Harry Potter Quandry

Nothing says "the holidays" like a good overdose of Harry Potter in whatever form available; thus, over the past week I've watched all the movies and begun to re-read many of the books. It's a wonderland. But given this thorough re-examination of the stories, the relationships of the characters, and the major plot points (and even the minor and sub-minor ones), there's been a question rattling around in this mindtrap of mine for a while, nagging, constantly tapping me on the shoulder, and yes, even cajoling me to come up with a good answer for it and I have none, so I throw it out there to the wider public (of 4 readers several of whom are non-Potterophiles) for consideration:

Why is it important to know that Albus Dumbledore is gay?

A couple weeks (months?) ago, J.K. Rowling "outed" Dumbledore in a Q&A she was doing to promote the 7th and last installment of the series. I was somewhat ambivalent then, not really paying attention. But at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, I ask why this move was necessary. To be honest, I'd never once (literally--never) considered Dumbledore's sexuality at all: he's possibly hundreds of years old (I'm serious) although I don't think we know exactly how old he is, he's a famous and powerful wizard, and he's the headmaster of a school and a lifelong teacher. All of these social roles in some way allow us to not really need to know his sexuality. In some ways, they're a-sexual roles in and of themselves; surely, they have the potential to be considered in sexual ways if that's part of the story. Hence the beginning of my beef.

When I heard about Rowling's announcement, I thought, "Huh...never even though of that." mostly because there's no reason to...it's not an important detail in the story. We know Ron and Hermione like each other, we know Harry has a crush on Cho while at Hogwarts and marries Ginny in the end, but we don't know any other teacher's sexual preference and frankly I don't want to. Do I need to know that Snape has a girlfriend who lives in Hogsmeade? Is Minerva McGonigle a lesbian? I think the answer is "no." Their social relationships in the book are to their students, making the sexuality of the teachers irrelevant to this story. So, it's weird to me that we need an official proclamation, outside of the scope of the story, that Dumbledore is gay.

[Pause while I go back to check the actual transcript].

Okay, I see why she did it--you can read it here if you want--and it was very nonchalant and answers a very specific question, but to add another layer, that's not the story you get if you follow the massive news coverage of this announcement. And even though I can understand it in its context, I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with the information. Worse, I'm not sure what pea-brains will do with it.

I'm conflicted. On one hand, Dumbledore is an absolutely beloved character and, to be honest, makes sense as a gay man (now that I think about it). On the other, in the scope of this story which is a battle between Good (capital G) and Evil (capital E), sexuality seems a minor detail as does race, gender, and class (all categories that are touched on but not dwelt on in the story); Harry is a symbol of the good of Humanity (capital H...getting the gist?) and Voldemort is the opposite of that. Would the story change if we knew Voldemort was gay? The answer should be "no," but ultimately it is "yes." It would change things in ways that move us away from the human question at hand which is a good and important question.

I always find it interesting that in the midst of these deeply rich, human characters who are fighting an "Ultimate" symbolic war of souls and "eternity" (sounds like religion, huh?), these are the questions we need answered. We can accept that Harry might die as a sacrifice for others in the greater meta-narrative of good/evil, but we have a burning need to know whether Dumbledore is gay and if Neville ever gets married. Maybe that's the greatest insight here: good and evil are not the meta-narrative but instead its the human narrative, sketched out through these deeply decisive, meaning-making social details. Dumbledore might be Good and Wise and True (all capitals) but knowing whether he's ever "found love" and with whom are much more central, real questions. What can Good and Wise and True mean unless we know his reality and see how and if it matches our own? They somehow mean more if he's found love because that's meaningful to us. It makes us feel better to know that Ron and Hermione get married. We drool over Harry marrying Ginny and having a son who's headed to Hogwarts. And, oh yeah, he saved the world.

So, I guess I've talked myself into an answer that I can live with. Just as I needed the context to understand the question, we all long for the context within which we can understand the trials of being Good, Wise, True, Friends, who are Loved. Without the concrete reality of those abstractions, they do become only something of dreams and a world that exists only on paper or celluloid. But if we know Dumbledore's gay (which really means he loved "in that way") and we know Harry and Ginny live happily ever after next door to Ron and Hermione, then they could be our neighbors and, by that same extension, we could save the world--if a dark and evil wizard should ever appear and threaten humanity as we know it. I know my wand's ready.

But, despite my infant answer to this question, I still have a beef: Dumbledore falling in love with Grindewald? Really? I was convinced it would be Nicholas Flammel. Oh well.