I wasn't sure if I should reply to this at all since this is an issue we'll never agree upon, but there are a couple of things in your post that bother me too much to simply ignore them:
The problem is however that none of these things is ever presented as in any way strange or excessive or out of the norm.
Which (I think we can safely say) is precisely JKR's point, and everyone would be rightly disturbed if it were (presented as) out of the norm.
Dumbledore has been training this boy from age 11 for a fight he has precious little chance of coming out of alive, because it is necessary, and because he has even less a chance for survival otherwise; what's more, he's the only one who has to live with that knowledge, and in your opinion it's a 'problem' that he's never shown to be sexually attracted to him? And you're accusing the slashers of suspicion and dirty minds?
There are of course some teachers, male and female, who enter into sexual relationships with teenaged students, so I'm not going to pretend this kind of thing never happens, but I would assume that the majority, regardless of sexual orientation, manages not only not maintain a strictly professional relationships, but won't even think of them in a sexual light. And certainly none of the teachers at Hogwarts ever shows such attraction (which is perfectly appropriate in a series of children's books that don't specifically deal with this issue), so why should Dumbledore? Your implied reason is that he not only would, but should have done so because (and apparently only because) he's gay, and this singling out is what makes the argument very problematic to me, especially because of all the people who reacted to JKR's revelation by saying it made Dumbledore's relationship with Harry 'creepy', immediately jumping to the gay = paedophile = child molester equation.
You might have a better point if you'd argued, as others have, that his sexuality might have been brought up earlier in another context (that is, obviously, one not related to Harry or any of the students), but on the other hand we learn nothing of any of the teachers' romantic/sexual lives, unless (and before) it turns out to be, as with Snape, crucial to the plot. We don't know if professor McGonagall is straight, lesbian, asexual or anything in between. And while one might argue that in the case of Dumbledore it's, if not crucial, then at least somewhat relevant to the plot too, DH worked fine for me when I thought it was nothing more than friendship, whereas without the knowledge of Snape's love for Lily his whole character arc wouldn't have made sense, so on the whole I think JKR can be excused for wanting to avoid the struggle with her publishers and having the finale overshadowed by a debate about sexual orientation instead of readers focusing on the much more important issues touched there.
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Date: 2007-10-26 01:03 pm (UTC)The problem is however that none of these things is ever presented as in any way strange or excessive or out of the norm.
Which (I think we can safely say) is precisely JKR's point, and everyone would be rightly disturbed if it were (presented as) out of the norm.
Dumbledore has been training this boy from age 11 for a fight he has precious little chance of coming out of alive, because it is necessary, and because he has even less a chance for survival otherwise; what's more, he's the only one who has to live with that knowledge, and in your opinion it's a 'problem' that he's never shown to be sexually attracted to him? And you're accusing the slashers of suspicion and dirty minds?
There are of course some teachers, male and female, who enter into sexual relationships with teenaged students, so I'm not going to pretend this kind of thing never happens, but I would assume that the majority, regardless of sexual orientation, manages not only not maintain a strictly professional relationships, but won't even think of them in a sexual light. And certainly none of the teachers at Hogwarts ever shows such attraction (which is perfectly appropriate in a series of children's books that don't specifically deal with this issue), so why should Dumbledore? Your implied reason is that he not only would, but should have done so because (and apparently only because) he's gay, and this singling out is what makes the argument very problematic to me, especially because of all the people who reacted to JKR's revelation by saying it made Dumbledore's relationship with Harry 'creepy', immediately jumping to the gay = paedophile = child molester equation.
You might have a better point if you'd argued, as others have, that his sexuality might have been brought up earlier in another context (that is, obviously, one not related to Harry or any of the students), but on the other hand we learn nothing of any of the teachers' romantic/sexual lives, unless (and before) it turns out to be, as with Snape, crucial to the plot. We don't know if professor McGonagall is straight, lesbian, asexual or anything in between. And while one might argue that in the case of Dumbledore it's, if not crucial, then at least somewhat relevant to the plot too, DH worked fine for me when I thought it was nothing more than friendship, whereas without the knowledge of Snape's love for Lily his whole character arc wouldn't have made sense, so on the whole I think JKR can be excused for wanting to avoid the struggle with her publishers and having the finale overshadowed by a debate about sexual orientation instead of readers focusing on the much more important issues touched there.
(continued)