InsaneJournal

oh noes, not THAT again!
I need an Albus icon. Ah well. -

I actually didn't want to talk about it, but it can't be helped. The thoughts need out!


Imagine me lying in bed, on a Friday fucking night, 4AM (which actually makes it Saturday). Imagine a post appearing on the LJ flist, stating "OMG JKR JUST SAID DUMBLEDORE IS GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!1!ONE!" Imagine me, half-sleeping, being jerked awake by such news. Imagine me going totally hyper and bouncing up and down in bed, singing along with the music that's playing on the laptop and whose volume somehow just got turned up.

At 4AM, yep.

That was my first reaction.

My flist is awesome. There haven't been any shouts of "Ewww! Old!man sex!" or "Ewww! Pedophile!", only the occasional "It should have appeared in the books! Why didn't it appear in the books!?", which I really don't mind all that much. But, you know, once you do some digging around - fandom_wank being a pretty comprehensive resource of the worst of the worst - you will inevitably meet those outcries of squicked people who apparently think Dumbledore, being somewhat older and, OMG!, gay, must have checked out Harry in all those lessons he gave him, or in the hospital wing, or whatever.

Now, I know where you might be coming from there, if you look at it from a cracked-out point of view, but seriously? Please.

I think we've seen enough of Dumbledore to know that there's not much more than fatherly feelings going on. I do not think that there were desirous feelings on his side. Why?

Dumbledore's Gryffindor, and despite his Machiavellian issues I cannot believe that he'd enter an affair/relationship/what-have-you based on such a huge difference of intellect, power, and (self-)control. Gryffindors, methinks, strive for equality (which does not mean they deny there must be (strong) leadership; hence Machiavelli...). Albus, being who he is, I can't believe would have abused his position in such a manner. He turned down the position of Minister for Magic for the same reason, fearing it would tempt him too much. Do you honestly think he'd become a teacher, later headmaster, if he knew he'd be severely tempted by all those young, innocent boys running around? That wouldn't fit, I don't think.

And also, my opinion on why Dumbledore's sexuality wasn't a topic in the books - and why it wasn't important it appear: we have Harry's point of view throughout the books (exceptions prove the rule). Dumbledore is a private man, never letting on more than necessary, so why should he have told Harry? Why should Harry even want to think about Dumbledore's sexuality, since there's a significant age difference and teenagers tend not to want to think of people who could be their grandparents as sexual beings? Let's face it: Harry is somewhat emotionally immature at least until HBP. His reaction would have been "Ewww! Old!man sex!" for sure, and I don't think that should have been part of what is, for god's sake, a children's (or, young adults') book series. For Harry (and thus for the kids reading HP) Albus probably pretty much is an asexual being, which I think is not necessarily bad. Adults can look behind that facade; children mostly cannot. Wouldn't it be somewhat discomfiting if you were in school and knew about your teachers' (= mentors', ideally) sex life? Hell, five years ago I didn't want to know my mother was a sexual being. Besides: the discussion of sexuality within the wizarding world that would have had to follow inside the book would probably have been too much - and misplaced in the context of it being a children's/young adults' series, if you ask me. Now, I hope JKR will be asked about that in her interviews, because dropping the bomb and then walking away from it is so not on, but, yeah. In my opinion her decision not to put it in the books was the right one. Not saying I wouldn't have liked it, but that's how I can explain and justify it.

There is amazing subtext within DH, which should be enough for those who want to see it - or can allow themselves to see it. How many shouts of "I fucking KNEW it!" were there? I don't think that many of them were faked. Hey, my first post-DH entry in my plotbunny notebook is Albus/Gellert. I hadn't really thought about Dumbledore's sexuality before (but I did think of him as a sexual being), but it kinda dripped off the pages in DH, didn't it.

As to the matter of that biography: well, it would have been somewhat of an interesting bomb if all of a sudden, in the last pages of the whole series, JKR would have actually outright stated Dumbledore's sexuality. IMO it would have been clever if she'd written about suspicions regarding the nature of Albus and Gellert's intense filthy affair friendship somewhere, but I really don't mind that she did not. Letting it on in the biography thing would have been somewhat unbelievable, to me, if it were stated as a fact out of the (almost) nowhere.


And, finally, an (older) art rec that will prove that OMG old!man sex can be HOT:
Scarred by matyas_adina (Albus/Severus, NC-17 and thus NWS)

Now, I think this commentary might be somewhat disorganised and jumping from point to point, but it's been a very long time since I've actually had to write comprehensible comments/essays - and to actually make sense I'd have to reread DH. Mmm. Whatever. Thoughts, comments, links and/or corrections? Shoot away!

Also, you can still request a ficlet from me, to be a posted at the end of December, here!