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The HMS STFU - Evil Snape and ladies'man Grindelwald
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| | Subject: | Evil Snape and ladies'man Grindelwald | | Time: | 08:40 pm |
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| Look at some non-H/Hr related stupidity from Hopedreamer, the author of "The Weasleys are the royal family" "theory" (JKR 'screwed up her own story & characters'?, Why do some readers think so?):
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(Moogle)
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(Kckaye)
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(Moogle)
I dunno about you lot, but I never once thought Dumbledore was gay. I wouldn't really trust the "sensitive adults" either, considering a lot of those same people probably thought that Sirius and Remus were gay, as well as Harry, Ron and Draco.
I never saw Dumbledore as being gay either.
Glad I wasn't the only one who felt this way. I just never thought of him being romantically involved with anyone. It just didn't fit.
Maybe "smug adults" is more like it, Moogle. These people apparently prided themselves on their "adult" worldview -- on being too "sophisticated" to believe that living and unsterilized humans can be asexual in real life, and therefore on "knowing" only one possible reason why someone could reach the age Dumbledore reached without ever achieving marriage and parenthood.
The problem is that JKR set out in canon (if not quite spelling it out) a perfectly plausible alternate explanation, straight from the Phoenix's beak -- sort of:
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(Bloomsbury/Raincoast edition, pp. 573-75)
"...You know the secret of my sister's ill health, what those Muggles did, what she became. You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died in Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana.
"I resented it, Harry.
"...I was gifted. I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory.
"Do not misunderstand me. ...I loved them. I loved my parents, I loved my brother and sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine.
"So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then, of course, he came...
"...Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.
"Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true.
"And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows!
"...Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and I. Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me.
"And then...you know what happened. Reality returned, in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth to seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow.
"The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana...after all my mother's care and caution...lay dead upon the floor.
"...Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted. He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I was left to bury my sister and learn to live with my guilt and my terrible grief, the price of my shame.
"Years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had procured a wand of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister for Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power...
"...I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation...
"...I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher --
"...But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army..."
Do you see it? Dumbledore went into teaching to atone for having mishandled his responsibilities toward his family of origin -- and for having let his ideals become briefly corrupted by Grindelwald. In this way, Hogwarts became his spouse, and its numerous students his children.
So doesn't this rather cast doubt on the idea of his death as a rough act of euthanasia he planned with Snape? Terminal illness or none, wouldn't this Dumbledore far more likely have opted to serve as Headmaster to the bitter end -- to go down fighting Voldemort himself, if necessary, in order to protect the only family he had? (Remember how, just before he and Harry went off to the cave, Dumbledore made a show of not knowingly leaving the castle unprotected.) Shortly after Dumbledore's death, Hagrid said of him, "No other Headmaster or Headmistress ever gave more to this school." If Dumbledore saw the school as his family, then that statement makes more sense now than ever.
By extension, am I the only one who's extremely skeptical about most of what the Pensieve presented to Harry as "The Prince's Tale"? Knowing how hazardous his continued association with Voldemort was, could Snape have wanted to leave something behind him to prevent Harry from knowing the truth about him -- such as a collection of memories of which some were true, others altered and still others entirely omitted? Remember that Harry never learned anything from Snape that Snape didn't want him to learn -- and never mind whether what Harry was to learn was truth or error.
For one thing, even supposing that Snape's amputation of George's ear was accidental, why would he have wanted to protect Remus? James (and Lily with him) died as the result of Snape passing information to Voldemort. Snape very likely used his Occlumency scam to rid himself of Sirius, using Harry as a pawn. (Shob and Silkymoonshine are two people I know to concur with me on this: they informed me as much by PM. How many others, whom I've never heard from, also agree?) So wouldn't he more likely have wanted to make it three-for-three, and maybe disguise his act as that of the Death Eater who allegedly got between him and Remus -- assuming, of course, that Snape didn't just add that person to the version of that memory he left for Harry?
Then, too, there's that first meeting of the Marauders -- and their first meeting with Snape -- on the Express. Had we been able to get Sirius's and/or Remus's memory thereof, might it have turned out, say, that Snape attracted the attention of the foursome by calling them weaklings and cowards -- and worse -- for favoring Gryffindor over Slytherin, and backed it up by, say, bringing their luggage crashing down on them? (Remember once again what Sirius said in Book Four about first-year Snape's knowledge of curses.) Who could blame Lily for fleeing the compartment after witnessing all of that? (Yet now we're being asked to believe that jealousy over Lily, rather than any aversion to the Dark Arts -- though, admittedly, the latter was more Sirius's forte because of his disreputable family -- drove James's enmity toward Snape.) And as Snape followed her out of there, did he put an Impediment Jinx on the Marauders to stop them from following him?
So where are the omitted memories, as well as the original versions of those Harry viewed (including a possible "restored" version of "Snape's Worst Memory")? Could they be in a heavily-sealed and threateningly-labeled bottle, possibly hidden behind some jars of slimy dead things in a certain office in the Hogwarts dungeons? And during his occupancy of said office, did Amycus Carrow:
1) never notice the bottle;
2) never consider it worth investigating; or
3) never dare to investigate it?
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(Stella Octangula)
...There were people shipping GrindleDore since the carpet book leaked. Of course people will ship anything in this fandom.
As for "GrindleDore," I can buy that even less since JKR spelled out the nature of the relationship between these two a little more clearly:
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(p. 572)
"It was the [Deathly Hallows], above all, that drew us together. Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession..."
(p. 573)
"...You cannot imagine how [Grindelwald's] ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. ...Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution. ...It would all be for the greater good...Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and I..."
Thus their bond appears to have been more intellectual and ideological than anything else. Could this really have been too boring -- or too naïve -- for adult readers?
You'll remember that in the print version of Book Four, both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were coed. I for one believe that Grindelwald was not only straight but, before his expulsion from the latter school, quite the ladies' man around there. Can't you imagine him mentoring young Albus in that area -- the two of them becoming known as "lady-killers" around Godric's Hollow?
I for one am also still waiting for someone from Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros., Christopher Little Literary Agency or Colman Getty P.R. Consultancy to come forward disputing JKR's claim that she's "always seen Dumbledore as gay."
What's that? "You for one are wasting your time: there's nothing to dispute, because she only told the truth"? Maybe; just maybe..."
And here ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) rattlesnakeroot shares her thoughts on yaoi:
"One thing has been bothering me all day - what is it about "slapping" and JKR? She said she wanted to slap Snape "hard" and then, in that video clip from the special, she mentions that she told a fan about Dumbledore being gay she thought the woman was "going to slap me." She was very offended that a fan might not want to know about Dumbledore's sexual orientation.
Perhaps our dear author should ask herself if this information is pertinent to most readers? To the story it would seem to make no difference at all, because Dumbledore and Gellert could have been best friends, as James and Sirius were best friends, and Harry and Ron. Those male friendships do not have to be gay to be meaningful or emotional, and that is her own paradigm that is in the canon.
And here's another point: People love Dumbledore as a character, and for many people he may have reminded them of a father or their own grandfather. So it might come as a shock that he was gay. That does not mean those readers are homophobic, but merely surprised because they saw him a different way. Again, that goes to author's intention versus the interpretation of the reader." | comments: Poke a delusional shipper     |
| As mentioned prior to moving the ETA here -
While I like the perspective on Snape, as far as Dumbledore and Grindelwald go, the poster's simultaneous insistence on wearing a big foam hat of cluelessness and insisting that the author of the book series, JK Rowling, is wrong about her own damn canon, smacks of some pretty big chutzpah.
To add to this JF comment, I have re-read this thrice now -
I for one am also still waiting for someone from Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros., Christopher Little Literary Agency or Colman Getty P.R. Consultancy to come forward disputing JKR's claim that she's "always seen Dumbledore as gay."
And... I just - wow. I mean, that's just... wow, and not in a good way. It's the kind of "wow" one says when so dumbfounded by a comment or statement that one can say nothing else. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| //I for one am also still waiting for someone from Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros., Christopher Little Literary Agency or Colman Getty P.R. Consultancy to come forward disputing JKR's claim that she's "always seen Dumbledore as gay.//
But... but she OPENLY said so! It came straight from her mouth! How can people, well, deny something that THE AUTHOR SAID IN PUBLIC?! | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
mcity | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-22 07:22 pm (UTC) |
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| | Harmoanians said that they were still expecting their ship to sail before DH because JKR didn't "officially" deny it on her website. Apparently, the interview when she said they were friends wasn't enough. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I guess it's one of those mysteries where a fan, by fiat, is supposed to be able to override the author's intent when writing a story.
Ok, it's one thing to read Shakespeare or Mark Twain and wonder what their intents were, since Shakespeare, IIRC, didn't ever say "Oh, and by the way, Mercutio and Romeo were totally, y'know, into each other" (translate into that era's English if you so desire), and I'm pretty sure Mark Twain wasn't all about the shipping either. Unless we mean clipper ships. :P
But JKR? She's alive. And very willing to discuss her books.
No parallel here, Harmonians of the overly-zealous variety. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
mcity | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-22 07:19 pm (UTC) |
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| They have kind of a point; a lot of people, myself included, missed the clues to Dumbledore being gay that other people say were glaringly obvious. I recently saw someone cite D's purple suit as evidence. If that's the passage I think it was, it may have taken place during the 60s. Not to mention the "Old Mentor" archetype is frequently chaste, at least by the time the audience sees him.
"It was the [Deathly Hallows], above all, that drew us together. Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession..." Much like Sirius and Lupin.
Not helping, am I?
And here's another point: People love Dumbledore as a character, and for many people he may have reminded them of a father or their own grandfather. So it might come as a shock that he was gay. That does not mean those readers are homophobic, but merely surprised because they saw him a different way. Again, that goes to author's intention versus the interpretation of the reader." That doesn't seem like denial. Imagine finding out in the prequels that Obi-Wan had slept with Sabe? | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Given the odd attempts at Muggle dress we've seen in the Wizarding world, I didn't think much of Dumbledore's purple suit either way, but it was when he went to see Tom at the orphanage, which was in the '40s.
My issue with a lot of this is that none of it precludes Dumbledore being gay. Gay people can form bonds over shared ideology and intellectual pursuits -- and that bond may or may not include romance. Gay people can feel guilty for past misdeeds. Gay people can let their work become their "family." Gay people can be chaste old men.
Granted, being "lady-killers" can be a clue that someone isn't gay, but of course that's something Moogle(? I'm a little unclear on the attribution) deduced from Wizarding schools being co-ed. And gay people can be around members of the opposite sex and still be gay. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Yes, this. Dumbledore's sexual orientation doesn't *have* to change anything about the way we thought of him prior to the revelation. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Yes, which was exactly my point. Take JKR's interviews as canon or not, I think that's a valid choice, but the most someone can claim about book canon is that it's neutral on Dumbledore's sexuality. But Moogle's argument basically posits that neutral=heterosexual. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
mcity | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-23 04:48 am (UTC) |
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| If I ever write a book, I'm going to have my characters declare their sexuality at the earliest possible oppourtunity. The male lead will be declaratively straight. And make his best friend bisexual. And write them as slashily as possible. Then I'll watch the debates in the fandom, and write more books with the romantic subplots based on whatever would cause the most drama. And after the series but before the movies, I'll admit in in an interview to rile up the fangirls.
Holy crap, fandom_wank has made me Genre Savvy about real life. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| My monitor wants its cleaning bill paid. I made the mistake of drinking my Pepsi when I read your comment. :P
(Pre-emptively also makes popcorn for the inevitable wank that would follow your revelations) | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-27 10:54 pm (UTC) |
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| I never thought about Dumbledore's sexuality at all. I guess if you'd asked me prior to Rowling's reveal, I'd have said something along the lines of him being "married to Hogwarts." Still think that describes him best, in fact.
Yes, I'm a Harry Potter fan and I don't see everything as being about romance/sex. I know, I'm weird. :P
-shay_guy on LJ | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Okay, the repetition of that "inflamed me" line isn't doing much to help the DUMBLEDORE IS NOT GAY DAMMIT cause. It's such a romance novel line. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| That whole quoted passage, especially the word "inflamed" is why I thought of Dumbledore/Grindelwald while I was reading DH. (Even though I never saw any other canon slash pairing except for Lockhart/Lockhart.) I never expected her to actually out him, though and thought it was very cool that she did. I'm getting a homophobic vibe from some of that stuff quoted above, even though I usually don't feel that way when someone just says that they never picked up on any clues about Dumbledore. (Like the comments to this post, which don't give me that vibe either.)
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| | I tend to think of my slash goggles as pretty weak, but as I was reading DH, and the descriptions of Dumbledore and Grindelwald's relationship, I was thinking, "Does she realize how this sounds? Because it sounds to me like these two boys were completely infatuated with each other, and I don't mean platonically." Turns out she did realize! And I was impressed with JKR and got to pat myself on the back for picking up on something for once. :) | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| And don't forget Elphias Doge's gushy post-funeral writing about Dumbledore. I kinda got squinty there for a sec, but to my shame it didn't clue in to me what JKR was on about.
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| | You aren't the only one who thought like that - it started with the "Erm, Elphias seems just a little too into Dumbledore" thought, and then with all the Grindlewald sections, sort of... built. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-22 11:59 pm (UTC) |
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| Am I the only one scratching their heads over this:
By extension, am I the only one who's extremely skeptical about most of what the Pensieve presented to Harry as "The Prince's Tale"? Knowing how hazardous his continued association with Voldemort was, could Snape have wanted to leave something behind him to prevent Harry from knowing the truth about him -- such as a collection of memories of which some were true, others altered and still others entirely omitted? Remember that Harry never learned anything from Snape that Snape didn't want him to learn -- and never mind whether what Harry was to learn was truth or error.
What does she mean? What is she "skeptical" about?
I could see pursuing this weird line of reasoning if there was another book forthcoming and one were looking for clues as to what would happen next, but at this stage in the game (the end), there is no point in speculating that the memories were anything other than what they were presented to be, because there is no point in their being something else.
~Ikabod~ | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Isn't it a bit late now for people to be doubting whether the memories Snape gave Harry to see in the Pensieve were genuine? What would be the point of Snape deceiving Harry even as he was dying, and especially when what he saw in the Pensieve gave Harry the strength to do what he had to and save the day? If Snape supposedly lied to Harry because he was evil, wouldn't that mean that he wanted Harry to be defeated, and that he screwed up by contributing to Harry's victory? In the end, the only thing I'm seeing is a complainer being pissed about being WRONG about Snape and STILL trying to justify a Snape-Was-Always-Evil opinion.
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| I could see pursuing this weird line of reasoning if there was another book forthcoming and one were looking for clues as to what would happen next, but at this stage in the game (the end), there is no point in speculating that the memories were anything other than what they were presented to be, because there is no point in their being something else.
It's only weird reasoning if you consider 'Harry Potter' to be a fictional book series.
If you think, as the Harmonians do, that it is a documentary, an imperfect reporting of a true-love true-story it makes perfect sense to be skeptical.
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| | In Russia we have a joke about several stages of Tolkien obsession. The first one is "I read LOTR. I liked it". The last one is "The Professor was wrong, I know better". Some of the people on the last stage are Morgoth apologists, who think that he was a poor misunderstood woobie. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Yes, I have links, but everything there is in Russian. If you don't know Russian, I can explain the main points to you. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| If you don't know Russian, I can explain the main points to you.
Since I don't speak Russian, I would appreciate that if it isn't too much trouble.
But since you bring up language, is it possible that the misunderstanding is caused by an imperfect translation?
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| OK, let me see if this can be explained to Hopedreamer in simple terms that might stick:
Canon = DONE
tl;dr Speculation = USELESS
And this gem:
Again, that goes to author's intention versus the interpretation of the reader.
In the case of Harry Potter the author is freakin' ALIVE, ergo authorial intent pwns interpretation Each. And. Every. Time. There is no "versus" in this situation. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| | I'm very much in the "death of the author" camp (even with my own writing -- not that many people read it, but just in principle) but the wankers are still wrong, wrong, wrong. It's one thing to say "I have a different reading of this text from the author, and I think mine is more interesting/more consistent/shinier/etc." (Hell, isn't that the source of a lot of good fanfiction -- slash especially?) But to say "no, the author's wrong, I'm right, I have the real interpretation" is just batshit. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-23 08:14 pm (UTC) |
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| I'm the first to point and laugh at anyone who thought Dumbledore was gay because of a purple robe, or that they absolutely knew Jo thought of him as gay from the text alone, but dude...
It fits. D/G is the slash that writes itself. I wasn't actually expecting anyone to be outed, the rest of the books being totally straight, but it just plain fit what was in DH. It would have been nice if it'd been plainly stated in the book, but then TEH GHEY OMG would be all anyone would pay attention to. Instead of, you know, Harry and Voldemort.
Having heard 'How could she make such a respected, wise and well loved character gay?!?!' from one reader in RL... there's no way to make that not homophobic, sorry.
'I liked him better straight (or gay)' can pass as neutral, but then people feel the need to elaborate. Ugh. This one person I know in RL has made this a real peeve for me. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| | I had a slightly pessimistic reason for suspecting JKR might have been writing Dumbledore as gay -- he was kindly, harmless, and flamboyantly celibate. The requirements for a mainstream "good" gay character. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
bigi | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2008-10-24 10:36 am (UTC) |
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| | Celibate? I hope you're not going by that line that his and Grindelwald's affair was "unrequited" because JKR never said that, it was something Time added in. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Another thing. Society's acceptance of homosexuals has run into resistance at the points most susceptible to perceived usurpation of traditional roles, such as in the permission to adopt children, as well as in the recognition of legal equivalence of forms of marriage.
This is why the "safe, celibate homosexual" trope has emerged.
Thus are my thoughts on yaoi on JournalFen. Oh noes. :P | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
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The HMS STFU - Evil Snape and ladies'man Grindelwald
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