J.K. Rowling's Biggest Harry Potter Reveals

In the years since Harry Potter's story ended, J.K. Rowling has revealed a whole lot more about the world she created, occasionally stirring up a little controversy along the way. Here are the biggest revelations Rowling has shared with fans since finishing the Harry Potter books.

It's pretty much a hard rule that any fantasy epic that follows the Hero's Journey has got to have an old, wise man present to teach the young protagonist how to overcome their hurdles and challenges. Of course, Harry Potter is no exception. Enter Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, who begins the series watching over the orphaned infant Harry from a distance, and eventually becomes a major parental figure for the character during their shared time at Hogwarts. Even after Dumbledore dies in Half Blood Prince, his shadow looms large, all the way through to the final moments of the series.

Now, there's plenty Harry doesn't know about Dumbledore, but one facet of his character couldn't have been guessed by even the sharpest of readers. In 2007, Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay, and though fans knew he had a close friendship with the wizard Grindelwald in his younger days, most fans didn't take that to mean that the two were more than friends. Though Dumbledore's orientation never needed to be addressed by the story, this was still quite a surprise for fans, who could now look at the character in an entirely new light. Rowling even claims to have clued in one of the films' screenwriters to this reveal, nixing a would-be Dumbledore line about an old female flame.

After dropping the big bombshell about Dumbledore's sexuality, Rowling waited nearly ten years to push the issue again, ahead of the release of the second film in the Potter spin-off series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Both Rowling and director David Yates faced serious backlash over comments made by Yates stating that Dumbledore's sexuality wouldn't be directly addressed in the second Fantastic Beasts movie, The Crimes of Grindelwald, despite the fact that the antagonist of the film was famously known as Dumbledore's lover. On the movie's Blu-ray release, Rowling followed up the controversy by announcing that the two had indeed engaged in an extremely intense physical relationship.

But this reveal didn't come without its controversy, with Rowling's comments raising some important questions about representation. After all, what does it say to LGBTQ fans that Dumbledore fell in love with a murderous villain and then possibly lived in celibacy for the remainder of his life? And why is that representation found only on a Blu-ray special feature, rather than within the story itself? All in all, this particular reveal sent a more muddled and confusing message than Rowling likely intended. Keep watching the video to see all of J.K. Rowling's biggest Harry Potter reveals!

#Harry Potter

Dumbledore's sexuality | 0:18
Dumblewald | 1:30
For want of a Patronus | 2:38
Vanishing waste | 3:50
Voldemort's name | 4:42
Hermione's crime | 6:01
Hatstall | 6:58
Home-schooling | 8:21
One bad date | 9:01
Senator Myrtles | 10:08
Relationship regrets | 10:51

Read Full Article: https://www.looper.com/149348/j-k-rowlings-biggest-harry-potter-revelations-since-finishing-the-books/