Albus Dumbledore Gay? Jo Rowling, Chatterbox!

Jo Rowling outed Dumbledore at a reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Carnegie Hall last week, or so the buzz in the newspapers and blogs have said.

I disagree completely. She did no such thing.

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J.K. Rowling’s Egregious Divination

It is not hard to nitpick such a sprawling literary work as Jo Rowling’s Harry Potter septet. The characters are many, complex, and develop over the course of seven years, many of them through the emotional chaos of puberty. The narrative is a complex and interwoven mystery, made all-the-more plastic by the magical context and Ms. Rowling’s peerless ingenuity. It is hardly surprising that fans of the series point to books that were weaker than others, characterization choices that rubbed them wrong, slain characters they wished had survived (or vice versa), and plot details they might have spun differently had they been Ms. Rowling’s editor.

But nitpicking it is. There are only two truly abominable parts of the otherwise magnificent ouvre.

Expelliarmus! Harry Potter and the Path to Gandhian Non-Violence

A country should be defended not by arms, but by ethical behavior.
-Vinoba Bhave

Throughout the Harry Potter series, when Jo Rowling’s hero raises his wand in anger or defense against an evil witch or wizard, he habitually uses non-lethal curses and charms. Indeed, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the identity of a concealed Harry is immediately revealed to the Death Eaters when he slips a killing curse and de-wands his assailant, rather than returning deadly fire. Says Remus Lupin, “The Death Eaters seem to think it’s your signature move, and I urge you not to let it become so.”