Rowling Happy To Mute FANTASTIC BEASTS Haters Over Gay Dumbledore Controversy

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In the years since the Harry Potter series concluded, both at the movies and at your local book store (do you even have a local book store anymore?), author J.K. Rowling has continued to retroactively add in details about the characters she created. One of those details is that Harry’s mentor, Albus Dumbledore, was gay. It wasn’t something, she felt, that factored into the stories being told, so she never felt the need to explicitly state this fact about him in the books themselves.

Now that Warner Bros. is under way with a massive Harry Potter prequel series in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them that began in 2016, in which the sequels will cover some of Dumbledore’s earlier adventures, fans have wondered if his sexuality will be addressed this time around. Series director David Yates was recently asked about it, and he said:

“Not explicitly. But I think all the fans are aware of that. He had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other’s ideas, and ideology and each other.”

Essentially, he assumes most hardcore Potter fans already know this about Dumbledore, so it’s more of a given. And, similar to the original Potter stories, it’s not something that needs to be spelled out. Almost like how you don’t have to explain that Peter Parker is from Queens. It’s just something we know about the character, and- unless it comes up as part of the narrative- there’s no real need to directly point it out.

He also added, mind you, that there are several more Fantastic Beasts films on the way, and he didn’t rule out that it could come up eventually:

“I can’t tell you everything I would like to say because this is obviously a five-part story so there’s lots to unpack in that [Dumbledore/Grindelwald] relationship.”

Still, despite this fairly open-ended statement on the matter- one which jibes with past Harry Potter stories and doesn’t say it’ll go forever unmentioned- many fans were upset. I’ll spare you the gory details, but there was a lot of online backlash against what Yates had to say- some of which was aimed squarely at Rowling, who wrote the screenplay.

Well, she’s now taken to Twitter to say exactly how she feels about this matter:

Being sent abuse about an interview that didn’t involve me, about a screenplay I wrote but which none of the angry people have read, which is part of a five-movie series that’s only one instalment in, is obviously tons of fun, but you know what’s even *more* fun? pic.twitter.com/Rj6Zr8aKUk

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 31, 2018

“Being sent abuse about an interview that didn’t involve me, about a screenplay I wrote but which none of the angry people have read, which is part of a five-movie series that’s only one instalment in, is obviously tons of fun, but you know what’s even *more* fun?”

To answer that question, she used a Lil Yachty GIF where he hits the MUTE button.

In short, she thinks everyone needs to take a deep breath, actually see how it all plays out, and understand that there’s a ton of ground to be covered over the course of a five part Fantastic Beasts series like this so patience is a virtue.

Seems fairly reasonable. But what do you think?

SOURCE: Twitter / EW