In theater terms, I guess we'd say she's a little more Method -- she has a whole back story (apparently boxes and boxes of it) and gets into motivations etc.

That makes sense to me as a writer, because I know TONS about my characters that never makes it to the page because it's simply not central enough to the story. And I can totally picture myself someday, if I'm ever fortunate enough to get published and have some tiny, tiny fraction of Rowling's fame, sitting there in some Q&A saying things like, "Oh, the kid you meet in Book 4 isn't Jack's firstborn, because Sally was actually pregnant when she left him in Book 1, but it's OK because she married a nice man who's raising the girl as his own, and you're welcome to slash Jack and Arthur as long as you accept that they're basically straight and happy with the women I married them to, because I was fully aware of the slashy vibe and occasionally played it up for the amusement of one of my CPs, and Kitty married a nice Irish boy, and..."

And if I'm really, really lucky, I'll be popular enough that my admissions will generate online discussion in some small way.

I always thought it would have been quite nice to have a random kid (or even one of the main kids) who was gay w/o a big deal being made of it. To have this Dumbledore thing after the fact just feels silly to me. Either go there or don't, you know? It would have been nice for gay kids to have someone to relate to in that way and what a coup for it to have been Dumbledore!

Yeah, this is my feeling as well. I didn't *need* for there to be a gay character to enjoy the books, but I did notice the absence of one and wished there had been one. So to find out that all along, she considered Dumbledore gay, but never said so in the books -- and I think it's pretty safe to say she would have revealed his feelings for Grindelwald, had one of them been female -- to me, that means she took the safe road by deliberately keeping any mention of homosexuality out of the books. Which is her prerogative, of course; I just reserve the right to be disappointed that this was how she handled it.

It never occurred to me to wonder about the sexual demographics of Hogwarts.

That's cause you're not gay :)

ETA: Just so as not to look all "sexually deviant" and shit, I don't mean that only teh gays look at sexuality in stories. I mean that you notice that those like you are not represented in the story.

And totally not to pick on connie cause I've wondered this many times before, but I do find it interesting that "sexuality" comes into play when you mention teh gays, but no one thinks it overtly sexual to mention Harry's crush on Cho, or Hermione's on Ron.

How would you have had Rowling show Dumbledore's preferences in a plot relevant way? I got the definite impression that the thing with Grindelwald was on the border line of the typical boarding school-esque passion (I was never clear on how old Dumbledore was during all that), with all the possible "they're just good friends/there's UST all over the place" variants that one's particular worldview might see. I don't see how it could be more explicit without becoming in the way.

This Dumbledore conversation has been so interesting to me. It never occurred to me that he might be gay or that he and Grindlewald might have been more than just friends.

But I think GC is right - it never occurred to me because I'm not gay. I wouldn't have objected to a gay character, but absent it being in the text, I wasn't looking for it, or missing it. Which I guess is the difference.

This conversation reminds me of discussions in college about how you tend to see the world as you are. As a straight, white woman, I tend to assume other characters are also white and straight until told otherwise. I think it's like assuming that a "police officer" or "judge" is a man until told it's a woman.

I think JKR could have mentioned something wrt Grindlewald and why his ideas were so appealing to Dumbledore. Something along the lines of "I was blinded by love for a time."

If Dumbledore's love for Grindlewald was a notable component of his feelings for Grind's positions, then it should have come up. If it was "just another thing" then it falls into mood-setting for me. Since I think the story works very plausibly without thinking out of the platonic box, I don't think she did her story any damage by leaving it out.

Above that, though, what is her responsibility?

I think it's consistent with Dumbledore's character not to talk about his feelings.