perfidy

For those of you who missed it today, Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling outed main character and dead guy Albus Dumbledore, saying "she always thought Dumbledore was gay."

Excuse me, what?

I don't particularly care that he is (well, okay, was - he's kicked the bucket) gay. What bugs me is that she wasn't willing to bring it up in a series that deals with ALL KINDS of adult themes like, um, murder, torture, evil, the inability of governments to effectively control their populace, abuse, etc. My question to Ms. Rowling is this: Why would you bring this up now after you've already written the books and made your zillions of dollars? It does NOTHING to improve (or detract) from the series. Unless her first draft of book 7 was written significantly differently with a working title of, say, Harry Potter and the Unsheathed Wand of Albus Dumbledore, there is no reason she couldn't have actually touched upon (no pun intended - well, hardly any) Dumbledore's sexuality WITHIN the pages of the books. I wonder how many teens dealing with their own sexuality might have felt more comfortable reading about a main character who went through similar trials. I mean, she's J.K.-fucking-Rowling. She outsells the Bible! Any editor who dares to question her will probably have to get his or her resume in order quickly. She could have put this little nugget INTO her book instead of waiting until after everything's done to out the character.

Oh, but wait - the book-buying public wouldn't accept that! A gay character? In today's modern world? *gasp* The scandal!

Never mind the fact that anyone narrow-minded enough to be unable to deal with a homosexual literary character probably wouldn't be able to deal with all the "evil magic" in the series in the first place.

Shame on you, J.K. Rowling, for being a coward.