Show-Me the Argument

For those who do not know, recently J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books revealed that Dumbledore (the school headmaster) was gay. Here’s a quote from Time, the details of which will be relevant later:

The big revelation of the night came when she was asked if Dumbledore had ever found love. With a sigh, she seemed on the verge of saying no, but then revealed, “my truthful answer to you… I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” After a collective gasp, the audience roared with applause. Rowling was clearly astonished by the positive reaction and exclaimed, “if I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!”

Justin brought this up at lunch on Tuesday, and the question came up as to whether Rowling’s revelation changed the truth of the matter or the text stood alone as a sole authority. For those who accept textual authority, something like the following conditional is affirmed:

(TA) A proposition p about a story S (revealed by a text T) is true only if (1) p is explicitly stated in T or (2) p is entailed by other propositions explicitly stated in T.

(I say “something like” TA because, as presented, TA may not be a precise formulation of the view. But I think the general point is made.)

Those who would affirm TA deny that Rowling has any more authority on the matter than your average reader. I was persuaded by this initially; now I don’t think so. My argument is below the fold.

There are a couple of ways to avoid being committed to TA (or some form of it). For one, you could hold the Lockean view that the truths about the Harry Potter world are all “in the mind of Rowling” and what she has chosen to reveal in the seven books are only a portion of the story. I think this view is supported by the quote above: “if I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago.” This seems to suggest that Dumbledore’s sexuality was a fact about the story that she already knew – but chose not to explicitly reveal.
More support is gained for this Lockean picture:

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

I think this is compelling. Rowling oversees the script-writing and directing. Surely then, the movies are “part of the story.” (If it were to be explicitly revealed in the 6th movie, would you return to the text as the authoritative guide? I’m not sure about this.)

But if you don’t like that, here’s another argument:
1. If TA is true, then an author has no more authority on the text than the average reader.
2. The author does have more authority (in fact the highest authority) on the text.
3. So, TA is false.

Defense of 2: Even though she has announced that the seventh book was the end of the series, it’s plausible to imagine that she writes an eighth installment. Rowling alone has the authority to write a chapter in the Harry Potter series. (Ask yourself – if a new Harry Potter book came out written by someone other than Rowling, would you regard it as a true “part of the Harry Potter story”. I don’t think so.) And even if you reject her authority to write an 8th book, surely she could write a “6½”th book that chronicled event between the 6th and 7th book.
Now, if she alone has the authority to write an accepted installment of the Harry Potter series, then – if in an 8th (or 6½th) book she reveals explicitly that Dumbledore is gay, wouldn’t you accept that as part of the story? If you say ‘no’, then what is the justification? Surely you can’t arbitrarily preclude one part of the story. (It seems that by parity of reasoning, you can argue that had I read only the 1st book, I could affirm that there is no romantic interest between Ron and Hermoine, precluding the facts and implicit hints dropped as early as the 3rd book.)

Consider writing a critical philosophy paper. If the original author A came back and said that S’s interpretation of A’s argument was incorrect, who are you going to believe is correct – A or S? If you are committed to TA, then you have to say (at least) that A’s interpretation of her argument is no better than S’s. That seems odd.

Thoughts? (Sorry for the long post. This should make up for my lack of posting in the past!)
Here are the links to the articles I cite if you’re interested:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1674073,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1674069,00.html

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 4:36 am and is filed under Aesthetics, Frivolity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.