First of all, I want to be clear that I do NOT mean to discuss fanfics and pairings therein. I realize that, for many reasons - most of which I find rather unfortunate - popular fantasy authors like JK Rowling (referred to as JKR from hereon) do not (will not?) introduce openly queer (GLBT) characters in their fiction (like the Harry Potter books). However, that is not to say that there are very plausible and worthwhile queer readings in the books themselves.
Here're my questions: Have you, in your readings of popular series (like Harry Potter, Narnia etc.), observed characters that are queer and/or in queer relationships, especially in the Harry Potter books? If so, could you justify your reading with entirely canon writings (ex. quotes from JKR)?
For HP books 1-5, I thought Blaise Zabini was an excellent example of a gender-bending character. Of course, in HBP, Blaise was revealed to be a male. This is just an example that didn't quite work out. But, please, I would like to have a serious discussion on this topic, and not hear stuff like "Umbridge is really a man's drag attempt gone bad and that's why (s)he's such a b***h" You might notice I have specifically not listed LOTR in the list. I believe it's a topic for an entirely different post
BTW, I posted these questions in Mugglenet and within 5 minutes, the entire post was deleted because they don't discuss "alternate sexualities". I was honestly a bit disappointed by that, but hey, its their site!
