Neville and Hannah Abbot?? Did they even talk to each other in the whole series
I liked hearing about JKR pausing after she read the line, ””No, I heard you coming out of my pocket.” When she was reading the chapter where Ron returns. LOL. she’s great. I also loved the part where she says what would have happened if Arthur Weasley had died i OOTP. She said that Ron would have lost his sense of humor and that Harry would not have seen the burrow as a refuge because the atmosphere would have been different. She also said that Ron’s humor came from his immaturity and insecurities. And that he was the last of the trio to become an adult when he faced his fears in book 7.
All of that info was great. I can’t wait to hear more.
Cecil – did there have to be hints? We haven’t had hints as to the sexual orientation of quite a lot of characters. If JKR made an announcement that Charlie Weasley (just for example) was straight, it wouldn’t change who he is. So why does being gay change “the core of who we thought the character was all along”? He’s still the same guy he always was.
hannah…if your grandfather is gay…how did you get here? Unless he choose to be gay later?
Ugh, I am quite frankly upset at some of these comments. There was NO reason to assume or think that Dumbledore was gay. NONE! People who claimed to have “seen” it, couldn’t have…unless of course they also see Harry/Draco, Severus/Draco, Draco/Lucius, Dean/Seamus, Sirius/Remus, Tom Riddle/Harry, and all the other absolutely retarded fanon ships that have no basing in canon at all. I’m sorry, Jo, but you lose on this one…It really bums me to have to say that too, but there is no grounding in canon at all for this. There’s nothing wrong with having a gay person in the books, or even a strong male nonsterotypical gay person in the books, but there IS something wrong with saying something is there when it clearly isn’t—or if she was trying to put in in there, then she did a horrible job because nobody could pick up on it. Severus/Lily was far more predictable and a until-the-last-minute-dropped-in love story.
And Neville/Hannah? Did they ever speak? That’s also wierd….I adore this story, but I’m not sure how much I want to hear if Jo’s going to continue on like this. It sounds like she’s making it up as she goes to each different place. I want to hear more about what she planned, not more about what she is saying because she has to come up with an answer, like the John Dawlish thing….She has given herself time before the Hogwarts enclypedia. If I waited over seven years for the seventh book, I can wait another few years for a well-thought out backstory for the characters that she has created.
Okay, my previous comment wasn’t supposed to be struck out like that… I didn’t realize that using dashes as punctuation marks caused that formating.
Well, I did catch the allusion to DD having an “unnatural” interest in Harry—wasn’t that a swipe by Rita Skeeter? There was something about DD’s past that caused that rumor to surface, the insult to have bite. Rita’s very good at ferreting out the undercurrents and see if she can dig up any dirt.
I am disappointed that JKR seems to really shy away from the Malfoys though, I am sure there is more than what she has told us. Wasn’t there a whole chapter about them she cut out? Maybe she’s saving them for another story. But considering their connections (to Sirius, to Voldemert, to Harry and to Ron) they must have an interesting backstory.
What?,
Not daring to speak for Hannah, I think I can answer this one. Many gays and lesbians will marry people of the opposite sex and have kids, either in a denial mechanism or to hide their true sexual orientation. It’s not a matter of “choosing” sexual orientation, but rather of choosing to take active steps to HIDE it.
Wow aghhh, you just made me realize, yet again, that there are still sad sorry little people in this world. Maybe if you actually got to know someone who is gay instead of making assumptions from what someone brainwashed you to believe, you might change your opinion a bit.
here’s some more info from the event:
Jo departed from previous readings and read from chapter 19 and started after a Horcrux was destroyed and Ron returned to Harry and Hermione. During her reading Jo took on the voices of each of the characters making sure that Hermione’s anger at Ron was projected to the audience. At one point Jo lost her composure when she read the line “No, I heard you coming out of my pocket.” which she did not finish, as the audience broke out in laughter followed by Jo laughing along with us.
Below is a summary of the questions and answers from tonight’s event (paraphrased):
She was surprised that no one had ever asked her what Dumbledore’s wand was made of. If ever asked this question she would have simply said “It’s made of Elder” and left it at that.
In answering a question about Neville and finding love, Jo said that he married the landlady from the Leaky Cauldron which happened to be Hannah Abbott, and that living above the Leaky Cauldron would have impressed his students at Hogwarts.
When asked why she chose Molly to kill Bellatrix she replied that she wanted to 1) show that Molly was an extremely talented witch even though she spent most of her time in the kitchen, and 2) she wanted to compare the obsession Bellatrix had with Voldemort with Molly’s maternal love for her children.
The next question referred to what would have occurred if Arthur had died in Order of the Phoenix. Jo said that it would have changed books 5, 6 and 7 and that Ron’s character would have lost his sense of humor and taken away Harry’s refuge at the Weasley home. She also mentioned that Ron’s humor stemmed from insecurities and immaturity and that he was the last to become an adult, by facing his fears in the last book.
When eight-year-old Mia asked an Aberforth question, Jo asked her age and said that just for her the answer would be “that the goats were easy to keep clean and that they had curly horns,” as the audience roared with laughter.
Now for the question that stunned the audience – Did Dumbledore love anyone? Jo started to say “I always saw Dumbledore as gay” as a hush fell on the audience followed by a excited response by all in attendance. She went on to say that she had recently read the script for Half-Blood Prince and noticed a passage in which Dumbledore recalled a past female love – she immediately crossed out the passage and added the words “Dumbledore is gay” in the margin.
When asked about parseltongue, Jo answered that Ron had mastered one sound but it wouldn’t be a language someone could learn.
What was in Dumbledore’s letter to the Dursley’s in book 1 was the next question and Jo responded by saying that Petunia had wanted to go to Hogwarts and by taking in Harry she was taking in a part of the world that she never participate in.
Then next question is one that many fans have answered themselves in reference to the Basilisk and why did it not kill Voldemort’s soul in Harry. Rowling stated that Harry was not destroyed beyond repair because Fawkes was around to heal him but later was conveniently absent when other Horcruxes were destroyed.
Jo replied that Harry did not consult with Dumbledore’s portrait for 3 reasons: 1)The portrait was not available as it was at Hogwarts, 2) Dumbledore didn’t want to tempt Harry with the Hallows but wanted him to learn of them slowly due to Harry’s flaws and 3) it was too easy and there wouldn’t be a plot.
When asked to confirm that the Death Eaters were based on the Nazis, Jo answered by saying that it was a conscience decision, people will die and that you shouldn’t believe what your government or newspapers tell you.
When Jo reminisced about completing the first versus the last book she said that it was very similar and that her husband, who was in attendance, hated her for a few weeks because she was unbearable to live with.
After Jo had answered the initial 12 questions a spokesperson from Scholastic revealed that 4 additional questions would be asked by sweepstakes winners from the audience. First up asked if Malfoy now owed Harry a life-debt and Jo stated that there was no magical ties between the two but that Malfoy had to be forever grateful to Harry for saving his life, which is evident in the last chapter in book seven when meet at platform 9¾.
Donna, from the very top of Carnegie Hall was next in line and after sprinting down the stairwell she breathlessly asked “What was the careers after graduation of James, Lily, Sirius and Lupin?” Jo said Lupin was unemployable and impoverished because of his condition and that James, Lily and Sirius were employed full-time in the Order of the Phoenix (James was rich and that’s how they lived.)
When asked did Hagrid ever find love, the audience sighed and Jo responded that she should probably change her answer but that, no, he never did.
The last question of the night referred to Snape’s portrait and Harry and she answered that Harry would have insisted that it be hung in the headmaster’s office at Hogwarts but that he probably would not have visited it to converse with Snape. Jo is still surprised when she reads that fans are torn about Snape and unequivocally stated that Snape was “bitter, vindictive and mean.”
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. I just meant Dumbledore was shown to be overall religiously moral, and this particular information about him is not accepted in many religions.
Okay, so kids aren’t going to turn gay by reading this, but it is exposing this reality in a positive light, which a lot of parents will not like.
I kind of suspected it after DH – after all, Dumbledore’s …attachment to Grindelwald seemed a bit much for just a teenage summer friendship. Bravo, JKR – whenever I think she can’t impress me more she always manages to put something else out there! :D
“There’s nothing wrong with having a gay person in the books, or even a strong male nonsterotypical gay person in the books, but there IS something wrong with saying something is there when it clearly isn’t—or if she was trying to put in in there, then she did a horrible job because nobody could pick up on it.”
Gay people are people like anybody else. He didn’t acted in a non-gay manner, he acted like a person and not a stereotype.
I think this is really “out of the blue” because in all seven novels, we had completely no knowledge that Albus Dumbledore was gay—it appears that even Rita Skeeter’s “biography” described in Deathly Hallows never found out the truth, either. It’s a case of a sexual orientation that almost nobody knew except maybe his very closest kin (even his teachers at Hogwarts and the people in the Ministry of Magic never found out, either).