WHOSE DD is he? (Was: Re: Should JKR shut up?

[allthecoolnamesgone]

No: HPFGUIDX 178749

Carol
> Do her intentions even matter? I say they don't. The books exist to 
be
> read, enjoyed (or hated) and interpreted, and her words should not,
> IMO, control or limit our freedom of interpretation. Only what's on
> the page should limit us,...

allthecoolnamesgone

That is abolutely right and as the Dallas New article says, it is why 
books are almost always better than films because when you read a 
book you dramatise it in your head and when you see the film it is 
never 'your film'.

Whe I heard the 'Dumbledore is gay' announcement I just wanted to 
bang my head on the nearest hard object in utter despair at what JKR 
had done. I felt that she had unleashed a whole 'agenda' into the 
books that was not there until she spoke. Like Carole I had 
interpreted the whole DD/GG thing as two teenagers enraptured by 
discovering another person who shared so many of their views. 
Dumbledore was probably imagining himself with a future, as he saw 
it, of domestic enslavement ahead of him. Suddenly an intellectual 
equal arrives on his doorstep ( I don't imagine converstaions with 
Aberforth were exactly stimulating). There may have been a sexual 
element, there may not but 'frankly my dear, I don't give a damn'. By 
the time we meet Dumbledore he is an old man and appears celibate. He 
may as far as we know have been celibate his whole life or celibate 
after one experience in his teens. Why do we have to define someone 
as 'gay' on such limited evidence and in any case why is it assumed 
that his sexual orientation is the key definition of his character to 
which all else is secondary.

Carol

> As an aside, Snape seems asexual, too--celibate, repressed--with his
> canonical love for Lily as explanation for his buttoned-up
> personality, with sarcasm and an occasional outburst of anger as his
> only release. I hope JKR never tells us that he had a loveless fling
> with some other woman before Lily's death. That would ruin my
> interpretation, or my imagined view, of his personality. Really, 
JKR,
> I'd rather not know what you think may have happened off-page to him
> or to anyone else. I don't want to know whether Tonks and Remus or
> Bill and Fleur consummated their relationship before marriage, 
either.
> Really, I don't. Such information would detract from rather than add
> to my pleasure in reading the books. And, given that many of the
> readers are children, I don't think it would be appropriate to 
reveal
> those particular details, either.

allthecoolnamesgone

Yes but most of the world now can't seem to accept that there might 
be characters out there who aren't leaping into bed at every 
opportunity. Snape always seemed out of the 'Mr Chips' mould of 
school teachers (not Mr Chips in character though) and he was alone 
for years albeit having enjoyed a brief marriage. the other character 
who springs to mind is Howarth from 'To Serve them all my Days' by RF 
Delderfield. They were 'married' to their job. 

I intend to ignore anything else that JKR says. She wrote what she 
wrote and after 21/7/07 the rest was up to me.

allthecoolnamesgone
Karen

Who when asked at the age of 45 by her employer to declare her sexual 
orientation on a 'Diversity questionaire' replied 'I haven't decided 
yet'.