Why Are We Digging So Deep Into Harry Potter To Find LGBT Issues & Characters?

Pre Dorothy making out with Red on OUAT, I wrote a blog titled "Once Upon A Time" introduces new gay character and it is …  It was interesting to see the responses to the idea that ABC would "make" a character gay.  Many stated things like we don't need any of them made gay as well as it would be great for LGBTers to have a character on OUAT.  I was a little torn, but in the end my thought was, if they want to do it, then go for it!

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Harry Potter has been out since well for as long as some of you have been alive.  Published in 1997, one year after I graduated from college, 19 years ago, the book was very influential.  It has spawned some of the biggest movies ever, book sales ever, and some of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

Since it has been out for almost two decades, with the last one published in 2007 (not counting the new play or creature book), why are we still poking around in the book for clues and hints about the characters?  Why are we digging for dirt on the characters and their personal lives?  And maybe as well, why is J.K. Rowling leaking news about AIDS like diseases and such?

 

In a section of ‘Short Stories From Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship, and Dangerous Hobbies’, Rowling details the life of Lupin, writing that the professor’s werewolf condition is a metaphor for illnesses that carry a stigma.

Lupin — who Rowling calls “one of her favourite characters in the entire Potter series” — was plagued by his condition and often faced rejection from the wizarding world.

“Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS,” Rowling reveals in the book.

“All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself.

“The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.”

However, despite the stigma he previously faced, Rowling reminds readers that Lupin eventually found acceptance with “a wife, a son, wonderful friends” – not to mention helping rid the world of the most evil wizard of them all. – pinknews.co.uk

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What do you make of this leak about one of the character's past, health, and well-being?  Do you think it is a wow?  Look how deep her story lines went an how much they relate to the real world?  Or are you more so thinking, why wasn't this brought up before?  Are we more accepting of blood born illnesses now in 2016 than we were in the '90s, '00's?

Or was this leak / release of a character design a way of J.K. Showing that she is still on our side?  She has made some enemies in the past week about one of her character's development and how he wasn't "that way."

 

J.K. Rowling disappointed a legion of Internet “shippers” today when she confirmed that Sirius Black, one of the main characters in her Harry Potter series, is not gay.

Apparently, social justice warriors on Twitter and elsewhere had decided that the prisoner of Azkaban and driving force in the fight against Voldemort was also a pioneering LGBT wizard. But when a Twitter user got the chance to ask Rowling about Black’s sexual orientation, she confirmed that he’s definitely heterosexual.  – heatst.com

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I guess there are a lot more questions to be answered about Harry Potter and his friends. But who better to answer them than the author herself?  Apparently her fans know better.

 

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Were you floored by this response? I really don't think Rowling is a homophobe.  We loved her support of Tom Daley and didn't she tell us Dumbledore was gay?

 

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I think we need to respect Rowling and her creation.  What she has created is amazing and, like Star Wars, it is an epic with many fandom beliefs and theories.  Even with thousands of pages within all of her books,  there is more to learn.  We cannot force our thoughts into a story line and be mad when it is not true.

But why are we digging into Harry Potter and his friends looking for LGBT issues? 

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P.s.  Emperor Smoke is Boba Fett.

 

h/t: heatst.com

pinknews.co.uk

 

1 thought on “Why Are We Digging So Deep Into Harry Potter To Find LGBT Issues & Characters?”

  1. You cannot please everybody –

    You cannot please everybody – some people will always complain no matter what – JK Rowling is an
    ALLY.

    Reply

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