumbledore. Then in DH it would just 
become obvious he was talking about Grindenwald. She manages to stick 
in dozens of straight relationships or interactions in the present and 
the past with no problem. Harry does get glimpses or learn things 
about peoples' private lives, including some of his teachers. He 
learns a whole lot about Dumbledore's in DH. There's more than one 
character who could have confirmed it. Whatever reason it's not in 
there, it's not because it was impossible. 

-m