[HPforGrownups] Should JKR shut up? (was Re: I am so happy...

[Lee Kaiwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 178581

> Alla:

> Huh? She was asked question about Dumbledore's love life, no? And
> then you would have her turn on audience and tell them decide for
> yourself?

Absolutely. It certainly would have been more respectful of her 
audience. "Hey, I don't know. You're bright people -- decide for 
yourselves. Take the story and run with it. I trust you."

HP, the WW, DD -- they're all part of a fictional creation which doesn't 
exist outside the pages of the books. Someone recently posted here a 
portion of a quote from Douglas Adams which JKR really does need to 
read, involving him refusing to answer a reader's question about Arthur 
Dent's computer. A fuller rendition can be found at 
http://religion.beloblog.com/archives/2007/10/dumbledore_is_gay.html

"The book is a work of fiction. It's a sequence of words arranged to 
unfold a story in a reader's mind. There is no such actual, real person 
as Arthur Dent. He has no existence outside the sequence of words 
designed to create an idea of this imaginary person in people's minds. 
There is no objective real world I am describing, or which I can enter, 
and pick up his computer, look at it and tell you what model it is, or 
turn it over and read off its serial number for you. It doesn't exist.
...  It's not that I chose not to reveal it - it actually, really and 
truly doesn't exist. ...  'What kind of Apple Mac did Arthur Dent have?' 
is a completely unanswerable question. ... It can't be done. He doesn't 
exist."

Exactly the same can and should be said for DD's sexual orientation or 
Neville's future abode, or Ron's choice of employment. There IS no DD 
(or Neville or Ron) outside the canon and, thus, the musings of JKR on 
any of the above subjects the subject have no greater validity than any 
of her readers'. She is perfectly free to imagine a homosexual DD, but 
I'm just as free to not.

> I think the answer if one considers interviews to be noncanonical at
> all is simply ignore them.

If only that were possible. A fanfic author (sorry, don't recall who) 
recently posted in this list that JKR's statement invalidated her own 
writings involving DD descendants. The correct answer is that of course 
it doesn't, as there is no homosexual DD in canon, but anyone attempting 
heterosexual musings about DD in the future will have a tough row to hoe 
despite the fact that it would be perfectly consistent with canon to do so.

> Do I still want to know more about Prank? 

There IS nothing further to know about Prank (or Tonks, or Neville, or 
any other character), because they have no existence outside what we've 
already read. If you want to "know" more about Prank, then YOU make the 
call.

> What happens to the characters in the future - I want to know.

People that don't exist have no future -- hence, nothing happens to them.

--CJ