J.K. Rowling says Dumbledore and Grindelwald had an 'intense' 'love' relationship
Poor Dumbledore. The world's most powerful gay wizard still can't find love on screen.
In a feature for the DVD and Blu-ray versions of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald released on March 12, author J.K. Rowling revealed that Dumbledore had an "incredibly intense" "love" relationship with Grindelwald, adding that she believes that "there is a sexual dimension to this relationship."
Of course, there were no scenes in the film that even nodded to this dynamic.
Here's how the author described their relationship in the interview:
Their relationship was incredibly intense. It was passionate, and it was a love relationship. But as happens in any relationship, gay or straight or whatever label we want to put on it, one never knows, really, what the other person is feeling. You can’t know, you can believe you know. So I’m less interested in the sexual side—though I believe there is a sexual dimension to this relationship—than I am in the sense of the emotions they felt for each other, which ultimately is the most fascinating thing about all human relationships.
Listen. Unlike some folks out there I'm not particularly interested in wizard sex (though full respect to those who are).
But LGBTQ representation still matters, even queer wizard representation, especially in films targeted to children and young adults. And it's dispiriting and predictable to see yet another writer allude to their character having a "secret homosexual life" without being willing to portray it on screen.
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We didn't need Dumbledore and Grindelwald to get married at the wizard altar. I, for one, would have loved for them to have at least shared a butterbeer and have one round of footsies at the local wizard Applebee's.
Alas, that part of their never-depicted "incredibly intense" "love relationship" will only appear in my fantasies.
Topics Film Harry Potter JK Rowling LGBTQ
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
