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Post by Fate on Aug 1, 2007 18:29:42 GMT -5
Its all you women. You go around smelling sweet and talking nice and stuff and the next thing you know us men are acting like idiots and doing bad things. I bet Voldemort had a women that done him wrong.
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Post by Indagatrix on Aug 1, 2007 18:48:49 GMT -5
lol I told X he would so hijack the thread by posting that
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Post by Eldarion on Aug 8, 2007 9:53:35 GMT -5
Finished at 12:30am this morning. I enjoyed it, but the story exceeded the prose, just as with Half-Blood Prince. Boy, Rowling really needs to discipline herself. Does no one edit anymore? And she has a nasty habit of using passive voice, totally defusing the dramatic impact of some passages (and even whole chapters). I'm still absorbing it all, so I'll post more later. Here is a transcript of a July 30 web chat with Rowling. She answers a lot of the questions I've seen posed here, and fills in some of what happened to everyone in between the last chapter and the epilogue.
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Post by Indagatrix on Oct 20, 2007 19:44:41 GMT -5
FYI - The Washington Post ran an article today -- JK announced that Dumbledore was a homosexual.
Not saying anything one or the other -- but it does add an interesting layer to the back story events in the final book.
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Post by Eldarion on Oct 22, 2007 22:20:00 GMT -5
In some ways it seems a little sensationalist. I mean, if she always intended for Dumbledore to be gay, why not have the guts to put some overt reference in the books? Why wait until long after the books are done (and the money safely in the bank) before revealing this? It would have been a brave thing for her to include a gay character in the stories, but saying it now just feels a little bit like a cheap publicity ploy. As if she needed any more publicity.
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Post by Aerynrox on Oct 23, 2007 9:31:29 GMT -5
I think she felt like she had to say it because the reading audience was too daft to pick up on it ourselves. I love that she had a whole backstory in mind while she was writing Dumbledore.
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Post by Asya on Oct 23, 2007 9:56:59 GMT -5
There was already enough pressure from the right-wing nut jobs, blatently adding a gay person would just fuel the fire.
Saying that, being a parent of a child in the target audience, I really don't want have to get into those type of conversations while reading bedtime stories. Sorry, no Brokeback Sorcerer for me, thanks.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Oct 23, 2007 11:42:12 GMT -5
So, it seems to me that JK thinks that her characters are real. I'm basing this on all the interviews that say who married who and what happened to so and so after Hogwarts. I mean didn't she marry Luna off to no one we'd ever heard of? And in an interview? As for Dumbledore..... it makes SOOOOOOO much sense. In fact, Dumbledore's infatuation with what's his face was rather incomprehensible in the book. However, if she wasn't going to include fact that he was in love in the book, she should've written the story in such a way that it made sense ON ITS OWN. Throwing it in after the fact just seems weird. One speculation would be that it WAS written into the big chapter about Dumbledore but that the publishers struck it for fear of the right wing masses. As for Asya's point about having to explain stuff to kids..... I agree, sorta. Sexuality in general really has no place in the books because they were intended for kids. Most 17 year olds would have looked at Ron and Hermione and thought... "what, are they 12?!" Because they had a juvenile relationship and there was 0 sexual chemistry. It bugged me from a realism perspective, but knowing who the intended audience was.... ok. Perhaps there would've been a way for her to imply Dumbledore's love in a way adults and adolescents would understand without raising the sexual question for kids. i don't know... .I'm torn. I feel like it should've been included for those old enough to "get it." Sorry for being ranty.
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Post by Fate on Oct 23, 2007 11:50:03 GMT -5
JK sure is thinking about this a lot considering she said the series was over. I really like the series and the way it ended. JK lets not ruin it, ok?
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Post by Aerynrox on Oct 23, 2007 11:57:27 GMT -5
I don't have kids, so I'm not sure what I would do if I had to try to explain sexuality to my children, but I do think it would be just as easy/difficult to explain the violence and death in the HP books to them. Why should sex make us so much more uncomfortable than violence?
I'm even more anxious to read the Deathly Hallows now. I love that Rowling created rich lives and emotional context to explain some of her characters' motivations.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Oct 23, 2007 12:25:50 GMT -5
Good call Roxy. The books ARE really violent and disturbing for little one. Love should be an easier thing to explain perhaps?
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Post by Indagatrix on Oct 23, 2007 18:50:45 GMT -5
A little side note -- the article did say JK had to out old Dumble b/c one of the movies was going to add a flashback story for Dumble that had him interested in a girl -- and JK then said - uh no he's gay - no girls there. On a side note - a coworker of mine has a brother who works for Scholastic and JK is working with a team to develop the "official" everything Harry Potter Encyclopedia - which is suppose to include complete character profiles (back stories as well as their futures) -- I don't see it as sensational or a way to sell more books (she's rich enough as is) -- I think she did develop an entire world and thought out all the characters -- and in a few years there will be Potter RPG and festivals surrounding the world she's created. Well at least for the generation that is between 6 and 16 years old As far as the sexuality issue and kids - Tango makes three (true story about penguins) is a better gateway to discuss same-gender partnerings in nature if a parent so chooses to tackle that for a bed time tale.
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Post by laurelin on Oct 23, 2007 22:29:24 GMT -5
HA! And here's me, trying to find a book for my daughter that explains pregnancy (fetal size and development month by month) without getting too sexually explicit (so far, no luck).
Luckily we won't be tackling Harry Potter for a few years yet (she doesn't deal with death well...she sobbed and sobbed at the end of the Hobbit when Thorin died), but since one of my best friends (and quite a few other people we know) is gay I'm hoping she'll handle the knowledge well...though I doubt she'll pick up on it.
Oddly enough. I kinda had a feeling about Dumbledore while reading about his friendship with what's-his-name, but then I thought, "Naw...she wouldn't put that in a children's book." I will admit that I also thought it was a publicity stunt to suddenly announce this information, but since Inda has pointed out that her announcement is due to a "inconsistant" scene in the upcoming movie I'm feeling a bit better about it. Can you imagine pouring years of your life into creating a world and it's people only to have someone else change who those people are? I think that I would also jump and and run around telling everyone that the movie is wrong (every time I go see a movie about a book I've already read I run around telling everyone what was done wrong, and I didn't have anything to do with it's creation! Do not mention the LOTR movies to me, I will put you to sleep. *grumble grumble*). Now that I'm sure I've put you all to sleep anyway..... ;D
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Post by Fate on Oct 24, 2007 13:52:10 GMT -5
Kind of makes you wonder what Dumbledore really sees in that mirror. And why it was really taken away.....
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Post by Presort on Oct 24, 2007 14:34:00 GMT -5
Kind of makes you wonder what Dumbledore really sees in that mirror. And why it was really taken away..... Gellert Grindelwald and the summer of love.
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Post by Fate on Oct 25, 2007 12:28:29 GMT -5
Kind of makes you wonder what Dumbledore really sees in that mirror. And why it was really taken away..... Gellert Grindelwald and the summer of love. *fate loses lunch*
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