Dumbledore: Both a Wizard AND a Fairy!!!

Ian McKellan has got to be bitching his agent out this very second -- in an appearance at Carnegie Hall last week, J.K. Rowling revealed that Professor Albus Dumbledore, the late great headmaster of Hogwarts was actually -- gasp! -- a gay! Newsweek magazine broke the story:

One fan asked whether Albus Dumbledore, the head of the famed Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, had ever loved anyone. Rowling smiled. "Dumbledore is gay, actually," replied Rowling as the audience erupted in surprise. She added that, in her mind, Dumbledore had an unrequited love affair with Gellert Grindelwald, Voldemort's predecessor who appears in the seventh book. After several minutes of prolonged shouting and clapping from astonished fans, Rowling added. "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy."

All in all, yes, this is fantastic news, but why couldn't you have told us earlier? The world of sci-fi/fantasy is no stranger to a little dude-on-dude action (um, Frodo and Sam, anybody? anybody?), and those kooky right-wingers were already burning the books right and left anyway -- what harm would it have done to have presented a positive gay role model in the character of Dumbledore?

But we can reread the books now with an eye to Dumbledore's true identity -- and those slash-fanfic writers are certainly already sharpening their pencils and getting started on their "Dumbledore/Snape! Dumbledore/Sirius Black! Dumbledore/Hagrid!" configurations. And who knows what future films will reveal? Here's hoping that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will give us some insight into the love life of our very favorite headmaster.

Photo by joits via Flickr.