Dumbledore is Witty, Gay and Brave!
In a recent post I expressed reservations about reading Harry Potter to my children, since JK Rolwing decided to betray my trust in her by publicly announcing that Albus Dumbledore, one of the best and most beloved characters in the book, suffered from homosexuality. Those who point out either that Dumbledore never acts on his impulses in the book, or that the affection for Grisenwald (or whatever his name was) was not portrayed sympathetically miss the point entirely, so entirely that the fall into the trap set by Rowling. The point of her comment was not to show that homosexuality is admirable — even the most ardent pervertarians rarely say that — the point is to show that homosexuals are nice and normal people, and that therefore to condemn their vices is intolerant.
The devil need not convince you wrong is right; he need only convince you wrong is not as wrong as it at first seemed. He need only convince you that you can not and dare not condemn the sin lest the sinner also be condemned.
A concerned readers asks:
"What exactly are you saying here? We should not read books with gay characters? We should not read books where gay characters are admirable, honorable, or couragous. They can be included as long as they are villians? What?"
Here is what I am saying.
I want my children to grow up knowing right from wrong. Chastity is right: sexual perversion is wrong. Homosexuality is a sexual perversion, ergo wrong. My mission in life as a father is to tell them it is wrong, but also to train their passions so that they habitually reject it as a vice. The primary tool to train the passions is the imagination: children learn virtues through stories.
Now then, arrayed against me are those who call themselves the Enlightened. I call them the Armies of Darkness. Their mission in life is to corrupt my children, to teach my children that I am wrong, and to train the passions of my children so that my children habitually recoil from making any judgments about virtue and vice, which, in effect, encourages vice. Their mission is to make vice seem normal– To make evil seem good.
The primary tool, nay, the only tool, that the Armies of Darkness can use is the imagination. No slave of darkness is bold enough to actually debate the issue on a rational ground: those who attemptto debate it merely indulge in name-calling. Hence, debate is not a tool they can use for their goal.
The tool they use is the imagination: all that need be done to achieve the goal is to take some loathsome perversion, such as homosexuality, and to connect it, no matter how tentatively, to some beloved or amusing character.
The armies of darkness use a three step program.
First, the perversion is added to an otherwise innocent story as a bit of comedic relief. Call this pervert-as-clown. The perversion need only be mentioned or adumbrated indirectly, tongue-in-cheek, and the audience laughs. The laughter disarms the seriousness of the topic, and makes the topic seem charming and harmless. A real life example is the sit-com THREE’S COMPANY. The joke there is that the straight guy pretends to be gay to be allowed to live with two hot chicks: he trips over couches and takes pratfalls. The point here is that anyone who objects to the show or moral grounds is denounced as a paranoid puritan. But, of course, it makes the once-taboo subject a matter of charming jest. It is not normal, but it is funny.
The second step is to portray the pervert as sympathetic, witty, warm or wise as a minor character, but not to otherwise refer to his perversion, or show what it means. In stories like this, the pervert is the Sancho Panza or sidekick of some main character, or the wise old wizard, or the person who gives him the crucial moral advice that reforms his life. The homosexuality (or whatever) is added without it being integral to the character or being part of the plot. The point here is to make perversion seem normal, but not necessarily admirable. Call this pervert-as-friend.
Note that the pervert-as-friend can only be played to an audience that already accepts the pervert-as-clown. The transition is to have the minor character be a clownish or eccentric friend, foolish when the audience needs a laugh, but wise and witty when the hero needs an assist.
The third and final step is to portray the perversion as sympathetic, but without explaining or expressing the details of what is actually meant. A minor character shown to be suffering for his sodomy can be brought on stage briefly. The real meaning and the implication of the sexual perversion are never, ever mentioned: the story concentrates on the unfairness of the prejudice against him. Common decency is equated, on an emotional level, with Nazi brutality. The act of objecting to this illogical and morally indefensible sexual deviation is equated, on an emotional level, to totalitarianism.
A real world example of this is V FOR VENDETTA. In that comic (and in the movie) the pervert was the one who gave hope and spiritual strength to the suffering hero (and, later, heroine) languishing in a concentration camp. The hero later puts up a shrine to the pervert, looking as much like the shrines and icons erected to Christian saints as anyone could ask.
The point here is to make perversion seem admirable, in the same way that the saintly virtues of the martyrs seem admirable. It is something worth suffering and dying to protect. At that point, the brainwashing is complete. Call this pervert-as-martyr.
Note that pervert-as-martyr can only be played to an audience that already accepts the pervert-as-friend. The transitional stage is to portray the pervert as having some special insight, or occupy the moral high ground, to know the inner wisdom that sorrow and suffering brings. You cannot just jump straight from pervert-as-clown to pervert-as-martyr because the comedy relief cannot be made a subject of tragedy. The second step mentioned above is needed, because the sorrow and wisdom of the pervert-as-friend needs to be established before the pervert-as-martyr character will have sufficient gravity and dignity to be a tragic figure.
By announcing that Dumbledore was gay after and only after building up immense good will in the best selling children’s book of all time, Harry Potter falls clearly into step two: pervert-as-friend.
The point is to make my children think that, if someone as warm and wise and wonderful as Dumbledore is a homosexual, then homosexuality is not so bad a thing. It is not a logical argument, but an emotional appeal: propaganda.
It is only after I bought Harry Potter wands and paper plates and party decorations for the Kid’s birthday, and only after the love for the Harry Potter universe is part and parcel of my young children’s most beloved childhood memories that Rowling, on behalf of the Armies of Darkness, springs her little trap on me.
Someone will tell my wee boys some day that Dumbledore is gay: there are people out there (there are people on my friends list) who make it their life mission.
No child will give up his most beloved imaginary world without soul-shattering grief: and so the chances are that the maneuver of the Army of Darkness, in this case, will be successful.
What can I, as a father, do to stop it? Shield them from any mention of Harry Potter? Perhaps if I moved to the dark side of the moon and left no forwarding address, I could do that.
The Armies of Darkness won this round. I am as shocked and disappointed as I would have been had I been a Goth with black lipstick, shocked when Anne Rice, of all people, converted to Catholicism. We won that round. On marches the war, and we are sure to lose each battle but the last one.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
