Many Faces of Albus Dumbledore in the Setting of Fan Writing

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MANY FACES OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN THE SETTING OF FAN WRITING: THE TRANSFORMATION OF READERS INTO “READER-WRITERS” AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THEIR PRESENCE IN THE AGE OF ONLINE FANDOM

Midori Fujita

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

(Children’s Literature)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver)

October 2014

Abstract

This thesis examines the dynamic and changing nature of reader response in the time of online fandom by examining fan reception of, and response to, the character Dumbledore in J.K.

Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Using the framework of reader reception theory established by

Wolfgang Iser, in particular Iser’s conception of textual indeterminacies, to construct my critical framework, this work examines Professor Albus Dumbledore as a case study in order to illuminate and explore how both the text and readers may contribute to the identity formation of a single character. The research examines twenty-one selected Internet-based works of fan writing. These writings are both analytical and imaginative, and compose a selection that illuminates what aspect of Dumbledore’s characters inspired readers’ critical reflection and inspired their creative re-construction of the original story. This thesis further examines what the flourishing presence of Harry Potter fan community tells us about the role technological progress has played and is playing in reshaping the dynamics of reader response. Additionally, this research explores the blurring boundaries between authors and readers in light of the blooming culture of fan fiction writing. The themes that Harry Potter fan writers have addressed imply that subjects of morality, sexuality, failures, amend-making, and questions of individual agency versus societal constraints are important issues with which contemporary readers of Harry Potter stories are drawn to explore. Harry Potter, by virtue of being one of the most fervently read text in the last decade provides a valuable insight what reading and literature may mean to ordinary people in their everyday lives.

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Preface

This Master’s thesis is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, M. Fujita.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Preface...... iii Table of Contents ...... iv List of Tables ...... v Acknowledgements ...... vi Dedication ...... vii 1. Origin of Research Interest, Rationale and Significance ...... 1 2. Research Statement ...... 3 3. Literature Review...... 5 3. 1. Iserʼs Reader Response Theory ...... 6 3. 2. The Rise of Social Media and its Implication to Reader Response Theory ...... 15 3. 3. Dumbledore the Philosopher-King ...... 20 3. 4. Dumbledore’s Fall from the Pedestal ...... 22 3. 5. Dumbledore’s Sexuality ...... 27 3. 6. Reader-reception and the Question of Authorial Ownership ...... 33 3. 7. Reader-reception Observed through Henry Jenkins’ Study on Fan Fiction Writing ...... 35 4. Methodology ...... 43 4. 1. Dataset and Analysis ...... 45 4. 2. Fan Sites Under Discussion ...... 47 5. Examination of Selected Analytical Writings by Fans ...... 50 5. 1. Omnipotent and Benevolent, God-like Dumbledore ...... 52 5. 2. Dumbledore as a Moral Icon ...... 53 5. 3. Secrets and Lies, Authority and Control—Dumbledore’s Moral Ambiguity ...... 56 5. 4. Dumbledore For the Greater Good ...... 60 5. 5. Concluding Thoughts on Fans’ Analytical Writing ...... 65 6. Examination of Selected Creative Writings Posted by Fans ...... 67 6. 1. Dumbledore—A Friend and a Protector ...... 71 6. 2. Dumbledore – the Young and the Restless ...... 74 6. 3. Dumbledore and the Price of his Love ...... 76 6. 4. The Gay Dumbledore ...... 81 6. 5. Concluding Thoughts on Fans’ Creative Writing ...... 82 7. Conclusions and Opportunities for Further Studies ...... 85 7.1 Implications of the Study: The Controversy of Authorship and Authority ...... 86 7. 2. Concluding Thoughts ...... 96 Works Cited ...... 99 Appendix ...... 111

List of Tables

Table 1 ...... 52 Table 2...... 70

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Teresa Dobson, for her inspiration, support, guidance and meticulous editorial suggestions. I would also like to thank the other member of my committee, Dr. Eric Meyers, for his insight and support.

I am also grateful to my primary peer reviewers, PhD candidate Claire Ahn and M.A. candidate Roberta Loo, as well as my copy editors at The Writing Room for their editorial reviews and suggestions.

Special gratitude is owed to my parents; their support throughout my years of education has provided me with courage and opportunity to pursue my academic passion.

My final word of thanks is owed to my partner, who asked me the fundamental question that is at the core of this thesis: “Why do you study literature?”

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Dedication

I dedicate this work in the memory of my grandfather, Sho-ichiro Baba, a dedicated railway man, an avid reader and passionate mountaineer from Hokkaido, Japan, whose greatest regret in life was not having had the chance to gain a University education.

1. Origin of Research Interest, Rationale and Significance

The story of Harry Potter has captured the hearts of many readers worldwide, creating strong emotional connections between the story, the characters, and its readers in the process.

Magic begins to flow into Harry Potter’s ordinary and mistreated life with the arrival of a (single unexpected) letter, and this magic also flowed for millions of readers. As Harry delights in learning all things magical, readers of the book may share in the same great sense of joy, freedom, and exhilaration Harry feels at discovering this strange and fantastical world. The humour and imagination J. K. Rowling employs in creating this magical world give the story a loving and playful quality. In her MA thesis, The Harry Potter Phenomenon and its Implications for Literacy Education, Jadranka Novosel argues that the readers’ love for Harry Potter has been made visible, communicable and shared through the expansion of the Internet and the emergence of online communities such as various Harry Potter fan websites (Novosel 1, 64-65; Grossman n.pag.). Readers do not only enjoy Harry Potter books in the solitary act of reading, but also break out of that isolation and share their love and passion for the story in participatory online spaces.

My initial research focus was to examine morality in the Harry Potter series through

Rowling’s conception of love, which she portrays as the most powerful force against evil.

However, my interest shifted as I began to realise that it was not possible to gauge the impact the books have had on readers without examining readers’ responses to the stories. It was my impression that doing otherwise would be but to form conjectures, it would be an incomplete examination and observation of the phenomenon that is the Harry Potter series. In the realm of the Internet, readers’ responses are made visible to fellow readers and also have the potential to reach the authors of the original stories. It is safe to observe that social media has markedly

2 changed practices of reception and reader response to literary texts. Thus, Internet-based online fandom and fan writing—both analytical and imaginative—are important fields of research for those who are interested in examining literary reception and the production of reader response. In this thesis, I examine how the Harry Potter series has inspired readers’ imagination and compelled them to exercise their creativity as well as their analytical ability in response to the story. During this process of reader response, which consists of readers’ critical reflection, accompanied by creative or analytical writing, readers now become writers—reader-writers as it were—in response to a story.

Readers employ a number of forms in responding: to point out some apparent forms, they may a) analyse the text critically; b) articulate personal response (e.g., explain what the books and characters have meant to them in their lives; how a certain book has affected them in coping with life, helped them in understanding themselves, and/or given them courage to take on adventures.): or readers may c) respond in a creative way (e.g., short story, video posts, musical compositions). While my investigation of reader response for this thesis is limited to readers’ written response to a text with varying degrees of the above mentioned three principal elements, a number of multimodal responses are evident: video trailers, images, and dramatizations, for example, come to mind. What ordinary (one may call recreational) readers focus on in the text may be different from what academics take up. Ultimately, reader response offers valuable insight into what reading and literature may mean to ordinary people in their everyday lives. By studying what kind of impact a character or a story could have on readers, we are better able to study how books may contribute to the emotional, moral, and critical maturity and growth of an individual.

2. Research Statement

This thesis will explore the dynamic and changing nature of reader response in the time of online fandom by examining the fan reception of, and response to, the character Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series. In her article titled “Critical Essay—ʻand the Story Goes On . . . ʼ:

Harry Potter and Online Fan Fiction,” Vandana Saxena points out that the decade in which

Harry Potter series was published was also a decade in which technological progress changed the way readers could engage with a book. As Saxena argues, “[t]he advent of the Internet has played a major role in reshaping the dynamics of fandom and fan communities” (Saxena n.pag.) and, I would add, forever changed the face of reader reception to a literary text.

This thesis will pay particular attention to reader response in three key social media sites where Harry Potter fans post materials: The Leaky Cauldron, Mugglenet, and FanFiction.Net.

The Harry Potter series has been selected as the emblematic literary case for this study because the publication of the series spans from 1997 to 2007, a time period which—as Novosel points out—uniquely parallels the timeline of the rise of online fandom within social media environments. While recognising the vast scope of areas that are available for examination for such a topic, for the purpose of this MA thesis, I focus on examinations of fan response to a single character: the all-powerful and benevolent philosopher-king and Headmaster, Professor

Dumbledore. Some of the key moments of exchange between Rowling and the readers such as

Rowling’s exposé of Dumbledore’s homosexuality have centred on the character of

Dumbledore, whom, Rowling has stated, often represents her authorial voice in the narrative

(Mzimba). Thus, an examination of how Dumbledore’s decisions and identity appear at key moments, as well as how these moments could have been negotiated and interpreted between

Rowling and readers, or between the text and reader response to it, is a constructive avenue for

4 the exploration of the topic proposed. The framework that I use for this analysis is largely based on a framework of reader reception theory established by Wolfgang Iser, and his theory is closely discussed in the literature review. While Iser’s theory is used as a basis for my investigation, it is a theory developed before the advent of online fandom. Therefore, I am also interested to know how Iser’s theory could be applied to todays’ readers, many of whom find their voice as readers in the online realm.

3. Literature Review

My initial research revealed that, while there has been a variety of studies about the

Harry Potter books from plethora of angles, there is a gap when it comes to connecting reader response theory to the world of online fandom created by Harry Potter readers. Reader response theory gained prevalence in the 1970s and 1980s and is characterised by its focus on readers as an essential part of literature’s value (Hawkins 410; Poyas 63). Patricia Harkins, in “The

Reception of Reader-Response Theory,” states that readers response theorists are characterised by the primary question they ask upon examining literary experience: “what actually happens when a person encounters a text?” (Harkin 410). Harkins distinguishes reader-response theory from reception theory and defines the two as follows: reader response theory deals with a more general account of what happens when individual readers engage with a text, while reception theorists inquire into how a given text affects readers who fall into specific classes (such as women, working people in a certain area, or people who live in formerly colonialized part of the world) (Harkin 410-1). Harkins points to one of the leading reader-response theorists, Wolfgang

Iser, noting that “Iser’s . . . emphasis on the transactional character of reading [is] particularly popular” (Harkin 412-3), because it simultaneously allows for both the validity of authorial intention and an act of meaning making on the part of readers, who are working with a text within the textual confines of unknowable authorial intention (Harkin 412-3).

While there are many reader response literary theorists who have approached the subject of reader-text relationship from various angles (e.g., David Bleich, Norman Holland, Stanley

Fish), in this thesis, my focus is on the theoretical framework provided in Wolfgang Iser’s writings on reader response theory. Iser conceptualises readers to be outside the confines of their historical and societal situations and this universal notion of readers is more suitable for

6 examining responses to Harry Potter books in online fan venues. This is because, in the online settings, it is not possible to determine with any certainty the respondents’ identities.

Furthermore, Iserʼs conceptualisation of gaps and indeterminacies in a literary text provides a suitable starting point for the examination of fan fiction stories, through which readers endeavour to tell an untold story, challenging the boundaries presented by the original text (Iser,

“Interaction” 57; Freund 147; Alter).

I have selected one of the most enigmatic characters in the Harry Potter books, Professor

Dumbledore, as a case study in order to illuminate how both the text and readers may contribute to the identity formation of a singular character. To make the project manageable within the context of an MA thesis, I examine four key attributes of Dumbledore’s character: a)

Dumbledore as the all-powerful and benevolent philosopher-king, the Gandalf of the story who offers wise words to conclude each volume (Teare 339-40); b) Dumbledore as a cold and calculating war general who keeps the grand strategy to himself; c) Dumbledore as a man who has been haunted by the ghosts of his past (Rowling, Deathly Hallows); d) Dumbledore as a queer character (Gendler 143). These unique aspects of Dumbledore’s character are revealed in the texts, and also play a significant role in communication between fans, reader-writer and

Rowling outside of the books. Sections 3, 4, and 5 examine these four key moments respectively.

Notably, the last aspect, Dumbledore as a queer character, has raised turmoil among readers with regards to the rightful place of authorial input post-publication and this issue is discussed in

Section 6 of this chapter.

3.1. Iserʼs Reader Response Theory

Patrocinio Schweickart and Elizabeth Flynn state that reader response theory emerged in the 1970s and 1980s among literary theorists who wanted to examine “the various roles the

7 subjectivity of the reader play in the production of the meaning of the text” (3). Fundamentally, as Andrew Bennett argues, reader response theorists endeavour to bring light to these two questions: “[w]ho makes meaning?” (3) and “[w]here is meaning made?” (3). Vincent Leitch states that while a spectrum of theorists can be housed under the roof of reader response criticism, one common argument they share is their criticism of the text-centred investigation of formalist theorists (Leitch 33). Instead, reader response theorists bring our attention to reader- orientated approaches in which texts can be understood as something dynamic and organic where the convergence of texts and the readers’ responses to texts create meaning (Leitch 33). Leitch perceives this shift of focus from texts to the dynamic relationship between texts and readers as the shift to understand “[literature as] process, not product” (Leitch 36). Leitch explains,

“[m]eaning is an event, something that happens not on the page, where we are accustomed to look for it, but in the interaction between the flow of print (or sound) and the actively mediating consciousness of a reader-hearer” (Leitch 36). Some reader response theorists are influenced by the philosophy of phenomenology as well as by theorists such as Roman Ingarden, whose ideas later had a strong influence on Iser. Ingarten suggests that “[t]he act of reading is a concretisation of the consciousness of the author: like a musical score, it has intention and form, but is only realised in the act of performance” (Green and LeBihan 188). Following this train of thought that takes us away from the text and the author, Keith Green and Jill LeBihan describe the emergence of reader response theory as the death of the author-god (207).

Andrew Bennett presents reading as an escape where readers are able to remove themselves from the world, from here and now (5). Bennett describes the processes of reading as a “dissolution of the borders of self, world and book” (5). When engaged in the activity of reading, readers may invite unfamiliar thoughts into their minds, thus “discover[ing] an inner

8 world of which we hitherto [have] not been conscious’” (Freund 146). Furthermore, Bennett also points out that an individual reader is also a “multiple” reader at the same time, for upon each re- read, a reader may discover a new perspective and make different meanings of the text (Bennett

4). Kathleen Malu concurs with Bennett on this point that readers construct different meanings and have different experiences each time they re-read a text (77). Malu further emphasises that there is “no one right way to read a text” (77) because “readers make connections to their past experiences and create their own meaning from the written word” (77). With the shift of focus from texts and authorial intentions to readers and various meanings they make, reader response theorists endeavour to examine what it is exactly that happens when readers engage in the activity of reading. Reader response theorists, for instance, look at readers themselves and how their personal histories and individuality influence and bias their reading as well as how a text allows for different reception from each reader (Schweickart and Flynn 5; Schlaeger 316). An important point here is that reader response theorists, unlike text/author-intent orientated theorists, do not look at the subjectivity of readers as something negative that must be eliminated with care (Schweickart and Flynn 5).

As mentioned above, in this thesis, I rely on Wolfgang Iser’s conception of the reader- text relationship as a key literary theory that is particularly relevant in the examination of Harry

Potter books and Harry Potter online fandom. Admittedly, when Iser first developed his reader response theory in the 1970s, readers did not have access to computers and online communities.

However, I believe that Iserʼs theory is quite relevant for the purpose of this thesis’ investigation because his understanding of literary text as a convergence point of reader-author intercourse is oddly applicable to how online fandom functions today (Iser, “Reading” 280). Iser conceptualises a literary text as “something like an arena in which reader and author participate

9 in a game of the imagination” (emphasis added) (“Reading” 280). Social media spaces such as

Mugglenet may be viewed as arenas in which that game of the imagination is made explicit. Iser points out that, when readers truly engage their creativity and imagination with a literary text, the text becomes their temporary reality (“Reading” 280, 284), allowing readers a chance to experience thoughts and feelings they otherwise might not in their real lives (Schlaeger 320-1).

Jurgen Schlaeger theorises that Iser perceives literature as humanity’s feeble attempt at desiring to know the unknowable and articulating matters that are unsayable, an attempt at offering its readers “the chance to transcend their limitedness . . . [albeit] in the provisionality of fictionalizing” (Schlaeger 320). In other words, Iser sees the true value of a literary text in this coming together of readers’ imagination with a text, with literary texts offering readers an opportunity for transcending the limited experiences and understanding of the self (“Reading”

284-5; Schlaeger 321). Online fandom seems to offer readers a space in which the literary arena is populated not just by the singular reader and author, but by multiple, plural readers and authors. By examining fan activities, particularly fan writings on online fan sites, I endeavour to identify how the participatory culture and community created by fans extend the notion of reading that Iser presents—namely, the notion of the literary text as an arena of imagination.

To put Wolfgang Iser in context of other reader response theorists, I turn to Yangling

Shiʼs “Reviews of Wolfgang Iser and His Reception Theory,” in which Iser’s theory is examined alongside Romance-scholar Hans Robert Jauss (Shi 982). Unlike the then mainstream studies of literary theory, which focused solely on the authorial intent and the texts, both scholars were concerned with bringing the literary theorists’ attention towards the text-reader relationship (Shi

982). However, while Jauss was concerned with how the historical, cultural, and social background of readers affected their interpretations of the texts, Iser took a more

10 phenomenological approach, showing interest in how an individual makes connections with a text outside the confines of one’s historical and cultural boundaries (Shi 982). Criticizing the traditional formalist approach, which asserts that textual meaning can be clarified and made known to readers only through vigorous examination of the text and authorial intent, Iser argues that meaning can be actualised through a reader who makes a connection between the text and oneself (Shi 982). Through such re-evaluation of the act of reading by reader response theorists, the traditional approach that understood texts to be the only valid object of examination is displaced by a different method of investigation. This new method is one where an act of reading is taken to be an important focal point of literary investigation (Shi 982). Unlike Jauss who, as noted earlier, is more concerned with situating readers in a historical and cultural background, or

Norman Holland, who is concerned with empirically examining a particular reader’s response to a particular text, Iser imagines readers in a more abstract sense (Shi 983-4). That is, Iser’s readers are predisposed to be affected by a written text even when we consider them outside the confines of their historical and cultural situations because to be affected by literary creations is something intrinsic in human culture (Shi 983-4; Schlaeger 316-7).

Shi notes that Iser draws upon the theory of J. L. Austin and perceives the act of reading as a process in which “the author’s words . . . provid[e] instructions to the reader, who [then] acts to fill in the gaps and blanks inevitably encountered in any serious literary text” (Shi 984). These

“gaps, blanks, indeterminacies and the in-between status of literary texts” (Shi 984) occupy a central place in Iser’s conception of reader-text relationship (Shi 984). According to Iser, the literary work is truly meaningful to human life when meaning is created though the collaboration between a text and readers, where the text is the author’s imaginative contribution and readers give their imaginative contribution in a more dynamic and fluid manner through their act of

11 reading (Shi 983). In regard to these textual indeterminacies, Elizabeth Freund brings to our attention that, under Iserʼs conceptualisation, a text neither defends itself against a reader’s misinterpretations, nor does it present a reader with a clearly defined meaning (Freund 146).

Because of this particular quality, readers in Iserʼs theory are enabled to read between the lines, give voice to unwritten parts of the story and fill in the unspoken words for characters (Freund

146). This, of course, is exactly what reader-writers do in the realm of online fandom: we might say they enact the act of reading as described by Iser. In sum, Iser believes the process of meaning-making of a literary text is actualised through an intricate interaction between a text and a reader, “a mutually restrictive and magnifying interaction between explicit and the implicit, between revelation and concealment” (Iser 24). It should be noted that Iser suggests that the written words of a text impose certain limitations on manifolds of possible interpretations and thus what is explicitly written prevents the unwritten yet implied meaning of the text from becoming infinite (Iser 51). In short, while hidden gaps within a text inspire readers to bridge those gaps, in what possible ways these gaps can be bridged is controlled to some extent by what texts reveal to readers (Iser 24). Arguably, these constraints texts impose upon readers prevents

Iser’s reader response theory from becoming too all-encompassing and slipping into what one may call an “all readings are correct” approach (Freund 146).

In “The Peripatetic Reader: Wolfgang Iser and the Aesthetics of Reception,” Elizabeth

Freund observes above that, for Iser, the gaps and uncertainties a literary text presents open doors for an interpreting reader to engage their creative imagination and become co-authors of the literary work in question (Freund 147). In “An Introduction to Reader-Response Criticism,”

Jane Tompkins likewise suggests that Iser perceives readers “as co-creator[s] of the [literary] work” (xv), who in the processes of reading supply a part of the story “which is not written but

12 only implied [in a text]” (xv). As repeated above, Iser maintains that a true value of a literary work is actualised in the process of reader response in the process of textual possibilities taking one particular shape upon a moment of meaning-making in the hands of a reader (Tompkins xv).

Tompkins argues that reader response theorists such as Iser have brought reader response of a literary text into critical prominence; more significantly still, they have successfully established and bestowed value in the process of reading rather than the literary text itself (Tompkins xvi).

With regards to the author-reader relationship, Iser speculates that some writers deliberately leave room for readers’ imagination—perhaps as a sign of respect for the readers’ understanding (“Interaction” 50). Iser uses the metaphor of two people looking up at the night sky making out different images in the same group of stars (“Interaction” 57). In Iser’s own words, “[t]he ‘stars’ in a literary text . . . [are] fixed; the lines that join them are variable”

(“Interaction” 57). In other words, it is in the hands of individual readers to connect the dots provided by the text in a way that makes sense to them. Iser expands on this point and goes further, asserting that reading is “a pleasure” (“Interaction” 51) when the act of reading compels the readers to employ their imagination and work through the knots of dots and gaps the text provides (“Interaction” 51). In the later chapters of this thesis, I examine how online venues that are readily accessible for readers as an arena in which they share their literary experiences with fellow readers take the imaginative act of reading further. Markedly, the birth of the participatory culture within the Harry Potter fan community required great collaboration among readers across many borders to connect with each other and share their understandings and passion; in conjunction with these readers’ desire to come together, many of these readers utilise the avenue of online fan sites as a catalyst to become writers of the story they so love.

Iser makes an excellent point when he quotes Virginia Woolf’s observation on the writing style of Jane Austin and how Austin’s texts illuminate “[t]he extent to which the

‘unwritten’ part of a text stimulates the reader’s creative participation” (“Interaction” 51):

Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the

surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is,

apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader’s

mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly

trivial. . . . The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of

suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future.

And when, in the end, [a protagonist] . . . behaves in such a way as to vindicate

our highest hopes of her, we are moved as if we had been made witnesses of a

matter of the highest importance. Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main

inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen’s greatness. It has the

permanent quality of literature (emphasis added). (Woolf)

Drawing on Virginia Woolf’s observation of Jane Austin, Iser explains that when a gap arises from a seemingly trivial dialogue, such a gap inspires readers to fill in the unwritten part

(“Interaction” 51). Iser states that, in such cases, readers are “drawn into the events and made to supply what is meant from what is not said [and] [w]hat is said only appears to take on significance as a reference to what is not; it is the implications and not the statements that give shape and weight to the meaning” (“Interaction” 51). A literary work’s true value does not lie solely upon the original literary text itself, nor does it exclusively lie upon the multiple possibilities of readers’ creation (the interpreted and changed version of the text), but it is discovered within the process of the former inspiring the latter (Iser, “Interaction” 50).

Revisiting the argument that is briefly mentioned above with regards to a relationship between a reader and a text in the moment of reading, reader response theorists such as Iser observe that the extraordinary power of a book lies in how the barriers between a reader and a text fall apart as a reader gets inside the story and the text’s reality become that of a reader

(Freund 137; Iser, “Reading” 280, 284). Freund argues in her review of Iser’s works that for reader response theorists such as Iser, a book is an “inert object” (137) with “mute materiality”

(137); a book requires reading consciousness to intervene in order for its actualisation as something more organic and dynamic (Freund 137). Freund eloquently explains that when “a book has entered the shelter of the reader’s innermost self and the reader begins to play host to this other consciousness, an astonishing intimacy develops in which the barriers between subject and object fall away” (Freund 137). In other words, for Iser, when readers open themselves up and are caught in the midst of a literary text, their own sense of present is overtaken by the immediate experience of the text and for the moment, the text becomes their present

(“Interaction” 64). In a sense, the fictional illusion of a story, however transient, becomes their mental reality during the process of reading (“Interaction” 64). Iser states, “something happens to us [readers]” (Iser, “Interaction” 65) during a process of reading, but readers cannot know objectively what transformations they undergo in the course of that process (“Interaction” 64).

Iser points out that, due to our incapacity to carry out an impartial examination from outside of our own consciousness of what happens to us during the course of reading, we often turn to other readers in order to discuss and compare the experiences—especially when a book touches us deeply (“Interaction” 64). Such discussions, Iser believes, bring aspects of a text to readers’ consciousness that would otherwise stay buried in their subconscious (“Interaction” 64). In this era, online fan sites allow readers to post their responses to a text and receive feedback: here, the

15 process of communication among readers that Iser discusses above is made visible to observers.

A field of observation, as it were, is offered for students of reader response theory in the age of the Internet when it is possible for readers to create a participatory community around a particular literary text, where dialogues between readers and even between an author and readers is made possible due to the power of the Internet (Borah 344).

3.2. The Rise of Social Media and its Implication to Reader Response Theory

Jadranka Novosel rightly notes that fan-produced stories have possibly existed for as long as story-telling itself has existed in a shape of oral narratives (Novosel 56); in a way, the minute a reader or a listener wonders and asks the question what if, vast possibilities of fan-fictions spring into being (Novosel 57-8). Yet, as Bronwen Thomas points out in an article titled “What

Is Fanfiction and Why Are People Saying Such Nice Things about It?”, it is only recently with the expansion of the Internet and its immersion within the population that fans have gained the ability to connect with vast communities of people who share the same interests and to receive immediate feedback to their comments or stories (2). In Thomas’s own words, “fanfiction remained a daily underground and marginalized activity until the advent of digital technologies and the [Internet]” (Thomas 2). The most notable point Thomas makes here is that with the expansion of the Internet, clear boundaries between authors and readers have started to blur and at times are challenged (2). For instance, dialogues between an author and readers through a book’s official website have brought a new angle to an investigation of the relationship between a text and readers (Thomas 15-6). Thomas calls for having a closer look at “what fans do with their texts” (Thomas15) because such an investigation illuminates what motivates readers to respond to literary texts (Thomas 15-6). On readers, Thomas notes that fans prefer “continuity . .

. over closure” (10) in regards to their favourite texts; in a sense, readers’ participation in the

16 creative process, by contributing fan fiction for example, is a way of expressing their desire to keep a literary text alive as long as possible as an eternal “work in progress” (Thomas 9).

The second most influential source for this research is that of Vandana Saxena, who examines how the expansion of online fan activities blurs the strict distinction between an author and a reader (Saxena n.pag.). In many ways, Saxena observes, online fandom, especially fanfiction sites, have “undo[ne] the binary distinction between the writer and the reader” (Saxena n.pag.). In light of this blurring boundary between readers and writers, Saxena looks at online fandom as “a site of defiance, deviance and resistance where young fans negotiate through the gaps in the official story line and open the text to the demands of individual readership and concerns” (Saxena n.pag.). For example, readers imagine the past, alternative present, and various futures for different characters and in this “endless play of narratives, the source text is constantly deconstructed, its apparatus taken apart and reassembled with new meanings supplied by the fans and fan communities” (Saxena n.pag.). In response to the process of textual deconstruction and re-creation, questions of authorial authority (note the sense of ownership implicit in the root “author”) and the potentiality of readers’ authorship (creative liberty), along with questions of how these issues have been greatly affected and meaning changed by the spread of technology, have arisen (Saxena n.pag.).

Saxena further observes that the traditional power dynamic between adult authors and child readers where control lies in the hands of adult creators has been disrupted by the influx of Internet fan space that bridged what used to be a clear-cut divide between adult-authors and child readers (Saxena n.pag.). What Saxena perceives as crucial is how the Internet has created a place for young readers to escape from adult supervision as well as censure from the eyes of others and explore new ways of expressing their concerns, curiosities, and passion (Saxena

17 n.pag.). Saxena draws upon a comment of a fan writer who describes fan sites as a place where reader-writers can collectively agree to “suspend shame” in favour of exploring their potentiality as a writer and a story-teller outside the restrictions of the conventional publishing world (Saxena n.pag.). Catherine Tosenberger affirms this point and argues: “the identity-bending, pseudonymous nature of online fannish discourse affords fans a certain measure of concealment, which proves especially valuable for young fans who fear the consequences of expressing [for example] non-hetero-normative desires” (“Homosexuality” 190). Tosenberger emphasises the dominantly all-encompassing atmosphere of Harry Potter fandom that makes up “a lively, intellectually stimulating, and tolerant interpretive community” (202). One of the areas of exploration that gained popularity within the fandom is slash fan fiction, in which readers explore and express their interests in romance between same-sex characters such as Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy or Sirius Black and Remus Lupin (Saxena n.pag.). Tosenberger argues that the freedom the online world gives young readers is valuable, especially when they desire to explore the narrative of sexuality because online fan communities are not subjected to the restrictions of limited sensibilities and comfort zones of adult controlled environment such as schools (202). In a way, the digital space enables readers to take control of their own literary experience, by sharing their thoughts on a literary text with other readers in an environment that is tolerant, welcoming, and anonymous (Saxena n.pag.). Therefore, if readers are to venture out as fan writers, the digital spaces of online fan communities provides an environment similar to a work-shop, which enables readers to play and experiment with the story while also allowing them to practice articulating their own story and to receive feedbacks from those who love the same story they do (Saxena n.pag.).

In an article titled “The Weird World of Fan Fiction,” Alexandra Alter echoes Wolfgang

Iserʼs words and argues that “[f]ictional worlds, while they appear solid, are riddled with blank spots and unexpected surfaces . . . Itʼs human nature to press at the boundaries of stories, to scrabble at the edges, to want to know what's going on just out of range of the camera” (Alter).

She points to literary works such as Gregory Maguireʼs Wicked, adapted from The Wonderful

Wizard of Oz, Geraldine Brooksʼs March, the untold story of the father of the March sisters from

Louisa May Alcottʼs Little Women, or even E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, initially written as a homage to Twilight as a fan fiction piece titled “Master of the Universe,” and argues that fan fiction writing has become so prevalent because it gives readers freedom to push the boundaries and limitations of the original story and to take control over their own literary experience, while at the same time, offering an homage to and a critique of the original story (Alter).

Bringing the focus of discussion from the general prevalence of online fandom to Harry

Potter online fandom, Tosenberger asserts that responses to the Harry Potter books from the online fandom are testaments to the great cultural impact of the literary series as well as readers’ deep immersion in the texts (“Oh” 200). She argues that “[o]nline Potter fandom is an invaluable repository of the creative and critical responses of the series’ most dedicated and engaged readers” (Tosenberger, “Oh” 200). On this point, Saxena eloquently states that, “[t]he decade of publication of the [Harry Potter] series coincides with the rapid emergence of the digital space, the spread of Internet technology and the development of the World Wide Web . . . [a]nd the growing Potter fandom came to be intricately linked with the emerging cyber technologies”

(Saxena n.pag.). Novosel concurs and summarises that the growth of the Harry Potter books’ popularity and readership was greatly advanced by the dramatic expansion of fan-sites into a medium that we know now that paralleled the Harry Potter’s 10-year arc (Novosel 51).

Novosel notes that during the publication of The Philosopher’s Stone, Rowling has managed to stir her readers’ imaginations and encourage further anticipation through her admission that there were seven books in the series, with the final manuscript being held in a safety deposit box (Novosel 51). This disclosure allowed for increased mystery and suspense at each subsequent book release (Novosel 51). Novosel further observes that the Harry Potter books perhaps presented a particularly visible reader reception, because the hiatus between book releases offered added incentives for ardent fans to talk to each other while waiting for the next instalment of the series to be published (51). Both Saxena and Novosel speculate that the progression of the Harry Potter series paralleled the expansion of online fandom in such a way partly because during the course of ten years as the series continued, the presence of the Harry

Potter online community provided an easily accessible public space for ardent readers to exchange ideas about the story and compare their own creative works based on Harry Potter books, consequently leading to further growth of online fandom (Saxena n.pag.; Novosel 51).

Furthermore, Rowling’s particular style of writing itself, which leaves enough textual gaps to sustain readers’ curiosity and to keep them wanting to explore the possible “behind the scene” stories to fill in those gaps, perhaps contributed to encouraging fan writing (Saxena n.pag.). According to Saxena, there are over 600 million Internet archives that deal with Harry

Potter stories from discussion forums to fan-fiction web sites with fanfiction.net alone containing over 500,000 Harry Potter inspired fanfiction stories at the point of Saxena’s research in 2002 (Saxena n.pag.). The forms of response from the fans range from fan fiction stories, to artwork, to YouTube videos (Novosel 51). To sum up, Harry Potter fan sites have offered “a welcoming environment” (Novosel 51) for readers to create “a sense of community”

(Novosel 53) with fellow readers, people with whom they would never have interacted with, had

20 it not been for their commitment to Harry Potter series (Novosel 53). In short, online fandom has allowed readers to take control of their own literary experiences.

3.3. Dumbledore the Philosopher-King

In order to conduct a case study of reader response to the Harry Potter stories, the focus of this investigation is centred on the character of Dumbledore. In order to give context to the analysis of writings by reader-writers in later sections, this section first examines the textual analysis of the character of Dumbledore. In an interview, Rowling admits that Dumbledore often represents her authorial voice and Dumbledore is arguably the primary moral voice in the story

(Mizimba). Throughout the series, Rowling presents love and compassion as the most powerful magic through the voice of Dumbledore (e.g. Bassham, “Love”). By presenting love as magic,

Rowling offers readers the possibility of experiencing magic in our real—“Muggle”—world.

Rowling portrays Dumbledore as the philosopher-king who binds the moral principle of the story. She has Dumbledore champion as his moral mantra—Dumbledore philosophy—that love is the strongest weapon the good side has against the forces of evil (Rowling, Order 726;

Rowling Half-blood 443, 476). I would argue that the Harry Potter series is first and foremost a love story: not a love story in a traditional sense that depicts the romantic love of a couple, but the story strongly upholds the value of love between family members, between teachers and students, and among friends and allies. Such love is often presented as a definitive moral guidance of goodness. For example, Dumbledore’s faith in the power of love is strongly highlighted in the scene where he reveals to Harry the true circumstances of his parents, Lily and

James,’ death. As a philosopher-king who concludes the story with his words of wisdom,

Dumbledore reiterates to Harry at the end of The Philosopher’s Stone that love can bring out

“magic at its deepest and most impenetrable” (Rowling, Philosopher 311); Dumbledore also

21 reveals to Harry that when Lily Potter sacrificed her own life to save Harry’s, her act of self- sacrifice placed an immensely powerful magical protection on Harry, making him untouchable to

Voldemort (Rowling, Philosopher 216).

Unsurprisingly, given the strong portrayal of Dumbledore as the moral centre of the story, most adult characters in the text are portrayed to have strong respect for and deference towards Dumbledore, and so do the students at Hogwarts who exhibit admiration, respect, and awe towards their Headmaster. It is then quite natural that readers follow suit and look up to

Dumbledore to exhibit stellar moral judgements. Julia Pond, for example, observes that to many readers Dumbledore is the voice that speaks of the value of free choice and wisdom of learning from the consequences of making those choices (Pond 193). While Dumbledore seems to take care of the good of all and watch over the magical world as a whole, Rowling places particular emphasis on Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry. Harry’s trust and allegiance towards

Dumbledore do not waiver until his death at the end of The Half-Blood Prince. Harry’s strong and unwavering loyalty towards Dumbledore is arguably an anchor and a guide for readers to place in turn their trust in the character of Dumbledore—his judgments and benevolence. This is significant since as readers’ responses show that they, alongside Harry and his companions, have revered Dumbledore without question until the publication of The Deathly Hallows.

In light of such loyalty Harry sustains, Dumbledore, in return, shows great affection towards Harry, which perhaps incites further confidence in readers to strengthen their conviction in Dumbledore’s benevolence. In The Order of Phoenix, Dumbledore confesses that he cares about Harry too much to the point that he may have disregarded the safety of others at the expense of Harry’s safety and happiness (Rowling, Order 739): “I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth[, I cared] . . . more for your life than the lives that might be lost if

22 the plan [to swart Voldemort] failed” (Rowling, Order 739). This desire to protect those who are dear to oneself even at the expense of others may be considered selfish. However, one may also argue that this confession portrays natural feelings of those who love deeply and characterises

Dumbledore as an individual who is less lofty, less god-like, and someone more human. Perhaps, it is the trust and affection Dumbledore displays towards Harry that allows readers to uncover the man behind the mask of a Headmaster, the one who is caring yet, keeps his distance from the every-day business of ordinary students. Preliminary examination showed that while

Dumbledore is mentioned by many of the reader-writers as a mentor and a father figure for

Harry, they demonstrated deeper interests in his character after the publication of The Deathly

Hallows. The examination of analytical pieces posted by readers such as Caltheous and Ib4075 support my observation that the darker side of Dumbledore’s past, revealed in The Deathly

Hallows, stirred a phenomenal amount of discussions among readers.

3.4. Dumbledore’s Fall from the Pedestal

As mentioned above, The Deathly Hallows reveals a shadowy past that has haunted the almighty Dumbledore (Rowling, Deathly 146), and while the revelation of his tragic family history invites readers’ sympathy, Dumbledoreʼs darker, sinister, and manipulative side calls for a re-evaluation of his character. Perhaps, in the process of reading The Deathly Hallows, the unfailing trust that readers (alongside Harry) have placed in Dumbledore is questioned, tested, and possibly, for some, broken. For example, on many occasions when faced with a difficult choice, Dumbledore seems to make decisions (such as planning Harry’s possible death) that put his morality into question. In fact, it is uncertain whether Rowling intentionally created a narrative that does not reveal too much of the workings of Dumbledore’s heart and mind in order to keep his character more mysterious. Either way, this newfound depth of character in The

Deathly Hallows provides the opportunity for reader-writers to fill in the gaps, encouraging them to imagine, for example, Dumbledore’s childhood and his family life, and connect textual facts to these fan fabricated events in order to understand the experiences that shaped the man in the text.

On Dumbledore’s moral ambiguity, for example, Harry discovers in The Deathly

Hallows that Dumbledore’s unusual partiality for Harry is harboured because Dumbledore takes the time to get to know the younger man in order to prepare him as the leader in the approaching war against Voldemort. To increase the mystery surrounding Dumbledore’s true feelings towards

Harry even further, Rowling introduces the character of Aberforth Dumbledore’s estranged brother who challenges Harry by pointing out the possibility that he himself is an expendable pawn in Albus’ grand plan (Rowling, Deathly 453). Aberforth speaks bitterly of his brother’s ability to manipulate others: “I know my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother’s knee. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus . . . he was a natural (emphasis added)”

(Rowling, Deathly 453). Secondly, Harry learns the bitter truth that Dumbledore’s “love” for him has not stopped his mentor from keeping some very important truths from him; for example,

Dumbledore never reveals to Harry his suspicion that Harry is likely the seventh Horcrux and that he deduces that Harry’s death may be inevitable in order to bring upon Voldemort ‘s downfall (Rowling, Deathly 550-2). While it may be his pity that prevents Dumbledore from being forthcoming, due to the fact that he desires not to over-burden Harry and wishes him to be able to embrace life without the knowledge of his impending death, it is also true that

Dumbledore does not give Harry the freedom of choice to decide for himself on this matter

(Rowling, Deathly 550-2). Although some might argue that Dumbledore’s assumption that Harry might survive Voldemort’s killing curse is correct, I would argue that the possibility of Harry’s

24 survival is dependent on a specific chain of event, unfathomable by the majority of readers and characters alike (Rowling, Deathly 591-5). Therefore, it is natural that Dumbledore’s ruthlessness in arranging his protégé’s possible death causes readers, along with Harry himself, to call Dumbledore’s morality into question (Rowling, Deathly 550-2). In a sense, readers begin to discover that while Rowling presents Dumbledore as the primary conveyer of the message of the importance of love and loyalty, he himself is not necessarily depicted as the one who embodies this ideal.

Regarding Dumbledoreʼs cold and sinister side, Pond observes a master story-teller in

Rowling who plants seeds of criticism of her own characters within the text; on the one hand,

Rowling sets Dumbledore up as the person who withholds information from others in the name of their own protection, while on the other hand, she simultaneously offers criticism of

Dumbledore’s treatment of knowledge through the re-construction of his character in The

Deathly Hallows (Pond 203). Pond observes that Dumbledore reveals only the most necessary information to those who work with him in order to ensure the success of a mission, potentially risking the lives of those around him and preventing them from making fully informed decisions

(Pond 192, 203). Echoing the words of Aberforth, Pond perceives a calculating aspect to the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore, as Dumbledore places himself in a position of a mentor to Harry, and with his control of information, manipulates Harry into acting in a manner that fits the master plan (192, 203). Rowling, however, illustrates how Dumbledore’s censorship, instead of protecting Harry from the fear and the burden of knowledge, brings a false sense of security, which ultimately hampers his ability to assess the situations correctly (Pond 204). Being deprived of crucial information, Harry finds himself incorrect in his assessment of certain

25 situations as demonstrated most acutely in the tragic calamity at the Department of Mysteries

(Pond 204).

The fiasco at the Department of Mysteries is brought about by a series of well-intentioned but misguided actions on the part of Dumbledore, Sirius, and Harry. At the beginning of The

Order of Phoenix, Harry comes to regard Sirius as “a mixture of father and brother” (Rowling,

Order 733) and both Harry and Sirius’ mutual determination to protect each other becomes leverage that Voldemort can exploit to his advantage (Rowling, Goblet 200). Knowing that “the person Sirius cared most about in the world was [Harry and] . . . that the one person for whom

[Harry] would go to any lengths to rescue was Sirius” (Rowling, Order 733), Voldemort lures

Harry out into the Department of Mysteries by making Harry believe that Sirius is kept captive and tortured there (Rowling, Order 723). Dumbledore is aware of the possibility that Voldemort might plan such an attack had been known to Dumbledore; however, he chooses not to disclose this possibility to Harry (Rowling, Order 708). In fact, Dumbledore himself later acknowledges this error in his judgment:

If I had been open with you Harry as I should have been, you would have known

a long time ago that Voldemort might try and lure you to the Department of

Mysteries and Sirius would not have had to come after you. That blame lies with

me, and with me alone. (Rowling, Order 708)

While Dumbledore’s humility in admitting his mistake appears graceful, his secretive nature and almost obsessively controlling demeanour challenges readers to re-evaluate his character, revealing aspects of self-righteousness and manipulation to the point of putting the lives of other in danger.

Williams and Kellner compare Dumbledore to Plato and argue that Dumbledore lives in a stormy age in which he becomes witness to the rise of not only one but two dark wizards

(Williams and Kellner 129). Dumbledore’s experience with the rise and fall of Grindelwald, a dark wizard who was Dumbledore’s childhood friend, makes Dumbledore acknowledge his own demon—his strong desire for power (Williams and Kellner 129-30, 137-8). After this realisation,

Dumbledore chooses to shy away from seeking power in the world of politics himself (although he remains involved in politics as an indirect advisor) and instead follow the path of education

(Williams and Kellner 129-30, 137-8). However, critics—while rarer question Dumbledore as an educator and criticise the alleged disconnection he has with his students. For example, Holly

Blackford notes that Dumbledore fails to address Tom Riddle’s “complicated, motivated evil arising from the deepest unmet longings of childhood” (155). The question Blackford raises here is why Dumbledore—a teacher who champions nurture over nature and the importance of individual choices over one’s origin or ancestry—has failed to reach out to Tom Riddle (163,

171). Blackford wonders whether Tom Riddle’s malice and cruelty could possibly have taken a different turn if he were given a chance, especially at an earlier stage in his life (170). Blackford continues to contemplate the fact that Dumbledore did not take the time to facilitate a close relationship as he does with Harry, especially considering Dumbledore was concerned about

Tom Riddle’s violent instincts (170). Blackford further questions Hogwarts’ school system that refused to address the darker elements of child phycology directly, consequently allowing aggressive if not outright threatening social behaviours such as bullying to thrive beyond the confines of a classroom (Blackford 171). Blackford’s criticism invites us to turn a critical eye towards Dumbledore apparent inaction in the face of this systematic shortcoming within

Hogwarts that feeds the overall neglect, or perhaps indifference, on the teachers’ part to the

27 reality of educating Hogwarts students students with the specially trained capability to do real harm if they were to act upon their dark monstrous desires (Blackford 171-72).

Likewise, Beth Admiraal and Regan Lance Reitsma point to Dumbledore’s apparent lack of interest in protecting his students from the mental and physical abuse inflicted by their teachers (121). Admiraal and Reitsma observe how Dumbledore allows a significant degree of bullying either among students or worse still, bullying of students by teachers to go unpunished

(or perhaps unnoticed) on school grounds (119, 121); after all, it is arguably his moral obligation as a Headmaster to intervene in order to protect the well being of students under his care (119,

121). Admiraal and Reitsma also criticise Dumbledore’s conspicuous absence in the earlier period of Harry’s life and question Dumbledore’s rationale for leaving Harry with the Dursleys as the lack of contact or reassurance that someone is watching over him prevents Harry from attaining a sense of hope for the future (119). An in-depth examination of some of the critical opinion pieces written by readers reveals that readers have struggled to understand these more questionable aspects of Dumbledoreʼs character.

3.5. Dumbledore’s Sexuality

Tamar Szabo Gendler, in the article titled “Is Dumbledore Gay? Who’s to say?,” sheds light on the remarkable public announcements J. K. Rowling made about Dumbledore, a declaration of his homosexuality, which stirred many responses ranging from celebration and support to condemnation and outrage. In an interview conducted in 2007 at Carnegie Hall in

New York, when asked by one reader whether Dumbledore—the great champion of the power of love—has ever found love himself, Rowling answered positively, but added a little twist mentioning that she “always thought of Dumbledore as gay” (Gendler 143). It is important to note that the announcement of Dumbledore’s sexuality took place after the publication of the

28 seventh book (Novosel 22). By illustrating Dumbledore’s friendship with Gellert Grindelwald to have been romantically motivated, what Rowling revealed in the Carnegie Hall interview gave deeper nuance to Dumbledore’s complexity, prompting readers to re-examine Dumbledore’s behaviours in a different light (Bassham, “Choices” 166). In the face of a sister’s death that ensued his relationship with Grindelwald, the realisation dawns on Dumbledore, Rowling explains, that he completely lost control of his moral compass when he fell in love with

Grindelwald and as a consequence of, Dumbledore became “very distrusting of his judgment in matters of the heart and decided to live a celibate and scholarly life” (Bassham, “Choices” 166-

7).

Gendler notes that the reaction to Rowling’s announcement was immediate and powerful; in the first forty-eight hours, almost 3,000 comments were posted on The Leaky Cauldron and over 2,500 posts on Mugglenet, in addition to the news coverage in Time, Newsweek, New York

Times and other major newspapers across the world (Gendler 143). Naturally, not all readers were happy with Rowling’s extra-textual announcement, and the announcement itself stirred discussions amongst readers and academics around the issue of what Tosenberger refers to as the

“canonicity” textually implied of Dumbledore’s homosexuality (Tosenberger, “Oh” 201). In the centre of this discussion lies a question of authorial control as ordinary readers and academics alike question just how much control an author should have over a text after the story is published and concluded (Tosenberger, “Oh” 202). While some readers perceived Rowling’s announcement as an author’s kind gesture to connect with her readers by providing additional facts about the stories and characters, others perceived her announcement as her desire to control the interpretation of the texts, consequently restricting the freedom of readers to imagine the stories outside authorial control (Tosenberger, “Oh” 202). Tosenberger points to Rowling’s

29 claim that Dumbledore’s homosexuality is apparent in the text and suspects that her confidence

(or perhaps political motivation) in this declaration may be attributed to her awareness of popular slash fan-fiction (“Oh” 201). Slash fan fiction is “fanfiction that concerns a romantic and/or sexual relationship between characters of the same gender” (Tosenberger, “Oh” 200). In her article titled “‘Oh my God, the Fanfiction!’ Dumbledore’s Outing and the Online Harry Potter

Fandom,” Tosenberger focuses her attention on slash romances created around Harry Potter books and observes that some of the slash fan fiction works are “thoughtful and nuanced” (200) in the way they handle of the issue of sexuality and the vulnerability of a person when falling in love (200). Tosenberger notes that slash fan-fiction writers started creating love stories, artwork, and critical essays about the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald immediately after the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, preceding Rowling’s Carnegie

Hall interview by three months (Tosenberger 200). In other words, Rowling’s announcement validated the slash fictions writers’ inklings that Dumbledore is gay (Tosenberger 200).

Some slash fan-fiction writers have taken powerful inspiration from Dumbledore’s coming out and explored his sexuality as well as vulnerability through love stories centred around his character and also by imagining his journey succeeding the fall out of his relationship with Grindelwald to regain “dignity and integrity even in loneliness” (Tosenberger, “Oh” 204).

One such writer is Sahara Storm, who explores how Dumbledore’s passionate infatuation with

Grindelwald leads him to lose his moral centre and become blind to the needs of others, causing

Dumbledore to fail in his responsibility of taking care of his sister and brother (Westman 197).

Other slash fan-fiction writers deviate greatly from the canonical text desiring to offer a happy- ending for Dumbledore, for example, by imagining other lovers in an alternate universe

(Tosenberger 204). In a manner, as Tosenberger argues, Dumbledore’s sexuality has gained a

30 distinct voice in a world of slash fan-fiction beyond what is explicitly expressed on the pages of a canon text (Tosenberger 204).

The emotional trauma Dumbledore carries into his adulthood comes not only from his friendship with Grindelwald but also from his family history. The Deathly Hallows suggests that perhaps these two factors cannot be discussed independently, because Rowling sets it up so that the two are intricately intertwined: for example, the chain of events that places Dumbledore in

Godric’s Hollow in charge of his sister leads Dumbledore to meet Grindelwald, which then ends with the accident in which Ariana is killed in the midst of a duel between Albus, Aberforth, and

Grindelwald. To cast light on Dumbledore’s past relationships with his family members, The

Deathly Hallows reveals that Dumbledore’s father was sent to Azkaban prison after assaulting three Muggle boys in retaliation for their cruel bullying of Ariana (Rowling, Deathly 21-4, 288-

93, 571-9). Ariana was rendered mentally disabled by the bullying and was kept at home under her mother’s care (Rowling, Deathly 21-4, 288-93, 571-9). After singlehandedly taking care of

Ariana for years, Dumbledore’s mother was killed in an accident when Ariana lost control of her magical ability (Rowling, Deathly 573). Her death caused then young Albus, who was a new graduate from Hogwarts with brilliant prospects, to give up his plans and take over his mother’s duties of taking care of the unstable Ariana (Rowling, Deathly 573). Looking back upon this time, Dumbledore confesses:

I resented it [the obligation]. . . . I was gifted, I was brilliant, I wanted to escape. I

wanted to shine. I wanted glory. . . . Do not misunderstand me . . . I loved them . .

. but I was selfish. . . . So that, when my mother died, and I was left the

responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village

in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! (Rowling, Deathly 573)

Dumbledore is portrayed here as someone who was aware of his own brilliance and eager to prove his worth in the world with his intelligence and charisma. It is also clear that young

Dumbledore viewed family obligations as a burden and he wished for a way out, into the world where he could be someone of importance.

At this precise moment, when Dumbledore is cooped up in Godric’s Hollow in frustration and resentment, Rowling has Dumbledore meet Grindelwald. Grindelwald brings a breath of fresh air into Dumbledore’s dull and tedious life. While being aware of his questionable ethical principles, Dumbledore at first finds answers to all his problems in Grindelwald’s fervour for a

Wizard revolution against Muggles (Rowling, Deathly 291, 572-4). Grindelwald argues to

Dumbledore that in the new society where the wizard kind dominates the Muggles, there would be no need for Ariana to be hidden (Rowling, Deathly 456-7, 571-2). The wording of the letter

Dumbledore writes to Grindelwald is indicative of a self-righteous supremacist: “we have been given power, and yes, that power gives us the right to rule [over the Muggles], but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled. . . . And from this it follows that where we meet resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary and no more” (Rowling, Deathly 291). Rowling depicts how young Dumbledore becomes oblivious to the neglect of his sister’s care as he becomes enthralled alongside Grindelwald in their shared obsession for world dominance with the slogan,

“for the greater good” (Rowling, Deathly 291, 573-77). The ensuing tragedy that ends in

Ariana’s death suggests that Rowling makes a strong point against desires for power that put glory before everyday kindness and decency.

I would argue that the earlier books do not guide readers to see beyond Dumbledore’s wit and outlandishness and it is only with the publication of The Deathly Hallows that readers realise the depth and multi-dimensionality of Dumbledore’s character. Yet, by uncovering previously

32 unknown history, revealing his longing for redemption and his humble acknowledgement of his failings, the vulnerability uncovered in The Deathly Hallows makes Dumbledore more exposed to readers’ compassion. Arguably, The Deathly Hallows portrays Dumbledore as someone who has learned to live gracefully albeit under the weight of the burden of guilt over his sister’s death, for which Dumbledore blames himself to be responsible (Rowling, Deathly 456-7, 571-2).

Furthermore, Dumbledore’s possible romantic relationship with Grindelwald ties back to the first point—Dumbledore’s faith in love. One of the questions some of the reader-writers raise is how

Dumbledore, who was disappointed in love himself, could have turned to become a champion for the power of love. In the world of Harry Potter, Rowling depicts that love as not only the element that brings people happiness, but also the cause of great pain often provoking terrible consequences regardless of a person’s good intentions. Further, Karin Westman makes an excellent point when she observes that while the earlier Harry Potter books portray love as a protective force, The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows depict love’s power as one that can “wound as well as shield” (Westman 193). Westman argues that love’s destructive power connects darker characters such as Lucius Malfoy, Barty Crouch Jr. and Bellatrix

Lestrange with an ostensibly more benevolent character of Dumbledore, challenging readers to see connections between unlike characters who are equally affected by much darker kind of love

(Westman 193).

Echoing critics such as Bassham and Tosenberger, Westman observes that love’s destructive power can be examined in young Dumbledore who loses his moral compass when he becomes “engrossed in all-consuming passion and desire [for Grindelwald]” (Westman 193,

196). Such infatuation, Westman notes, allows young Dumbledore to turn a blind eye to his

“family’s needs [as well as] . . . the graver implications of Grindelwald’s plans” (Westman 196).

Westman states that Rowling’s story makes a strong distinction between love that leads the lover to “[rise to] the heights of absolute heroism” (196) and love that is more sinister and is tinged with obsessive and self-serving desire (Westman 195). Westman further notes that in later books,

Harry’s journey becomes that of learning that love is not a force of good in itself unless that love is accompanied by collective human decency and a strong individual moral compass (Westman

194-5). One of the memorable points Westman makes here is how obsessive love “prevents sympathy for the others beyond the beloved . . . [and] in Rowling’s series . . . sympathy is often a catalyst for moral action and social change” (Westman 197). While acknowledging the element of infatuation in the fevered behaviours Harry Potter fans display, Westman commends those who turn their obsession towards social good. For example, she points to the Wizard Rock movement that some of the Harry Potter fans set up in order to promote literacy, allowing the fans to turn their arguably self-serving love for Harry Potter books into something more positive—an “others-serving” force—that promotes tolerance and social justice (Westman 197).

3.6. Reader-reception and the Question of Authorial Ownership

As mentioned briefly above, many readers responded to the issue of Dumbledore’s sexuality in various ways. Nonetheless, one of the most interesting responses could be observed among readers who brought up the issue of authorial authority and challenged Rowling and her right to make declarations about her characters after the series was completed (Gendler 144).

Some readers argue that after a story is finished, an author has no authority to create new thoughts and realities for the characters and re-define them extra-textually (Gendler 144). Some readers go further to argue that Rowling’s (alleged) claim to her continued authorial ownership, her wish to control characters long after the story had left her hands, shows her disrespect towards readers’ right to their own literary experience (Gendler 144). This idea of the writer’s

34 authority is a perspective that is examined further in the later chapters. Gendler plays a devil’s advocate in her essay and points out that while readers who raise the issue of Rowling’s authority make a valid point, few readers criticised Rowling for over-extending her authorial intent when she revealed details not depicted in the text about other characters such as Neville Longbottom or

Teddy Lupin (144). Perhaps, it was the controversial nature of the issue (Dumbledore’s homosexuality) instead of the subject of authorial control that upsets some of theses readers

(Gendler 144). While a different layer of issues (prejudice against homosexuality, perhaps) may lay at the heart of the heated discussion over Rowling’s declaration of Dumbledore’s sexuality, what is more relevant to this research on online fandom and reader response is how Rowling’s disclosure (or confirmation) of Dumbledore’s homosexuality stirred the issue of “truth in fiction”

(Gendler 144). Indeed, Gendler notes that “for most Potter fans, Rowling is the patented owner and creator of the Potter universe (154) and thus facts revealed by Rowling in her interviews are treated by many fans as something like an “oral appendix” (152). Gendler further observes that

Rowling herself appears to endorse (at the least to an extent) the view of those who champion the right of an author and the privilege of authorial intent, pronouncing at one point that

“[Dumbledore] is my character . . . [and] I have the right to say what I say about him” (152,

154). The question raised here is whether facts in a fictional story are determined solely by statements explicitly written by the author within a text. If this is not the case, it is important to question what part readers play in contributing to the creation of meaning in fiction and how textual evidence and authorial intent interact with reader response (Gendler 144, 148). The interesting twist is that due to the growth of the Internet and, with it, fan-sites where millions of readers can communicate with each other, authors are also placed in a position where they have access to the plethora of responses from their readers. This means that, if they wish, authors can

35 respond to readers either in social media spaces or through modification of future manuscripts in a serial publication with a view that incorporates readers’ suggestions and preferences. This was also possible prior to the Internet (e.g., Dickens, for example, considered reader response in the serial publication of his novels, since the nature of such serial publication allowed for reader response before the writing of the next instalment [e.g., Davies 166-9]); however, the scale and speed of communication are vastly different in contemporary media settings.

3.7. Reader-reception Observed through Henry Jenkins’ Study on Fan Fiction Writing

According to Bronwen Thomas, the first wave of theory on fandom was strongly influenced by Marxism; the theory conceptualises fan responses as a subversive act on the part of readers who are marginalized in their alleged power struggle against publishers and writers who exercise control over the literary experiences of readers (Thomas 3, 7). Henry Jenkins, a prominent theorist on fandom likewise argues that, “[f]andom is a vehicle for marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, and so on) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations . . . [and transform the texts into something] that is more responsive to their needs, to make it better producers of personal meanings and pleasures”

(Jenkins 40). Some, however, critique this initial theory of fandom on the grounds that the

Marxist conception of readers does not take into consideration the diverse cultural, social, and historical experiences of readers that make each reader’s approach and engagement with a text different (Thomas 3). Thomas points out that the current predominant theory of fandom acknowledges subversive forces present within the fan communities, while also acknowledging the mainstream status that fandom has acquired as a primary place where a participatory culture is established (Thomas 9).

Jenkins observes that, in the past, many literary theorists and academics associated the notion of fan writings with strong negative connotations. For example, Jenkins points to Michel de Certeau, who regards fan writers as “textual poachers” (“Fans” 39) who raid and despoil the creations of others for their own pleasure (“Fans” 39). Some critics perceive that “the culture of participation” (“Fans” 40) that online fandom represents challenges “the very notion of literature as a kind of private property to be controlled by textual producers and their academic interpreters” (emphases added) (Jenkins, “Fans” 40). Jenkins observes that there is a prevailing stigma purposely created mainly by academics to designate fan-related activities as being

“outside the mainstream” (“Fans” 40) implying that it is “beneath [the] dignity” (“Fans” 40) of academics to warrant serious attention to such fan writings. This stigma, Jenkins points out,

“reassure[s] academic writers of the validity of their own interpretations of the . . . content, readings made in conformity with established critical protocols, and free[s] them of any need to come into direct contact with the . . . ‘crazed’ followers [fans]” (“Fans” 40). Further, Jenkins suspects that the presence of this stigma has isolated individual readers and audiences from each other and hindered them from sharing their common interests and literacy experiences openly in a non-academic space (“Fans” 40).

Fandom, according to Jenkins, provides culturally and socially marginalized groups, including youth, to appropriate a text as a vessel to express what matters to them (“Fans” 40); fan fiction writing allows these readers to make personal connections and meanings within a text by re-creating and re-imagining the text to make it more responsive to their interests and concerns

(Jenkins, “Fans” 40; Jenkins, “Textual” 3). Furthermore, fans are not simple readers/audiences, but readers who connect with other readers/audiences in order to share their thoughts and ideas

(“Fans” 41; “Textual” 86); in this process of sharing literary experiences, fandom transforms

37 some “fan readers [into] fan writers” (Jenkins, “Fans” 41) and allows them to create a participatory culture of their own (Jenkins, “Fans” 41). The online aspect of fandom allows these reader-writers to reach a broader audience worldwide in the online realm (Jenkins, “Fans” 41). In other words, online fandom has taken many of the fans out of the shadow of subculture and offered them a more mainstream position, in which they can build their own community more openly (Jenkins, “Fans” 41).

Jenkins observes that the face of fan fiction writers has changed dramatically in the past ten to fifteen years from being mostly restricted to adult women to expanding to include multitudes of both male and female writers who belong to various age groups (Jenkins,

“Convergence” 178-9). Jenkins turns to one of the Harry Potter fan fiction sites, The Sugar Quill, in order to demonstrate how online fandom participants sustain a culture of peer-review as well as that of mutual learning and betterment through positive and constructive workshops (Jenkins,

“Convergence” 178-9). Jenkins points to Zsenya, the web-mistress of The Sugar Quill, who states that the site’s online environment offers readers “an amazing way to communicate”

(Jenkins, “Convergence” 178); Zsenya stresses the point that in an online environment “[t]he absence of face-to-face [communications] equalises everyone a little bit, so it gives the younger members a chance to talk with adults without perhaps some of the intimidation they might normally feel in talking to adults” (Jenkins, “Convergence” 178). Zsenya further explains that

The Sugar Quill offers a support system, a sort of mentorship, to new fan writers by providing them a safe environment where they test their ability, learn and master new skills, and build their confidence through constructive feedback and reviews they receive from their peers (Jenkins,

“Convergence” 178-9). Jenkins reports that members of The Sugar Quill “beta reading” team, a nontechnical and creative editing team, concur with Zsenya on this point; the team states that

38 their goal as creative editors is to provide an opportunity for new writers to take their story to the next level through several stages of editing process before posting (“Convergence” 179-180).

These editors further emphasise that their wish is for all contributing writers to develop confidence, courage, and expertise as writers through peer reviews and the exchanges of constructive criticism (Jenkins, “Convergence” 179-80). It is evident from Jenkins’ observation that fan writing in the online realm is not only a space for readers to share their common interests but also a place of mentorship—a workshop for aspiring writers.

As mentioned above, an explosion of Harry Potter online fandom and the high level of participation and commitment such fandom encourages make Harry Potter series a special case for this investigation; Harry Potter readers have embraced the possibilities to create their own stories, which they can publish to their peers through online fandom. (Perhaps encouraged by such reader initiative for writing, teachers use Harry Potter fan writing as a method for promoting literacy in classroom settings [e.g. see Bond, Sharp]). On this point, I turn once again to Henry Jenkins, who is one of the pioneering researchers on online fandom and fan writings. In

Convergence Culture—Where Old and New Media Collide, Jenkins points out that online fan communities provide readers, especially young ones, a place to find and assert their own independent voices in a space that is free of adult control (205). As Jenkins eloquently phrases, young readers are “mapping out new strategies for negotiating around and through globalization”

(205), and through their participation in worldwide online fandom, they are finding a way to actualise their imaginative powers and share their creativity within this particular realm

(“Convergence” 205). More simply put, young reader-writers find their own audience in the realm of online fandom and “connect with children worldwide” (Jenkins, “Convergence” 205).

Jenkins further observes that Harry Potter online fandom has affected not only young readers

39 worldwide, but it has also invited adult readers, thereby allowing the online fandom to break both national and cultural boundaries as well as generational barriers and hierarchies (Jenkins

205).

Regarding the cross-generational aspect of online fandom, Jenkins suggests that a momentum and passion for online fandom are often sustained by readers’ desires to share their understandings with and learn from their fellow readers-writers (“Convergence” 177); these desires, Jenkins asserts, are held by readers no matter what their “age, class, race, gender, and educational level” (“Convergence” 177). Markedly, Jenkins argues that online fandom offers

“powerful opportunities for learning” (“Convergence” 177) beyond the traditional formal education setting of adult-teachers and child-learners (“Convergence” 177). For example, The

Daily Prophet, an online school newspaper for the fictitious Hogwarts, was launched by the then thirteen-year-old Heather Lawyer, who was inspired by news reports regarding how Harry

Potter series was encouraging children to read (Jenkins, “Convergence” 171). Wanting to make her own contribution in support of literacy, Lawyer created The Daily Prophet less than a year after her first reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Jenkins, “Convergence”

171). The Daily Prophet has grown since then and currently (at the time of Jenkins’s research in

2006) hosts a staff of more than one hundred children worldwide, with Lawyer working as the chief editor of the whole operation (Jenkins, “Convergence” 171).

Jenkins sees Lawyer as a visionary who understood the online realm as a place where children could explore reading and writing outside the confines of adult supervision as well as a place where adults, in turn, could access the articulated thoughts of children (“Convergence”

171-4). Understanding this particular nature of online fandom, Lawyer seized her opportunity to reach out to both children and adults and in the process, attempted to help adults understand how

40 children think and what they care about (Jenkins, “Convergence” 171-4). In Lawyer’s own words,

[The Daily Prophet was launched with the goals of] bringing the world of literature to

life. . . . By creating an online “newspaper” with articles that lead the readers to believe

this fanciful world of Harry Potter to be real, this opens the mind [of children] to

exploring books, diving into the characters, and analyzing great literature. By developing

the mental ability to analyze the written word at a young age, children will find a love for

reading unlike any other. By creating this faux world[,] we are learning, creating, and

enjoying ourselves in a friendly utopian society. (Heather Lawyer qtd. in Jenkins,

“Convergence” 172)

Jenkins asserts that the example of The Daily Prophet supports his initial point that online fandom contributes to enriching reading experiences for children (“Convergence 176”); Jenkins suggests further that an exploration of a fictional realm with its rules and limitations leads children to deepen their understanding of the culture and the society in which they live and ultimately of themselves (“Convergence” 176).

Jenkins’s observation of fan fiction and online fandom can be tied back to Iserʼs reader response theory. For example, Iser’s theory of indeterminacies within texts is quite relevant in discussing some of the popular genres of fan fiction writing, because many fan fiction stories take advantage of textual indeterminacies Iser refers to. For example, some of the genre classifications that Jenkins applies include “Alternative Points of View,” “I Wonder If-s,” and

“Missing Moments” (“Convergence” 181). These genres deal respectively with the following: 1) events that the original texts cover, looked through an alternative point of view other than that of the protagonist’s; 2) imagining an alternative path a significant event mentioned in the original

41 texts could have taken; 3) writing unwritten parts of Harry Potter stories by filling in the gaps left in the original texts (Jenkins, “Convergence” 181). Regarding why fan writers are interested in exploring indeterminacies and gaps left in the original text, one of The Sugar Quill’s editors explains the process of fan fiction writing as follows:

I don’t write fanfic (sic) to “fix” things, I write it to explore corners that [the

original Harry Potter stories] . . . didn’t have the opportunity to peek into, or to

speculate on what might have led up to something, or what could result from

some other thing[s]. A story that leaves these wonderful corners isn’t a story that

needs fixing, it’s a story that invites exploration. (emphases in original; qtd. in

Jenkins, “Convergence” 181-2)

No matter what route one takes to explore creative possibilities texts offer, comments from this fan fiction writer suggest that fan stories are written both in homage to and in criticism of the original text, or canon, in question (Jenkins, “Convergence” 181-2; “Textual” 86). While some fan fiction websites mandate contributors to remain consistent with the facts Rowling sets up in the texts, other sites have more a liberal understandings of fan fiction, with contributors posting stories with contents that diverting from or even blatantly contradict the facts established in the canon (Jenkins, “Convergence” 181).

Fan fiction writing inevitably raises the issue of copying and Jenkins suspects that some adults may be concerned with the fact that children engage in the act of copying as opposed to creating something original through fan fiction writing (“Convergence” 182). Jenkins counters such criticism, however, by noting the historically established practice of apprentice artists learning their craft by copying the works of great masters before they would start developing their own styles and thus began to create their original pieces of art (“Convergence” 182).

Jenkins, at the same time, acknowledges grey areas surrounding fan fiction writing that tread on an ambiguous boundary in terms of intellectual property and copyright laws (“Convergence”

189). He maintains that it is not clear whether fan fiction writing, which he coins as “amateur creative expression” (Jenkins, “Convergence” 189), falls under the clause of fair-use protections under the current U.S. copyright law (“Convergence” 189). Additionally, Jenkins argues that the laws of society are not current enough to deal with the reality of this culture of participation that has been established within the realm of online fandom (“Convergence” 189). At this point in time, it is safe to surmise is that the issue of what is fair use under the copyright and intellectual property law will certainly continue to be one of the focal points of dialogue between authors and readers when discussing online fandom and fan writing.

4. Methodology

This thesis follows the path suggested by Vandana Saxena in examining how readers employ writing in response to their acts of reading as a method of critiquing the original text, or perhaps as a method of complementing and extending the text, and readers do so in exploration of their own potentiality as writers (Saxena). More specifically, the points of examination are on

1) how readers’ online postings reveal multiple interpretative potentialities of an original literary text as well as 2) what could be discerned from such postings, specifically with regards to the aspects of the Harry Potter story that resonate with contemporary readers. In order to narrow down the scope of this investigation, the examination of reader postings is restricted to postings that look at the Harry Potter books through the lens of a single character: Professor Dumbledore.

There are a plethora of Harry Potter related fan sites and diverse possible avenues for fan creation—be they fan videos, music, podcasts, fan fiction, or fan art—that I can turn to for the investigation of fan responses; however, for the purpose of this Master’s thesis, the focus is placed on longer pieces of writing by readers, both analytical and imaginative, submitted to selected fan-sites. While there are a number of fan sites that offer places for readers to submit their writing, this study is limited to samples of writing from two sites for critical writing

(Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron), and one site for creative writing (FanFiction.net). I selected these sites from a range of candidates because they are fan-driven, offer some degree of an editing process, are easy to navigate, and include extensive fan submissions. Rowling’s own official Harry Potter website Pottermore is intentionally excluded from the selection because the focus of this thesis is placed on reader-initiated activities and communications as opposed to

44 writer-driven initiatives. 1 The focus of analysis is on longer submissions rather than, say, dialogic and chat-based forum discussions. Longer written submissions enable readers to express and develop their personal or analytical response, and to offer their own narrative extensions of the story. Finally, the analysis is limited to submissions that include substantive response to the character of Dumbledore.

The particular focus is placed on the examination of how reader-writers attempt to bridge textual indeterminacies. In terms of the nature of submissions, there are two broad genres that I considered: 1) critical or analytical responses rely on textual analysis for interpretations of

Dumbledore’s character; 2) fan fiction writers imaginatively explore many different potentialities of Dumbledore’s character. In regards to the latter, preliminary investigation suggested that some fan writers have used the incident of three Muggle boys’ taunting Ariana (Dumbledore’s sister), her resulting mental instability, and her father’s reaction and subsequent incarceration as a source of inspiration for narratives about how this trauma may have affected Dumbledore in his childhood. Other fan writers, inspired by Rowling’s extra-textual statement about Dumbledore’s sexuality, endeavour to write love stories, focusing on the romantic relationship between

Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Stories created by these fan writers reveal their interpretation of the character as well as how carefully they have analysed the original text in order to fill in some of the textual indeterminacies. Explicit in these narratives may be answers as to the why Harry

Potter series is so captivating for many.

1. For further review of Rowling’s Pottermore site, one could refer to Savanna Sharp’s “J.K.

Rowling’s Innovative and Authoritative Online Presence” in Teaching with Harry Potter: Essays on Classroom Wizardry from Elementary School to College.

4.1. Dataset and Analysis

As noted earlier, the investigation of reader writings is limited to the following three sites: The Leaky Cauldron, Mugglenet, and FanFiction.net. Preliminary analysis shows that, at the time of investigation in the spring of 2014, there were more than a few thousand fan fiction stories and a total of eleven pieces of analytical writing with a substantive focus on Dumbledore posted on these three sites. The inclusion criteria for the chosen postings are: 1) either the writer includes Dumbledore as an active character in a fan narrative or Dumbledore is discussed extensively in writers’ reflective analysis; and 2) writing pieces are 500 words or more for analytical writing and between 3000 and 8000 words for creative writing. Twenty-one submissions that meet these criteria comprise my data set. All works are published and freely available to read outside of any password-protected communities and therefore it is not necessary to obtain consent from the writers to analyse this set of writings.

The mode of analysis is textual hermeneutics, entailing identification of key issues and recurring themes across the collection of fan writings (e.g., Kinsella, “Hermeneutics and Critical

Hermeneutics”). Kinsella expands on the critical understanding of critical hermeneutics and describes it as a study of “the art of interpretation” (n.pag.) often employed in empirical qualitative research. Kinsella observes that critical hermeneutics directs researchers to approach an act of interpretation “not to develop a procedure of understanding, but rather to clarify the interpretative conditions in which understanding takes place” (n.pag.). The conditions Kinsella mentions include “the roles of language and historicity in interpretation” (n.pag.) as well as “the prejudices individuals bring to the interpretive event” (n.pag.). Given these conditions and the subjectivity each interpreter brings to an interpretive event, critical hermeneutics asserts that there can never be one single interpretation that is objective and authoritative (Kinsella n.pag.).

Consequently, theorists of critical hermeneutics acknowledge and are reconciled with the limitations of human beings to attain complete understanding of a text (Kinsella n.pag.). They are interested to know what historical and social conditions contribute to shaping an interpreter’s particular interpretive response (Kinsella n.pag.). From a critical hermeneutic standpoint, therefore, “the uniqueness of each [interpreter’s] vantage point” (Kinsella n.pag.) is valued, and

“interpretation is seen as an inescapable feature of all human efforts to understand” (Kinsella n.pag.) what is unknowable in its entirety.

To reiterate, the study of critical hermeneutics derives its roots from “an area of philosophy that deals with the theory and practice of interpretation” (Philips and Brown 1547).

In its practical application, a particular attention is paid towards a transformative as opposed to an informative nature of communication as a recipient of communications interprets what is received (Philips and Brown 1548). A critical hermeneutic approach is often used by scholars of social studies in an examination of organisational communications for example, (1) how a system of shared meanings can be produced and maintained within an organisation among employees at different level of hierarchy or (2) how an advertisement with a marketing purpose is received and interpreted by a consumer (Philips and Brown 1548). Philip and Brown argue that critical hermeneutics directs scholars to approach a given text or communication from both textual and socio-historical perspectives with a strong focus on how these two analyses come together (1554-55). According to Philips and Brown, a critical element of a critical hermeneutic approach is augmented by its attention to power relations and power dynamics within an organisation as well as between creators and receivers of the communication (1554-55).

Researchers who employ a critical hermeneutic approach are engaged in an empirical examination of a text or communication in question (Philips and Brown 1548). I incorporate this

47 empirical approach to communications that critical hermeneutics takes, with an understanding that fan writing is a form of communication between a reader and a text (and perhaps, by extension, an author), and within this communication lies power dynamics.

Preliminary analysis of both the analytical and creative writing showed and later investigation confirmed that the following issues are important to readers: 1) Dumbledore as God figure; 2) Dumbledore’s stance on destiny and free will; 3) Dumbledore’s early childhood and his relationship with his family; 4) Dumbledore’s authority and control over other characters; 5) the trauma and a sense of guilt Dumbledore carries over his sister’s death; 6) Dumbledore’s sexuality; and 7) authorial intervention post-publication. These themes imply that issues of morality, sexuality, subjects of remorse and atonement, as well as questions regarding individual agency versus societal constraints are some of the important issues with which contemporary readers of Harry Potter stories struggle. In order to track the extent at which particular themes are explored by critical versus creative writers, I created an interpretive matrix, which can be found in the Appendix A. One challenge of examining reader response via social media sites is that it is not possible to determine the respondents’ gender or age beyond what is reported, and what is reported may be part of the given fan writer’s constructed Internet identity. In light of this particular challenge, I have not factored in how particular demographics might correlate with forms of response; rather, I focus on broader themes and issues taken up by readers with a view to understand what they find striking or evocative about the texts and how they interpret these features.

4.2. Fan Sites Under Discussion

Mugglenet was created by Emerson Spartz in 1999, when Spartz was just twelve years old (Novosel 55). According to the “About Us” section of the website, the site has team members

48 who work as managing editors, creative and marketing directors, content supervisors, as well as social media coordinators (Mugglenet). Mugglenet offers a plethora of avenues for readers to participate in fan activities (e.g., podcasts, blog entries, discussion boards, and chat rooms to name a few). Mugglenet covers broader aspects of the Harry Potter phenomena and its attention is not solely on the original books but also includes the movie versions, as well as the author herself. My focus for this investigation is on Mugglenet’s editorial section, “The Quibbler,” where readers post their analytical essays. The primary reason for choosing this section is due to the existence of submission guidelines and editorial processes. The submission guidelines dictate that essays submitted must be between 500 and 2,000 words and quotations from the original texts are properly cited.

Another major Harry Potter fan site—The Leaky Cauldron—was launched in July 2000, shortly before the publication of The Goblet of Fire (The Leaky Cauldron, “Timeline”).

According to “A Brief (Believe It Or Not) History of The Leaky Cauldron,” the essay section for

The Leaky Cauldron, “Scribbulus,” was born out of the website’s forum The Leaky

Lounge when frequent lengthy and in-depth discussions among the fans led the organisers to realise the potential for an editorial section to which readers could submit their longer critical pieces. There are 28 issues from May 2006 to September 2011 and editors of the website are closely involved in the process of choosing and editing the essays submitted by readers (The

Leaky Cauldron, “Scribbulus”). As with “The Quibbler” on Mugglenet, “Scribbulus” has submission guidelines, which dictate that essays must be at least 1,000 words, and the editorial team offers peer reviews to ensure quality of writing (The Leaky Cauldron, “Scribbulus”).

While other fan sites, including Mugglenet, have published large numbers of fan fiction stories, I have chosen FanFiction.net for an investigation of fan writing for the purpose of this

49 study. I made this choice because FanFiction.net appeared to offer quite a deep pool of fan fiction stories. Alexandra Alter reported in 2013 that FanFiction.net was the largest fan fiction site on the Internet in 2013 and, at the time of Alter’s article’s publication, offered over 600,000 creative writings based on Harry Potter stories (Alter). Secondly, Fanfiction.net offers by far the least challenges with regards to navigating the website due to the website’s search engine and filter systems, which allow users to search quite easily for fan fiction stories involving a particular character. In comparison, while Mugglenet allows a straightforward search for stories that fall into particular categories such as stories that take place in an “Alternative Universe,” stories that explore romantic pairings of characters, or stories with “Dark/Angsty (sic)” elements there are limitations when searching for stories related to a particular character.

5. Examination of Selected Analytical Writings by Fans

In this section, I examine analytical essays posted by fans to the two selected fan sites specifically, one from Mugglenet and ten from The Leaky Cauldron. Among the 119 editorial essays published by Mugglenet, there were three that featured Dumbledore at the time of analysis in June 2014. Of those three, two were excluded, one because it was well below the minimum word length stipulated for selection and one because, on closer examination, it turned out that the piece was incorrectly categorised as featuring Dumbledore. Among the 194 stories published in the course of 28 issues of editorial essays by The Leaky Cauldron site between 2006 and 2011, there are 11 essays that feature Dumbledore as the primary focus of analysis. Among the 11, Gumshoe’s essay titled “Dumbledore is Not Dead” was eliminated from the dataset because the focus of the essay turned out to be on the examination of Slughorn rather than

Dumbledore.

The main focus of this investigation is to study what aspects of Dumbledore’s character prompted readers not only to write about Harry Potter but also to publish their creations online.

Some ask critical questions about Dumbledore’s character, rethinking certain previously held perceptions about the character and shedding light on some of the relatively less explored territories regarding his disposition. Some of the key themes analytical reader-writers explore are somewhat different from those addressed by creative reader-writers. In order to illuminate what common threads could be observed among readers’ analytical essays, the following examination is divided into four sections according to the prominent topics and sub-topics that reader-writers examine. The divisions of themes are as follows (see also Table 1 below and Appendix A for details):

1. Dumbledore as an almost omnipotent and benevolent God-like figure.

Appearing in essays by birthday twins, Caltheous.

2. Dumbledore as an embodiment of the story’s morality.

Appearing in essays by Mary Wanguard, Rosamond Bane.

(Sub-topic of Wanguard: the value of online fandom as it related to reader response).

3. Dumbledore’s moral ambiguity his propensity for secrecy and lies in order to

maintain authority and control.

Appearing in essays by Emma; Sly_Like_Slytherin; Riley Leonhardt; Ib4075;

TRC07.

4. Dumbledore as a war general working for the greater good.

Appearing in essays by Theowyn; Sarah Putnam Park.

The last point offers an interesting standpoint in examining the character of Dumbledore, for the principle of “for the greater good” is the very one Dumbledore uses in his youth, alongside

Grindelwald, to justify the desire for establishing wizard dominance over Muggles. It is also the principle he renounces after his friendship with Grindelwald results in the death of a sister.

Ironically, in his effort to defeat Voldemort, Dumbledore faces the questions of what is necessary for the greater good. He is struck with the dilemma of protecting the peace and freedom of society as a whole, while at the same time striving to protect a few whom he loves. This question becomes a point of contention for Dumbledore when faced with a possibility of having to let go of his determination to protect the life of loved ones in light of what must be done to save those who are persecuted by Voldemort and his minions.

Table 1. Details of fan’s critical essays examined.

Author Word Count Title

1 birthday twins 2547 words The Amazing Invisible Dumbledores. 2 St. Dumbledore’s Feast: The Secret Identity of Albus Caltheous 2950 words Dumbledore Revealed. 3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Me. The Causes Mary Wanguard 3400 words of Crying and Squee-ing. 4 Love as a Weapon: The Moral Choices at the Heart of Rosamonde Bane 2800 words Harry Potter. 5 Emma 5146 words Harry Potter and the Distinction Between Good and Evil. 6 The Dumbledore-Severus Relationship, Was it Really Sly_Like_Slytherin 582 words Loyalty Between Them? 7 It is Out Choices, Harry, That Show What We Truly Are, Riley Leonhardt 2712 words Far More Than Our Abilities’: Harry Potter and Values. 8 Ib4075 1704 words Albus Dumbledore: Saint, Sinner, and Harry’s True Father. 9 Still Got Your Wand in a Knot?: Wandlore and The Elder The Rotfang Conspiracy ’07 6183 words Want Examined. 10 Theowyn 4287 words The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. 11 Dumbledorian Ethics: How Albus Dumbledore Combine Sarah Putnam Park 3572 words Utilitarianism and Compassion. 11 stories examined in total

5.1. Omnipotent and Benevolent, God-like Dumbledore

Two of the essay contributors focus their attention on Dumbledore’s good-heartedness and his apparent invincibility. These writers are birthday twins and Caltheous. Their writings appear to represent a more simplified view of Dumbledore’ character; however, it should be noted that birthday twin’s opinion piece was posted before the writer’s reading of the seventh book, which informed many of the readers of Dumbledore’s multifaceted and more intricate identity. A brief review of birthday twins and Caltheous’ writings reveals that regardless of when the essays were written, Dumbledore’s goodness is an important quality of his character. birthday twins’ comment in “The Amazing Invisible Dumbledores” summarises the author’s respect for the integrity and benevolence of Dumbledore, of which feeling, I suspect, was shared by many of the readers uniformly before the publication of The Deathly Hallows: “Dumbledore has always had an omniscient quality, knowing more than [he lets on]” (birthday twin n.pag.).

The author goes on to speculate the extent of Dumbledore’s magical ability without delving

53 deeper into the workings of his heart and mind. Yet, it is worth noting that this essay, written before The Deathly Hallows, asserts general reader perception that Dumbledore is someone extraordinary who is capable of achieving the impossible.

In “St. Dumbledore’s Feast: The Secret Identity of Albus Dumbledore Revealed,”

Caltheous suggests that Dumbledore has a secret identity Santa Claus by using image comparisons from illustrated book covers featuring Dumbledore to portrayals of Dumbledore by actors in film versions. Although the playful and whimsical comparison of Dumbledore to Santa

Clause may detract from the seriousness of Caltheous’ analytical piece, this essay justifiably suggests how some readers view Dumbledore as someone who protects and celebrates children, delivering valuable gifts to them in the process, just like St. Nicholas, “the patron saint of schoolchildren” (Caltheous n.pag.).

5.2. Dumbledore as a Moral Icon

Two of the eleven analytical writers perceive Dumbledore as an embodiment of the story’s morality, revealing the motif of Dumbledore as a God-like figure. For example, in her essay, “Love as a Weapon: The Moral Choices at the Heart of Harry Potter,” Rosamonde Bane identifies herself as an adult reader and observes that Harry Potter offers “over 3,000 pages of an increasingly sophisticated and mature saga that deals frankly with matters of war, torture, and death” (Bane n.pag.). Bane perceives the concept of love that Dumbledore represents as something with many layers, such as “kindness toward strangers” or “acts of self-sacrifice”

(Bane n.pag.). While awaiting the publication of the seventh book, Bane observed, “[t]here is a time-honored place in children’s literature for fairy tales, in which the princess is awakened with a kiss and true love saves the day, . . . [t]he way she [Rowling] has handled the subject thus far suggests that she intends for the Harry Potter books to reflect an intellectually and morally

54 complex understanding of love” (Bane n.pag.). Bane further observes that Dumbledore’s teaching would most likely resonate with readers’ sense of morality as they witness how Harry learns from Dumbledore that one’s moral fibre is gauged by choices one makes to do good upon navigating a difficult moral terrain.

Like Bane, Mary Wanguard perceives Dumbledore as the chief emissary of the books’ moral messages. In “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Me: The Causes of Crying and

Squee-ing,” Wanguard states that Dumbledore is her favourite character and describes him as her role model “an ideal of whom I thought when trying to help my friends with maths (sic)”

(n.pag.). She also describes how she appreciates and admires Dumbledore’s knowledge, humanity, his sense of humour, and his approach of not taking himself too seriously (Wanguard).

Wanguard identifies herself as a high school student from Eastern Europe on her way to becoming a university student. Perhaps, Wanguard made such a strong personal connection with

Dumbledore because the social and political turmoil that she experienced in her own life brought her attention to the importance of a honourable leader. Reflecting back on her childhood,

Wanguard remembers growing up in a country under tremendous pressure to establish newly gained independence from the USSR (Wanguard). While the new system brought many improvements for citizens such as civil and political freedom, Wanguard states, the stress of a capitalist society made many people angry and exhausted by the pressure to become successful and prosperous (Wanguard). Rowling’s words regarding how people choose what is easy over what is right appear to resonate with Wanguard’s own experience. Connecting the book’s message with her own life, Wanguard acknowledges that the Harry Potter books have provided the courage and guidance for her to recognise what is immoral in her society, in particular, how

55 easily a person disregards his or her own principles in order to achieve material gain and success in a newly re-organised society (Wanguard).

Having firmly established high respect for Dumbledore, Wanguard admits she was “most shocked” when Dumbledore’s character turned “controversial” (n.pag.) in The Deathly Hallows.

She confesses that the seventh book “shook [her] image of Dumbledore so violently” (Wanguard n.pag.) that she struggled to reconcile the idealised image of Dumbledore—the mirror of goodness—with what was revealed about him in the last book (Wanguard). Upon some reflection, Wanguard’s focus shifted from Dumbledore’s benevolence and moral authority to

“his sadness, his loneliness” (n.pag.) in the knowledge of the mistakes he made and the secrets he kept. Wanguard shares her youthful acknowledgement with regards to Dumbledore’s failings that perhaps benevolence does not equal perfection and a flawed individual could still try to do some good in the world. What Wanguard indirectly indicates in her essay is how drastically the atmosphere changes when the series progresses to book seven. Alongside Harry, Ron, and

Hermione, who leave the protective walls of Hogwarts, the seventh book demands emotional maturity from readers, asking them to likewise leave the safety of childhood and the comforting certainty of a happy ending (Wanguard).

Wanguard makes another illuminating point in her essay with regards to the pre- eminence of online fandom when she explains why she decided to share her stories through this specific venue. Wanguard states: “I know that I probably felt nothing too unique, nothing different from many other readers. And yet I share those feelings here and now because I’ve got few other places where I can hope to be understood” (Wanguard n.pag). Wanguard states that school did not offer spaces for students to share their feelings about their literary experiences and her family members were not keen on discussing literature. Wanguard confesses in her essay, the

56 encounter with online Harry Potter fandom enabled her to share her literary experiences with others for the first time in her young adult life. She describes other participants in the online realm as “always welcoming” (Wanguard n.pag.), respectful, and ready to invite likeminded readers to join in the discussions (Wanguard). What can be observed through Wanguard’s personal experience is how the inclusiveness and non-hierarchical atmosphere of online fandom can be attractive to young readers

5.3. Secrets and Lies, Authority and Control—Dumbledore’s Moral Ambiguity

The remaining seven writers delve deeper into the intricacy of Dumbledore’s character and, while acknowledging his apparent benevolence, examine Dumbledore’s actions in light of his failings revealed in The Deathly Hallows. For example, having the advantage of writing after the publication of The Deathly Hallows, Emma focuses on the moral ambivalence Dumbledore displays. Emma sets out to answer this question: “[Is] Dumbledore a wise loving wizard or [an] unemotionally calculating [one]?” (n.pag.). Emma justifies Dumbledore’s actions in his youth— his fervent obsession with the Hallows as well as his darker desire to establish wizard dominance—as “a boy’s mistake [rather] than . . . an unforgivable failure” (Emma n.pag.).

However, Emma strongly criticises Dumbledore’s treatment of Snape. She argues that while

Snape shows unfailing loyalty to Dumbledore, Dumbledore does not return the courtesy by, for example, trusting Snape with vital information even when the lack of knowledge is likely to jeopardise his ability to protect himself (Emma). Emma questions why Dumbledore does not have the decency to warn Snape of the danger the Elder Wand brings, when Dumbledore clearly expects Voldemort to go after Snape as the last possessor of the Elder Wand. Emma infers that while Dumbledore repeatedly emphasises the importance of loyalty and trust in the first six

57 books of the series, the seventh book reveals how Dumbledore himself might have fallen short of living up to his own standard (Emma).

Emma concludes that while some of Dumbledore’s actions can be excused on the grounds of keeping vital information safe from Voldemort and his supporters, Dumbledore’s choice to put Snape’s life in mortal danger without his consent reveals “a callous lack of caring for a man who has shown him outstanding levels of loyalty” (Emma n.pag.). Sly_Like_Slytherin

(SLS), who writes in the editorial section of Mugglenet, points likewise to this apparent lack of concern for Snape’s life on Dumbledore’s part as an indicator of his moral failings. SLS argues that Dumbledore is undeserving of Snape’s trust, because although Snape is often represented as a morally grey character, he exhibits strong moral fibre by upholding the memory of Lily Evans and remaining truly loyal to Dumbledore. SLS asks: if remorse is a cure for a maimed soul according to Rowling, where in the texts do we see Dumbledore’s remorse for putting so many of his allies and friends in danger (SLS n.pag.)?

The following three writers seem to take a similar view to Emma and SLS, all highlighting the hypocrisy of Dumbledore’s conduct. In the essay, “‘It Is Our Choices, Harry,

That Show What We Truly Are, Far More Than Our Abilities’: Harry Potter and Values,” Riley

Leonhardt questions Dumbledore’s propensity for withholding valuable information, information without which the individual’s life can be jeopardised, from the person in question (Leonhardt).

The first part of the title of Leonhardt’s essay is a direct quote from Dumbledore in The Chamber of Secrets (Rowling, Chamber 245), and the reference is a little ironic because it is the choices

Dumbledore makes that are under scrutiny in the essay. It appears that one of the common threads found in fan’s critical essays focusing on the character of Dumbledore is this following point: in the name of the greater good, Dumbledore plays God, manipulating others and keeping

58 the grand plan only to himself. In his secrecy, Dumbledore appears to defy the moral compass he imposes on others, thereby challenging the validity of his principles by his own duplicity.

One other repeated point reader-writers make is Dumbledore’s predisposition for privacy and reserve, his control of appearance under the façade of wit and eccentricity. A notable exception to the detachment and distance Dumbledore maintains from others is Harry. In the essay, “Saint, Sinner, and Harry’s True Father,” Ib4075 observes how Dumbledore matures in his understanding of himself through his relationship with Harry. Ib4075 perceives the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore as one that is mutually nurturing. For Harry,

“Dumbledore’s concern . . . becomes a healing part of his growing up at Hogwarts” (Ib4075 n.pag.), whereas for Dumbledore, Harry becomes more to Dumbledore than just a pawn who fits into his great plan of defeating Voldemort (Ib4075). Ib4075 suspects that as Dumbledore grows to know Harry deeply, “Harry’s happiness becomes [Dumbledore’s] chief concern [because while] the ‘greater good’ is nameless and faceless . . . Harry is a real boy who needs his protection and yet has more heart and soul than Dumbledore ever imagined” (Ib4075 n.pag.).

As Ib4075 maintains, at the outset of the story, readers see, through Harry’s eyes, only the best side of Dumbledore Dumbledore as a man of great wisdom, whose intelligence is supported by his incredible capacity for kindness and compassion (Ib4075). What Ib4075 is interested in examining is not the earlier relationship between Harry and Dumbledore, where

Dumbledore is perceived to be Harry’s great mentor, but their later relationship where

Dumbledore’s fallibility and flaws are made known to Harry, and with him, readers (Ib4075).

The Deathly Hallows indeed paints a rather sinister picture of Dumbledore as a man who plays a dangerous game, a game in which people’s lives are at stake. For example, certain events imply that Dumbledore is prepared to risk Harry’s life without his consent when Dumbledore

“gambles that he has guessed rightly how to get Harry to that moment [of his ultimate confrontation with Voldemort]” (Ib4075). Observing Dumbledore to be “a very shrewd tactician” whose brilliance is marked by “its coldness not warmth” (Ib4075 n.pag.), what Ib4075 finds disturbing here is how seemingly easy it is for Dumbledore to risk Harry’s life.

Nevertheless, Ib4075 argues that Dumbledore succeeds at regaining both Harry and readers’ trust, when he humbly admits his failings to Harry in The Deathly Hallows at the imaginary

King’s Cross station. In Ib4075’s own words, “Dumbledore disarms us all again, not with his skill but with his humility and humanity” (Ib4075 n.pag.). Lastly, Ib4075 concludes that the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry parallels that of parent and child, in which parents dream that their child “will succeed where they have failed” (Ib4075 n.pag.) and “the lessons they learned will permit their children to move forward” (Ib4075 n.pag.). In light of this view,

Ib4075 suggests that while Dumbledore may not have been a saint, he might have done right by

Harry. Ib4075 suggests this because the most important message Dumbledore tries to convey to

Harry—“the power of love and the consequences of life without it” (Ib4075 n.pag.) seems to be embodied by Harry to the point that he has greatly surpassed his mentor (Ib4075). As an example of this, one could refer to how Harry succeeds at uniting the Deathly Hallows acting out of love for his family and friends without falling in the trap of advancing his selfish interests using the Hallows (Rowling, Deathly 21-24, 288-293, 571-579).

Likewise, The Rotfang Conspiracy ’07 (TRC07) defends Dumbledore’s treatment of

Harry, while agreeing with other fan writers of their accusations of Dumbledore’s treatment of

Snape. TRC07’s essay challenges fellow readers to examine another complex layer of

Dumbledore’s character. TRC07 acknowledges, in agreement with Ib4075, that one possible exception to Dumbledore’s habit of keeping emotional distance from others is his protégé Harry.

Yet, in regards to the chief accusation many fan writers place on Dumbledore—the planning of

Harry’s opportune death—TRC07 presents an interesting case by suggesting that perhaps it was essential for Dumbledore to plan exactly how Harry should be killed in order to protect Harry’s soul. TRC07 argues that had Dumbledore not planned for Voldemort to attack Harry with a

Killing Curse, Harry’s soul would have been at risk of remaining “conjoined with Voldemort’s parasitic soul fragment” (TRC07 n.pag.). The point TRC07 makes here is this: while

Dumbledore may have appeared careless about protecting Harry’s life, what Dumbledore cared for more than Harry’s life was the integrity and wholeness of his soul. While TRC07 pardons

Dumbledore on this front, he or she concurs with other reader-writers such as Emma and SLS with regards to Dumbledore’s treatment of Snape. TRC07 observes that Dumbledore left Snape in extreme danger, failing to foresee certain events that complicated and jeopardised his great scheme. By making allowances for Dumbledore’s genuine concern for Harry even in light of his cold, calculating Machiavellian side, TRC07’s analysis consequently adds more intricacy to the understandings of Dumbledore’s character.

5.4. Dumbledore for the Greater Good

To further the discussion of Dumbledore’s moral ambiguity, Theowyn and Sara Putnam

Park present an interesting angle, which could be described as the angle of “General

Dumbledore.” In Theowyn’s analytical contribution to The Leaky Cauldron, “The life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore,” Theowyn analyses Dumbledore by situating him in a position of a wartime commander and a strategist. To an extent, The Order of Phoenix gives more dimensions to Dumbledore’s character by providing readers a glimpse into the lives of the members of the

Order of Phoenix and how they see its leader, Dumbledore. This added adult perspective on

Dumbledore helps us perceive Dumbledore not only as a teacher but also as a rebel leader. In this

61 role, Dumbledore exhibits a great level of secretiveness and strong reservations towards revealing the details of his plans to his comrades (Rowling, Deathly 65, 174, 549). Perhaps, it is the necessity of being a leader not to be on equal ground with common soldiers; yet, it is noticeable that Dumbledore is largely isolated from the rest of the Order members. Theowyn questions whether Dumbledore’s apparently heartless decision-making can be viewed simply as a wartime general making the best decisions he can under the pressures of war, whose ruthlessness is a necessity of that condition.

Theowyn calls Dumbledore “[t]he most enigmatic character” (n.pag.). Once an “epitome of goodness” (Theowyn n.pag.), his youthful attraction towards wizard supremacy as well as some of his actions in his later years revealed in the seventh book challenges readers to re- examine his character (Theowyn). Theowyn views that Dumbledore’s care for Harry is genuine despite his willingness to prepare Harry for a path that may lead to his premature death. With regards to this certain ruthlessness about Dumbledore, Theowyn calls Dumbledore a

“Machiavellian” (Theowyn), for he is prepared to “use others without compunction, even to the point of plotting a child’s death” (Theowyn). Like many of the other analytical fan writers,

Theowyn finds the ability of Dumbledore to compartmentalise so that he can plan a war strategy involving a high probability of the death of a child whom he genuinely cares for “chilling”

(Theowyn n.pag.). Theowyn also notes that for all his scheming and cleverness, one of the most important pieces of information almost does not get delivered because it is entrusted with Snape to be delivered to Harry at the pre-arranged moment (Theowyn). Looking back on The Deathly

Hallows, Snape barely has time to commit his final act of passing on this entrusted communication to Harry as he lies fatally injured (Rowling, Deathly 529).

A further concern of Theowynʼs is how Dumbledore gains a position of authority under the façade of a gentle and wise mentor situating himself perfectly to mould Harry into becoming someone who does not recoil at the thought of sacrificing his own life in order to defeat

Voldemort (Theowyn). Theowyn notes that in his manipulation of others, Dumbledore takes full advantage of his ability to uncover the core moral fibres of those nearest to him. For example,

Dumbledore has “laid out an enticing road” (Theowyn) for Harry to follow, knowing how strong

Harry’s desire to protect those whom he loves is (Theowyn). As Theowynʼs blunt description suggests, it has been a pattern for Dumbledore the master manipulator to set up a path for his lieutenants to follow without disclosing the full extent of the danger that the mission entails.

Theowyn explains: once Dumbledore knows that his lieutenants are “gone far enough that he

[knows] they [will not] turn back . . . [t]hen he step[s] aside and point[s] the way to the cliff . . .

[for] them to jump off” (Theowyn). Theowyn suspects Dumbledore predicted that even if Harry had realised he was deceived in the particulars, once he understood the end goal the destruction of Voldemort he would accept the responsibility and would want to follow it to the end

(Theowyn). As Theowyn observes, Dumbledore does not “[give] his followers all of the information they [need] to make a free choice” (Theowyn); instead, he “[gives] them only enough [information] to manoeuvre them into doing what he [wants] them to do” (Theowyn n.pag.).

Joining in Emma, SLS, Leonhardt, Ib4075, and TRC07, Theowyn reviews Dumbledore’s relationship with his two most trusted lieutenants, Harry and Snape. On this point, Theowyn maintains that both Harry and Snape have remained loyal and honourable in their respective relationships with Dumbledore, while Dumbledore has done disservice to both of them by not being forthcoming in return. In light of this observation, Theowyn eloquently notes that, “[f]or

63 all his insight into human nature, [Dumbledore is] . . . often oblivious to the emotional needs of others around him” (Theowyn n.pag.). While recognising Dumbledore as someone who is

“capable of great patience and greatness” (Theowyn n.pag.), Theowyn makes quite a compelling argument to expose Dumbledore’s hypocrisy in his manipulation of and control over others.

In “Dumbledorian Ethics: How Albus Dumbledore Combines Utilitarianism and

Compassion,” Sarah Putnam Park poses similar questions to Theowyn about the morality of

Dumbledore’s actions. Park subsequently attempts to rationalise Dumbledore’s actions by using the principle of utilitarian theory. It is important to note here that it is not my intention to evaluate the validity of Park’s assessment and understanding of utilitarian theory. I aim, rather, to understand how Park evaluates the morality of Dumbledore’s actions using the theory at hand.

Park argues that all of Dumbledore’s decisions and actions can be explained by the principle of utilitarian ethics, which champions the notion of achieving the greatest good for the greatest number and stipulates that an individual action cannot be assessed for its morality until the action in question is measured against an end result (Park).

Park points out that readers could only speculate Dumbledore’s motives and thoughts behind his actions using the limited information the texts reveal because Rowling does not disclose Dumbledore’s inner thoughts in details (Park). The main question Park poses is this: when one applies the utilitarian theory to Dumbledore’s strategy, does the end (Voldemort’s fall) justifies the means (the possible death of Harry)? To this question, Park answers that while it is a hard and seemingly impossible decision, “the end of Voldemort’s reign of terror would justify the sole death of one boy—Harry Potter” (Park n.pag.). Park argues when we weigh the possible consequences of Voldemort’s prolonged control over the magical world, which means a continued persecution of thousands of Muggles and Muggle-born wizards and witches,

Dumbledore’s plan to have Harry sacrifice himself is “not cruel or self-serving, but it is the appropriate ethical decision for this particular situation” (Park n.pag.).

Park presents a counter-argument to this conclusion and further argues that while the above conclusion may be valid from a utilitarian perspective, Dumbledore’s plan does not respect Harry as a person (Park). Park acknowledges that one of the major objections towards the utilitarian ethics is raised on how the theory allows for an individual to be considered as a means to an end, denying their humanity to be respected as an end in itself (Park). In light of this objection, Park concludes that Dumbledore is culpable of not respecting Harry enough to confide the complete plan in him, while he is not guilty of seeing Harry as a useful instrument given the gravity of the alternative, which is, Voldemort continued existence. Dumbledore guides Harry to become a young man capable of assuming the task of the Chosen One, destined to defeat

Voldemort. Dumbledore does this not by changing Harry’s nature, but by “fostering Harry’s own innate loving kindness, thereby moulding a man capable of making great personal sacrifices, even sacrificing his own life, to save the lives of others” (Park n.pag.). Here, Park seems to suggest that, while Dumbledore shows Harry the path he believes to be right, it is Harry himself who ultimately chooses to take that path.

In the books, Harry wonders why it had never been important enough for Dumbledore to entrust his plans with Harry and questions whether Dumbledore had ever truly cared for Harry as more than just a pawn in the war plan (Rowling, Deathly 147, 267). Park wonders at this point and is puzzled as to why Dumbledore often kept distance from Harry when it was potentially quite damaging for Harry to experience such temperamental demeanours of Dumbledore, someone Harry has known, respected, and sought approval and returning affection of. It is evident from the questions fan writers raise in their critical opinion pieces that there are many

65 textual indeterminacies surrounding the character or Dumbledore. In other words, upon the conclusion of the series, the character of Dumbledore remains elusive and consequently some of the mysteries surrounding his character have become a source of inspiration for further speculation and critical examination on readers’ part.

5.5. Concluding Thoughts on Fans’ Analytical Writing

One of the most interesting points stemming from the eleven analytical essays is the way in which fans take Dumbledore’s moral failings quite personally. Fans also appear to establish strong moral understanding through their evaluation of Dumbledore’s conduct. It is perhaps safe to speculate that by making moral judgments in respect to Dumbledore’s actions, in a way, readers are prompted to face and question their own moral principles. Some of the key themes that are repeated across the eleven writings include 1) readers’ expressions of respect and trust for Dumbledore’s goodness, 2) readers’ perception of Dumbledore as the voice of morality in the story, and most importantly, 3) readers’ initial assessment and later re-evaluation of

Dumbledore’s manipulation and control of others, revealed most prominently in the seventh book. With regards to the last point, some readers criticise Dumbledore’s conduct towards Harry, while some perceive greater demonstrations of moral failings in Dumbledore’s conduct towards

Snape.

Dumbledore is a complex character comprised of often contradicting elements such as wisdom of age, solid moral principles, propensity for secrecy and lies, as well as common human weaknesses for power. Further, as eight of the eleven analytical reader-writers point out, for all his visions as a master manipulator and for all his aura of omniscience, Dumbledore’s power and

66 control reached only so far in changing the course of history.2 This contrasting representation that Dumbledore signifies seems to fascinate some readers such as Theowyn.

In the in-between place where the author, the text, and the readers meet, Dumbledore’s character comes alive as his actions earn censure as well as passionate responses from readers. It is evident that Dumbledore is an important character for these reader-writers because, if he were not, they would not have taken the time to make sense of his character. If we consider reading to be an activity that exposes readers to life experiences that cannot be attained in their everyday lives, then online fandom allows readers to create an open forum in which they can exchange their thoughts, thereby deriving not only personal but social value from their literary experiences.

2. Theowynʼs observation, especially, suggests that there is a parallel between free will and destiny within the text. For example, does Harry freely choose the path of being the Chosen One or does he do so because Dumbledore often carefully guided him to take a particular path by controlling the flow of information? For more discussions on the issue of control and agency, readers may refer to Drew Chappell’s “Sneaking Out After Dark: Resistance, Agency, and the

Postmodern Child in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter Series.” This parallel is mirrored by the question of literature as changeable or determined is a text fixed in the written words of the author or can it be understood to be something more organic, something that can take a life of its own through reader response?

6. Examination of Selected Creative Writings Posted by Fans

As mentioned above, reader-writers who take up creative writing as their method of expression appear to approach the exploration of Dumbledore’s character a little differently from analytical fan writers. Drawing upon Henry Jenkins’ genre classifications, most of the fan fiction stories examined below can be classified as “Alternative Points of View,” “I Wonder If-s” and

“Missing Moments” (Jenkins 181). What these classifications signify is how fan fiction writing is founded in readers’ desire to bridge textual indeterminacies and break out from the limitation of the original text. The three genres respectively refer to stories that address textual indeterminacies 1) by telling the stories from someone other than Harry’s point of view, 2) by exploring other outcomes of a decisive event, and 3) by writing unwritten parts of the Harry

Potter stories (Jenkins 181).

I examined ten fan fiction stories posted by reader-writers. Instead of conducting an in- depth analysis of each story, I focus on some of the key themes fan writers explore. Additionally, particular attention is paid to personal comments fan writers leave which offer insight into what inspired them to publish the stories, as well as what they wished to accomplish by writing and sharing their creative pieces. On first examination, it appears that the ten fan writers that comprise the dataset take up, as entry points for creating their own stories, the following themes:

1. Dumbledore’s little revealed childhood and family relationships,

2. Dumbledore’s sense of guilt and the trauma he endured over his sister’s death, and

3. Dumbledore’s sexuality.

To present an apparent point of observation, it appears that while readers’ analytical opinion pieces focused more on close textual analysis, fan fiction writers, due to the nature of creative writing, use the “facts” presented in the text as a foundation upon which build their imaginative

68 stories. In other words, one could say that analytical writers focus on what is written (yet problematic or unclear), whereas creative writers pay particular attention to what is not written.

One of the great merits of creative stories lies in how those stories call other readers’ attention to the unwritten parts of the original Harry Potter stories.

There are an exponential number of postings on the Fanfiction.net that include references to the stories of Harry Potter. For example, a key word search within the site in June 2014 revealed that there were more than 2500 stories featuring Dumbledore as at least one of the primary characters (Fanfiction.net). My method of selection was as follows: 1) I searched

Fanfiction.net for stories featuring Albus Dumbledore under the category of books and the sub- category of Harry Potter. 2614 stories came up in this search. 2) I categorised these by relevance and excluded “cross-overs” (e.g., stories including characters from literary source texts beyond the Harry Potter series). 3) I limited the selection to substantive stories with word counts between 3000 and 8000 that would comprise a manageable dataset for this study. 4) I limited the stories to English language only. Abstracts of over 1000 stories were reviewed. Sixty stories appeared to meet the inclusion criteria and were selected for further examination.

For the purpose of this study, I wanted the number of creative texts for analysis to be roughly equivalent to the number of analytical texts analysed in the earlier section. The purpose of this study is in part to illuminate how readers bridge textual indeterminacies with the understanding that indeterminacies do not open doors to infinite possibilities for meanings, for the text imposes certain limitations with the facts that it establishes (Freund 146; Iser 51). In light this limitation, I therefore omitted stories dealing with settings and situations too distanced and disconnected from the original text—for example, stories implicating characters into situations

69 well beyond the content of the original texts or stories that directly contradict facts set up in the original series.

Of the final sixty stories, approximately thirty stories were omitted on the following grounds:

1. The story was incorrectly identified by filters and in fact features someone other than

Dumbledore.

2. The story includes events incompatible with the events in the original series (e.g.,

Dumbledore is in fact James Potter in disguise; in short, stories that can be classified

as being set in an alternative universe).

3. The majority of the characters do not appear in the original series.

4. A story by the same fan author already appears in the dataset.

Of the stories meeting all of the inclusion criteria, the first ten were chosen for the examination.

As is the case with the examination of analytical writers, the following examination is divided into four sections according to the topics and sub-topics that reader-writers take up (see also Table 2 for further details).

1. Exploration of Dumbledore as a friend and a protector.

Appearing in stories by RobynElizabeth; CyborgNinjasInLove; AngelMoon Girl; The

Half Mad Muggle.

2. Exploration of Dumbledore as an arrogant and somewhat selfish young man.

Appearing in stories by biopotter; estuesday.

3. Exploration of how guilt over the death of Ariana affected and shaped Dumbledore’s

character.

Appearing in stories by MissPadfoot100; Kilara25; Wuff.

4. Exploration of Dumbledore’s arguably romantic relationship with Grindelwald.

Appearing in a story by Sahara Storm.

Table 2. Details of fan fiction stories examined.

Author Word Count Title 1 RobynElizabeth 3044 words Scars and Sherbet Lemons 2 AngelMoon Girl 6152 words Wolf in Friend’s Clothing 3 CyborgNinjasInLove 6978 words Recollections 4 The Half Mad Muggle 3115 words Dear Albus 5 biopotter 5573 words Albus Dumbledore and the Deathly Hallows 6 estuesday 6574 words Love and Other Childish Ways 7 MissPadfoot100 3422 words Albus’ Recollections 8 Kilara25 5428 words Wonderful Tragic Mysterious 9 Wuff 6561 words Believe in Love 10 Sahara Strom 7229 words Love Letters

In illustration of the ambiguity surrounding Dumbledore’s character in the original texts, certain “facts” about his past are revealed through a third party who may be considered an unreliable narrator. In the obituary for Dumbledore, for example, Dumbledore’s school friend

Elphias Doge reminisces about his youth and states that he and Dumbledore became close friends due to their common identities as outsiders (Rowling, Deathly 21). Doge explains that while the idiosyncrasy that excluded him from the crowd was his medical condition, what separated Dumbledore was “the burden of unwanted notoriety [due to his father’s] savage and well-publicised attack upon three young Muggles” (Rowling, Deathly 21). Doge recalls that while many of his classmates pressed him to speak of the matter, Dumbledore refused to speak of it except to confirm his father’s guilt of the charges laid upon him (Rowling, Deathly 21).

Doge observes, despite Dumbledore’s rocky start at Hogwarts, “[i]n a matter of months . . .

Albus’s own fame had begun to eclipse that of his father[,] . . . never again [to] be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the

71 school” (Rowling, Deathly 22). Judging from Doge’s obituary, Dumbledore’s life at Hogwarts was, perhaps, a journey that of finding acceptance and friends, as it was for Harry (Rowling,

Prisoner 258-61). These circumstances presented in The Deathly Hallows suggest the possibility that Dumbledore also spent a lonely and somewhat abandoned childhood akin to that of Harry,

Snape, and Tom Riddle, whom Harry calls “the abandoned boys” (Rowling, Deathly 558).

Markedly, Doge can be considered an unreliable narrator, since his friendship with Dumbledore is likely to make him silent on matters that can cast shadows over his famous friend’s character and reputation. Secondly, it is also evident that there are no particular details given in the original text as to what Dumbledore felt and how he responded to his father’s arrest or his school years.

Nevertheless, the fan fiction stories examined below offer an interesting model as to how textual indeterminacies are bridged and how the original text is transformed in the hands of a reader.

6.1. Dumbledore—A Friend and a Protector

The following four creative writers examined below RobinElizabeth, AngelMoon Girl,

CyborgNinjasInLove and The Half Mad Muggle examine Dumbledore’s actions and emotions in relation to his relationship with other characters. In so doing, these writers give voice to

Dumbledore’s inner thoughts and contemplate the workings of his heart and mind in places where the original text remain silent. In the story titled “Scars and Sherbet Lemons,”

RobynElizabeth imagines the role Dumbledore could have played in ensuring James and Lily

Potter’s continued safety. RobynElizabeth envisions in what manner Dumbledore could have been involved in the rescue of baby Harry on the Halloween Day when James and Lily were murdered by Voldemort. RobynElizabeth pictures Dumbledore making arrangements with James so that the latter could inform the former of his family’s safety every night at a set time.

RobynElizabeth’s story depicts the growing anxiety Dumbledore feels during the Hogwarts

Halloween Feast when he notices that James has not checked in for the evening, wondering whether the silence is caused by James’s carelessness or whether it means genuine trouble.

Itching to rush to Godric’s Hollow to ensure their safety, RobynElizabeth envisions Dumbledore feeling restless. Eventually, Dumbledore’s gut feeling of something being terribly wrong is confirmed when he senses the Fidelius Charm break, and Dumbledore rushes in fear to the Potter residence, knowing too well that he is too late to save them (RobynElizabeth). In the story,

RobynElizabeth fills in the textual gaps by imagining how Dumbledore was involved in the

Potters’ protection as well as in the discovery of both Harry’s survival and Voldemort’s disappearance, and portrays Dumbledore in a positive light by having him show genuine care and concerns for the Potters.

In “Recollections”, CyborgNinjasInLove (CNIL) imagines that Dumbledore left a letter to Harry imparting to the younger man the memories of his life, especially his association with

Grindelwald that affected Dumbledore deeply. Dumbledore in CNIL’s story is sensitive to the possibility that his life may come under scrutiny after his death and Harry might be hurt and confused to discover his mentor’s past mistakes and failures (CNIL). Giving voice to

Dumbledore regarding matters about which he remained silent in the original texts, CNIL has

Dumbledore reach out to Harry to assure him of his loyalty and trust, and that with his “very human body and mind, one entirely capable of missteps and misdeeds” (CNIL n.pag.),

Dumbledore tried to help Harry the best he could (CNIL).

In the story “Wolf in Friend’s Clothing,” AngelMoon Girl (AngelMoon) looks at the events that follow the third task of the Triwizard Tournament in The Goblet of Fire through

Dumbledore’s eyes. The author’s note suggests that AngelMoon decided to create this story because she “often wondered what happened beyond Harry’s perspective on the night he

73 returned, Cedric’s Diggory’s dead body in tow [at the end of the Triwizard Tournament]”

(AngelMoon n.pag.) AngelMoon states, “[a]ll we got was a blurred vision from a barely conscious Harry, and I’m left wanting . . . [therefore, I decided to] write it myself . . . my creative take on the events that transpired after the Third Task, from Dumbledore’s point of view”

(AngelMoon n.pag.). AngelMoon’s story examines Dumbledore’s inner thoughts, especially his genuine concern for Harry’s safety, as Dumbledore waits for the result of the third task in growing anxiety, sensing that something is terribly wrong. Following Dumbledore’s inner thoughts, AngelMoon turns readers’ attention to what ferocious fury courses through

Dumbledore under his outward façade of self-control, as he begins to realise that he was outsmarted by Barty Crouch Jr. and failed to protect Harry (AngelMoon).

The Half Mad Muggle further contemplates the more human side of Dumbledore by exploring his relationships with his trusted friend and ally, Severus Snape. In “Dear Albus,” The

Half Mad Muggle brings readers’ attention to Dumbledore’s generous and attentive nature through the friendship between him and Snape. There is one particular scene that The Half Mad

Muggle creates that illuminates how Dumbledore’s past failures and disappointments led him to demonstrate a great deal of understanding towards the failings and errors of others. In the scene in question, Dumbledore speaks to Snape who is crushed under the weight of his evil dealings that ultimately led to the death of Lily Potter, and offers him a piece of wisdom: “What you have done before is in the past—we cannot change it—but we also cannot continue to live in it. We both have dark parts in our past—but we have to move on from those and walk toward the future instead” (The Half Mad Muggle n.pag.). Dumbledore in The Half Mad Muggle’s story continues to console Snape: “I did not say forget [the past sins]. Learn from [them], indeed. But do not allow your past to control your present” (The Half Mad Muggle n.pag). In short, The Half Mad

Muggle imagines what conversations and connections Dumbledore and Snape could have shared beyond what the original texts disclose. In the process, the author reinforces the representation of

Dumbledore as someone to look up to and rely on in time of need—an image initially established from Harry’s perspective.

6.2. Dumbledore the Young and the Restless

The two following writers fill in the textual indeterminacies by imagining the details of

Dumbledore’s youth that are only briefly mentioned in the original text. In the creative story

“Albus Dumbledore and the Deathly Hallows,” biopotter draws readers’ attention to the chain of events that took place in the summer shortly after Albus’s graduation from Hogwarts, most particularly the circumstances that brought Dumbledore home to Godric’s Hollow. As depicted in the original text, Dumbledore was forced to cancel his plan of travelling around the world when he was called upon to return home upon his mother’s untimely death in order to take care of his unstable sister (Rowling, Deathly 573). biopotter portrays the workings of Dumbledore’s heart at the time of his returning home by closely imagining Dumbledore’s disappointment at having to forgo his chance of a big adventure, as well as resentment towards his sister and brother whose presence keeps Dumbledore in their little village. biopotter examines

Dumbledore’s loneliness upon finding himself in a place without the company of an intellectual equal, and his feeling of being slighted upon realising his brilliant talents and intelligence are being wasted upon household chores. Dumbledore, as mentioned above, exhibits these feelings in the original text, and biopotter highlights and expands on Dumbledore’s rare exhibition of ungraciousness, sulking in the face of a circumstance that is beyond his control that befell upon him. biopotter portrays the youthful Dumbledore as someone with a great sense of entitlement in the world, and as someone who is capable of harbouring a strong sense of bitterness and

75 resentment. This antipathy stems from his dreams being quashed by family obligations and the portrayal of a young and rebellious Dumbledore provides readers with a different perspective of the man who acquired gentlemanlike, yet reserved manners later in his life (biopotter).

The particular circumstances that expedited the close relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald is explored in estuesday’s story, “Love and Other Childish Ways.” Imagining the first encounter of Dumbledore and Grindelwald, estuesday depicts spars of wit between the two, making it quite clear to readers what drew Dumbledore and Grindelwald together and how powerful their magnetism was to each other. In a joint interview for The Leaky Cauldron and

Mugglenet, Rowling makes a following comment on Dumbledore and friendship: “being very, very intelligent might create some problems and it has done for Dumbledore, because his wisdom has isolated him . . . where is his equal, where is his confidant, where is his partner?”

(Rowling qtd. in accio-quote.org n.pag.). This premise is important in examining, as estuesday does, why Dumbledore became so infatuated with Grindelwald who was his intellectual match when he knew very well that Grindelwald had a darker desire for power and control.

Both biopotter and estuesday bring Dumbledore to a more human level (albeit in a different way from the first four writers examined), showcasing the intricacy of the workings of his heart where egoism and conceitedness coexist with compassion and thoughtfulness. Neither altruistic nor malicious, their stories emphasise all too human aspects of Dumbledore through his shortcomings, allowing readers to have a second and a third look at Dumbledore’s character with compassion and understanding. In one of the scenes in biopotter’s story, Dumbledore acknowledges the feelings of pity towards both himself and for his sister and reflects: “the only help he could provide her was superficial, and clumsy at best. When he sat alone with Ariana he had no ease with her, no comfortable companionship” (biopotter n.pag.). biopotter illustrates

Dumbledore’s frustration at not being able to love his sister as he ought to and this feeling is accompanied by his desire for a companionship with someone of equal intelligence.

6.3. Dumbledore and the Price of his Love

The next three stories—MissPadfoot100’s “Albus’ Recollections,” Kilara25’s

“Wonderful Tragic Mysterious,” and Wuff’s “Believe in Love”—address the period of time where Dumbledore meets Grindelwald, their meeting ending in Ariana’s death, and how the whole chain of events has affected and changed Dumbledore. MissPadfoot100 has a more simple way of writing and only a very short analysis follows below. MissPadfoot100’s story takes place on the eve of James and Lily going into hiding from Voldemort. Significantly, MissPadfoot100 imagines Dumbledore to have lived all his life without ever being able to disconnect himself from his past; MissPadfoot100 illustrates this point by using the Mirror of Erised and the

Pensieve, the two instruments that allow Dumbledore to travel back to the memories of his past.

Identifying Dumbledore’s past as something that continues to shape and affect his actions,

MisPadfoot100 depicts Dumbledore working hard in order to protect the Potter family from the hands of Voldemort, especially because he himself failed to save and protect his own family. In short, MissPadfoot100 is one of the many fan writers who strive to connect young and somewhat egocentric Dumbledore and aged and wise counterpart the original texts depict by filling in the gaps between the two.

In “Wonderful Tragic Mysterious,” Kilara253 transports Luna Lovegood, whose present time seems to be situated sometime after the Battle of Hogwarts, via Time Turner so that she

3. While it is not my intention to offer criticism to the quality of writing of the fan fiction stories that are examined, Kilara25 should be noted for a good writing style that is particularly notable in the story’s representation of Luna Lovegood’s speech pattern and her characterisation.

77 encounters Dumbledore immediately after Ariana’s death. Kilara25 uses Luna’s blatant yet somehow elegant honesty and openness to bring out Dumbledore’s inner thoughts to the surface.

For example, Kilara25 has Luna proclaim how she finds it quite natural to “seek acquaintance with other people’s dead” (Kilara25 n.pag.) because “[m]ost people aren’t very possessive of their dead, for some reason” (Kilara25 n.pag.). This exchange between Luna and Dumbledore illuminates how people avoid visiting the graves of their families because of the pain and regret they bring to the living and how Dumbledore struggles to find solace in his solitude. This above- mentioned line, while perhaps not uttered by Luna as a reproach, leads Dumbledore to open his heart to her and speak for the first time after its occurrence about the chain of events that led to his sister’s death.

It is easy to imagine that the burden of guilt Dumbledore carries over the death of his sister naturally makes him want to turn back time and Kilara25 introduces an interesting plot twist by having Luna’s Time Turner that she carries to play an important role in the story.

Kilara25’s story features Dumbledore noticing the Time Turner around Luna’s neck and being compelled to approach Luna with the intention of grabbing the Time Turner out of Luna’s possession by force: “[Albus Dumbledore] sees history and the rewriting of it all in a single, delirious flash . . . one thing done differently at the right moment . . . and everything would be different, his sins redeemed, his mind unburdened” (Kilara25 n.pag.). Kilara25 envisions

Dumbledore gazing at the Time Turner around Luna’s neck “with a hunger he cannot conceal”

(Kilara25 n.pag.), causing Luna to notice his desire and beg him not to go down that path

(Kilara25). While Kilara25 has Luna’s pleas bring Dumbledore back to his senses, Dumbledore’s hunger to turn back time resonates with Rowling’s portrayal of Dumbledore’s behaviour upon his discovery of the Resurrection Stone:

When I [Dumbledore himself] discovered it . . . I lost my head, Harry. I quite

forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked

it up, I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and

my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was . . . I was

such as fool, Harry. After all those years, I had learned nothing . . . The stone I

would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace. (Rowling,

Deathly 576-7)

Finding connections over their shared experience of losing someone close, Kilara25 has Luna and Dumbledore talk of grief, time, and the effects of time on a grieving soul. To Dumbledore, whose loss is much closer and pain more acute, Kilara25 has Luna pass on her knowledge that

“[t]ime doesn’t make the sadness any easier to forget . . . But I think . . . that it makes happiness easier to remember” (Kilara25 n.pag.). By imagining someone who can see beyond human follies and weaknesses and still find good in others, Kilara25’s story gives a gentle nudge to the readers (just as Luna might) to re-evaluate our harsh criticism of Dumbledore’s mistakes and his failures. That is, by introducing Luna, whom Kilara25 sees as someone who “go[es] on behaving as though people are what they ought to be, rather than what they are” (Kilara25 n.pag.), as a guide into Dumbledore’s heart, Kilara25 succeeds at casting a kind eye to Dumbledore’s flaws.

By casting light on Dumbledore in the time period after Ariana’s death, which is little explored in the original text, “Wonderful Tragic Mysterious” brings together the trustworthy and caring gentleman and his younger self more ambitious, arrogant and selfish perhaps yet someone with a good heart. This in turn is perhaps revealing of Kilara’25s own compassion for Dumbledore’s struggles to make peace with his dead family and learn to carry his burden of guilt.

Wuff starts off the story “Believe in Love” with an author’s note, which indicates how the story was inspired by Wuff’s musings on “how Albus Dumbledore became the man who so strongly believes in love after he was so terribly let down by Gellert Grindelwald” (Wuff n.pag.).

Like biopotter and estuesday, Wuff focuses on what effects the incidents of Ariana’s death had on Dumbledore in his later life. Wuff’s writing is memorable because instead of simply looking at Dumbledore’s trauma over the tragedy, the writer casts light onto how the tragedy shaped the man Dumbledore came to be by following some of the decisive moments in Dumbledore’s life.

At each stage, Wuff inserts a little reflection that shows how Dumbledore forms and re-forms his opinions regarding the power of love in light of his experiences.

A key moment that prompts Dumbledore’s reflection on the vulnerability love brings is constructed when Wuff wondering how Dumbledore may have regarded his father’s incarceration for attacking the three Muggle boys who taunted and traumatised Ariana. Wuff imagines Dumbledore to have felt respect for his father’s love for Ariana, while at the same time envisioning Dumbledore to have harboured an equally strong resentment towards his father for abandoning his family and not considering the consequences of his rash attack on the Muggle boys (Wuff). Wuff ponders the possibility that experiencing such an incident at a very young age might have affected Dumbledore to be wary of such a strong attachment that could lead one to act irrationally and cause the suffering of many (Wuff). Wuff shows Dumbledore’s disappointment in love when Grindelwald reveals his true colour and flees Godric’s Hollow after

Ariana’s death. The portrayal of Dumbledore’s heartbreak is followed by his witnessing James and Lily Potter being betrayed to their deaths by their secret keeper, their most trusted best friend

(Wuff). Wuff has Dumbledore reflect on the folly on James and Lily’s part for trusting their loved ones so blindly. Wuff illustrates how Dumbledore must seriously re-evaluate the true

80 power of love due to Lily’s sacrifice as well as the discovery of Severus Snape’s true loyalty towards Lily Potter (Wuff).

Another key scene is imagined from a small line from Remus Lupin in The Prisoner of

Azkaban, in which he discloses that:

Before the Wolfbane Potion was discovered . . . I became a fully fledged monster

once a month. It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts.

Other parents weren’t likely to want their children exposed to me. But then

Dumbledore became Headmaster, and he was sympathetic. He said that, as long

as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn’t come to school.

(Rowling, Prisoner 258)

In light of this textual fact it was Dumbledore who worked against commonly held prejudice and fear of Lupin’s condition to have him accepted at Hogwarts Wuff constructs a story that fills in the textual gaps as to how this decision was made and in what circumstance Dumbledore was acquainted with Lupin. Wuff imagines a meeting between Dumbledore and Lupin’s parents, with the latter begging Dumbledore to have Remus accepted into Hogwarts (Wuff). In this scene,

Wuff depicts Dumbledore being moved by Lupin’s parents’ determination to have their son accepted to Hogwarts. Through following these chain of events and Dumbledore’s reflections upon each of these encounters, Wuff’s story bridges textual indeterminacies, by demonstrating that Dumbledore’s strong convictions in the power of love is perhaps a product of a long journey comprised of long reflections upon the subject, and observations of how people he cares for have been affected by it. By reminding readers that Dumbledore’s wisdom and compassion have not been gifts of nature but products of life experience and learning, Wuff succeeds at highlighting

81 why Dumbledore has always shown compassion and understanding to the misfortunes and errors of others, making allowances for the possibilities of people being able to change.

6.4. The Gay Dumbledore

The last story to be examined is Sahara Storm’s “Love Letters.” In the story, Storm explores the possibility of Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s relationship being romantic as well as sexual. The story follows Albus’s life’s journey in reverse chronology, starting from the period in The Order of Phoenix and going back in time to the summer in which Dumbledore meets

Grindelwald. In the author’s note, Sahara Storm notes: “I thought it was pretty cool, to look at their [Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s] relationship in reverse chronology” (Storm n.pag.). Storm weaves the story from the point of bitter regret and sorrow on Dumbledore’s part, as he reminisces on his relationship with Grindelwald. In Storm’s hands, Dumbledore is taken back in time until the story line connects with the summer in which the destructive yet passionate friendship/romance between Dumbledore and Grindelwald bloomed. Storm follows the timeline back through both imagined and textually factual events, an example of the latter being the infamous duel in 1945 between Dumbledore and Grindelwald that is mentioned in Rowling’s original text. “Love Letter” presents Storm’s interpretation of Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s friendship as one that is romantic through a graphic portrayal of their sexual relationship.

Storm’s two main foci seem to be on the bittersweet love story between the two brilliant young wizards as well as on the effects of heartbreak on both Dumbledore and Grindelwald in the years to come.

Storm highlights the connection Dumbledore and Grindelwald inadvertently maintain due to their shared status as the owner of the Elder Wand. As described in the original text, the Wand changes hands from Grindelwald to Dumbledore when the latter defeats the former in a historical

82 duel that brings an end to a dark era of terror and oppression that Grindelwald established. In the original text, Dumbledore only briefly acknowledges the connection with Grindelwald, speaking to Harry that perhaps Dumbledore was able to control and tame the Elder Wand, one of the three instruments of the Deathly Hallows, because he took it from the previous owner, “not for gain, but to save others from it (Rowling, Deathly 577). Storm takes inspiration from the Elder Wand, and the connection it maintains between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and imagines how the

Wand must have become a daily reminder to Dumbledore of the memory of the previous owner and the mistakes he made for example, how (as the original text discloses) his past relationship with Grindelwald delayed Dumbledore from taking actions sooner to stop the persecution of

Muggles under Grindelwald’s reign (Storm; Rowling, Deathly 577). In short, Storm’s story gives voice to Dumbledore and sheds light on the vulnerability of Dumbledore that is only subtly hinted at in the original text.

6.5. Concluding Thoughts on Fans’ Creative Writing

As mentioned above, the two areas of exploration the ten creative fan writers in the data set explore include Dumbledore’s difficult relationship with his family in his youth and his sexuality explored through the possibility of a romantic relationship between him and

Grindelwald. This suggests that issues such as an unhappy household, sexuality, as well as the matters of conscience and amend-making resonate with readers. In exploring and expanding themes relating to Dumbledore’s youth beyond what is revealed in the original story, reader- writers challenge the readers of their stories to pay close attention to the original text for unresolved issues, vaguely framed ideas, and hinted possibilities. In short, my examination and examples demonstrate the extent to which readers fill in the textual indeterminacies through the medium of fan fiction writing. For example, in their creative approach to interpret the original

83 text, fan writers raise and answer the following questions that the original text alludes to but does not fully develop:

1. How did Dumbledore feel about his father being arrested and sent to Azkaban for

retaliating against the three Muggle boys who bullied Ariana?

2. How did young Dumbledore behave towards his younger siblings? Did he ever feel

strong connections with them?

3. How did Dumbledore and Grindelwald meet and what kindled their possibly romantic

relationship? Did Dumbledore and Grindelwald still think of each other after their

fallout?

4. How did Dumbledore find courage to move forward with his life after Ariana’s

death?

5. Why did Dumbledore not share some of his personal history with Harry? Did he ever

contemplate how Harry might feel when he discovered how little he knew of his

mentor?

6. Given how Dumbledore failed at protecting his family from his own ambitions, how

did Dumbledore’s understanding of his own propensity for power affect his

understanding of others who failed where he failed?

To reiterate, Jenkins argues that fan fiction writing allows readers to make personal meanings within a text by re-making the text to make it more responsive to their interests and concerns

(Jenkins 40). In examining the ten fan fiction writers’ endeavours to re-construct the original text, what emerges is perhaps readers’ desire to explore issues that matter to them, such as sexuality and family relationship.

On a different note, many fan writers express their gratitude for their peer reviewers and ask their readers to review their writings, making quite evident that “the culture of participation”

(Jenkins 40) that Henry Jenkins speaks of is alive and thriving in the realm of online fandom. To recall Jenkins’ observation, fans are not simple readers/audiences but are those who connect with other readers/audiences and by doing so, create a participatory community of their own (Jenkins

41). Perhaps there are subtle differences between what the word “fans” implies and what the word “readers” signifies; “readers” perhaps engage in their private acts of reading and can be spoken of without a reference to the social connotation of reading, whereas “fans” exist in relation to other fans due to their mutual desire for connections allows them to expand their circle and promote their preferred text collaboratively as its champions. From the way in which the contributors to FanFiction.net exchange feedbacks, it is evident that online fandom has taken many of the fans into a public arena through a venue of an online fan community. There, fan writers connect with each other through their mutual desire to explore the deeper meanings of their preferred texts and to polish their own skills as writers. In other words, through exchanges of agreement, disagreement, reviews, and brainstorming among themselves, reader-writers use online fandom as an arena, in which to hone their imaginative power as storytellers and to develop their critical thinking as expert critics of an original text.

7. Conclusions and Opportunities for Further Studies

This investigation started with the question of how readers and authors engage in “a game of the imagination” (Iser, “Reading” 280) and how the thriving existence of online fandom affects the dynamic and changing nature of reader response. After journeying through 21 pieces of fan writings, it is evident that online fandom functions as an arena for public discussions as well as a training ground for new writers. Iser maintains that a literary work’s true value relies on a process in which textual indeterminacies within an original text inspires multiple interpretations of the said text on the part of readers (Iser, “Interaction” 50). Regarding textual indeterminacies, I turn to Karin Westman, who compares the language of Rowling to that of Jane

Austin, whom Rowling mentions in an interview in 2001 as one of her favourite authors

(Westman 145). Westman demonstrates that, akin to Jane Austin, Rowling writes from a perspective of a protagonist and in so doing, places her readers at the mercy of the protagonist’s limited understanding, sensitivity, and emotional maturity (148, 150-1). From the observations of fan writings, it is quite obvious that the texts allow readers to paint only an imperfect picture of

Dumbledore because their knowledge of the character is limited to what is revealed to and observed by Harry. Rowling’s particular writing style, therefore, encourages the existence of textual indeterminacies that subsequently inspire readers to fill in what is not written .

Further, discussions among readers within online fandom are conducted democratically, giving readers more power and control over their literary experience, as opposed to the often top- down model offered in formal education settings. This observation lends support to Saxena’s argument that online fandom has blurred the clear-cut distinction between writers and readers

(Saxena n.pag.). As reviewed above in the literature review section, Saxena reflects on the process of reader engagements with a text, in which textual meanings are deconstructed and re-

86 made by each reader upon each reading (Saxena n.pag.). Saxena’s understanding of a text as a more fluid entity is reinforced by the observation of fans writers, for they give new meanings to the source text by imagining the past, alternative present, and various futures for different characters. As Saxena observes, the thriving presence of online fandom, easily accessible to readers of all ages from diverse geographical origins, makes it possible for active reader participation in the form of fan writings to flourish further. A comment left by the creator of The

Harry Potter Lexicon, Steve Vander Ark, sheds light on how big an impact the development of computer technology, and with it the expansion of online fan communities, has had on readers’ ability to reach out to other readers:

Cataloguing something as thoroughly as I tend to do is HARD WORK. It takes a

lot of time . . . and itʼs also pretty much a thankless task, since no matter how

carefully and expertly I do the work, no one ever sees and appreciates it. This time

it was different, though. This time there was the Internet. This time I could share

all this work with a few other people. (emphasis added) (“History of The Harry

Potter Lexicon,” The Harry Potter Lexicon)

Indeed, without the existence of online venues, it would have been much more difficult for me to conduct an examination on the subject of reader-writers’ response to Harry Potter story.

7.1. Implications of the Study: The Controversy of Authorship and Authority

The relationship between readers and authors can be a controversial one when it comes to fan writing and authorial control of texts. Readers take the settings and characters suggested by authors’ texts and weave them into their own writing. On the one hand, some authors such as

Anne Rice are quite passionate about protecting their own characters and world and what they see as their rights as original authors to shield their creation from fan fiction writers (Waters).

Such writers see fan fiction writers as exploiters and are strongly against their characters and imaginative worlds being used in a fan fiction setting. In regards to this reality, the creator and editor of FanFiction.net, Xing Li, stated that FanFiction.net has a long-standing policy to remove works based on the works of authors who do not condone fan fiction stories and have requested fan stories based on their own works be withdrawn (Waters). On the other hand, some authors support fan fiction as a new form of free advertisement and condone, if not champion, their existence as long as fans do not intend to profit from their writings (Waters). For example, the author of Enderʼs Game, Orson Scott Card, who was originally against fan fiction because he thought it violated his intellectual property as an author, eventually changed his attitude and started to approach the fans (Alter). For example, Card hosted a contest of fan fiction stories on his official website, advertising that the winner would have his or her work published as part of

Card’s upcoming book (Alter).

While some authors might see readers who turn fan fictions writers as tolerable at best, readers often turn critical eyes towards authors whom they perceive as controlling the texts by offering extra-textual facts and exercising authorial authority post-publication. Rowling’s announcement regarding Dumbledore’s sexuality is considered to be one of those occasions where an author is attempting to wield control over her texts after the story is published and the official storyline is concluded. Of course, whether Dumbledore’s homosexuality is canonical or not is another question about which academics and readers seem to be of two minds; that is, while the text does not explicitly assert Dumbledore’s homosexuality, it can be argued that the possibility is hinted at. For example, Gendler observes that “it seems fair to say that while it

[Dumbledore’s homosexuality] is compatible with the story’s primary truths (and perhaps even suggested by them . . . ), it is not strictly implied by them” (emphases in original) (150).

With regards to the issue of what is written in a text and what is interpreted by readers,

Gendler turns to reader response theory and its implications (151-2). Gendler draws upon a school of reader response theory that asserts that there is no one correct interpretation of a given text and there are as many interpretations (or more since a single reader could construct multiple interpretations) as there are readers (151). One circle of reader response theorists argue that among these multiple interpretations any one single interpretation—even that of the author— should not be privileged over others (Gendler 151-2). On the other hand, Gendler observes that a different circle of literary theorists advocate for authorial intent to be one single source of correct interpretation of a text and that it is readers’ duty to strive to understand a particular meaning an author tries to communicate (152). In response to this author-centric view, however, some critics raised objections even before the advent of reader response theory. For example, Wimsatt and

Beardsley, in their essay “The Intentional Fallacy” argue that the literary text “is not the critic’s own and not the author’s (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it) . . . [for] the poem belongs to the public” (470).

Wimsatt and Beardsley further object to the practice of readers deferring to the author for meaning, maintaining that an authority of interpretation and understanding should not be granted to the author outside the written text and that the work of critics is not to assume that of a historian or a psychologist (471). As it is discussed below with reference to an essay posted by

Angua on The Leaky Cauldron site, this contention between authorial authority and reader response is an interesting one especially when authors try to change the narrative of the story through extra-textual statement after the text was published and story concluded. Given the prevalence of online fan fiction writing and reading, this issue of the rightful place of authorial voice post-publication is expected to become a focal point in future discussions.

While a shadow of a figure can be constructed from connecting small dots of details across the seven books, large gaps of textual indeterminacies remain with regards to

Dumbledore, prompting readers to fill in those gaps with their imagination. The fact that four of the ten creative fan writers, either directly or indirectly, address the issue of Dumbledore’s sexuality suggests that readers respond to the textual implications and perhaps to Rowling’s post- publication statement. It is apparent that readers find it worthwhile to examine the question of

Dumbledore’s sexuality, the answer to which the original text does not divulge. As Henry

Jenkins observes, for some readers this is perhaps due to the fact that even a hint at the possibility of Dumbledore’s homosexuality offers a point of special connection with the story, allowing them to explore an issue close to readers’ hearts.

Below, some discussions presented by academics regarding the position of an author as a critic of his or her own work in an academic setting are reviewed. While their point of discussion is not quite on the issue of extra-textual authorial communication post-publication, the questions raised in the discussions bare some implications to the issue at hand. In the article “Critiquing

Calypso: Authorial and Academic Bias in the Reading of a Young Adult Novel,” Catherine

Butler wrestles with the question of authority and credibility of an author as a critic of his or her own work. She asserts that while authors are “recognized as having knowledge and expertise regarding their texts, they are typically regarded as unreliable sources when it comes to critical analysis, and as partial witnesses whose personal association with the text is liable to inﬂuence their judgement” (Butler 264). While acknowledging that the concerns presented above are sound, Butler counters this position, stating that many authors and academic critics begin their reading and examination of texts from a position where “bias is the universal condition of critical reading” (266). In other words, all readers—including an author of the text as well as critics—are

90 far from being disinterested and are equally subject to personal and professional aspirations and predispositions (Butler 264). With this position as a premise, Butler questions whether “authors of ﬁction today stand in a place of critical privilege, or of disadvantage” (265). To partially answer this self-imposed question, Butler asserts that for authors, “there is a constant rivalry between the work as published and the ideal work one originally envisaged, to say nothing of its myriad interim forms, all of which colour one’s sense of the text” (266). Butler further argues that it is perverse to disqualify the author an expert of a text from critical discussion stressing that including the author in academic discussions is not equal to assigning to authors “the god- like authority to determine the text’s meaning” (276). In fact, Butler argues that a critical opinion of an author—the person who “devoted unusual amounts of time and energy to considering the book’s form and meaning” (276)—is a rich point of reference and the writer may be relied upon to join and perhaps lead critical discussion of the text (Butler 276). Butler here writes from a perspective of an author who is also an academic and a critic. Unfortunately, Butler does not contemplate in her essay what relationship could be forged between an author who wishes to participate in the critical discussion of the text and readers who wish to stand on equal terms with the author as interpreters of the text in that critical discussion.

Julia Moss Zarb also sheds light on the critical function of the post-publication voice of an author, its challenges and merits (Zarb ii). In her dissertation, “From the Horse’s Mouth:

Critical Issues of Post-Publication Authorial Influence,” Zarb identifies critical values in “a situation where the reader is empowered with the interpretive discretion to allow or disallow post-publication authorial statements into the reading process” (iii). Zarb firmly upholds that

“[an] author may, in fact, proffer expedient detail without taking on a totalizing neo-Romantic authority over a work’s meaning” (20). Zarb further argues that extra-textual statements by

91 authors can be considered as enablers for deeper reading when readers approach post-publication authorial statements with an awareness of this distinction that readers can refer to authorial voice which offer alternative entry points to the text without regarding authorial voice as offering one true interpretative possibility (Zarb iii, 20). Drawing on the theory presented by Iser, Zarb reiterates the point that by engaging with a fictional text, readers are invited to explore the working of the author and characters’ hearts and minds within the confines of textual indeterminacies (Zarb 9). Zarb maintains that during the process of reading, extra-textual statements can facilitate alternative readings on the readers’ parts and their repeated readings will then create further meanings (Zarb 10, 11). Notably, Zarb seems to suggest that in the current age, readers have greater opportunities to look to authors’ extra-textual communications and still remain to be in a position to choose freely, whether to accept, question, or reject authors’ extra- textual voices (10). Perhaps, as Zarb predicts, discussions between readers and an author post publication can be a part of normal dialogues within the fan community (Zarb). Although Zarb does not mention the online realm directly, it is safe to assume that public arenas such as fan sites, where authors directly interact with readers, contribute to a greater level of communications between readers and authors post-publication.

Further, as Butler mentions, authors go through tremendous amount of rewrites and edits in the course of their writing, not to mention, the changes the text undergoes during the publication process (Butler 265-6, 276). In other words, if we take into consideration what is edited out and added by editors who have considerations other than textual meanings and quality of writing such as what is marketable and profitable the point of publication may not be the best place to evaluate what authors meant to leave in a given text, which is their only tool of official communication with readers. In the big picture of the writing process, perhaps it is safe to

92 say that what is and what is not extra-textual may not be as clear-cut as suggested by some readers who strongly reject the credibility and value of authorial statements post-publication. For some authors, the process of writing may become much more interactive and even communal in the context of online fan sites and the boundary of the published text may become elusive.

Instead of having their thoughts and ideas “frozen in the time and place of writing” (Zarb 24), authors are able to clarify, defend, or expand their ideas, while readers are able to question, challenge, and request further writings. In such a setting, both parties can suggest and prompt further meaning-making or, as Zarb puts it, offer alternative points of entry into the text (20).

One reader-writer who alludes to an interesting aspect of the author-reader relationship is

Angua. Contributing to online fandom through The Leaky Cauldron site, Angua examine some of Rowling’s extra-textual statements that can be interpreted as her attempt to control, shape, and direct readers’ literary experience (Angua). First, Angua looks at a wealth of extra-textual information with regards to Harry Potter books, which is supplied through supplemental pamphlet books written by J.K. Rowling, details provided by Rowling through her interviews, and Rowling’s comments and posts on her official websites (Angua). Angua notes that through

Rowling’s interviews, it is apparent the author is acutely aware of the existence and the magnitude of Harry Potter online fandom and one can observe how her attitude shifted from being suspicious of fan writing to being more positive towards fan stories sometime around the publication of the fifth book, which also coincides with the launching of her own website

(Angua).

Echoing Butler and Zarb, Angua questions whether an author’s interpretation and understanding of his or her text should be privileged over that of other readers. Angua notes that what is potentially problematic is the limiting influence an author’s vision may have on readers,

93 if an author expresses one particular interpretation of a text post-publication. While Angua does not explicitly condone or condemn authors’ perceived right to communicate their own understanding of the texts, Angua suspects that authors’ views could heavily influence and perhaps limit readers’ understanding of a text. Therefore, Angua challenges readers to question what lasting effects authors’ attempt (either inadvertently or intentionally) to direct readers to envision their texts in a certain way. Drawing some conclusions from literary theories, Angua maintains that perhaps readers have the potential to expand their literary experience only when authors detach themselves from the text after its publication and let it belong to the public.

Angua upholds this view that the text belongs to the public after its publication, making the author’s interpretations no more relevant or privileged than those of any other reader.

Further, Angua notes that when an author establishes one interpretation as the correct one, multiplicity of other potential meanings may dissipate, potentially diminishing the value of literary experience for some readers. Angua explains this possibility by drawing attention to

Rowling’s desire to have Lupin’s character illustrate society’s prejudice against those with an illness or a disability; when she voiced this vision in public, some readers who previously interpreted Lupin’s character as representing other issues they could relate to (for example, homosexuality) felt their relationship with the text was somewhat damaged (Angua).

Furthermore, Angua suspects that some of those readers perceived Rowling’s statement as her

“attempt to ‘control’ their readings and invalidate any interpretations that don’t match hers”

(Angua n.pag.). Moreover, to put an emphasis on Angua’s reflection on author interfering with readers’ literary experience, Angua identifies an incident in which Rowling inadvertently angered some readers at the Edinburgh Book Festival when she stated that she could not understand why some female readers were attracted to the character of Draco Malfoy. Angua

94 mentions that some readers expressed indignation at what they perceived as Rowling’s condescending attitude regarding which characters are meant to be good and which are meant to be bad.

A noteworthy point in Angua’s essay is how Angua calls attention to a dynamic in which an author is aware of the presence of fervent online fandom, a venue in which he or she could choose to connect and communicate with readers, and how some authors utilise this venue to exercise authorial control over readers (Angua). Many of the readers read the Harry Potter series of seven books in the span of ten years, following the series from the publication of the first book in 1997 to the last in 2007. During each hiatus, fan interactions often involved communication with the author and after online fan sites have become prevalent, such communications with the author took place mostly on various online fan sites (Angua). Angua observes that most fans accept and enjoy complementary information provided by Rowling because added details further illuminate the world and the characters Rowling created and shed light onto some of the mysteries left by the texts. These readers regard Rowling’s actions of providing such additional information in a positive light, considering them perhaps as her honourable efforts to connect with her readers (Angua). On the other hand, other readers, Angua states, interpret Rowling’s willingness to communicate with her readers through interviews and online posts in a negative light and perceive it as her need to maintain “control over how the Harry Potter books will be read and understood” (Angua n.pag.).

On the day Rowling’s official website was launched in May 2004 (shortly before the publication of The Half-Blood Price), Angua reports that Rowling left a welcome message on the website, explaining to fans that she created the website in order so that she would to be able to reach her readers more directly and share extra information with them whenever possible

(Angua). While Angua acknowledges strong marketing motivations on Rowling’s part to launch an official website, Angua also observes that Rowling seemed genuinely interested in using the website to promote further understanding of the books as well as further connections with her readers (Angua). It should be noted here once again that when creating exclusion criteria for

Harry Potter fan sites, one of the websites I first chose to exclude was J.K. Rowling’s official

Harry Potter website. This decision was made because official websites are controlled by agendas that authors wish to put forward rather than those of readers. The control and initiatives belong to the author not the readers, which defeats the purpose of examining how Harry Potter books impact readers and how the texts inspire them to participate in online fandom. With regards to Rowling’s official Harry Potter site, Angua is disconcerted by how readers take on subservient positions within the website. For example, Rowling’s website features awards

Rowling gives out to fans who solve some mysteries or puzzles she sets out within the website

(Angua). For example, she gives out marks such as Outstanding and Troll, identical to the

Hogwarts’ marking system, the implication here being Rowling is the teacher and readers as her students (Angua). As Angua observes, it is evident on the website just how much control and authority Rowling maintains; in Pottermore, Rowling holds a hegemonic part as opposed to being brought down to stand on equal ground with her readers (Angua).

Perhaps the outrage over Rowling’s post-publication statements—such as her admission about the personal reasons behind Hermione and Ron’s relationship and her revelation regarding

Dumbledore’s sexuality—occurred because many readers still perceive that only the readings/interpretations of the text that are supported by the facts professed by the author either within a text or post-publication are authoritative and acceptable (Flood; Press Association). If one were to take this view, an author has the power to invalidate some of readers’ interpretations;

96 this approach is then likely to introduce a dichotomy between an author-god and deferential readers. In such cases, authorial statements post-publication can be regarded as authorial interventions, a power play manoeuvre on the part of an author to impose control over readers’ literary experience. However, if one were to take the view that after the publication of a text, readers and authors stand on equal ground as critics and can exchange and discuss their understandings and interpretations on equal terms, perhaps such a view will contribute to establishing a more amiable relationship between authors and readers, in which both parties have the ability to facilitate further reading from the other. An aspect that is hard to resolve may be the question of whether an authorial view should be treated any differently from that of an ordinary reader. While there is the concern of authorial voice skewing a literary experience of readers, readers are not in a position to know the inner thoughts of authors or what authors envisioned for a text before some parts were edited out from the original texts in the editorial process. When it comes to authors such as Rowling, who established her world so meticulously and with intricate details that never made it onto the pages of the published text, it is hard to judge what is extra- textual and what is not and a reader’s understandings of the text may very well be enriched by these extra-textual authorial statements.

7.2. Concluding Thoughts

Possibilities for further research are as follows: 1) a continued examination of reader response in the realm of an online realm as an avenue for understanding how literature affect human life, and 2) a further investigation of authorship and authority, particularly on the subject of authorial intervention post-publication. With regards to the first point, a continued examination of reader response in the online realm can be expanded to include examinations of other characters, other online fan sites, fan fictions stories that completely change the parameters

97 set up by an author, and how readers use other mediums of reader response to express their reading experience. Further, both of the questions may be examined in parallel with the notion of literature as being an undetermined and fluid entity. To conclude, the goal of this thesis was to connect the analysis of reader response theory with the actual writings of readers in an online fandom setting, a setting where readers develop a sense of camaraderie over their favourite books (Borah 360-61). In addressing the research question—how does fan writing contribute to literary experiences of readers and how does it add meaning and value to a literary work?—I would argue that my examination of fan writings lends support to Iser’s argument that the value of a written text lies in the convergence of a text and readers, particularly when readers engage with a text and transform it by constructing additional meanings. The multitude of interpretive possibilities that readers offer through their reading, re-reading, and discussions of the text with their peers—as readers of Harry Potter stories do through their analytical and creative writings—arguably make the original text greater in its value than what it was at the time of publication. Employing Ingarten’s metaphor once again, a text is like a musical score; it takes a true life form only when a performer plays its music (Green and LeBihan 188). In this manner, a text becomes multi-dimensional and more organic, acquiring further depth for readers to marvel at. Harry Potter fandom has grown and flourished because readers discovered meaning an element that spoke to them within the story that affected them personally in some way to the extent that they wished to share their experience with others. In this process, an individual reader’s personal experience is transformed into a social one.4 Literature as the work of art then

4. In the spirit of ending with the very beginning, the history of the Harry Potter books is to be biographically situated below, for it is evident that keen eyes of a few readers played a key role in bringing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone into the world. Initially, the

98 becomes an entity with expanding social meaning and history that are co-constructed by its readers. The Harry Potter universe, as with the universe of any set of literary texts, extends well beyond the books themselves.

manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was sent to a reject bin at Christopher

Little’s literary agency (Smith n.pag.). However, Bryony Evens, an office manager to

Christopher Little, picked up the manuscript from the reject bin because its unusual binding caught her eyes and she soon afterwards handed the manuscript to Little with her great commendation (Smith n.pag.). Little then called at Bloomsbury Publishing office and handed a sample of the manuscript to Nigel Newton, the CEO of Bloomsbury Publishing (Lawless n.pag.).

Newton took the manuscript home but instead of examining it himself handed it to Alice, his eight years old daughter (Lawless n.pag.). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’s fate was sealed when Alice “came down from her room an hour later glowing” (Lawless n.pag.) and told her father, “Dad, this is so much better than anything else” (Lawless n.pag.).

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Appendix A. Themes covered by fan writing across analytical and creative writing

author type of Word source Albus Albus as Destiny childhood Trauma Albus’ Authority Sexuality Author writing count Dumbledore a father/ & free & family & sense moral & control, authority as the God mentor will of guilt ambiguity secrets & & figure lies Authorial control

1 birthday twins critical 2547 L x 2 Caltheous critical 2950 L x 3 Mary Wanguard critical 3400 L x x x 4 Rosamonde Bane critical 2800 L x x 5 Emma critical 5146 L x x x 6 Sly_Like_Slytherin critical 582 M x x 7 Riley Leonhardt critical 2712 L x x x x 8 Ib4075 critical 1704 L x x x x 9 The Rotfang critical 6183 L x x x Conspiracy ’07 10 Theowyn critical 4287 L x x x x 11 Sarah Putnam Park critical 3572 L x x x x

1 RobynElizabeth creative 3044 F x 2 AngleMoon Girl creative 6152 F 3 CyborgNinjasInLove creative 6978 F x x x x 4 The Half Mad Muggle creative 3115 F x x x 5 biopotter creative 5573 F x x 6 estuesday creative 6574 F x 7 MissPadfoot100 creative 3422 F x 8 Kilara25 creative 5428 F x x 9 Wuff creative 6561 F x x x x 10 Sahara Strom creative 7229 F x x x

Angua critical 8867 L x M=Mugglenet, L= The Leaky Cauldron, F=Fanficion.net