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Um, Nevillegirl, I’m not sure that the term “failed relationship” entirely captures having your sister killed by your megalomaniacal boy-friend and subsequently defeating him in wand-to-wand combat in order to keep him from enslaving humanity.

And while I personally have a great deal of respect for Dumbledore, the quality of teachers at Hogwarts is uneven, to say the least, and the MOM is corrupt, so neither of the qualifications you mention would in themselves prove his greatness, at least not to me.

He may be human, and subject to the same struggles as us, but his mistakes are written on a larger scale than ours (mine, at any rate), and his triumphs are similarly grand.

I agree, btw, that his sexuality is no big deal. But his loves – and how he handled them (and mishandled them) – now that is a big deal.

For me, the revelation doesn’t change my reading of the series. I was very surprised because I really didn’t see any hints of Dumbledore being gay in the story and I certainly didn’t assume that he fell in love with Grindelwald. But it isn’t such an important point after all and the plot works very well without it.

Tomorrow, the German edition will be published and I believe most readers aren’t even aware of Rowling’s recent revelation. Nobody will buy or not buy the book because of it and I don’t think people will now read it under that particular aspect.

J. K. Rowling’s revelation that Dumbledore was gay will affect my reading more than I realized in the beginning. However, it’ll be in a very positive and “loving” way, as I will explain further down in this post.

At first, I was disappointed and annoyed at the author, not because of the revelation, but because of the way she let us know. I was upset that she hadn’t given us this information in the books. It wasn’t until a few days ago, while chatting with a friend and fellow Potter fan, that I was able to resolve my internal conflict.

My friend told me that Dumbledore being gay fit from an alchemical perspective. He is the cold, moist, receptive, female part of matter, the alchemical Mercury that must be united with hot, dry, active, masculine Sulphur. He is the “White Queen,” his name being Albus, meaning “white.”

Dumbledore himself is a Philosopher’s Stone, going through the transformation stages just as Harry is. However, he only reached the albedo (white) stage. While Harry was able to complete the transformation, Dumbledore wasn’t able to until after his death. He was very gifted intellectually, but, as he himself admitted, he didn’t have Harry’s pure heart. He was still proud of his intellect and his ability to control. He didn’t truly give up his love for power or control until he humbled himself and confessed his transgression to Harry. Dumbledore was also white because he never forgave himself for his sister’s death.

Like Dumbledore, Harry could see into people’s hearts, but he never had Dumbledore’s intellect. At the end, he learned to trust, following his path based on faith, his heart, not his head (knowledge). His mentor in this wasn’t Dumbledore, but Dobby, the humblest of creatures, who loved Harry unconditionally, with a pure heart. That sacrifice enabled Harry to transform into the Red, Philosophical Stone; and although he was afraid and felt betrayed, he still chose the right path and sacrificed himself.

King’s Cross chapter is so aptly named. Harry’s sacrifice enables him to become the Elixir of Life. As a Christian, I see him as a vessel completely filled with the Holy Spirit, allowing him to see into a man’s heart without prejudging, but with God’s Love that’s beyond understanding. He has become a vessel of God’s Grace. That is why he gave Voldemort the chance to atone, but Voldemort refused, and died by his own actions. When Dumbledore knew that Harry could see all that was in his heart, he was able to confess his most fundamental weakness, his inability to let go of his pride and control. Once he has confessed with humility, knowing that Harry might hate or condemn him, he encountered God’s Grace through Harry. Harry showed that he is loved and forgiven. Dumbledore could then become the Red Stone and go on.

Jo may be deeper and smarter than I gave her credit for with whole event. She openly brought up Dumbledore’s Machiavellian ways before she ever mentioned that he was gay. I think we could get so hung up on the gay issue we could miss that overarching intent. He may have had an attraction for the same sex, but he learned the difference between “physical and emotional” infatuation and actual love. However, he had not completely learned his lesson about control. Jo Rowling gave us all of the clues; it’s up to us figure them out.

I was really hoping to see Travis’s reaction to Jo’s Machiavellian puppet master comments on Dumbledore. Of course, that statement was overshadowed by the next Dumbledore revelation, but I do hope that a post will someday address and explore that topic.

I remember that Travis was an avid Dumbledore fan after DH, more than I thought DD deserved. He also thought Rita and Aberforth were way off the mark, which I wasn’t so sure about either, especially Aberforth.

I still maintain that Dumbledore made a mistake when he asked Snape to murder him. It was nothing more than assisted suicide. Yes, the greater good and all of that malarky, but the greater good has been used to excuse ethnic cleansing and all sorts of atrocities. The end does not justify the means.

When Dumbledore asks Snape to kill him, Snape asks:

‘And my soul, Dumbledore, mine?’

And Dumbledore responds, in a light tone:

‘You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation,’

One possible interpretation of this exchange is that Snape wouldn’t be concerned about his soul if he’d already murdered people and thereby damaged it.

On the other hand, it is also possible to interpret what Dumbledore is saying to mean that Dumbledore suspects Snape has done bad things – perhaps murder – and he now has to put some good acts into the balance in order to outweigh the bad.

There is also the line:

‘Don’t be shocked Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?’

And the answer:

‘Lately, only those whom I could not save,’ said Snape.

This is also capable of multiple interpretations.

The meaning I get from both exchanges is that Snape is not a killer now, and quite the opposite, worries about the welfare of his soul, and also tries to save others. But neither exchange disallows the possibility that a younger, angrier Snape did indeed kill a few people.

It’s not clear.

And please, please, please, don’t anybody from this site ever ask the author to clarify the ambiguity. This is where more information would destroy the delicious uncertainty of just how close to the edge of darkness Snape got before he stepped back.

And how are you on this fine spring morning, Matthew?

Time for me to call it a night and sign off. But before I go:

Gambon, as you probably know, is back, filming.

At this point in the proceedings I must reluctantly concede that they are unlikely to ever replace him.

Did you hear the rumour that they got Ralph Fiennes’ young brother to play Tom Riddle as a lad?

Did you read in the interview with David Thewlis that Cuaron told him to play Lupin like a gay junkie? Thewlis says that he thought Lupin was gay until he read DH.

I wonder who they’ll get to play the young Dumbledore and Grindelwald.

Oh dear. My comment above appeared three times. I’m sure they weren’t there last evening when I tried to submit them. Sorry!

I thought it was “a nasty piece of work” when Dumbledore used the “spare the old man some suffering line” to ask Snape to kill him. Surely the Greatest Wizard of All-Dumbldore-could have found a better way to protect Draco and dispose of the elder wand than to force Snape to kill him.
What shocked me most about the 7th book was how little compassion or concern Dumbldore showed Snape, who had been a faithful ally for many years. The revelation that Dumbldore was gay was not a great shock-I hadn’t realized it before, but it fit, and made the character a little more understandable.
How Dumbldore could be so cruel and manipulative to a faithful ally who had undergone a lot of suffering and suspicion to help him-that was disgusting.

revgeorge,

Thanks for the link to Reynolds’ essays. I read the last one, and scanned through the first two.

Overall, I have to say that I agree with him, especially the thought:

‘After creation, however, her (the author’s) text left her. It became something “not her.” If she did not say it, then it was unsaid. If she failed to communicate an idea, then it is not communicated. If she used an image that set up tension in her reader she did not anticipate, then so it is.’

Where I disagree is his view that JKR did not give any evidence of Dumbledore’s sexual orientation in the text. I have described (at length) the passages in the text which support such a conclusion. I have also linked his sexual orientation which could be considered background information, not particularly relevant to the main story, to one of the major storylines: the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore. I saw a parallel (thank you, Mary Jo, for that word!) between his early, doomed relationship with Grindelwald, and his end-of-life relationship with Harry. I also see a common theme: having to sacrifice someone he loves for the greater good. I also described how that information modifies our understanding of Dumbledore, moving him from the rather cold-blooded schemer and manipulator, to a conflicted and stricken schemer and manipulator. Dumbledore emerges as a richer – and more sympathetic – character as a result of interpreting the text in light of this confirmation.

And that is what it is: confirmation. Not new information. JKR connected for us the dots she had left in the text. Now one could argue that she didn’t do a very good job of laying out her clues if people like Professor Reynolds can plausibly argue that they just weren’t there. I’m not sure how I feel about that. To my mind, the “dots” or clues are there, although they are always capable of different interpretations.

I think that JKR deliberately laid out her clues to be ambiguous, so you would not see the other interpretation unless you were looking for it.

I also think that if you are someone who sees homosexuality as bad, especially if you see it as a sin, you are less likely to look for it, especially in a beloved character.

I don’t see homosexuality as bad or good, it’s just how some of us are. But I am very interested in people who want things they know they can’t have and who fight against their urges and impulses in order to do the right thing, and especially the tragedy of a man for whom the cost of doing the right thing is giving up what he loves the most. Perhaps that makes it easier for me to see the connections I described.

Matthew, the gay men whom I know do not go mincing about and talking with a lisp. Interestingly, the 3 I know best are all teachers, and very good teachers. Their sexuality is something I know because I am close to the families of these men, and I know what a struggle they have had because of their own religious backgrounds. I would certainly trust them to teach my children, and because I know of their own struggles, I would never judge anyone harshly in light of their own sexual orientation.
Reyhan is quite correct in her view that one can see Dumbledore’s parts were written with the gay context in the background. Dumbledore’s struggles and own difficulties became more clear to me from JKR’s explanation of how she perceived him.
What I mean by disgusting, apart from the trickery, is that I had always thought Dumbledore respected and had a certain care for his colleague. Indeed, I thought he might have a teacher’s love and concern for a student who had grown with his tutelage. Dumbledore’s crass and judgmental statement concerning Snape’s feelings when seeing people killed showed me that he had no real appreciation for the way Snape had changed and for the pain he experienced in being a double agent. Dumbledore seems to see Snape as nothing more than a tool. Like a gunfighter, Dumbldore respects his weapon “Snape”, but has no real emotional relationship with him.

Here is the commentary on Rahab from the Life Application Study Bible (Zondervan):

“Was Rahab justified in lying to save the lives of the spies? Although the Bible does not speak negatively about her lie, it is clear that lying is sin. In Hebrews 11:31, however, Rahab is commended for her faith in God. Her lie is not mentioned. Several explanations have been offered: (1) God forgave Rahab’s lie because of her faith; (2) Rahab was simply deceiving the enemy, a normal and acceptable practice in wartime; (3) because Rahab was not a Jew, she could not be held responsible for keeping the moral standards set forth in God’s law; (4) Rahab broke a lesser principle – telling the truth – to uphold a higher principle – protecting God’s people.

“There may have been another way to save the lives of the Israelite spies. But under the pressure of the moment, Rahab had to make a choice. Most of us will face dilemmas at one time or another. We may feel that there is no perfect solution to our problem. Fortunately, God does not demand that our judgment be perfect in all situations. He simply asks us to put our trust in Him and to do the best we know how. Rahab did that and was commended for her faith.”

Option (1) is the one I think is right. Rahab was incredibly brave, and her act was particularly awesome in light of her background. I think (3) could be partially true, as well. We all must answer to God’s law, I would think, but those raised in the Word might be held to a higher standard than those not.

And, being the respectful person we all recognize you to be – from many, many encounters on these posts – you don’t need us to remind you that even if you didn’t mean to give offense, offense could be taken at the use of such terms.

On another tack, I just finished watching (for the umpteenth time) the first part of GoF with my 6 year old. I cringe at Gambon’s every gesture and every word. Please Lord, let him take offense at DD’s gayness and walk away.

Travis wrote:
“Of course, I’m crossing over the line on my own rule that this not become a forum for exegetical debate; but this is rather pertinent to the actual HP conversation at the moment.”

Oh, Travis, but doesn’t everything eventually come back down to exegetics?

reyhan wrote:
“On another tack, I just finished watching (for the umpteenth time) the first part of GoF with my 6 year old. I cringe at Gambon’s every gesture and every word. Please Lord, let him take offense at DD’s gayness and walk away.”

I’m with you there, reyhan. I still think they should just use CGI to reinsert Richard Harris back into the movies & just get a really good voice impersonator for his lines. I’m sure Gambon’s a fine actor in many regards, but he sure has botched his role in the HP films, although he wasn’t too bad in POA, but the rest has been awful. When HBP comes out, I will try to restrain myself from cheering in the theater when Dumbledore is killed.

About Snape.

It feels funny to return to him – I thought he’d found his place but it seems not: he still stirs up controversy whenever his name is mentioned.

Matthew, if I follow your reasoning, Dumbledore is justified in minimizing the possible effects of murder / mercy killing on Snape’s conscience because Snape did really awful things, and because whatever he had to endure as a mole was of his own choice. So we shouldn’t be too sympathetic to what’s happening to him: he made his decisions and these are the consequences.

You may be right there, although I see things a bit differently: what he is doing, and what he was asked to do by Dumbledore (i.e. kill him) are not the natural consequences of doing bad things. They are the heroic acts of a man who is trying to undo the bad that he’s done. Heroic acts surely call for a bit more recognition than “Poor Severus.”

However, I do agree with your earlier comment that Dumbledore was speaking lightly (at least that’s what I thought you said), even facetiously, because what they were discussing – he was asking Snape to kill him – was too grave to be serious about. If that makes sense.

But ultimately, I return to my bottom line about Dumbledore, which his brother actually sums up very neatly: he is more interested in the “greater good” than in people, whom he sees as dispensable. Now Dumbledore’s great loves are Grindelwald and Harry. And he sacrifices both of them to the greater good. If he can sacrifice Harry, albeit reluctantly, then why would we think he’d have the smallest qualm about sacrificing Snape’s feelings, Snape who is neither young, nor attractive nor the least bit charismatic (except to members of his fan club)?

And I do agree with Travis (I think it was Travis, I get the comments mixed up) that Dumbledore’s main goal was not to avoid a painful and humiliating death, but to ensure that Snape ended up with the Elder Wand. Why couldn’t he just have told him that, we ask? Because he learned secrecy, as Aberforth says, at his mother’s knee.

Travis said, “but by her faith, she hid the spies, which was commended by God, and necessitated the lie.”

The lie may have been necessary to spare her life and the lives of the disciples, as would be the case with hiding Jews in Europe during WWII. At this point, one must decide which is more important: saving lives or maintaining integrity. The secular world would certainly lean toward the former, but I believe God would lean toward the latter.

“God Himself sends out a ‘lying spirit’ to go lie to Ahab in order to bring about his downfall. (1 Kings 22)”

I am not even close to being a theologian or biblical expert, so I again turned to the commentary from my bible: “God does not entice anyone to become evil. Those committed to evil, however, may be used by God to sin even more in order to hurry their deserved judgment.” When I asked a friend and retired Army Chaplain, he agreed that God only allowed the lying spirit because the prophets and Ahab were already wicked, and that God would never entice Christians to lie.

I realize that I will not convince you of my stance, but I am learning so I consider the exegetical debate worthwhile.

Matthew and Travis,

You needn’t convince me that Snape is not a good person. I understand that. All I’m saying is that he does good things – perhaps for the most reprehensible reasons and with no intention of reforming or becoming a better person – but he does do good things. Hence the label of antihero.

As for Dumbledore, when I used the word “sacrifice” I meant a personal sacrifice, as in giving up something you want or love, for the greater good. He said it himself, in the passage I’ve quoted several times now, the “what did I care” speech at the end of OotP. Ultimately, he did choose the lives of countless unnamed, faceless people over the happiness of one boy. Hence the tragedy. His tragedy.

BTW, I’m now seeing Dumbledore and Snape as brothers under the robe: they both loved passionately, but neither find happiness in love, and they both, unwillingly, helped bring about the death of the one they loved.

Looking at it that way, I’m not surprised that Dumbledore didn’t have the time of day for Snape: he’d look at him and see a reflection of himself.

Mary Jo, I think that the reason HOgwarts is so deficient as a school is because it’s cast as the background for an action/suspense/mystery drama. Good teaching and good disciplinary principles do not make for good drama. Would you agree, however, that we had one example of a good teacher: Remus Lupin?

Travis, interesting that you brought up S_B: I was watching GoF, the scene in the study hall where Harry and friends keep talking when they’re supposed to be studying. Snape keeps pushing their heads down to their books. What caught my eye was the fact that the last time Rickman does this, he pushes back his shirtcuffs. Which are perfectly starched and spotlessly white.

JKR must have missed that one.

Yes, Lupin was an excellent teacher, without a doubt.

I just re-read my comment and realized I contradicted myself. Good teaching does make for good drama: the most enjoyable parts of PoA for me are Lupin’s lessons on boggarts and dementors. And McGonogall’s lessons on transfiguration, while not very dramatic, aren’t bad either. Neither are the herbology lessons with Professor Sprout, nor charms with Professor Flitwick.

And while Moody/Crouch may have been a murderous maniac, he did teach Harry how to resist the Imperius. And Harry did do pretty well in Potions under Slughorn.

The bad apples are: Snape, Trelawney, Quirrell (I can’t actually remember if he was a good or bad teacher, just that he wore a turban and Voldemort), Lockhart, and Umbridge (but she was appointed by the MOM so her sins can’t be put at Dumbledore’s door). And unfortunately, I must add Hagrid to that list. His love for his subject constantly put his students in danger.

So about even.

On the matter of discipline, I remember reading that one of JKR’s intentional teachings was to challenge authority. Which Harry and co. certainly did.

Funny how history repeats itself. I remember we had an almost identical conversation to this one six or so months ago on this site, discussing what a bad teacher Snape was and Dumbledore’s shortcomings as a Headmaster for allowing Snape to bully the kids as he did, and appointing some of the teachers he did.

Mary Jo, I think Binns was JKR’s idea of a joke: a teacher who was so oblivious to what was happening outside of his subject that he missed the fact that he had died, and kept droning on.

Does anyone really think it is important whether or not Dumbledore is gay or not? Personally, he was my favourite character and I would not care if he had typhiod, smelled of rotten cheese, carried dead bats or was on the verge of some psychotic episode. Obviously, for social and political reasons, it is great that JKR felt it necessary to make one of her charecters gay. Why exclude this group from inclusion in the most influential group of publications of the past decade? I think that Draco may be gay, he blatently lusts for HP’s attention. Really, does it further the experience of the book to make sexuality a key issue with such a patriarchial charecter. There was reference to an “inappropriate relationship ” between Dum. and HP in the Daily Prophet but really, is this a reliable source. As to those in the God Squad continually trying to crucify JKR for any slight reference to anything that may be sinful or scandalous, most people are intelligent enough to discern fiction from reality and I personally would not allow my children to read the last four books before the age of 12 as they are potentially frightening. When they are of an appropriate age, I will encourage them to enjoy these exceptional works of literature in the hope that they too will enjoy the release of stress and escape to a superbly woven fantasy world thathas inticed and enchanted me over the past 8 years.

Pat wrote “But the question that came to my mind when I was reading (and I don’t think anyone has brought it up), just what did he want Snape to do with that wand?”

Pat, I believe Dumbledore wanted the wand to lose it’s power, because Snape wouldn’t have defeated him. Harry said on p. 594 (British edition): “Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand’s last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand’s power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!” So, if Snape would have kept it, it would have been an ordinary wand, just like any other.