Shut up, JK!!!

So here’s the thing. I love the Harry Potter books. I picked up the first book when I was living in Michigan, working at a stress-filled job where I was on call 24 hours a day, except for Christmas Eve, when I made a quick trip to my mom and dad’s house three hours away. I was at the grocery store, and in between deciding which Hamburger Helper flavor to buy and how to get to the back of the store where the milk was without losing reception on any of the THREE cell phones I had on my person at the time, I threw the book in the cart so that I could have something to do that night as I waited for one of those phones to ring. (I used to have nightmares about all three of them ringing at once. In the year I was there, I never even had more than one ring at once, but I was terrified.)

That night, I fell in love with the series. The next day, I slipped out of work during my lunch break (don’t worry – the three cell phones were still on my person) and bought the next two books. I have loved the books, annotated them, made notes to ask my friend Tammy about what I thought were inconsistencies or questions, scoped out spoilers online before the books were released, and read all of the over 4000 pages of my books at least three or four times. Yes, I know it’s no wonder my dissertation isn’t finished. And before we go on, I’d like to just admit that yes, I know that these characters aren’t REAL. But I’ve spent so, so, so much time with them that they are a part of my life and I reserve the right to talk about them as if they are.

Much virtual and actual ink has been spilled about JK Rowling spilling the beans about Dumbledore being gay. The arguments seem to fall in a few categories. One, good for her for having a strong, gay role models for kids. Two, man, why did she have to go and ruin Dumbledore for us? Gay people have no place in children’s literature. Gay people are going to hell. Between the magic and the gays, these books should be banned and/or burned. Three, eh, it doesn’t really change any plot points, so why should this be news? Sheesh, the books are finished. Stop talking about it. Lastly, why can’t she leave well enough alone? Stop telling us about the magical world. You had your 4000 pages. Now, shut up.

I agree with the first argument. It is good to see a mainstream children’s book with a strong, gay role model. However, the fact that this is NEWS makes me feel that she didn’t do a good enough job of letting readers in on the secret as they were reading the books the first time (or the second or the third, for that matter). I can’t even talk to people who are making the second argument or about them without coming off as a close-minded liberal bitch, which maybe I am.

I disagree strongly with the third argument. I felt like this was really strongly argued by this article in Salon, but I’m not swayed. As I reread the series, with this brand new information about Dumbledore, I feel like many scenes can play differently. When Hagrid gets upset with Vernon Dursley when Dursley calls Dumbledore a crackpot, he gets irrationally upset. And now I think it’s more than just Hagrid’s loyalty towards DD for giving Hagrid a job and a place to live, but that he’s more insulted because of more occluded reasons. Even the matter of how Dumbledore first shows up on Privet Drive wearing high-heeled boots never triggered the DD’s gay idea for me before because previous pages had shown that wizards dress differently than Muggles.

Never in the series does Rowling address racism or homophobia overtly (although of course the Mudbloods/purebloods debate does get to this), but I feel like now I have to reread the books with this whole new side of the magical world and I am sorry, but I DO think it changes the meanings of some scenes and moments. I think it means that Fudge as Minister of Magic stops sending Dumbledore owls all the time isn’t just because Fudge gets full of himself, but because he doesn’t want it to seem as if a gay man is superior to him. I also think it changes a lot of our understanding of why he waited so long to tell Harry anything (I started to hate Dumbledore after the fourth book for never being open with Harry and I felt vindicated that Dumbledore was kind of a crappy person after the last book). Dumbledore couldn’t spend a lot of time alone with Harry or speculation (like we saw in Rita Skeeter’s book in the last book of the series) about their relationship could be suspect. That’s a HUGE plot point. It made me so angry with Dumbledore and I actually despised him by the end of the series. Now I’m a bit more patient with Dumbledore. Maybe that’s unfair of me. But I think some of the decisions he made are more understandable now that I know this information about him.

And, yes, I think JK should shut up. Seriously shut up. I was even upset with the last chapter of the last book. I don’t want to see what things are like many years later. I want it to end with Voldemort’s defeat and I want to imagine what happens to the characters. I am not happy that Ginny and Harry got married and started popping out children immediately. What kind of crap is to tell kids (right? children’s literature?) that it’s a good idea to marry your high school sweetheart and have kids right away? I don’t want to know that Neville teaches Herbology. I want to IMAGINE the ending. But, whatever. I lived with the last chapter. I can always imagine that Harry and Ginny get divorced when the kids are grown and Harry moves to NYC and becomes a Broadway singer.

But all this talking after her over 4000 pages is completely and utterly unnecessary. If we didn’t get it from her books and now she wants to tell us, it’s too late. And it ruins the beauty of fiction. If the story ends happily ever after with evil defeated, then so it goes. Let us imagine what happens next. Don’t tell us. And don’t keep dropping little hints like the way you wanted to end is the only possible way for it to play out. Everyone had their own idea of what should have happened to Harry, Ron, and Hermione and for JK to assume her idea should be everyone else’s is the height of arrogance. If she wants to do another book (she assured us she would never do another HP book again), she should. But in the meantime, she has no business butting in on our imaginary worlds.