My friend Carl Olson over at Ignatius Insight has written on the Dumbledore homosexual thing.
Like him, I haven’t read one sentence of the Harry Potter books, and dozed off in the only one of the movies I was dragged off to see.
What I’ve seen and heard of them makes me think they’re derivative and unoriginal. (I know that’s rich as I’ve just finished my ‘Screwtape Letters’ pastiche.)
I’m sorry. Should I be interested in Dumbledore’s sexuality? It’s all ridiculous. What next? Dorothy tells all: The Scarecrow and the Tin Man were lovers?
Can anybody explain why this is either interesting or important?
It’s neither, even for those of us who love the books. I’m a man with SSA, and I can’t even get worked up about this, because I’m quite sure Jo Rowling’s concept of homosexuality doesn’t have a lot of room for celibacy/chastity.OTOH, as usual, Mark Shea has the best slogan for the controversy: “Buckbeak Mountain” (of course, you’d have to read the books to get that, Father).
All i can say is good question Fr!
Father, Your right, it’s not important, but it is a lot of fun reading the books and linking together all the ambiguous facts. Then while you wait for the next book to roll out you play the Tri-Wizard tournament at Scholastic.com and test your knowledge. Gracious, I loaded my Order of the Phoenix book with Post It notes and I actually bought and read “New Clues to Harry Potter : Book 5”. If it’s any conciliation, I didn’t read the last two books all the way through. About three years ago, I realized I was an addict and joined a 12 step program.Why do children need to learn about homosexuality? If you wanted to explain deep love between two males turn to David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18) rather than explain homosexuality to children. Children don’t need to know what goes on in the bedroom.
I loved the books, had mixed reactions on the movies, but agree that there’s simply no big deal about Dumbledore being homosexual. I think the fact that Rowling didn’t specify it in the books themselves showed that she herself didn’t feel it was appropriate to spell out for children in a children’s book. But the fact that he is homosexual itself? I don’t get the big deal. Every character has traits, that make up the particularities of the character, and that’s one of his.
Hello. Dumbledore is a character from a novel, a work of fiction. Dumbledore isn’t anything. He does not exist except in the imagination of the writer and the reader.I have never been a Harry Potter fan. I think the Harry Potter phenomena is typical of late 20th century book publishing, where marketeering is everything and literary talent is nothing.Harry Potter is derivative and second-rate; the characters are two-dimensional and the plots are lightweight.I know that much Christian spleen has been vented on the Magic contents but, actually, the main objection which I have to the Potter books is that too often Potter ‘wins’ through the use of lies, deceit and downright immorality. These are not messages which children should be encouraged in.
An a sunny, crisp Sunday morning, my heart rejoices over another who hasn’t read a word of the HP books. There aren’t many of us left int he world, you know.
I’m honestly puzzled by some of the comments here.Why all the disdain? The Harry Potter series is fun, competently written (despite what you may hear), and has, amazingly, strong Christian themes. She’s definitely writing in the same tradition as Lewis and Tolkien. Rowling’s not the equal of either, sure, but taken all in all the books work pretty well.No one said you were required to like them, after all.
Father, I only caught sight of her (the author’s) claims one time, and I only had one brief thought on the matter and then I thought of it no more:Publicity.Why?? Why bring this into a child’s thoughts? It’s cruel, in my opinion.
It’s a big deal, or at least newsworthy, because of the connection that will be made between homosexuality and the stories now, and the agendas that will take advantage of that…especially as the movies of the books are still being filmed. It’s just another way of trying to get homosexuality considered normal, and via children.