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[–]orange59polystellar vegemorph 75 points76 points ago

It's especially stupid because while Dumbledore's role in Harry vs. Voldemort isn't centered around his sexuality, his backstory is literally about the tragedy of his relationship with Grindelwald, and how they are star crossed (gay!) lovers.

[–]mathfreak123"This" will be downvoted. 75 points76 points ago

I never picked up on Dumbledore's sexuality by reading the books by myself. I just saw him as a pretty cool dude. It's almost as if... (wait for it) ... gay people are just like straight people (except for sexuality), and Dumbledore is a person that is not solely defined by his sexual orientation!

[–]raptorrage 9 points10 points ago

And interestingly enough, Dumbledore never brought his sexuality up to his students. It's almost like he was...professional or something. Crazy.

[–]yuloforceSlayer of the Adipose Mass 14 points15 points ago

Oooohhh, Grindelwald was also gay?

[–]KaynanKMy Little Patriarchy: Opression is Magic 8 points9 points ago

No. Hence, Dumbledore's love was unrequited.

[–]wastingtime14 5 points6 points ago

I thought that was never really established. There actually is a lot that just never gets said. Really, the only hints at any romance in their relationship at all is a few paragraphs about how Grindelwald's ideas "inflamed" Dumbledore, which is pretty ambiguous as to how far it went. And according to Dumbledore, they both wanted to rule the world together.

I actually don't think that JK Rowling was being super oppressive or anything by not being explicit, but she was pretty vague.

[–]Lionftn -1 points0 points ago

If I recall correctly, Rowling told everyone in an interview; she said she didn't want to include it in a young adult novel because it was a theme that reached beyond the scope of such.

[–]wastingtime14 2 points3 points ago

Yeah, I actually had no idea about Dumbledore being gay until that interview. (I was just kind of "OMG LAST HARRY POTTER GUH" whenever I thought about the last book.) And I can totally understand her being vague about it because she was always really vague about adult topics, like Voldemort's parents, and some of the more violent things. (What exactly happened to Dumbledore's little sister that made Ron look sick to hear about it?) But even in that interview she didn't say anything about his love being unrequited, just that he was in love.


And apparently she said this, too, afterwards:


[–]DoogieHueserMDBounty Nap-kin 31 points32 points ago

It's the kind of thing that when you read it and you're young it's subtle enough that you think they are just friends or something. What we need to do is have Dumbledore with a limp wrist and feather boa.