Harry Potter and the Unexpected Gay Characters

The one unfortunate thing about the portrayal of possibly queer characters in the “Potterverse” -- particularly Dumbledore -- is, in my opinion, the fact that they tend to be portrayed as the completely desexualized, “safe” queer characters that occur so often in films and television. They’re wacky, they’re quirky, they’re a bit too stylish and outspoken, they may be very useful plot points at various stages, but they never have significant others, and they never do anything that would imply ever having or ever having had that icky “gay sex,” including even kissing. And, that is fair enough, given that these books are intended for children or adolescents, and any sexual content would be inappropriate for that audience. However, alluding to a relationship, or even portraying two characters in a relationship, doesn’t necessarily present something inappropriate for children or adolescents (at least outside the discourse of some homophobic Christian groups). And yet, with as many characters that are “queer” in the wider sense of “atypical” or “strange” as there are in Harry Potter, two people of the same gender being in a relationship seems like it would be somewhat pedestrian in comparison.

The one possible relationship that could have gone somewhere in the established characters of the “Potterverse” would have resulted in Dumbledore and Grindelwald being the evil overlords of the wizarding world, and while that may have made for an interesting honeymoon, it certainly doesn’t make for a positive role model of any sort.

(There is, often, a tendency in some situations to portray evil characters as potentially gay -- look at Scar in The Lion King, or Desslok in Star Blazers.) In this, one could question Rowling’s choice to reveal that she considers Dumbledore to have been gay as ultimately a not-very-positive message, and rightly so, since it would seem to imply that homoerotic attraction is morally blind and therefore morally suspect. And, ironically, this might actually work really well in terms of many fundamentalist and homophobic Christian groups’ views on homosexuality. But, they will never find any redeeming qualities in the Harry Potter corpus due to all of the magic, which is just as well.

In the meantime, I hope that many Pagan readers and fans of the Harry Potter series consider themselves “Friends of Dumbledore” and “Friends of Lupin,” no matter what the wider world and its negative religious messages might say about the evils of magic, homoeroticism, or both together.