[HPforGrownups] DD Gay? or just in JKR's head?

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 178407

Ok, this has been asked by many people, so I'm not going to attribute it to anyone in particular:
>  Does any of it *really* matter to the story?

I say yes, it does. Like every other quote from Rowling that has happened between the books, didn't we speculate and reread the series looking for clues that related to those revelations? Didn't those insights color our readings of the books themselves? Didn't it color predictions about what was to come? I'm going to go out on a limb here- maybe I'm right, maybe I'm barking up a tree, but here's how it colors my readings so far:

Paula brought up a good point- wouldn't a romantic relationship make DD blind or at least delayed in seeing how wrong/evil/potentially damaging Grindewald's views were?  Call it youth and foolishness, but having a crush makes a teen even more vulnerable to making mistakes in judgment. 

Here's some more potential impacts to the story:

Isn't the duel itself affected by the previous romantic relationship? Doesn't it then become personal instead of just an ideological difference?

Rita Skeeter's book. Oh boy on this one. Although we aren't told what was actually in it, it's a strong potential that DD's relationship with Gradual is indeed the bombshell that she was intending to unleash on the entire Wizarding World- that subject alone could have carried a whole book, don't you think? The Dumbledore no one knew...isn't that was her slant was? In my mind, I can just imagine Rita interviewing the historian lady, who tells of a witnessing DD and Gradual in their youth having a "Brokeback Mountain" moment out in the field. From there, she colors the dual as a lover's quarrel. Then Rita goes on to explain how DD remains celibate for a long time, until he meets the young Harry Potter and is taken in by this young wizard's extraordinary talents, and then makes the comparisons of how Harry is so like DD's first lover, no wonder why DD couldn't help but be reminded of his first love and couldn't help himself in pursuing Harry. She could then put in print the suggestion about the sexual nature of the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore. Don't you think that Rita would stoop low enough to go there given her past trashy writings- oh the book sales!- with Harry's "private meetings" all alone in DD's office late into the night? Oh, at times they even snuck out of the castle together, including that night that DD died!  Harry never publicly revealed what was talked about, so there would be no one to counter her suggestions on what actually happened in those late night sessions. The historian lady is dead, DD is dead, and there were no other witnesses. Only Harry would be able to deny it, and he's been slandered before in the press and media to great effect. There would people who would buy it totally, people who would think it all rubbish, and some who would think there were grains of truth imbedded in that story. There would even be fans of Rita's who would know it would be all trash, but still love the juicy, gossipy nature of it all anyway. Even though Harry himself married, it clearly was after DD died. The timing and circumstances of it all would make for one trashy and shocking novel that would sell, don't you think? Right up Rita's alley, IMHO.

So, yeah, thinking about a gay DD does make a difference to the story for me, for it certainly could explain that whole bit about Rita's book. Previously, it had felt like an unresolved section- why even mention Rita's book if we weren't to learn later what it was about?  To me that book mention was a set up for a further plot development, one that was never revealed in the epilogue. Maybe this announcement of DD's gayness was Rowling's way of beginning to tell us the rest of that story?

Shelley

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