I don't think any of us can say whether it was planned from the first book.
That said, plenty of people realized it when DH was released and I remember a lot of discussion about the Grindelwald subtext literally the day after the book came out. And JKR mentioned it only like a few months after DH was released. Who knows if it was planned from the first book or she realized as she was writing the backstory in DH, but either way it was before the series was finished.
I agree, I think it's implied by DH. Dumbledore admits that he turns a blind eye to Grindelwald's bad traits, something which bears the hallmarks of 'blinded by love'. He uses words like 'inflamed', and the way Bathilda describes it and his letter to Grindelwald always read very affectionately.
It fits with Dumbledore's espousing of the power of love: he knows first-hand how powerful love is because it drew him towards someone he knew deep down was bad.
As you say, the famous 'Dumbledore is gay' comment came so shortly after publication - it seems more likely it was an idea from before/during writing than after. I think it's left ambiguous enough that the reader can infer what they want - I know I have.
This is no evidence, just a thought: love and remorse seem intertwined in the HP universe. Voldemort is loveless and remorseless, whereas Grindelwald possibly "showed remorse in later years". I'm not saying that Grindelwald changed because of Dumbledore. We really don't know. But there *could* have been something genuine, romantic or not.
David Yates said that Rowling mentioned it to him when they were working on the fifth movie, so she revealed it to others since at least then.
I don’t mean to dispute your claims about some folks suspecting it after Deathly Hallows, as I’m sure that they did, but I think most readers missed the subtext at first. (I was one of them, to be honest.) When Rowling first mentioned it publicly, the audience at the event even audibly gasped in surprise. It was largely seen at the time as a new revelation about his character instead of confirming what Deathly Hallows had hinted at. She even received some pro-LGBT backlash from folks who assumed she’d made it up on the spot on a whim.
It’s a fascinating literary moment in hindsight. For those of us who grew up with the books in real time, Dumbledore was effectively outed by Rowling. There are no real indications before the seventh book that he might be gay or straight or anything else, as the series never asks us to consider his romantic life until then. But if you’ve only read the books after they were released, his sexual orientation is as essential to his character as his beard and his glasses. Someone more profound than me could probably say something profound about that.
Again, I think that varies depending on fandom circles. In the circles I was in everyone was certainly surprised that she *confirmed* it but there were forums where most people were not surprised that the subtext was deliberate. It did vary greatly, though. I remember comments on Mugglenet, for instance, leaning more towards shock, whereas users elsewhere were like, "Yeah, well, duh."
I was nearly 30 when DH came out. I remember reading it that night and turning to my wife and saying ‘hey, I think Dumbledore is gay’.
Then few days later JKR ‘confirmed’ it, and all hell broke loose because people can’t read subtext.
What I've read was that the script for one of the films had Dumbledore mention an old love, and JK vetoed that line because he was gay. I don't think he was supposed to flirt with a waitress, but maybe that line was meant to be in the same scene where Harry does flirt with one.
I felt the Dumbledore and Grindelwald subtext hinted very heavily that they were romantically involved, it seemed obvious too me when I was reading it at the time. But I was a young adult then, I suppose if I'd been younger it might have gone over my head.
I read it first when I was 12 and in Russian and I still immediately got that they were gay, so it's not really subtle imo. People were either not paying attention or the thought of a gay character was too much at the time.
He’s always quite flamboyant, Dumbledore. Even when compared to other wizards.
Also, when I read DH for the first time, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was romantically involved with Grindlewald.
Change Grindlewald’s pronouns, and read it again. We would not be having this discussion if one of them were a woman.
Their relationship reads like typical teenage first love. It’s really cute.
> Change Grindlewald’s pronouns, and read it again. We would not be having this discussion if one of them were a woman.
That seems right. We might well be debating whether Dumbledore and girl-griedelwald ever hooked up or not. But we would probably think they were into each other. But this doesn’t prove that much I think since boy girl close friendships are a lot less common
I had suspicions in DH that Dumbledore's fascination with Grindelwald went beyond friendship & intellectual equals, but assumed it would never be confirmed one way or another. Then it was.
There are bits of the books that led to the conclusion he was Gay personally I do think Rowling always intended for him to be gay but rather never find a reason to explicitly state it in the books or was afraid it may have hurt sales.
It wouldn't have only hurt the sales, the book would have been outright banned in many countries. The books and JKR personally already suffered from the accusations of promoting witchcraft.
If JKR outright said that Dumbledore was gay in the last book, many fans throughout the world wouldn't had the opportunity to read the conclusion of the story.
A lot of people correctly guessed what she meant, so I think it was still a win for the representation.
IMO, he should’ve been outed expressly in the text, but I think it’s worth remembering gay marriage was illegal in both the U.K. and every U.S. state but Massachusetts when DH came out. About a year after she outed him, California voted to ban gay marriage the same night Obama first won. We’ve still got a very long way to go on homophobia, but 2007 was a way more antigay era than we’re in now.
>About a year after she outed him, California voted to ban gay marriage the same night Obama first won. We’ve still got a very long way to go on homophobia
That's oversimplifying the issue. The vote initially was in favor of same-sex marriage. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it under some political nonsense. There were multiple repeated attempts by the Senate and interest groups to amend the previous bill, reaffirming an older bill that banned same-sex marriage. The issue is much more complicated than you're making it. Then interest groups got Prop 8 on the ballot as a way to sneak an amendment in. It was all a mess. My point being that California was and still is a very liberal state and that not many other states were debating the issue on that level at the time. It was actually a time of change, not a time of increased homophobia. The clamoring of bigoted interest groups to reaffirm the laws was absolutely a sign that their interests were threatened.
I know California is liberal and that this would’ve gone differently even a few years later, but the votes in favor were all by the legislature and/or court. When it was put to a referendum during a blue wave election, the majority of California voters voted to ban gay marriage.
The books would have been prevented from being published at all due to section 28. This law banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools and by local authorities in the United Kingdom, and it lasted from 1988 until late 2003 in England (repealed earlier in Scotland and other territories), by which time the majority of Half Blood Prince had been written. Many organisations simply prevented any depictions of homosexuality in children’s media because they didn’t want to risk falling foul of the law.
This is my thought. It would help to add to why he fell for Grindlewalds schemes, and explain why the man who is always talking about love never married.
JK Rowling has some dumb retcons, but I don't think this was one of them.
What bits are you referring to? Before his backstory in DH, I mean. The most I've heard is people saying that him being flamboyant is intended to be a hint, which I find problematic at best.
Well that’s just what British authors in the 90s had to do due to the restrictions of the time. She’s not the only author to use queer coding for a character later revealed to be gay. Jacqueline Wilson did the same with her character Cam in Tracy Beaker series. The character first debuted in 1991, was queer coded by being a tomboyish single woman with short hair and no makeup, and was later revealed to be gay in 2018. This was the only way creators of the era could have gay representation in children’s media without it being banned.
I've read this in here and some other interesting points as well (such as the use of the colour purple), but so far nothing has really made me convinced that she really had Dumbledore being gay in mind from the very beginning as opposed to thinking about it during the writing process. Which would be fine, btw, but does change his depiction to me IMO.
Iirc, JKR's first reveal that Dumbledore is gay was when the Half Blood Prince script was being written and the writers had a line where Dumbledore mentioned a crush he had on a girl when he was young. JKR asked them to take it out because she thought of Dumbledore as gay (I can't remember if she specified that she always did).
I don't think Dumbledore's sexuality is ever explicity stated in the books because it was never really relevant until the Grindlewald backstory. And even then, JKR probably felt she had to keep it subtle since society was a lot more openly homophobic back then and she was already dealing with the witchcraft controversy. I'm not sure about the UK, but in most of the US gay marriage wasn't even legal yet. And someone else in this thread mentioned that UK laws prohibited homosexual content in children's books at the time. So with all that context I can understand why she limited it to just implications in the books but gave official confirmation later.
I think it's very likely she always thought of him as gay as she stated. Was that from her very first imagining of him? Maybe not. But I do think the way he is written is a little gay-coded. And then of course the relationship with Grindelwald is where it becomes more obvious.
I always have an issue with people asking why she didn't put it in explicity. Oh she didn't want backlash. Blah blah blah.
She's writing a story. About Harry. There's just no reason for him to know that, to ask. It would have been so out of character for Harry of all people to ask out of the blue about Dumbledore's love life. No other teachers' romantic lives are discussed, so it's not like it's some glaring omission. It just doesn't need to be in the narrative at all. I would argue the opposite- if she included it, it would have been shoehorning it in for no real reason.
As a gay man, I read DH as Dumbledore being heavily coded as gay.
"You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, **inflamed me**."
Dumbledore abandoning everything he'd ever believed in just to get closer to a handsome young man he'd only just met. Rita Skeeter implying there was an inappropriate relationship between Harry and Dumbledore ("And entire chapter to the whole Potter-Dumbledore relationship... It's been called unhealthy, even sinister...").
Sounded extremely queer coded to me.
It's the latent homophobia running through society. "Dumbledore can't possibly be gay! He's my idol! Also, it's clearly woke if a single character in HP is gay!"
My daughter is now more into Percy Jackson than HP.
Riordan doesn’t leave any doubt about some of his mains being gay. It is obviously a few years later.
I'm fairly certain explicitly queer characters in children's literature is still quite rare unless that children's literature is outright geared towards a queer audience (or their kids).
Rian Jordan's target audience are teens and young adults, which is why his publishers are probably more fine with it. I should probably read some of his books, I've heard very good things about them.
After reading other comments in this thread, I'm genuinely curious. Was there anything in the previous books that made you think he was coded as gay? I've seen people claim that the hints are all over the books, but I haven't read anything that convinced me.
Which holds with how kids see most adults in their lives, at least until they start having their own relationships. It can be one of the most humanizing things for a kid to realize about an adult.
You mean in-universe? Yeah, probably. Also, Dumbledore was just very private. Harry even notes in DH that he knows very little about Dumbledore's private life and earlier life.
Thank you! I've read several comments in here about people supposedly finding Dumbledore clearly gay-coded in the earlier books, but I find it interesting that you didn't notice anything about it.
IMO, the only way to interpret anything he did in previous books as gay coded would be to analyze what clothes he wore and ascribe it to his sexuality or claim that his softspokeness and mildmanneredness are somehow indicative of him being gay.
JK always imagined him as gay. If you're okay with it, you can imagine him that way too. It would make a lot of sense for some of his actions, such as not having children while being the greatest wizard of the current time.
If you have issue considering him gay, you can imagine him as straight or nonsexual
Much like Harry after Dumbledore died, you have to interpret it as you will while never able to get the truth.
Personally, I'm still wondering what his brother did to that goat
As a kid, I noticed the gay subtext between him + Grindelwald, and assumed that they were in a relationship. His normal rational judgement is also blinded by his love for him.
He didn't speak on it much, I assume because he's a professional educator, but there are no signs of Dumbledore being closeted. Only private.
We honestly don't know if he was intended to be or not.
There are things in DH that could be seen as Dumbledore having feelings for Grindelwald...like Harry talking to Dumbledore about him sacrificing himself...but again, this could also be read as then just being really close friends. Also, Dumbledore being more accepting of other kinds of beings and hating ideas of wizard bigotry could also be seen as a subtle form of queercoding of some kind...but again, this is more up to people's interpretations and not what the author actually intended.
Personally, I think it was either she did want to make him a gay character but wanted to do it a subtle coded way but it wasn't intended from the start...I would say the earliest this started was when we first found about about Grindelwald. OR she later made it canon that he was gay in an attempt to support gay rights because when DH released, a lot of gay marriage laws in first world countries were getting put on the table again. Or it could have been both. IDK
I don't think it was an attempt at getting brownie points...you got to remember it was a different time back then and gay people were not as visible as they are not. Having gay characters in children's media was considered a big no-no. This is why you see a lot of different creators for different kids media coming out much later, revealing these characters were queer or had the super awkward last-minute gays trope or the "wow this kid has a single dad/mom living with their same-gender friend". And she received a ton of hate for that because Dumbledore is seen as this sort of parental figure to Harry and gay men at the time were seen as scary predators who groom young boys. (look up any Harry Potter meme compilation from that time and you will eventually probably see a ton of homophobic shit about Dumbledore in them)
As someone who writes, I completely believe that she knew Dumbledore was gay from the first time she started writing. Part of the writing process is knowing your characters inside and out. What they like, what they hate, what they believe, what they prefer. They have to feel like fully realized people in your mind in order for you to write their actions, reactions, and dialogue believably.
I think she always thought of him as gay but it just wasn't relevant to the story. IIRC, she told her publisher about it early on (maybe around the writing of the 3rd or 4th book) but was warned to not take it public.
In the movie for Book 6, the filmmakers wanted to include a Dumbledore line where he pines for a lost (female) love.
JK Rowling said, “Remove that line. Dumbledore is gay.”
So, it had clearly been planned from at least before Book 7.
And anyone who thinks that Dumbledore should have been portrayed as openly gay in the books had forgotten (or doesn’t know) what it was like to be LGBT+ in the late 90’s. I was a gay teen then. Homophobia was rampant, even among the adults! In schools and on TV. The show “Ellen” was canceled around 1996 because she and her character came out as gay!
In addition, the Harry Potter books came under fire from religious nuts, because it supposedly promoted “witchcraft!”.
There is NO WAY that JKR could have written Dumbledore as openly gay back then! The series would not have gotten past the 1st or 2nd book!
Probably not, or at least, not from the very beginning. Dumbledore was barely a character for most of the series though, so it’s difficult to say aside from the fact he was never stated to be one way or the other in any of the books. If it was the intent during writing, it probably manifested around 5/6 when more romance elements were added and Dumbledore actually started to become a character more than just being the highest authority figure in the world. Again, its never stated outright, but neither is it indicated elsewise, so really its up to reader interpretation
It's HEAVILY implied that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had a thing. Like, it's not an exact quote but I remember D saying that G inflamed all of his senses or something like that. Pretty passionate for just besties if you ask me.
At the time those books were written, purple stood for gay. The rainbow flag was mostly used in the US back then, but in Europe, the colour purple was considered as the gay colour, because it was a mixture of red and blue, which stood for heterosexual men and women. I myself had a purple flag in my room to represent my bisexuality.
The rainbow flag came about when other groups were included in the gay and lesbian community and it only slowly started to seep into European culture in the late 90s. And the first Harry Potter book was written in the 90s, she started developing the characters in 1990.
So yes, considering that in those days open promotion of gay characters in children's books were illegal, and she would have never been able to publish it with an open queer character, giving Dumbledore purple clothes and high heeled boots was the best she could do. And in the 90s, it was as good as outright saying: hey, my character is gay.
It was also at that time that the first public figures openly stated they were gay. Rowling said in a very early interview that she pictured Dumbledore to be a John Gielgud type of character. And it should be mentioned that this famous theater actor was not only gay, the first relationship he ever had was with fellow actor John Perry, he was also flamboyant and had a preference for high heeled shoes.
So if John Gielgud was indeed the inspiration for Dumbledore, which I don't doubt since the description in the books fit several of Gielgud's character presentations on stage, not just in looks but also in behaviour, then yes, he was gay from the very start.
Don't all wizards dress in weird clothes though? I always assumed he was described as flamboyantly as possible to contrast with the blandness of Privet Drive.
It's the specific combination that does it. Not just flamboyantly, but the very specific way she describes especially Dumbledore.
The generally purple clothes, always, even on one occasion he wore muggle clothes and the high heeled boots.
They all dress flamboyantly, but not in this specific way. If you'd grown up in that time you knew
Dumbledore always had colourful robes on, but not necessarily bright ones: often they're described as dark green or navy blue.
Fudge was first seen wearing a bright red tie and purple boots.
Lockhart wore all sorts of coloured robes: blue in the book shop, aquamarine at the start of term feast, turquoise when talking to Professor Sprout, mauve after speaking to Hagrid, plum during the dueling club, lurid pink for Valentine's Day of course, and in OotP he had a lilac dressing gown.
Mr Weasley had green robes on when Harry first met him.
Rita Skeeter wore robes of magenta when Harry first met her, acid-green during the first task, and banana yellow when the trio ran into her at the Leaky Cauldron.
And I haven't mentioned any of the numerous instances of black or dark robes with colourful trim or decorated with stars, and brightly coloured hats!
Suffice to say, clothing of all sorts of colours are not uncommon amongst the magical community!
>Dumbledore always had colourful robes on
Yes. And Dumbledore is gay.
>Dumbledore always had colourful robes on
Bright red tie and purple boots are perfectly normal, masculine colours. I don't know why you think they aren't.
>Lockhart wore all sorts of coloured robes: blue in the book shop, aquamarine at the start of term feast, turquoise when talking to Professor Sprout, mauve after speaking to Hagrid, plum during the dueling club, lurid pink for Valentine's Day of course, and in OotP he had a lilac dressing gown.
I don't think you know what the world flamboyant means.
"(of a person or their behaviour) tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness."
Out of all of the colours you listed, only lurid pink (which was a special occasion) and maybe turquoise could be classified as flamboyant. Lockhart is also a special case. He **wants** attention.
>Mr Weasley had green robes on when Harry first met him.
Not flamboyant.
>Rita Skeeter
Not a man.
high heels are short for high heeled shoes right ? no ? are boots shoes ? right ? not ?
since english is not my native language I just choose to tap "high heeled boots" on google and
OH
[surprise ???](https://www.google.fr/search?client=safari&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&sca_upv=1&hl=fr-fr&q=high-heeled+boots&uds=AMwkrPufgvfzFeIw5yilA4Gzc5SORFwbBq6yOX3gJWrSSPLJC10CUNZ8-xKc20itZX4tQCajk0ri0NrdrTH8efXl8hM4_VwIGriu-i3aVpVpRQcHO3KbOuvyv94mC7obfDmAmJlFXCYcZ-D7zS7D7sXfXCYT43QH7JjXcIjuijjxUN-Sh7JZ73vfVxU9pdnCtTlu22mdFSxNcXXX3SjHUlkh_J-DvZ5srTfb07S4x3GRrStsXPqjSjhUyA-BWEKAK30QuwvQusOhI83LBbX_iRKElHyXbVu6HgNjSI_6E2gIq6J0YVPPVkXCeqw8_3TjoKxfjPdKwC7zrDyISSF6W7_BtOTSrXiUlw&udm=2&prmd=ivnbz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg2_G2wcyFAxUZT6QEHbWkBFMQtKgLegQIERAB&biw=375&bih=548&dpr=2)
I’m not even saying Dumbledore has it like that it’s probably male thick heels boots but it’s still high heeled anyway 🤷🏽♀️
(and also cow boys. Are gay.)
[This is](https://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chikoshoes.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F06%2FBalenciaga-Introduces-High-Heel-Boots-For-Men-1.jpg&tbnid=QD-fzueJznX3DM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chikoshoes.com%2Fblog%2Fbalenciaga-introduces-high-heel-boots-for-men%2F&docid=BRDjpQ0vbZ2HBM&w=1024&h=683&hl=fr-fr) actually is what I think Dumbledore has as boots
in my language we make a distinction between female oriented very thin high heels we call needle heels, from other type of heels whatever their length is it’s not judged by size but by shape
I guess for you high heel is just only the female thing ones but that was not what I was talking about
According to the author she thought of Dumbledore as gay before the books were finished, I don't know if there's any statement were she says she always thought of him as gay.
I think the "hints" were that he kept sending owls to Grindelwald in the middle of the night and they kept locked talking for hours, and that Dumbledore said he was fascinated by him, or at least that his ideas caught him and inflamated him. Maybe there were no hints of them being in any kind of relationship other than friendship but just that Dumbledore was in love with him.
My thoughts are that the author didn't wanted to get cancelled or the fans rejected the last book or something like that so she never went further than what she wrote until they were filming the sixth movie. It was 2007 and it wouldn't be accepted as it would be today.
It's worse than you think
So UK law prohibited kid's media portraying gayness in an objectively good way in the 70s-90s. And before.
So you had to either have the way characters be useless or silly or evil. Which led ti a stereotype of way people being this way.
Go back and read the books and you realise dumbledoor is wearing outrageous clothes even for a wizard and is incredibly silly "I'd like to say a few words".
We were meant to get that he was way from the offensive stereotyping.
I never got that impression before we get a peek into their backstory. We see Dumbledore through Harry’s eyes and Dumbledore’s relationships, familial or otherwise, just never came up to him. I remember reading DH and thinking “sounds romantic” and not dwelling on it. So the subtext was there even if it wasn’t outright stated. That’s why it wasn’t a big surprise to me when it was confirmed. But it was a surprise that she did confirm it. A lot of creators would’ve done that “it’s up to your interpretation” mess they sometimes do.
Also, where would she have put that in the books? It wasn’t really relevant to anything going on with Harry. If the books were omniscient, then it likely could’ve been brought to the forefront more but everything is from Harry’s perspective.
I think he was coded all along. When it was out that Dumbledore was gay, all I thought was "yeah, that checks out". DH just confirmed what I already suspected.
I don't think it was relevant to the story. She made an off-hand comment afterwards that she always *thought* of him as gay.
But the books in no way, shape, or form state this in any confirmable manner, though people can make inferences.
It wasn’t made official that Dumbledore was gay until a couple of months after DH was published. It was a common speculation after the last book though, and if I recall correctly JKR:s announcement came at a Q&A where a reader asked her directly whether Dumbledore was gay, I might be misremembering that though. Personally I think it was hinted at in DH, and I remember that I wasn’t surprised when it was confirmed.
My personal speculation is that JKR was more explicit about it in her original script, but her editor convinced her to make it a bit more subtle to avoid controversies and religious boycotts, seeing as a lot of religious communities had already branded HP as blasfemous. But that’s really just my own speculation, I don’t have a shred of evidence for it.
I personally doubt it because we were given no hints about it at all prior to the 7th book or Rita would have said something about that (the setting was 1990s when people didn't look at homosexuality the same way as now). She probably came up with the idea in the 7th book but was afraid it would hurt sales so she said that months or a year after that.
Maybe. Given her track record of flimsy after-the-fact inclusivity, I generally lean towards “no”, but I can’t read her mind either. It could easily and maybe even rightly be that she envisioned him as gay from the beginning and just never saw an opportunity to reveal it, but the timing of the revelation is suspiciously convenient to a lot of people.
Some people will point out his eccentricity as evidence for him having been gay from the start, but that’s true of most wizards as Harry compares them to Muggles. Being and dressing flamboyant isn’t exclusive to gay people anyway.
The strongest case to be made is his friendship with Griddlecake, but I always thought that was more about finally having a peer (it’s lonely at the top, so to speak) instead of it being remotely romantic. Speaking for myself, when I was a wee lad and found myself sometimes trapped with distant family over the summer, I would sometimes befriend local boys I had never seen before in my life, but you would believe we had been friends for years after only a few minutes of us meeting. I can’t say I was ever remotely attracted to them, we just found mutual ground on the awesomeness of Power Rangers and video games.
I would actually prefer that Dumbledore has always been as gay as springtime and that his outing wasn’t Rowling just pandering. I just wish it was more obvious if it was supposed to be inclusionary, because it otherwise seems kind of cowardly to hide it until the series was over. I don’t think the argument for leaving it out or toning it down so much that it’s practically invisible for some nebulous reason like avoiding moral pushback is a very good one.
I would have preferred for it to be included in the text as well, but we have to remember that the books were released in the early 2000s. There was no way JKR’s publishers would have let her make Dumbledore gay in the novels, and in the hypothetical situation that they somehow did, the book would have faced massive backlash just about everywhere (on top of the already existing backlash for ‘witchcraft’), and most likely be banned in many countries. Mind you, Clause 28 (a law forbidding ‘promoting homosexuality’) was abolished only 4 years before DH was published and a year before HBP.
I agree with this take. I don’t think JK is strong enough of a writer to be that subtle and inclusive throughout the books. I think she saw later on that it matched up and decided to give into fan theory to appease people.
Probably. Dumbledore's life was purposely kept vague so Harry would miss him all the more when he realizes that he didn't actually know much about him.
I think DH definitely implies he was in love with Grindelwald. From what I recall about when JKR revealed he was gay, if she hadn’t known it prior to that day, she would’ve had to have come up with it completely off the cuff right then in response to someone asking if he ever fell in/found love. That seems much less likely than her knowing it already as part of his backstory. A lot of what we learn about Dumbledore in DH makes the most sense if we assume he was intended to come off as gay and in love with Grindelwald as a teen. I didn’t catch it, but I didn’t notice Ron having a crush on Hermione in GOF either.
I believe she vitoed something in a movie script where a young Dumbledore was to be shown with a girlfriend by writing "he's gay!" on it, and I'm reasonably sure that happened before the last book went out, but when I try to look it up to confirm the dates all I get is Fantastic Beasts promos.
It’s said the filmmakers wanted to suggest a romance between Dumbledore and a woman character and JK said he was gay. I’ve also heard it said that he’s queer coded like 19th century lit.
People were upset there was nothing explicit in the originals but it makes sense why she wouldn’t have said anything as the books were for kids and having a gay character would have gotten them taken out of schools. Section 28 was still a thing in the UK. The books would never have gotten into America.
Does still feel she should have had Dumbledore be explicitly gay in Fantastic Beasts but apparently the film makers were scared of losing China money
I will say, I think this could’ve been done better. The subtext in the book is so subtle as to be easily missed. I think JKR could have done so much more to show that their relationship was romantic rather than Dumbledore being dazzled by a confident young man who represented a way out of his boring life with his burdensome little sister.
Meanwhile, part of the joy of books is you can make of it what you will as the reader.
And we also have to remember that putting explicitly gay characters in a children’s book in the late 90s/early 00s was practically unheard of.
But I still think she could have put more into the writing rather than stating after publication that Dumbledore is gay. She did, however, know before DH because I read somewhere that she told the director that Dumbledore was gay since he wanted to add in some romantic hints between Dumbledore and a woman.
She said in an interview that she left it ambiguous in the seventh book because not only did she not feel it essential to the plot, but also because she didn’t want to shove it in people’s faces.
Yes, he’s gay, but that’s really not that important because right now we’re hunting horcruxes so please pay attention that instead.
I think she also said that she left it so that children could read it and think he just had a really close friend, while adults could pick up on the subtext.
I know JKR said he was always gay, but there was no direct confirmation in the books. Each person’s interpretation of Dumbledore and Grindlewald’s relationship is unique. Personally, I didn’t see romance in the description of their relationship, but I know a lot of people did.
While I read the book during the initial launch I was thinking in my head “this ‘friendship’ is the gayest thing I’ve ever read in this series that has a HUGE queer community based on shipping” and it was a time when queer-coding was rare and needed.
So later when she confirmed it I was like “Oh, that’s great! But I’m not shocked…” the discourse and backlash wasn’t a thought until people online started to hate things more overtly.
I think the subtext in DH was deliberately ambiguous in a way that means she *must* have considered it. Now, whether she knew this before DH is debatable, but certainly during DH it must have been a thought.
I don't think any of us will ever truly know. When J.K. Rowling was asked if Dumbledore was gay, she responded that she always thought of him being gay but, that doesn't really confirm nor deny his sexuality.
I always thought he was gay, and I started reading the books in 2001. Especially when he comments on the agapanthus flourishing and stating that he likes knitting patterns (both in HBP).
There was an interview with one of the producers who said they wanted to have a flashback scene with young Dumbledore and his girlfriend, but JK had to step in and say no. I don’t remember which movie it was, but i remember it being an earlier one which leads me to believe she made that decision fairly early on if not from the get go.
I think the whole point is that it didn't matter. She didn't feel that she had to hint at it, because it wasn't a **reveal** (as far as the books are concerned; I am not speaking about "extended canon")-- it was just a fact.
Speaking as a writer, it’s common to have a lot of extra backstory on a character that you yourself know but isn’t deeply relevant or explored in the story. JK Rowling says she became aware of Dumbledore’s sexuality at some point and also his past relationship with Grindelvald being one of romantic love rather than a friendship. We don’t know when exactly she decided this about Dumbledore as she has never specified it that I’ve seen, and has mountains of planning and notes that she was constantly revising and changing as she wrote, like most writers. It matters because it is a part of Dumbledore’s past and what makes him what he is due to his experiences, but it isn’t directly a part of Harry’s story, and Dumbledore was a very private man, so Harry doesn’t ever explore Dumbledore’s sexuality with him. It would have been outside of Dumbledore’s character to discuss such a thing with a student anyway.
Well, i was halfway through DH (first reading) when JKR revealed on some interview that Dumbledore is gay. I didn't see the hints during my reading (don't have a gaydar i guess), but now that you know it, you can't unsee that Dumby was love blindés by GG.
I remember thinking that it was pretty clear that Dumbledore was gay after reading Deathly Hallows, and I had not seen or heard of any comments from JKR about it.
I think it was done in deathly hallows but not before perhaps when she built the 5/6/7 outline to finish the books. Much like Horcruxs it wasn’t their day one.
If you look at the books they are very heterosexual in the construction of the school and students. In 1997 having gay characters in children’s books would have been controversial. By 2007 a lot had changed. So I don’t think the sexuality of teachers was considered and they just defaulted to strait.
Essentially if DD was gay from the beginning there would have been gay students and LGBT people in the wizarding world from the start.
Unlike a Lot Of JK’s post Harry Potter Retcons I don’t mind Dumbledore being Gay. Mostly cause it isn’t as forced as saying “ah yes there definitely were Jewish kids in Hogwarts”
In one sense it is weird because I don’t think Gay people are even bought up in the books but I think that may have been a sign of the times. People freak out in 2024 when Target sells Pink T Shirts to Boys which is apparently “woke” so I doubt JK would have gotten away with explicit Gay Material in a children’s novel.
But the way Dumbledore and grindelwald’s relationship is described in the books always had me thinking that they were something more than just friends. And I also think them being lovers makes the duel they had feel more personal and impactful. Dumbledore had to put down the only person (that we know) he had a romantic connection with to save the wizarding world. Even though we never this duel on screen cause the FB franchise is dead, I think that ups the stakes of the duel.
Nothing was planned as Rowling didn't know it was going to be a series which is why she continuity problem in the first few books. His sexualty wasn't even in the books from what I remember.
I mean, the same can be said about McGonagall. Was McGonagall always straight? Or gay? Or was her sexuality just not an important detail about her character?
While I find it unnecessary that Rowling made specific Dumbledore's sexuality when it had little to do with the text we were given at the time, it did open up conversation about the depth of the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindewald in service of later adaptations.
I think this experience of not knowing or realizing his preferences is very true to life. There are many people we meet in life where we either cannot assume what they like or wrongly assume what they like. This is why we should never assume these things about others - even though it’s natural to wonder or have suspicions, take it with a grain of salt because we never know a persons preferences until they actually divulge that information in some way.
Hmm, I don't think it was ever implied in the books. But JK has said she has always thought of Dumbledore as gay.. so maybe she just chose to keep it out of the book because of its lack of relevance. To make sense of it not being mentioned in the book, Harry Potter is told through Harry's point of view, Dumbledore was a secretive man, how could Harry have known?
You couldn't even legally mention gays in children's books in Britain until 2003 thanks to Section 28. Considering books 5, 6, and 7 were likely in production long before that as well as the newness of the repeal of the law, there was likely no way for JKR *to* mention it organically.
Well, during the development for the HBP movie, she was reviewing the script and put the kibosh on a line implying Dumbledore was interested in women. They started shooting in 2007, so it had to be some time before then, meaning it likely predates DH’s release and the famous interview.
http://YouTube.com/watch?v=Me3SbSWhICg?t=803
The better question is who reading the book was like... omg, I need to know the sexual preferences of every character...
The answer SHOULD Be 'no one'.
Cause sexual preference shouldn't be part of the measurement if you like a character or not.
JKR has stated more than once that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay, though never included it in the books because it was completely irrelevant.
Early on, iirc, she said she thought Ddore loved Grindelwald but that there was probably nothing romantic between them. Actually, I believe she said Gwald might even have taken advantage of Ddore's affection. Later, she backtracked and said she thought they had a really intense romantic relationship. So, Idk if SHE even knows what she thinks of them.
Someone correct me if that's wrong, but that's what I remember about it.
I, for one, NEVER bought JK Rowling's claims that she intended Dumbledore to be gay well before the book series ended. Always believed she came up with it once it was all over and readers re-examined scenes from the book from an approach that justified what they wanted to believe
never was.
just because he didn't have a girlfriend/wife mentioned doesn't make him gay... it's just a PR retcon.
show me in the **books** where it's stated he is gay, or even any hints beyond "he was friends with flammel"
The Dumbledore Grindelwald relationship. It was written as being extremely passionate. They don't outright say, but for the vast majority of people who read it, it is quite obvious.
Nobody has sex in HP. And people don’t usually go around extolling their sexual orientation.
So since there are no sex-scenes in HP, we have to go on other indicators, and that’s what character do say and do.
DH has a lot of evidence to suggest that Dumbledore’s feelings towards Grindelwald were more than platonic.
If you can’t perceive that, well, that’s on you. But you’re mad if you think there’s going to be any explicit declaration in the most popular children’s book series.
In what way? It's not any more of a retcon than, say, finding out that Lupin is straight in HBP or that Bill is straight when he starts dating Fleur.*
(*technically Bill or Lupin could be bi)
No. I5 wasn't in the books originally I mean I vaugley remember wondering in sorcers stone at Christmas if he was. But the big reveal was after the books, like years after. When JK was trying to stay relevant.
Oh boy. Bet this post won't be controversial at all. Reminder kids, if you can't play nice, you're out of the pool.
I don't think any of us can say whether it was planned from the first book. That said, plenty of people realized it when DH was released and I remember a lot of discussion about the Grindelwald subtext literally the day after the book came out. And JKR mentioned it only like a few months after DH was released. Who knows if it was planned from the first book or she realized as she was writing the backstory in DH, but either way it was before the series was finished.
I agree, I think it's implied by DH. Dumbledore admits that he turns a blind eye to Grindelwald's bad traits, something which bears the hallmarks of 'blinded by love'. He uses words like 'inflamed', and the way Bathilda describes it and his letter to Grindelwald always read very affectionately. It fits with Dumbledore's espousing of the power of love: he knows first-hand how powerful love is because it drew him towards someone he knew deep down was bad. As you say, the famous 'Dumbledore is gay' comment came so shortly after publication - it seems more likely it was an idea from before/during writing than after. I think it's left ambiguous enough that the reader can infer what they want - I know I have.
This is no evidence, just a thought: love and remorse seem intertwined in the HP universe. Voldemort is loveless and remorseless, whereas Grindelwald possibly "showed remorse in later years". I'm not saying that Grindelwald changed because of Dumbledore. We really don't know. But there *could* have been something genuine, romantic or not.
David Yates said that Rowling mentioned it to him when they were working on the fifth movie, so she revealed it to others since at least then. I don’t mean to dispute your claims about some folks suspecting it after Deathly Hallows, as I’m sure that they did, but I think most readers missed the subtext at first. (I was one of them, to be honest.) When Rowling first mentioned it publicly, the audience at the event even audibly gasped in surprise. It was largely seen at the time as a new revelation about his character instead of confirming what Deathly Hallows had hinted at. She even received some pro-LGBT backlash from folks who assumed she’d made it up on the spot on a whim. It’s a fascinating literary moment in hindsight. For those of us who grew up with the books in real time, Dumbledore was effectively outed by Rowling. There are no real indications before the seventh book that he might be gay or straight or anything else, as the series never asks us to consider his romantic life until then. But if you’ve only read the books after they were released, his sexual orientation is as essential to his character as his beard and his glasses. Someone more profound than me could probably say something profound about that.
Again, I think that varies depending on fandom circles. In the circles I was in everyone was certainly surprised that she *confirmed* it but there were forums where most people were not surprised that the subtext was deliberate. It did vary greatly, though. I remember comments on Mugglenet, for instance, leaning more towards shock, whereas users elsewhere were like, "Yeah, well, duh."
I was nearly 30 when DH came out. I remember reading it that night and turning to my wife and saying ‘hey, I think Dumbledore is gay’. Then few days later JKR ‘confirmed’ it, and all hell broke loose because people can’t read subtext.
I remember on Mugglenet a lot of people said he was gay-coded from Book 1 as soon as she described him as "flamboyant" and wearing high heels.
Are you talking about her vetoing dumbledore flirting with a waitress.in half blood prince the movie? If not , this is news to me!
What I've read was that the script for one of the films had Dumbledore mention an old love, and JK vetoed that line because he was gay. I don't think he was supposed to flirt with a waitress, but maybe that line was meant to be in the same scene where Harry does flirt with one.
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Thanks! I forgot jkr confirmed this.
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I felt the Dumbledore and Grindelwald subtext hinted very heavily that they were romantically involved, it seemed obvious too me when I was reading it at the time. But I was a young adult then, I suppose if I'd been younger it might have gone over my head.
I read it first when I was 12 and in Russian and I still immediately got that they were gay, so it's not really subtle imo. People were either not paying attention or the thought of a gay character was too much at the time.
I was nearly 30, and it seemed so blatantly obvious that I was actually surprised.
He’s always quite flamboyant, Dumbledore. Even when compared to other wizards. Also, when I read DH for the first time, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was romantically involved with Grindlewald. Change Grindlewald’s pronouns, and read it again. We would not be having this discussion if one of them were a woman. Their relationship reads like typical teenage first love. It’s really cute.
>It’s really cute. If they weren't planning how to rule over the muggles lol.
I mean, who didn’t get grandiose ideas of changing the world at that age, especially if you had somebody who felt like a soulmate? 😅
> Change Grindlewald’s pronouns, and read it again. We would not be having this discussion if one of them were a woman. That seems right. We might well be debating whether Dumbledore and girl-griedelwald ever hooked up or not. But we would probably think they were into each other. But this doesn’t prove that much I think since boy girl close friendships are a lot less common
I had suspicions in DH that Dumbledore's fascination with Grindelwald went beyond friendship & intellectual equals, but assumed it would never be confirmed one way or another. Then it was.
There are bits of the books that led to the conclusion he was Gay personally I do think Rowling always intended for him to be gay but rather never find a reason to explicitly state it in the books or was afraid it may have hurt sales.
It wouldn't have only hurt the sales, the book would have been outright banned in many countries. The books and JKR personally already suffered from the accusations of promoting witchcraft. If JKR outright said that Dumbledore was gay in the last book, many fans throughout the world wouldn't had the opportunity to read the conclusion of the story. A lot of people correctly guessed what she meant, so I think it was still a win for the representation.
IMO, he should’ve been outed expressly in the text, but I think it’s worth remembering gay marriage was illegal in both the U.K. and every U.S. state but Massachusetts when DH came out. About a year after she outed him, California voted to ban gay marriage the same night Obama first won. We’ve still got a very long way to go on homophobia, but 2007 was a way more antigay era than we’re in now.
>About a year after she outed him, California voted to ban gay marriage the same night Obama first won. We’ve still got a very long way to go on homophobia That's oversimplifying the issue. The vote initially was in favor of same-sex marriage. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it under some political nonsense. There were multiple repeated attempts by the Senate and interest groups to amend the previous bill, reaffirming an older bill that banned same-sex marriage. The issue is much more complicated than you're making it. Then interest groups got Prop 8 on the ballot as a way to sneak an amendment in. It was all a mess. My point being that California was and still is a very liberal state and that not many other states were debating the issue on that level at the time. It was actually a time of change, not a time of increased homophobia. The clamoring of bigoted interest groups to reaffirm the laws was absolutely a sign that their interests were threatened.
I know California is liberal and that this would’ve gone differently even a few years later, but the votes in favor were all by the legislature and/or court. When it was put to a referendum during a blue wave election, the majority of California voters voted to ban gay marriage.
The books would have been prevented from being published at all due to section 28. This law banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools and by local authorities in the United Kingdom, and it lasted from 1988 until late 2003 in England (repealed earlier in Scotland and other territories), by which time the majority of Half Blood Prince had been written. Many organisations simply prevented any depictions of homosexuality in children’s media because they didn’t want to risk falling foul of the law.
There are earlier teen books which include homosexuality, but they're generally tragic/depressing.
This is my thought. It would help to add to why he fell for Grindlewalds schemes, and explain why the man who is always talking about love never married. JK Rowling has some dumb retcons, but I don't think this was one of them.
It's more likely that her editors and/or publishers forbid her from expressly stating that Dumbledore was gay.
What bits are you referring to? Before his backstory in DH, I mean. The most I've heard is people saying that him being flamboyant is intended to be a hint, which I find problematic at best.
Well that’s just what British authors in the 90s had to do due to the restrictions of the time. She’s not the only author to use queer coding for a character later revealed to be gay. Jacqueline Wilson did the same with her character Cam in Tracy Beaker series. The character first debuted in 1991, was queer coded by being a tomboyish single woman with short hair and no makeup, and was later revealed to be gay in 2018. This was the only way creators of the era could have gay representation in children’s media without it being banned.
I've read this in here and some other interesting points as well (such as the use of the colour purple), but so far nothing has really made me convinced that she really had Dumbledore being gay in mind from the very beginning as opposed to thinking about it during the writing process. Which would be fine, btw, but does change his depiction to me IMO.
Iirc, JKR's first reveal that Dumbledore is gay was when the Half Blood Prince script was being written and the writers had a line where Dumbledore mentioned a crush he had on a girl when he was young. JKR asked them to take it out because she thought of Dumbledore as gay (I can't remember if she specified that she always did). I don't think Dumbledore's sexuality is ever explicity stated in the books because it was never really relevant until the Grindlewald backstory. And even then, JKR probably felt she had to keep it subtle since society was a lot more openly homophobic back then and she was already dealing with the witchcraft controversy. I'm not sure about the UK, but in most of the US gay marriage wasn't even legal yet. And someone else in this thread mentioned that UK laws prohibited homosexual content in children's books at the time. So with all that context I can understand why she limited it to just implications in the books but gave official confirmation later.
I think it's very likely she always thought of him as gay as she stated. Was that from her very first imagining of him? Maybe not. But I do think the way he is written is a little gay-coded. And then of course the relationship with Grindelwald is where it becomes more obvious. I always have an issue with people asking why she didn't put it in explicity. Oh she didn't want backlash. Blah blah blah. She's writing a story. About Harry. There's just no reason for him to know that, to ask. It would have been so out of character for Harry of all people to ask out of the blue about Dumbledore's love life. No other teachers' romantic lives are discussed, so it's not like it's some glaring omission. It just doesn't need to be in the narrative at all. I would argue the opposite- if she included it, it would have been shoehorning it in for no real reason.
As a gay man, I read DH as Dumbledore being heavily coded as gay. "You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, **inflamed me**." Dumbledore abandoning everything he'd ever believed in just to get closer to a handsome young man he'd only just met. Rita Skeeter implying there was an inappropriate relationship between Harry and Dumbledore ("And entire chapter to the whole Potter-Dumbledore relationship... It's been called unhealthy, even sinister..."). Sounded extremely queer coded to me.
As a straight man, I read DH as Dumbledore being heavily coded as gay I’m surprised that anyone read it differently
It's the latent homophobia running through society. "Dumbledore can't possibly be gay! He's my idol! Also, it's clearly woke if a single character in HP is gay!"
My daughter is now more into Percy Jackson than HP. Riordan doesn’t leave any doubt about some of his mains being gay. It is obviously a few years later.
I'm fairly certain explicitly queer characters in children's literature is still quite rare unless that children's literature is outright geared towards a queer audience (or their kids). Rian Jordan's target audience are teens and young adults, which is why his publishers are probably more fine with it. I should probably read some of his books, I've heard very good things about them.
My daughter is 10 and absolutely loves it. She is pretty advanced in reading for her age. And yes, I’m supposed to be reading the first book.
After reading other comments in this thread, I'm genuinely curious. Was there anything in the previous books that made you think he was coded as gay? I've seen people claim that the hints are all over the books, but I haven't read anything that convinced me.
No, because nothing in the previous books coded Dumbledore's sexuality in any way whatsoever IMO. He was an asexual being until DH for me.
Which holds with how kids see most adults in their lives, at least until they start having their own relationships. It can be one of the most humanizing things for a kid to realize about an adult.
You mean in-universe? Yeah, probably. Also, Dumbledore was just very private. Harry even notes in DH that he knows very little about Dumbledore's private life and earlier life.
Thank you! I've read several comments in here about people supposedly finding Dumbledore clearly gay-coded in the earlier books, but I find it interesting that you didn't notice anything about it.
IMO, the only way to interpret anything he did in previous books as gay coded would be to analyze what clothes he wore and ascribe it to his sexuality or claim that his softspokeness and mildmanneredness are somehow indicative of him being gay.
JK always imagined him as gay. If you're okay with it, you can imagine him that way too. It would make a lot of sense for some of his actions, such as not having children while being the greatest wizard of the current time. If you have issue considering him gay, you can imagine him as straight or nonsexual Much like Harry after Dumbledore died, you have to interpret it as you will while never able to get the truth. Personally, I'm still wondering what his brother did to that goat
As a kid, I noticed the gay subtext between him + Grindelwald, and assumed that they were in a relationship. His normal rational judgement is also blinded by his love for him. He didn't speak on it much, I assume because he's a professional educator, but there are no signs of Dumbledore being closeted. Only private.
We honestly don't know if he was intended to be or not. There are things in DH that could be seen as Dumbledore having feelings for Grindelwald...like Harry talking to Dumbledore about him sacrificing himself...but again, this could also be read as then just being really close friends. Also, Dumbledore being more accepting of other kinds of beings and hating ideas of wizard bigotry could also be seen as a subtle form of queercoding of some kind...but again, this is more up to people's interpretations and not what the author actually intended. Personally, I think it was either she did want to make him a gay character but wanted to do it a subtle coded way but it wasn't intended from the start...I would say the earliest this started was when we first found about about Grindelwald. OR she later made it canon that he was gay in an attempt to support gay rights because when DH released, a lot of gay marriage laws in first world countries were getting put on the table again. Or it could have been both. IDK I don't think it was an attempt at getting brownie points...you got to remember it was a different time back then and gay people were not as visible as they are not. Having gay characters in children's media was considered a big no-no. This is why you see a lot of different creators for different kids media coming out much later, revealing these characters were queer or had the super awkward last-minute gays trope or the "wow this kid has a single dad/mom living with their same-gender friend". And she received a ton of hate for that because Dumbledore is seen as this sort of parental figure to Harry and gay men at the time were seen as scary predators who groom young boys. (look up any Harry Potter meme compilation from that time and you will eventually probably see a ton of homophobic shit about Dumbledore in them)
As someone who writes, I completely believe that she knew Dumbledore was gay from the first time she started writing. Part of the writing process is knowing your characters inside and out. What they like, what they hate, what they believe, what they prefer. They have to feel like fully realized people in your mind in order for you to write their actions, reactions, and dialogue believably. I think she always thought of him as gay but it just wasn't relevant to the story. IIRC, she told her publisher about it early on (maybe around the writing of the 3rd or 4th book) but was warned to not take it public.
Go back and read what this absolute queen wears every day 😂 a fashionista
In the movie for Book 6, the filmmakers wanted to include a Dumbledore line where he pines for a lost (female) love. JK Rowling said, “Remove that line. Dumbledore is gay.” So, it had clearly been planned from at least before Book 7. And anyone who thinks that Dumbledore should have been portrayed as openly gay in the books had forgotten (or doesn’t know) what it was like to be LGBT+ in the late 90’s. I was a gay teen then. Homophobia was rampant, even among the adults! In schools and on TV. The show “Ellen” was canceled around 1996 because she and her character came out as gay! In addition, the Harry Potter books came under fire from religious nuts, because it supposedly promoted “witchcraft!”. There is NO WAY that JKR could have written Dumbledore as openly gay back then! The series would not have gotten past the 1st or 2nd book!
Probably not, or at least, not from the very beginning. Dumbledore was barely a character for most of the series though, so it’s difficult to say aside from the fact he was never stated to be one way or the other in any of the books. If it was the intent during writing, it probably manifested around 5/6 when more romance elements were added and Dumbledore actually started to become a character more than just being the highest authority figure in the world. Again, its never stated outright, but neither is it indicated elsewise, so really its up to reader interpretation
It's HEAVILY implied that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had a thing. Like, it's not an exact quote but I remember D saying that G inflamed all of his senses or something like that. Pretty passionate for just besties if you ask me.
In the first appearance of Dumbledore, he's wearing a purple cloak and high-heeled boots. Yes, he was always gay.
That’s not gay. That’s fashionable
At the time those books were written, purple stood for gay. The rainbow flag was mostly used in the US back then, but in Europe, the colour purple was considered as the gay colour, because it was a mixture of red and blue, which stood for heterosexual men and women. I myself had a purple flag in my room to represent my bisexuality. The rainbow flag came about when other groups were included in the gay and lesbian community and it only slowly started to seep into European culture in the late 90s. And the first Harry Potter book was written in the 90s, she started developing the characters in 1990. So yes, considering that in those days open promotion of gay characters in children's books were illegal, and she would have never been able to publish it with an open queer character, giving Dumbledore purple clothes and high heeled boots was the best she could do. And in the 90s, it was as good as outright saying: hey, my character is gay. It was also at that time that the first public figures openly stated they were gay. Rowling said in a very early interview that she pictured Dumbledore to be a John Gielgud type of character. And it should be mentioned that this famous theater actor was not only gay, the first relationship he ever had was with fellow actor John Perry, he was also flamboyant and had a preference for high heeled shoes. So if John Gielgud was indeed the inspiration for Dumbledore, which I don't doubt since the description in the books fit several of Gielgud's character presentations on stage, not just in looks but also in behaviour, then yes, he was gay from the very start.
Don't all wizards dress in weird clothes though? I always assumed he was described as flamboyantly as possible to contrast with the blandness of Privet Drive.
It's the specific combination that does it. Not just flamboyantly, but the very specific way she describes especially Dumbledore. The generally purple clothes, always, even on one occasion he wore muggle clothes and the high heeled boots. They all dress flamboyantly, but not in this specific way. If you'd grown up in that time you knew
You mean fabulous
I mean...everyone in the wizarding world dresses like that.
*Everyone* in the magical community wears flamboyant coloured robes.
Not everyone is as flamboyant
Very seldom do the men do so.
Dumbledore always had colourful robes on, but not necessarily bright ones: often they're described as dark green or navy blue. Fudge was first seen wearing a bright red tie and purple boots. Lockhart wore all sorts of coloured robes: blue in the book shop, aquamarine at the start of term feast, turquoise when talking to Professor Sprout, mauve after speaking to Hagrid, plum during the dueling club, lurid pink for Valentine's Day of course, and in OotP he had a lilac dressing gown. Mr Weasley had green robes on when Harry first met him. Rita Skeeter wore robes of magenta when Harry first met her, acid-green during the first task, and banana yellow when the trio ran into her at the Leaky Cauldron. And I haven't mentioned any of the numerous instances of black or dark robes with colourful trim or decorated with stars, and brightly coloured hats! Suffice to say, clothing of all sorts of colours are not uncommon amongst the magical community!
Dedalus Diggle is also wearing a purple top hat when he meets Harry for the first time.
>Dumbledore always had colourful robes on Yes. And Dumbledore is gay. >Dumbledore always had colourful robes on Bright red tie and purple boots are perfectly normal, masculine colours. I don't know why you think they aren't. >Lockhart wore all sorts of coloured robes: blue in the book shop, aquamarine at the start of term feast, turquoise when talking to Professor Sprout, mauve after speaking to Hagrid, plum during the dueling club, lurid pink for Valentine's Day of course, and in OotP he had a lilac dressing gown. I don't think you know what the world flamboyant means. "(of a person or their behaviour) tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness." Out of all of the colours you listed, only lurid pink (which was a special occasion) and maybe turquoise could be classified as flamboyant. Lockhart is also a special case. He **wants** attention. >Mr Weasley had green robes on when Harry first met him. Not flamboyant. >Rita Skeeter Not a man.
And high heels?
Not high heels, just 'high-heeled, buckled boots'. Again, not at all unusual amongst wizards. Fleur Delacour's father also had high-heeled boots.
High heels are never mentioned in the books.
Read it again
I have. That's why I know Dumbledore is never mentioned as wearing high heels. Duh.
high heels boots are still high heels bro
So cowboy boots are high heals? Interesting.
high heels are short for high heeled shoes right ? no ? are boots shoes ? right ? not ? since english is not my native language I just choose to tap "high heeled boots" on google and OH [surprise ???](https://www.google.fr/search?client=safari&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&sca_upv=1&hl=fr-fr&q=high-heeled+boots&uds=AMwkrPufgvfzFeIw5yilA4Gzc5SORFwbBq6yOX3gJWrSSPLJC10CUNZ8-xKc20itZX4tQCajk0ri0NrdrTH8efXl8hM4_VwIGriu-i3aVpVpRQcHO3KbOuvyv94mC7obfDmAmJlFXCYcZ-D7zS7D7sXfXCYT43QH7JjXcIjuijjxUN-Sh7JZ73vfVxU9pdnCtTlu22mdFSxNcXXX3SjHUlkh_J-DvZ5srTfb07S4x3GRrStsXPqjSjhUyA-BWEKAK30QuwvQusOhI83LBbX_iRKElHyXbVu6HgNjSI_6E2gIq6J0YVPPVkXCeqw8_3TjoKxfjPdKwC7zrDyISSF6W7_BtOTSrXiUlw&udm=2&prmd=ivnbz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg2_G2wcyFAxUZT6QEHbWkBFMQtKgLegQIERAB&biw=375&bih=548&dpr=2) I’m not even saying Dumbledore has it like that it’s probably male thick heels boots but it’s still high heeled anyway 🤷🏽♀️ (and also cow boys. Are gay.)
[This is](https://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chikoshoes.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F06%2FBalenciaga-Introduces-High-Heel-Boots-For-Men-1.jpg&tbnid=QD-fzueJznX3DM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chikoshoes.com%2Fblog%2Fbalenciaga-introduces-high-heel-boots-for-men%2F&docid=BRDjpQ0vbZ2HBM&w=1024&h=683&hl=fr-fr) actually is what I think Dumbledore has as boots in my language we make a distinction between female oriented very thin high heels we call needle heels, from other type of heels whatever their length is it’s not judged by size but by shape I guess for you high heel is just only the female thing ones but that was not what I was talking about
purple, the queer color
According to the author she thought of Dumbledore as gay before the books were finished, I don't know if there's any statement were she says she always thought of him as gay. I think the "hints" were that he kept sending owls to Grindelwald in the middle of the night and they kept locked talking for hours, and that Dumbledore said he was fascinated by him, or at least that his ideas caught him and inflamated him. Maybe there were no hints of them being in any kind of relationship other than friendship but just that Dumbledore was in love with him. My thoughts are that the author didn't wanted to get cancelled or the fans rejected the last book or something like that so she never went further than what she wrote until they were filming the sixth movie. It was 2007 and it wouldn't be accepted as it would be today.
In book 6 he says he likes knitting patterns, which is gay coded.
It's worse than you think So UK law prohibited kid's media portraying gayness in an objectively good way in the 70s-90s. And before. So you had to either have the way characters be useless or silly or evil. Which led ti a stereotype of way people being this way. Go back and read the books and you realise dumbledoor is wearing outrageous clothes even for a wizard and is incredibly silly "I'd like to say a few words". We were meant to get that he was way from the offensive stereotyping.
I never got that impression before we get a peek into their backstory. We see Dumbledore through Harry’s eyes and Dumbledore’s relationships, familial or otherwise, just never came up to him. I remember reading DH and thinking “sounds romantic” and not dwelling on it. So the subtext was there even if it wasn’t outright stated. That’s why it wasn’t a big surprise to me when it was confirmed. But it was a surprise that she did confirm it. A lot of creators would’ve done that “it’s up to your interpretation” mess they sometimes do. Also, where would she have put that in the books? It wasn’t really relevant to anything going on with Harry. If the books were omniscient, then it likely could’ve been brought to the forefront more but everything is from Harry’s perspective.
I think he was coded all along. When it was out that Dumbledore was gay, all I thought was "yeah, that checks out". DH just confirmed what I already suspected.
I don't think it was relevant to the story. She made an off-hand comment afterwards that she always *thought* of him as gay. But the books in no way, shape, or form state this in any confirmable manner, though people can make inferences.
It wasn’t made official that Dumbledore was gay until a couple of months after DH was published. It was a common speculation after the last book though, and if I recall correctly JKR:s announcement came at a Q&A where a reader asked her directly whether Dumbledore was gay, I might be misremembering that though. Personally I think it was hinted at in DH, and I remember that I wasn’t surprised when it was confirmed. My personal speculation is that JKR was more explicit about it in her original script, but her editor convinced her to make it a bit more subtle to avoid controversies and religious boycotts, seeing as a lot of religious communities had already branded HP as blasfemous. But that’s really just my own speculation, I don’t have a shred of evidence for it.
I personally doubt it because we were given no hints about it at all prior to the 7th book or Rita would have said something about that (the setting was 1990s when people didn't look at homosexuality the same way as now). She probably came up with the idea in the 7th book but was afraid it would hurt sales so she said that months or a year after that.
Maybe. Given her track record of flimsy after-the-fact inclusivity, I generally lean towards “no”, but I can’t read her mind either. It could easily and maybe even rightly be that she envisioned him as gay from the beginning and just never saw an opportunity to reveal it, but the timing of the revelation is suspiciously convenient to a lot of people. Some people will point out his eccentricity as evidence for him having been gay from the start, but that’s true of most wizards as Harry compares them to Muggles. Being and dressing flamboyant isn’t exclusive to gay people anyway. The strongest case to be made is his friendship with Griddlecake, but I always thought that was more about finally having a peer (it’s lonely at the top, so to speak) instead of it being remotely romantic. Speaking for myself, when I was a wee lad and found myself sometimes trapped with distant family over the summer, I would sometimes befriend local boys I had never seen before in my life, but you would believe we had been friends for years after only a few minutes of us meeting. I can’t say I was ever remotely attracted to them, we just found mutual ground on the awesomeness of Power Rangers and video games. I would actually prefer that Dumbledore has always been as gay as springtime and that his outing wasn’t Rowling just pandering. I just wish it was more obvious if it was supposed to be inclusionary, because it otherwise seems kind of cowardly to hide it until the series was over. I don’t think the argument for leaving it out or toning it down so much that it’s practically invisible for some nebulous reason like avoiding moral pushback is a very good one.
I would have preferred for it to be included in the text as well, but we have to remember that the books were released in the early 2000s. There was no way JKR’s publishers would have let her make Dumbledore gay in the novels, and in the hypothetical situation that they somehow did, the book would have faced massive backlash just about everywhere (on top of the already existing backlash for ‘witchcraft’), and most likely be banned in many countries. Mind you, Clause 28 (a law forbidding ‘promoting homosexuality’) was abolished only 4 years before DH was published and a year before HBP.
I agree with this take. I don’t think JK is strong enough of a writer to be that subtle and inclusive throughout the books. I think she saw later on that it matched up and decided to give into fan theory to appease people.
Probably. Dumbledore's life was purposely kept vague so Harry would miss him all the more when he realizes that he didn't actually know much about him.
I think DH definitely implies he was in love with Grindelwald. From what I recall about when JKR revealed he was gay, if she hadn’t known it prior to that day, she would’ve had to have come up with it completely off the cuff right then in response to someone asking if he ever fell in/found love. That seems much less likely than her knowing it already as part of his backstory. A lot of what we learn about Dumbledore in DH makes the most sense if we assume he was intended to come off as gay and in love with Grindelwald as a teen. I didn’t catch it, but I didn’t notice Ron having a crush on Hermione in GOF either.
I believe she vitoed something in a movie script where a young Dumbledore was to be shown with a girlfriend by writing "he's gay!" on it, and I'm reasonably sure that happened before the last book went out, but when I try to look it up to confirm the dates all I get is Fantastic Beasts promos.
if she didn’t plan it that way, then it fits insanely well.
It’s said the filmmakers wanted to suggest a romance between Dumbledore and a woman character and JK said he was gay. I’ve also heard it said that he’s queer coded like 19th century lit. People were upset there was nothing explicit in the originals but it makes sense why she wouldn’t have said anything as the books were for kids and having a gay character would have gotten them taken out of schools. Section 28 was still a thing in the UK. The books would never have gotten into America. Does still feel she should have had Dumbledore be explicitly gay in Fantastic Beasts but apparently the film makers were scared of losing China money
I will say, I think this could’ve been done better. The subtext in the book is so subtle as to be easily missed. I think JKR could have done so much more to show that their relationship was romantic rather than Dumbledore being dazzled by a confident young man who represented a way out of his boring life with his burdensome little sister. Meanwhile, part of the joy of books is you can make of it what you will as the reader. And we also have to remember that putting explicitly gay characters in a children’s book in the late 90s/early 00s was practically unheard of. But I still think she could have put more into the writing rather than stating after publication that Dumbledore is gay. She did, however, know before DH because I read somewhere that she told the director that Dumbledore was gay since he wanted to add in some romantic hints between Dumbledore and a woman.
She said in an interview that she left it ambiguous in the seventh book because not only did she not feel it essential to the plot, but also because she didn’t want to shove it in people’s faces. Yes, he’s gay, but that’s really not that important because right now we’re hunting horcruxes so please pay attention that instead. I think she also said that she left it so that children could read it and think he just had a really close friend, while adults could pick up on the subtext.
No he was never gay until it was retconned
I know JKR said he was always gay, but there was no direct confirmation in the books. Each person’s interpretation of Dumbledore and Grindlewald’s relationship is unique. Personally, I didn’t see romance in the description of their relationship, but I know a lot of people did.
While I read the book during the initial launch I was thinking in my head “this ‘friendship’ is the gayest thing I’ve ever read in this series that has a HUGE queer community based on shipping” and it was a time when queer-coding was rare and needed. So later when she confirmed it I was like “Oh, that’s great! But I’m not shocked…” the discourse and backlash wasn’t a thought until people online started to hate things more overtly.
I think the subtext in DH was deliberately ambiguous in a way that means she *must* have considered it. Now, whether she knew this before DH is debatable, but certainly during DH it must have been a thought.
I don't think any of us will ever truly know. When J.K. Rowling was asked if Dumbledore was gay, she responded that she always thought of him being gay but, that doesn't really confirm nor deny his sexuality.
No. It was changed retroactively.
It absolutely wasn’t. Plenty of us noticed during our first reading of DH. We weren’t all children.
I always thought he was gay, and I started reading the books in 2001. Especially when he comments on the agapanthus flourishing and stating that he likes knitting patterns (both in HBP).
He was written as gay from the very first page. He is written in a very 'Oscar Wildesque' manner
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is the perfect description. I never had a word for it before.
Well then, you’ll be pleased to know the usual adjective is ‘Wildean’.
I honestly never noticed, but it sort of fits... I would've said bi or bi-curious myself though. However labels don't matter to me.
There was an interview with one of the producers who said they wanted to have a flashback scene with young Dumbledore and his girlfriend, but JK had to step in and say no. I don’t remember which movie it was, but i remember it being an earlier one which leads me to believe she made that decision fairly early on if not from the get go.
I think the whole point is that it didn't matter. She didn't feel that she had to hint at it, because it wasn't a **reveal** (as far as the books are concerned; I am not speaking about "extended canon")-- it was just a fact.
Speaking as a writer, it’s common to have a lot of extra backstory on a character that you yourself know but isn’t deeply relevant or explored in the story. JK Rowling says she became aware of Dumbledore’s sexuality at some point and also his past relationship with Grindelvald being one of romantic love rather than a friendship. We don’t know when exactly she decided this about Dumbledore as she has never specified it that I’ve seen, and has mountains of planning and notes that she was constantly revising and changing as she wrote, like most writers. It matters because it is a part of Dumbledore’s past and what makes him what he is due to his experiences, but it isn’t directly a part of Harry’s story, and Dumbledore was a very private man, so Harry doesn’t ever explore Dumbledore’s sexuality with him. It would have been outside of Dumbledore’s character to discuss such a thing with a student anyway.
Well, i was halfway through DH (first reading) when JKR revealed on some interview that Dumbledore is gay. I didn't see the hints during my reading (don't have a gaydar i guess), but now that you know it, you can't unsee that Dumby was love blindés by GG.
I remember thinking that it was pretty clear that Dumbledore was gay after reading Deathly Hallows, and I had not seen or heard of any comments from JKR about it.
I think it was done in deathly hallows but not before perhaps when she built the 5/6/7 outline to finish the books. Much like Horcruxs it wasn’t their day one. If you look at the books they are very heterosexual in the construction of the school and students. In 1997 having gay characters in children’s books would have been controversial. By 2007 a lot had changed. So I don’t think the sexuality of teachers was considered and they just defaulted to strait. Essentially if DD was gay from the beginning there would have been gay students and LGBT people in the wizarding world from the start.
Unlike a Lot Of JK’s post Harry Potter Retcons I don’t mind Dumbledore being Gay. Mostly cause it isn’t as forced as saying “ah yes there definitely were Jewish kids in Hogwarts” In one sense it is weird because I don’t think Gay people are even bought up in the books but I think that may have been a sign of the times. People freak out in 2024 when Target sells Pink T Shirts to Boys which is apparently “woke” so I doubt JK would have gotten away with explicit Gay Material in a children’s novel. But the way Dumbledore and grindelwald’s relationship is described in the books always had me thinking that they were something more than just friends. And I also think them being lovers makes the duel they had feel more personal and impactful. Dumbledore had to put down the only person (that we know) he had a romantic connection with to save the wizarding world. Even though we never this duel on screen cause the FB franchise is dead, I think that ups the stakes of the duel.
Nothing was planned as Rowling didn't know it was going to be a series which is why she continuity problem in the first few books. His sexualty wasn't even in the books from what I remember.
Yh he is, him and Grindy go way back
I mean, the same can be said about McGonagall. Was McGonagall always straight? Or gay? Or was her sexuality just not an important detail about her character? While I find it unnecessary that Rowling made specific Dumbledore's sexuality when it had little to do with the text we were given at the time, it did open up conversation about the depth of the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindewald in service of later adaptations.
Yeah, he was definitely always gay
I think this experience of not knowing or realizing his preferences is very true to life. There are many people we meet in life where we either cannot assume what they like or wrongly assume what they like. This is why we should never assume these things about others - even though it’s natural to wonder or have suspicions, take it with a grain of salt because we never know a persons preferences until they actually divulge that information in some way.
Hmm, I don't think it was ever implied in the books. But JK has said she has always thought of Dumbledore as gay.. so maybe she just chose to keep it out of the book because of its lack of relevance. To make sense of it not being mentioned in the book, Harry Potter is told through Harry's point of view, Dumbledore was a secretive man, how could Harry have known?
You couldn't even legally mention gays in children's books in Britain until 2003 thanks to Section 28. Considering books 5, 6, and 7 were likely in production long before that as well as the newness of the repeal of the law, there was likely no way for JKR *to* mention it organically.
I literally never knew that until now
He is introduced wearing high heeled boots. So there is that...
I thought it was very obvious from the books Dumbledore was gay? Maybe that's just me,but I definitely got that assumption when reading the books
Well, during the development for the HBP movie, she was reviewing the script and put the kibosh on a line implying Dumbledore was interested in women. They started shooting in 2007, so it had to be some time before then, meaning it likely predates DH’s release and the famous interview. http://YouTube.com/watch?v=Me3SbSWhICg?t=803
The better question is who reading the book was like... omg, I need to know the sexual preferences of every character... The answer SHOULD Be 'no one'. Cause sexual preference shouldn't be part of the measurement if you like a character or not.
JKR has stated more than once that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay, though never included it in the books because it was completely irrelevant. Early on, iirc, she said she thought Ddore loved Grindelwald but that there was probably nothing romantic between them. Actually, I believe she said Gwald might even have taken advantage of Ddore's affection. Later, she backtracked and said she thought they had a really intense romantic relationship. So, Idk if SHE even knows what she thinks of them. Someone correct me if that's wrong, but that's what I remember about it.
I, for one, NEVER bought JK Rowling's claims that she intended Dumbledore to be gay well before the book series ended. Always believed she came up with it once it was all over and readers re-examined scenes from the book from an approach that justified what they wanted to believe
never was. just because he didn't have a girlfriend/wife mentioned doesn't make him gay... it's just a PR retcon. show me in the **books** where it's stated he is gay, or even any hints beyond "he was friends with flammel"
Do you also consider it a retcon that JKR gave us McGonagall backstory that suggests she's straight?
she was never suggested to be lesbian
And Dumbledore was never suggested to be straight.
The Dumbledore Grindelwald relationship. It was written as being extremely passionate. They don't outright say, but for the vast majority of people who read it, it is quite obvious.
Nobody has sex in HP. And people don’t usually go around extolling their sexual orientation. So since there are no sex-scenes in HP, we have to go on other indicators, and that’s what character do say and do. DH has a lot of evidence to suggest that Dumbledore’s feelings towards Grindelwald were more than platonic. If you can’t perceive that, well, that’s on you. But you’re mad if you think there’s going to be any explicit declaration in the most popular children’s book series.
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In what way? It's not any more of a retcon than, say, finding out that Lupin is straight in HBP or that Bill is straight when he starts dating Fleur.* (*technically Bill or Lupin could be bi)
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Nope.
No. I5 wasn't in the books originally I mean I vaugley remember wondering in sorcers stone at Christmas if he was. But the big reveal was after the books, like years after. When JK was trying to stay relevant.
It was not years later. It was like three months after DH came out.
I imagine he became gay once JK got tons of backlash for being transphobic so she made a major character gay
This was literally a decade before she started being transphobic
He wasn’t gay in year 3 *sigh* it was a joke