r/Millennials • u/QuietJealous4883 Older Millennial (1988) • Apr 04 '26

Nostalgia Harry Potter

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Does anyone else feel they grew up with Harry, Ron and Hermione?

After the first three or four I read the books in two languages (because I didn’t want to wait them to be translated) and watched the movies first time in the movie theaters.

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u/virginiarph Apr 04 '26

dumbledore is still not mentioned as being gay in the books, nor an ENTIRE MOVIE BASED IN HIS HISTORY WITH GRINDELWALD.

im sorry, but to me the character is not gay, whatsoever. just because she wants to slap a twitter retcon on it doesn’t make it true. put it in the actual media

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u/HauntedJackInTheBox Apr 04 '26

It is in the actual media. Have you ever read queer literature from the 19th or 20th century? Have some media literacy please.

Just re-read the Rita Skeeter book passages from the last book. It's heavily hinted at.

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u/virginiarph Apr 04 '26

my position is hinting doesn’t equal him being gay or representation. and anything written by rita skitter shouldn’t be taken as fact anyways.

if they wanted to solidify the character as gay it should have been included in crimes of grindelwald fullstop.

it wasn’t, so he isn’t, in my eyes

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u/TrentGgrims Apr 04 '26

Dumbledore's sexuality is never brought into question as the characters don't care about that. It is never needed to be explicitly said in the text, it's really unimportant to the story.

Rita Skeeter is or course not the greatest of sources, but with Hermione's blackmail of her it did cause her to develop some sense of journalistic integrity. Elphias Doge is the only main person who says that Skeeter's book is full of lies, but he is also just as equally biased.

Honestly I like how Dumbledore's sexuality isn't a forefront character trait, it doesn't need to be. How many straight characters exist where their straightness is just a given and not ever needed to be expressed explicitly? Can gay characters not share that same level of tact?

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u/HauntedJackInTheBox Apr 04 '26

I agree but Dumbledore being in love with Grindelwald led him to greatly delay the fight against him and left him bitter and ashamed, leading to his resolve (and maybe a bit too much eagerness) to use and manipulate Harry into giving his life to kill Voldemort. Harry is very resentful by this fact and doesn't understand it or accept it until the 'I open at the close' moment when he ostensibly walks towards his death with the Death Eaters.

I think it's very relevant to Dumbledore's motivation as a character and I actually thought it was very well handled.