Dumbledore Is Gay, or: the Pensieve of Loneliness

Making its way across the Internet faster than a blast-ended skrewt is the news that J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has outed Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Speaking at Carnegie Hall in New York on Friday, she admitted she “always thought Dumbledore was gay.” Reuters reports:

Rowling said Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald but when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark arts than good, Dumbledore was “terribly let down” and went on to destroy his rival.

That love, she said, was Dumbledore’s “great tragedy”.

“Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” she said.

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in June, I speculated on LGBT themes within the series, noting that Rowling has a copy of Radclyffe Hall’s lesbian classic, The Well of Loneliness, on her bookshelf. I never guessed about Dumbledore, though—I think he always seemed like one of those academic types too wrapped up in his work to have time for any kind of romantic relationship.

Some may criticize Rowling for not having been being more forthright about Dumbledore’s love during the course of the books. Perhaps she did not think her readers were ready for such knowledge; perhaps she thought to protect us from further attacks by those who already wished to ban the series for its “promotion” of witchcraft, just as Dumbledore kept secrets from Harry in order to protect him from Voldemort. “I feared the uses to which he would put you,” Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of Order of the Phoenix. He continues, however, “And now, tonight, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long.” With millions of readers holding Dumbledore in their hearts even before they knew his sexual orientation, perhaps they are now more willing to accept this new piece of information. And perhaps, just perhaps, this acceptance will flow over into their view of the real LGBT people in their lives. How very Dumbledorian of Rowling to present it this way.