Post by krissie on Dec 15, 2007 8:03:54 GMT -5
Shmeep, I also hope that JKR writes this encyclopaedia. I am sure that it would be a good read -- just like Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.
As for whether JKR has the right to say that Dumbledore is gay: she surely has more of a right to say this than anyone else!
I had problems with English literature when I was at school because we were encouraged to read so many things into texts that their dead authors had never made explicit. I felt that if the material wasn't in the book and the authors had never told us what they meant, then what right did we readers have to put it there. Isn't interpretation up to the individual reader?
(Bear in mind here that I was a teenager at this point in time, so pretty academically naive. I still have issues with the idea of interpreting someone else's work in this way, but I now have a slightly better appreciation of why academics would want to do it.)
But the Dumbledore situation is, in my mind, different. JKR is the author, not a random academic saying that she thinks the author intended Dumbledore to be gay.
Why did she not tell us in the books that Dumbledore was gay? Because the subject never came up. The stories are told almost exclusively from Harry's point of view. Whether Dumbledore was gay or not wasn't relevant to Harry's story, so it wasn't made explicit. That's fine by me. Knowing this about Dumbledore doesn't change the story, it just means we now know a little something extra about Dumbledore. Again, that's fine by me.
Now, if JKR had come out and said that Dumbledore was actually a muggle aristocrat masquerading as a wizard (or something), I would have had far more trouble dealing with that as a relevation. Why? Because that revelation would conflict with the story. Dumbledore couldn't be a muggle and remain true to everything we've been told about him in the books.
So, can authors say what they like about their characters? Broadly speaking, I would say 'yes', but with a caveat that I would like the authors to keep their characters in character, according to the parameters that the authors have set.
I hope that I've explained myself okay here. I'm not entirely sure that I have.
Krissie
As for whether JKR has the right to say that Dumbledore is gay: she surely has more of a right to say this than anyone else!
I had problems with English literature when I was at school because we were encouraged to read so many things into texts that their dead authors had never made explicit. I felt that if the material wasn't in the book and the authors had never told us what they meant, then what right did we readers have to put it there. Isn't interpretation up to the individual reader?
(Bear in mind here that I was a teenager at this point in time, so pretty academically naive. I still have issues with the idea of interpreting someone else's work in this way, but I now have a slightly better appreciation of why academics would want to do it.)
But the Dumbledore situation is, in my mind, different. JKR is the author, not a random academic saying that she thinks the author intended Dumbledore to be gay.
Why did she not tell us in the books that Dumbledore was gay? Because the subject never came up. The stories are told almost exclusively from Harry's point of view. Whether Dumbledore was gay or not wasn't relevant to Harry's story, so it wasn't made explicit. That's fine by me. Knowing this about Dumbledore doesn't change the story, it just means we now know a little something extra about Dumbledore. Again, that's fine by me.
Now, if JKR had come out and said that Dumbledore was actually a muggle aristocrat masquerading as a wizard (or something), I would have had far more trouble dealing with that as a relevation. Why? Because that revelation would conflict with the story. Dumbledore couldn't be a muggle and remain true to everything we've been told about him in the books.
So, can authors say what they like about their characters? Broadly speaking, I would say 'yes', but with a caveat that I would like the authors to keep their characters in character, according to the parameters that the authors have set.
I hope that I've explained myself okay here. I'm not entirely sure that I have.
Krissie