I regret coming to this thread so late
I'm gonna address every point that I can manage. Most of them have already been addressed by some of the awesome people here, but I need to go for it anyway
BrownEyedBoy said:
There was no need to say those things when the books are already finished.
Being a writer myself (although I am as of yet, unpublished), I have to disagree with you. People do read the stories that I write, and from time to time they ask me questions about them. Should I refuse to answer because the story arc is completed? What's wrong with answering a reader's question honestly?
Writers are essentially their character's god. We know minute details about the people in our stories lives. Not everything ends up in print, because not everything is relevant to the story. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't share those things with readers, should they ask.
Another thing I want to address, as an writer, is that not every aspect of a character's life can be forseen or controlled within the writing. Things develop on their own as the story grows. I can start out with all the best intentions to make a character one way, but in the end they might turn out to be another way. Writing is not an exact science.
And as a fan of all sorts of books, and especially book series, I can attest that it is perfectly normal and natural for fans to be curious about things related to the series which are not addressed within the actual framework of the books. And by all means, I think that authors should give answers (if they have them) when asked.
Just because you didn't like what she said doesn't mean she shouldn't have said it.
BrownEyedBoy said:
With this new information Dumbledore´s affection for Harry has just turned creepy.
Hagrid is straight. He and Hermione were very close. Does this mean his relationship with her was creepy?
lynnok said:
Is this information necessary to advance the plot of the book or is the revelation about the same as him not liking brussels sprouts? If it's the latter then I say leave it out, it's just not necessary. If it's important then leave it in. If all this came out after publication then there's the answer. I thought reading was supposed to foster imagination If I want to draw that conclusion from what I read I can.
Dumbledore's friendship with Grindelwald is signifigant to much of Book 7. In the book, it's only said that they were close friends in their youth. But the revelation that there was an unrequited relationship there
does explain some of Dumbledore's motivation regarding the character during later events.
AEON said:
So, you are saying if Yoda was gay then it wouldn't change the relationship between he and Luke?
Yoda's not even the same species as Luke. My mind doesn't work that way. It's much better if you make Obi-Wan the gay one. I could get behind some Obi-Wan/Anakin slashfic... "
You were the chosen one! I loved you!" Plus they're a hotter pair of actors
AEON said:
I also wonder how much Rowling is pandering. If it wasn't such a big deal for her - then why didn't she just say in the story? It's like Margaret Mitchell holding a press conference in 1943 that Rhett Butler was really a Freemason.
But Rowling
didn't hold a press conference. She answered a fan's question. Pure and simple. I imagine that it wasn't mentioned in the book simply because it wasn't actually relevant. The relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald
was relevant, but the actual
nature of it (romantic or otherwise) was not. Besides, the books are through Harry's point of view, and most of what Harry found out about Dumbledore's past in book 7 was found out secondhand, or even thirdhand (as Dumbledore had already died), so it's also likely that those people didn't know about Dumbledore's orientation. I sort of doubt he went around flaunting it.
Teta040 said:
And regarding kid's lit--Disney has sanitized everything, but my God, if you go back and read the origional Andersen and Grimm's Tales, it would have had Freud crying in his beer. Wow! Talk about more stuff you can read into than the drop of a hat!!!!
Exactly. There is some incredibly messed up stuff in those original fairy fales.
For example, the big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood was originally... you guessed it: a pedophile.
For humour though, I'd like to point out that a friend of mine in his early 20s had never seen Disney's Snow White, when one day we ran across it being played on TV. It just so happened to be one of the scenes with the Stepmother/Witch, and he was shocked at how scary it was for a kids movie.
And speaking of Snow White? How would the conservatives feel about Snow White if the brothers Grimm came back from the dead and revealed that the seven dwarves were a bunch of flaming homos?
BrownEyedBoy said:
Sure, they are. But I´m against making a character for the sake of furthering tolerance instead of it being a legitimate literary need.
As stated above, Dumbledore's feelings for Grindelwald explain some of his motivation toward certain events. Have you actually read book 7?
MrsSpringsteen said:
There have actually been academic studies of fairy tales and how they impact girls' views of themselves and males and gender roles.
I was about 7 before I realized that a Prince Charming
wasn't going to ride down my street on his white horse and take me off to his kingdom to be his Princess
VintagePunk said:
I can't see this being a huge factor in kids being allowed or not allowed to read the book. I have a feeling that the ones bothered by this would be the ones who probably wouldn't let them read it to begin with. I could be wrong though, that's just speculation.
It's not even
in the books. If the kid didn't hear about it from the news/internet/friends, a parent could easily keep them from finding out about it (if they're really deadset against their kids knowing about gay people), and let them read the books. Chances are, any kids who have heard about it already and understand it are old enough to have already read the entire series anyway. True, their parents could take the books away, but at least they won't have been entirely robbed of the series experience.
This all reminds me of when Melissa Joan Hart posed in her underwear in Maxim. It caused a big controversy because she was currently starring in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I was in my early teens at the time, and I remember seeing the story on TV, complete with the sexy cover photo and headline: "Your Favorite Witch Without A Stitch", and all they kept talking about was how wrong it was of her, as a role model for children, to pose like that. The whole thing pissed me off because, seriously, how many kids are reading Maxim? None, I hope. If they hadn't kept talking about it and showing the picture on TV, kids would probably never have known about it.
U2girl said:
"Can I read/buy HP, Mum/Dad?" "No, because of Dumbledore"
What about the parent that wouldn't let their kid read book 7 after all of the making out done by students in back corridors of the school in book 6?
Or worse, what about the parent that wouldn't let their kid read book 6 because Harry dated a Cho Chang in book 5? That was an interracial relationship (albeit a short one) you know.
Should she have also left those things out of the book?
BrownEyedBoy said:
Answering your question:
She was asked if Dumbledore ever did find love. She answered with a "Oh, he's gay." Which I thought was unnecessary and seemed like she pulled it out of her ass at the last minute.
No, she was asked if he'd ever been in love, to which she basically answered "Yes, with a man."
And Dumbledore's romantic feelings for that man in particular led him toward making decisions that were detrimental to the plot. So no, it wasn't unnecessary at all.
Honestly, I know many children's books and cartoons that include magic and wizardry, and never did I hear people complaining about that.
Would you ban Asterix because they use a magic drink?
There are a few differences with the Harry Potter series which really make it more offensive where the fundamentalists are concerned.
One, it uses the actual term 'witchcraft', which points to Satanism much more strongly than just references to magic or Wizardry.
Two, it takes place within our own modern world. It's not Middle-Earth, it's modern day London.
Three, it's massive popularity. Hardcore Christians (and I'd know, as I used to run with them
) are dead set against conforming to the sinful world. Therefore, anything popular is automatically bad.
I was still attending church with those hardcore Christians when book 5 came out. Being rebellious, I naturally took the book to church with me to read before the service
My youth pastor, who was a smart, insightful man under normal circumstances, started telling me about how the woman who wrote the books was a real witch and the spells in the books were real spells. He believed all of this because he'd been told it by the fundamentalist leaders. He never actually investigated it for himself. I just sort of laughed and set him straight about who J.K. Rowling actually is, and that the "spells" in the books are simply plays on actual English words (or in some cases, Latin), or simply made up words. He knew that I was a smart girl and not easily beguiled, and took
my word for it, ahead of what he'd already been told.