Sarah E. Moffett

Upon learning that J.K. Rowling had outed Dumbledore, I immediately had four thoughts.

1. The Harry Potter Encyclopedia just got really interesting.
2. This woman knows how to make enemies.
3. And really knows how to sell books.
4. I want to be out of town for the inevitable 1,000,000 fundamentalists against HP march.

OK, so the world now knows that Dumbledore had a thing for Grimwald, Harry was a “Christian,” and…really, is the Potter Mania ever going to end?

Old news, I know, but this is Potter conversation. We’ll be living with this buzz until at least the next world war. As of today, Googling “Dumbledore gay” brings up 3,260,000 results. CNN discussed Fans Pondering Dumbledore Gay Revelation, and ABC ranted that Dumbledore Is Gay and Some People Are Miffed. Yesterday, the NY Times pondered Is Dumbledore Gay? Depends on Definitions of ‘Is’ and ‘Gay’. Not surprisingly, everybody who was nobody had something to say. The Harry Potter fan site The Leaky Caldron had no less than 1,048 comments posted by early Saturday morning. Considering Rowling let Dumbledore out of the closet on Friday night, I’d vote people were feeling opinionated.

One could go in a thousand directions with this literary tidbit. How much is an author’s literary character their own? As Rowling herself said regarding the subsequent buzz, I mean, deafening clicking and clacking of the masses, “It has certainly never been news to me that a brave and brilliant man could love other men. He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say what I say about him.”

Other blogs and articles are discussing the legal implications given some countries laws regarding the “promotion of homosexuality” coupled with their allowance of Potter mania. One article, entitled What do JK Rowling and Clarence Thomas have in common? tries to  draw parallels between methods of Constitutional interpretation and children’s literature. And on a much more important note, as one article asked, “are Dumbledore tattoos equivalent to gay pride tattoos?” My question is who is crazy enough to get a tattoo of Dumbledore to begin with? Apparently this guy. Ugh, shoot me now.

Here’s the thing I’m pondering. As multiple media outlets noted and anyone with a pulse already knows, various strains of Christianity have been protesting the Potter series for promoting witchcraft. Now that Rowling has outed Dumbledore, one can only imagine the new assaults that will be forthcoming. Phil’s Is Harry Potter an Episcopalian hits the nail on the head.

There are websites, books, articles, and parades (well, it feels like it) hating Harry Potter. Amazon.com will bury you with offerings like The Gospel According to Harry Potter, which also has links to God, the Devil, and Harry Potter, Looking for God in Harry Potter, and What’s a Christian to do with Harry Potter? I don’t know, read him? And stop trying to make money off of someone else’s ideas by over analyzing them and then capitalizing on a pop culture literary icon while disparaging it’s creation and existence.

Excuse the soap box.

One just has to wonder why all the fuss.  Don’t Christians usually applaud Christian themes in modern literature?  And if you really want a concise, thorough summary of the Christian symbology behind Harry Potter, go to the one place no fundamentalist worth their salt will read, but should. MTV. In the article Harry Potter Author J.K. Rowling Opens Up about Books’ Christian Imagery, the subtitle reads “‘they almost epitomize the whole series,’ [Rowling] says of the scripture Harry reads in Godric’s Hollow.”  C.S. Lewis?  Tolkien?  Is she channeling you? The fact her books have so many Christian themes is the essence of irony though, given the aforementioned disdain for Potter amongst most Christian circles. For heaven’s sake, the Pope himself in his past life as a Cardinal wrote that the HP books’ “subtle seductions, which act unnoticed … deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly.” I wonder if he actually read one of Rowling’s books to reach that conclusion.

For her part, Rowling said she’s proud to be on numerous banned-book lists. [As Allen Ginsberg once noted, the best thing that ever happened to Howl was that it was tried for obscenity.] Other less known believers than the Pope have also lodged their complaints, but Rowling doesn’t seem to mind. 

“I go to church myself,” she declared. “I don’t take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.”

And neither do I.

Share This