JKR messed up........ no/yes

[Paula]

No: HPFGUIDX 178399


Katie:

I, for one, while supporting gay rights, don't CARE if Dumbledore is gay
or
straight. It has no bearing on the story nor on his place in it. He
never dated
anyone in the course of the books. His whole purpose was to nurture
Harry and
bring down Voldemort, and he did that. His sexuality has nothing to do
with
anything.

bboyminn:

But here's the thing, JKR didn't just spontaneously burst out
with the idea that Dumbledore is gay. She was responding to
a direct question about Dumbledore's love life. He asked;
she answered.

Me (Paula):

Mostly just a lurker, but want to note the following, or re-emphasize it
if it's been said by others. The real canon import of the answer to the
question posed to JKR is the the relationship between Gellert and Albus.
That is, she might have answered the question by saying simply that
Albus was in his youth in love with Gellert, without saying anything
more. In that case, we would all be here still talking about how that
statement shows that Albus is gay, or some might say this relationship
says nothing about Albus's sexual preferences as a whole (because
sometimes teenaged crushes are not dispositive on the subject of one's
actual sexual preferences); but I also think the discussions would not
lose fact of the significance of this single relationship in Albus's
life to the whole story, which is: how this relationship affected
Albus's (delayed) response to Gellert's evil actions and how it shaped
his thoughts on love and power as an adult. This relationship is the
true canon news; this relationship explains a lot. Why JKR chose to say
first that Albus was gay and then that he was in love with Gellert might
arguably lead to interesting insights about how and why she wrote the
series as she did, but from a pure story/canon point of view, the
important thing is the fact of the Gellert/Albus relationship.