Am I the only one who doesn't want their fictions spoon fed to them anymore?

Question

I fail to understand why J.K. Rowling had to tell everyone Dumbledore was gay. Yes he's her creation and she can do with him as she pleases, but at the same time whatever happened to the readers ability to interpret. The joy of a book is that no matter who reads it they are each reading a slightly different story, because it's read and interpreted from their point of view. I feel like she killed it for me. What next, is she going to tell us that Ron likes to stand naked in front of his mirror or that professor Sprout smoked Gillyweed when she was a student??? I hope you get my point, I just don't see why these things have to be brought up at all. Am I the only one who thinks J.K. Rowlings should keep her mouth shut and let her readers find their own joy through their interpretation of her books?

Just a note, this is completely about the book, I feel the difference between the books and movies are like night and day. With a movie you are lead visually and verbally by the actors. Movies are on their own a complete form of spoon feeding.

saskia r you totally missed the point and I'm guessing you wrote this quickly before you had to rush off to gym class. But thanks for offering your opinon no matter how asinine it is.

Answer 1

I could not agree more. I just barely like to hear anyone's interpretation of a book at all. I really like to be left to my own imagination. Let it create the characters and what they look like. If I want to make a character i'm not sure about gay, then fine. But the last thing I want is the author telling me :"yes children, he is gay." Like it's some kind of fashion statement or something.

Anyways, it bothers me to no end.

Answer 2

Before I get to JK Rowling, I disagree with your take on movies.. a lot of movies today are, yes, spoonfeeding people the ideas they contain, but you're overlooking a lot of films that require you to think and interpret things the way you would in a novel. There are a lot of great, intelligent films out there that are just begging to be seen. Just because you're shown the characters and the scenery doesn't mean that you're spoonfed everything.. They have something to offer, too.


But about Rowling, I think that she was actually ASKED the question about Dumbledore's love life and responded. When people ask her about the characters as if they are real people, she responds with what she envisioned when she created them. Whether she just decided to make it up or not we can't really know, but I don't think it detracts from the books at all. It doesn't have much to do with anything, and it's something you can easily just ignore.

Answer 3

If you think she should have written a totally serious book, with nothing but stuff about Harry and nothing about the world around him then write one yourself and see if yours will be so succesful!!!!
Anyway, if you think being gay is as serious as smoking drugs or other weird stuff, I think you got J.K. Rowlings point completely wrong. She's trying to show that gay people should be as accepted as Dumbedore.
And the rest, about interpretting and that: the art of writing a book is the art of describing a story, an event beautifuly and makig the readers see a picture. Like a movie in your head with your own made characters.
Else I could write a book just like that, here:
It's a about a boy in the city, you interpret the rest.
And if you're such a good "Interpretter", you could have known Dumbledore was gay from the start.
There.

Answer 4

I am SO glad someone has asked this question! I love to write BUT my favorite part is to hear how other people interpret what I write. They see things I never thought would be in the text. My goal is to be a multi-layered writer and if you have to tell people what the layers are it kind of makes the whole thing seem contrived.
I have other issues with Rowling but I agree she didn't need to "add-in" stuff after publication. And don't people know about the "Intentional Fallacy"? I mean look at the whole Robert Frost situation!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_fallacy

Answer 5

If it's not written, it's not "real". If she wants Dumbledore to be gay, she should print it in a book. Did she chicken out because she knew the repercussions? Did she make it up on the spot because she wanted attention? There are a lot of theories floating around. But I feel the same way; I hated the epilogue because of it. I wanted to draw my own conclusions about what happened, not have it told to me. I understand that she has her own ideas for what happened, but they don't exist unless they're printed in the books themselves.

I say, if she wants Dumbledore to be gay, she needs to write it in a book. It doesn't have to center around Harry - it obviously wouldn't mention Harry at all if it took place in the "present" and not in flashbacks. If she has that much more story to tell, she should tell it, not inform us that this is the way it happened because it didn't; her series is over and there was no explicit mention that Dumbledore was gay.

Answer 6

It's not like she just said it randomly with no prompting at all. She was asked a question and even before that the screenwriter for movie 6 had made a reference to a girl dumbledore fancied in his past. She had to at least tell him and that would be leading us into believe he's straight which is also 'spoon feeding us fiction' as you say. I never thought Dumbledore one way or the other, it's not significant to the plot at all and to dumbledores actions in the books, well except for the last one it has a small part (liking Grindlewald) but it's not like she just randomly said it, a fan asked if he had ever found love...did you want her to lie to us and not tell her what's been her vision of these characters for over 10 years?

Answer 7

I understand what you're saying. Perhaps she did that to make gay people feel like it's okay, or to create a new reason for Harry Potter to be in the headlines.

In any case, I wish it hadn't happened. My impression of the Harry Potter series may be soiled forever.

Answer 8

No worries...she's just craving for attention. Try not to let these things bother you.

She had extreme attention and now the scale is going down, its like a child crying for something and when that thing arrives, it crying for why it arrived at the wrong time.....

Answer 9

I agree with you, that which is not written should be left to the reader's interpretation!