Dumbledore Gay Quotes

In late October 2007, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced that fictional character Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

The following page contains a transcript of Rowling's announcement, quotes from bloggers and lines from the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows that read differently in light of the recent news about the nature of Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald's relationship.

1. New Slang: Grindeldore (Dumbledore + Grindelwald)

• The following transcript is taken from Harry Potter fan site The Leaky Cauldron:

• Question: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?

• Answer: My truthful answer to you. I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us...Yeah, that's how I always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying "I knew a girl once, whose hair..." [laughter] I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter - "Dumbledore's gay!"

• While Dumbledore's sexuality is never explicitly addressed in the books, some readers claim to have picked on the possibility of him being gay prior to J.K. Rowling's announcement because of the way in which his relationship with the wizard Grindelwald and Harry's reaction to learning of that relationship are described in the the seventh and final book Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.

• "Harry, I'm sorry, but I think the real reason you're so angry is that Dumbledore never told you any of this himself."

• - Hermione on Dumbledore

• "I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then, of course, he came..." Dumbledore looked directly into Harry's eyes again. "Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me."

• - Dumbledore on Grindelwald

• "Yes, even after they'd spent all day in discussion - both such brilliant young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire - I'd sometimes hear an owl tapping at Gellert's bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An idea would have struck him, and he had to let Gellert know immediately!"

• - Rita Skeeter on Dumbledore

• Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this brief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate?

• - Rita Skeeter on Dumbledore

• "I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the mess he's left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me."

• - Harry on Dumbledore

• "It was the thing, above all, that drew us together," he said quietly. "Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession."

• - Dumbledore on the Hallows and Grindelwald

• The following excerpt from Rebecca Traister's Salon.com article "Dumbledore? Gay. J.K. Rowling? Chatty." examines other sections of the book, which hint at Dumbledore's sexuality.

• But a close reading would reveal that "The Deathly Hallows" was shot through with intimations about the headmaster's sexuality, and not just in reference to his love for Grindelwald, which Rowling describes as a teenage passion that makes the otherwise responsible young wizard forget his family and go uncharacteristically batty. The book kicks off with an obituary by Dumbledore's school chum Elphias Doge, who describes his first meeting with the teenaged Dumbledore as a moment of "mutual attraction" and who later tells Harry that he knew the wizard "as well as anyone." Then there is the lurid language of a scurrilous postmortem biography of Dumbledore, in which writer Rita Skeeter wonders about the close relationship between the headmaster and his young pupil: "It's been called unhealthy, even sinister ... there is no question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Potter." Here Rowling is aping the leering, speculative tone of news stories about gay priests, Cub Scout leaders, and teachers accused of inappropriate relationships with their charges.

• Now, I really think Ian McKellan should’ve played him.

• - The Leaky Cauldron

• I wonder where her tolerance was for those readers who have beliefs different from hers. Where was the respect for them? Don't they too have a right to avoid and hide themselves away from ideas and themes they disagree with? I guess not.

• - Redstate

• We do not have to divide over Rowling’s revelation. There is absolutely nothing in the text itself that communicates anything clear about Dumbledore’s sexuality. Even as we continue to disagree on the subject of homosexuality, we can remain Potter fans together and continue to read the books as we see best.

• - Sword of Gryffindor

• Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling shocked the world this weekend when she revealed that Albus Dumbledore is gay. It does, however, go to explain the B&B he owns on the Cranberry Islands in Maine with his friend, Bruce.

• - Best Week Ever