Notes from Evil Bender

I’m far from the first to notice that John Mark Reynolds is bringing an excessive amount of crazy in his attempt to prove that, no matter what Rowling says, Albus Dumbledore is totally not gay. In doing so, he’s going against the typical fundie line. See, Reynolds is invested in the idea that the Harry Potter books are Christian allegory (this is silly, and anyway, as I’ve previously argued, the more apt religious parallel would be to Buddhism), and so he has to argue that Harry couldn’t be gay–that would undercut the “religious” message Reynold’s is desperate to read into the text.*there’s no doubt that Rowling is playing with symbolism drawn from a wide range of sources, there is a huge difference between saying some

Reynold’s argument is basically that he doesn’t see evidence of Dumbledore’s homosexuality, therefore he must not be gay:

Rowling chose to hide her “opinion” of Dumbledore’s sexuality until the story arc was done, Dumbledore dead, and his life written. Now her opinions no longer matter, just her text. If she could point to anything in that text that suggests something greater than friendship, mentoring, or a professional relationship, then that would matter. She has not and cannot. She carefully hid the “fact” and now it is too late to introduce it.

Lest one think that I say this only because homosexuality bothers me, then let me compare it to another situation. Suppose that Rowling now claimed that Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall had a passionate relationship. Since there is no reason in the text to know this is true, or to find it relevant to the story arc as we have it, Rowling’s opinions of the headmaster’s heterosexual affairs matter very little in terms of understanding the books as they are. There is as much evidence of this (after all) as of Dumbledore’s homosexuality.

If I utterly hide a fact (as an author), then I cannot suddenly introduce it by opining outside of my book about my book.

Yes, he’s absolutely right. There’s absolutely no reason to think the affable, elderly bachelor headmaster who has never been romantically linked to another could possibly be gay, right? Not the man who’s most passionate relationship was with another man. Not the man who is so private.

As The Lizard Queen notes, people who know much about homosexuality in fiction–or indeed about the cultural imperative to remain closeted in general–were not the least bit surprised that the headmaster would be silent on the issue of his sexuality. The text’s supposed absence of any particular sexuality attributed to Dumbledore is exactly why many of us were not surprised by Rowling’s statement.

I’ll give Reynolds a bit of credit for not arguing that Dumbledore was straight, but rather that he had “no particular sexuality at all”–at least he’s somewhat aware of the dangers of assuming orientation. But of course “no sexuality” is exactly why the text doessupport Rowling’s claim. Given the reactionary nature of much of the wizarding community (no parallels to contemporary politics there), could the oft-embattled headmaster have retained his position if he was “out”?

Furthermore, Dumbledore’s outing is in keeping with the theme of the books. It didn’t take a genius to see that Rowling was making a case for love and tolerance in the face of hatred and bigotry. Like the X-Mencomics, Harry Potter is a civil rights metaphor. In Harry Potter’s world, wizards are feared by muggles, wizards oppress muggles, some wizards oppress others, and the government oppresses everyone.

In short, there is plenty of textual reason to agree with Rowling’s assessment, and Reynold’s reactionary response illustrates exactly why it is important to know Dumbledore is gay and why that characterization makes so much sense. It is wonderful that Dumbledore is, at last, free to come out of the closet. Now if only we lived in a world where books with gay characters weren’t under constant threat of censorship, we would no doubt find exactly how unwarranted and destructive our heteronormative assumptions truly are.