The Potter-verse was thrown for a loop when author J.K. Rowling announced last week that she always had imagined one of the main characters in the “Harry Potter” series — Albus Dumbledore — to be gay. Here are four clues that Dumbledore was gay, from Andrew Slack, head of the Harry Potter Alliance.
1. His pet. “Fawkes, the many-colored phoenix, is ‘flaming.’ “
2. His name. “While the anagram to ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ is ‘I am Lord Voldemort,’ as my good friend pointed out, ‘Albus Dumbledore’ becomes ‘Male bods rule, bud!’ “
3. His fashion sense. “Whether it’s his ‘purple cloak and high-heeled boots,’ a ‘flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet,’ a flowered bonnet at Christmas or his fascination with knitting patterns, Dumbledore defies fashion standards of normative masculinity and, of course, this gives him a flair like no other.”
4. His sensitivity. “Dumbledore understood that it’s tougher to be vulnerable, to express one’s feelings, and that one’s undying love for friends and for life itself is a more powerful weapon than fear.”
