Thursday, October 25, 2007

Harry Potter in the News

With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a series that had become a phenomenon came to an end. But just because we've read the final chapter doesn't mean the news surrounding this famous series has come to an end as well.

Over at The Guardian they have an article about how Harry Potter broke a new record. "A rare first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has fetched the record-breaking price of £19,700 at auction."

Then of course we have the fact that J.K. Rowling outed Dumbledore. If you haven't heard about this yet all sorts of things can be read at the BBC News, E! News, Kansas City Star, Associated Press, Yahoo News, MTV (yes, let me repeat that MTV), ABC News, News Day, Daily Mail, Japan Today, The Globe and Mail, Sunday Mail, MSN News, and many many more. Trust me the list just goes on. It's all pretty much the same though.

Then over at Blogcritics Jet in Columbus asks Why Should it Matter?

What do you think?

6 comments:

NouveauBlogger said...

As I've said before, I don't know anything about Harry Potter or Dumbledore for that matter, but I have to assume he's (she's?) a fictional character in a book? Right? At some level I understand the surprise of it, I guess, but I don't at all understand international media's attention to it. Its fantasy! LOL

What do you think, Katie? Does it really matter to the readers? Why? How?

I wouldn't care if.....um......I can't think of any "serial" books I read.....if I found out one of the Hardy Boys was gay. How would it change anything?

Katie said...

I agree that it shouldn't matter. It doesn't take anything away from the the books or the character. But it's crazy that a simple statement by an author has gotten all of this attention.

However it does seem to matter to some readers. There are those that are for or agaisnt what Rowling said. I guess though in the end the reader will believe whatever they want to. Although I think the people who have been writing fan fiction with a gay Dumbledore (he, by the way) will be thrilled. :)

Unknown said...

I wrote a post on it in my blog calling it the Harry Potter Fiasco. I'm actually pretty much livid with Rowling right now because she basically outed herself as being a terrible writer and basically made a fool of the entire gay community.
In reality, it is irrelevant to the books that Dumbledore is gay because his homosexuality plays no part in anything that happens in the book. It doesn't matter that Rowling says he fell in love with a wizard that eventually he had to destroy because in the book that's never shown to be the cause of Dumbledore's hesitation.
The part that pisses me off is that she decided to give all this information as after thought. She didn't both taking the time that a writer should to make it clear in the book that Dumbledore is gay, nor did she make any effort to pus that issue...until now. The whole idea that this is some victory for the gay community is laughable. All Rowling has proven is that it is okay to hide a character's sexuality because it might be considered wrong or strange, and to have that character hide himself. Where is the victory? It's a step in the wrong direction. If we want acceptance of homosexuals we can't portray them as cowards or give the impression that it is okay to hide who you are regardless of status. Not to mention, Rowling never made the homosexual issue important to the Deatheater plotline, so the whole point of him being gay is completely irrelevant to the book. I see it more as a media ploy.

T.C. Robson said...

Didn't really matter to me when I found out. I don't necessarily know what in the series technically defines him as gay (if anything), but I didn't see anything into it. Doesn't change the series. But you know those people who have gone against and/or boycotted the series because of its cult/religious underlay and all that are having a heyday with this.

Yoga Gal said...

Heard about it on the news, I once saw an interview with the Mistress of wizard fiction and I couldn't believe the volume of notebooks she had on her books so she must have tons of back story stuff to tell!

Chris, The Book Swede said...

I like the Harry Potter books -- I don't think they're fabulously well written, necessarily, but they're good fun.

I'm interested that she chose to "out him", more for reasons of marketing and publicity, than that I care whether Dumbledore is gay or not :)

But yeah, Katie, you're right about the fan fiction people -- they're having a field day! LOL.

~Chris