Does anyone agree with my JK Rowling, Dumbledore announcement motivation theory?

Question

In my opinion,I think that everyone is overlooking the most obvious answer to this little newsflash.

JKR waited until now to unveil this little tidbit because she wants to sell more books.

She and her publishers are obviouly trying to get their readership excited in her books again.

Its business, pure and simple...if she can get people to dicus/argue about it, someone who threw out or gave away their copies of the book(s) will have to buy new ones.

Please pay close attention to her press releases.
She makes statements that are impossible to dispute, mainly because they were verbal and happened between people who all have a heavy financial stake in the books and movies remaining in the public eye.

Remember that there are still movies to make. Movie nerds(such as myself) will go (and re-rent) to see the movies looking for "hints" and spoilers.

She had nothing to lose by making the statement and everything to gain by inceasing publicity.

The number of posts and questions being put out over the various message boards prove my theory.

Harry Potter fans are all babbling about it. The funny thing is that the vast majority of us could care less.

It reminds me of the great Ellen DeGeneres "coming out". Except for the media, no one cared.

Maybe someday, media personalities will just get back to doing their jobs and stop trying to create news.

Answer 1

Of course.

Watch out in future months for other revelations.

Hermione is a lesbian.

Harry is a sado-masochist.

etc., etc., etc.,

Answer 2

You answered my question with this theory and I totally disagree with you. First of all, the movies should really have nothing to do with it. His being gay is not anywhere in the books, nor does it have anything to do with the plot/ storyline, so how could it affect the movies? There won't be anything different about them now. His being gay is completely after the fact. I think that JK is true to her characters and her fans and that the integrity of her characters means way more to her than selling a few extra books. The lady already has more money than the Queen of bloody England, I don't think she's going to make up something random that she totally doesn't believe or is false, just to make a few more $$. I just don't. She has poured her heart, soul, and imagination into these books over the last 10 years, she has lived and breathed Harry Potter, so if it wasn't something that she had thought of before and made part of his character if just in her own mind, I TRULy believe she would not have said it.
Besides only the hard core HP fans really care (and of course all the crazy extremists, but that's another matter entirely) and true HP fans already have the books and have read them and seen, and will see, the movies. I don't think that THAT many people are going to go out and buy HP books 1-7 to read them all when they never even mention Dumbles gayness or even have homosexual undertones through any of them, just because she now says one of the characters is gay. Seriously


I think it's great that he is by the way. Not just because he was gay, but because he never had a relationship or partner or anything romantic through all the books, nor was it even hinted at, so to know that he had true love once, and was forced to kill him for the greater good, and then never loved again, well, that's just kind of sad and romantic and sweet all at the same time. I don't care what sexuality was involved, love that great is just.....epic.

Answer 3

I don't agree. Rowling isn't exactly hurting for publicity. She's probably the most famous (and the richest) author alive. And I don't even know what it means to say Dumbledore is gay - it isn't as if he's a real person who has some existence outside the books.

There is a definite liberal subtext in the books which Rowling has previously been rather quiet about openly discussing, although if you just read the books it's perfectly clear. I suppose now that all the books have been published she feels a bit freer to come 'out of the closet' on her political beliefs.

Answer 4

No. She isn't finding for greater exposure. She isn't attempting to impression Christians. She develop into asked a question in an interview and basically spoke back it. In an interview, it reported that she wasn't envisioned the reaction of followers. She mentioned that Dumbledore is her character and that she would be able to do despite she needs with him and that there've been a lot of gay men who've been very powerful in existence. (no longer thoroughly particular:) She got here up with the assumption while writing the 0.5-Blood Prince and despatched a letter to the director declaring that Dumbledore develop into gay.

Answer 5

I don't think that JKR has an agenda, or is seeking more publicity. According to the story I read, she had told the writer of the screenplay for HBP that Dumbledore was gay because there was mention of a female love interest in the screenplay and she had to set them right. Having done that, she might as well have made it public, since it would have eventually come out anyway--she could control when and how it was done. and in any case, this story came out because she was directly asked if Dumbledore loved anyone.

Throughout the series, we know Dumbledore as a tireless and seemingly single-minded fighter against Dark Wizards (at least from Harry's perspective; we do have to remember that Albus is also a great teacher, an alchemist, and important theoretical Wizard--remember the tools and instruments he made himself). But how did Albus become that way?

We learn much about this in DH, with Arianna's story, Aberforth's story and the story of the friendship between Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. In reading DH, it was clear that Grindelwald seduced Dumbledore on a number of levels; intellectually, ideologically, and, by JKR's new revelation, emotionally. We don't know if that seduction was sexual as well, and I'm not sure it is important for us to know.

The revelation completes the picture for us of a man who felt betrayed, injured by one he loved, ashamed at how far he went from rational thought and behavior, how far he really was from what he thought he was.

The up shot is that we now know more completely Dumbledore's motivations for fighting Dark Wizards--his shame at his own tangential contribution to Grindelwald's career, his reluctance to fight him, and, when Voldemort rose, his determination to not to repeat his prior mistake of inaction and to fight Voldemort from the start.

So in summery, It was part of the way JKR viewed Dumbledore and understood him. I don't think it was something that would have come out voluntarily--more likely something that would have made a scholarly article 50 or 60 years from now after she was gone and literary scholar had access to her full notes (assuming she left them to be investigated).

BTW, there is some inkling of this in DH, where Rita Skeeter talks about devoting a chapter in her book about Dumbledore to the Dumbledore/Harry relationship. This is not to say that there was anything improper--but that JKR did put out a hint.

wl

Answer 6

She formally announced it as she had to make changes to the script for "The Half Blood Prince". She stated that they had a part of the movie where Dumbledore was talking about past loves. She crossed it out and wrote that Dumbledore was gay on that part of the script. I don't think it will sell any more books simply because one character was gay. The fact that she waited until a lot of the furor had died down does not mean that she wants to sell more books.

Answer 7

That is exactly what I thought. I found it kind of tacky. The series is over now so she needed something to drum up business. Why do that though? Why not get busy and write that book I heard about for charity where she will tell what happened to all the other characters over that 19 year period.

I have nothing against gays at all. Dumbledore is not gay. So there JK. Rowling. He was a great wizard and that's that.

Answer 8

Agreed.

Answer 9

Agreed. Follow the money, honey.

Answer 10

It could also be she was fed up with so many fundamentalist christians burning her books, that she thought, "Now what would make it even worse for them?"