What JKR can learn with Uncle Rick: the importance of seeing yourself
in your favorite characters
By: Thaís Rosa
I love reading. When I was just a little girl my mother used to read to me (and you may think this is a very common practice, but in Brazil it’s not), and as I grew older, I started to do some reading myself — we would trade reader-listener positions every two chapters. Mom says she’ll never forget the day I called her up at work and asked her if I could read a chapter or two of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows without her — oh, my baby is soooo grown-up and book obsessed, I’m so proud!
People used to say Hermione reminded them of me, especially regarding
movie-Hermione. Even though it can be said that I’m quite bossy, I believe a great part of this comparison was based on the whole bushy-haired business. Regardless of the reasons, I did see myself in Hermione — she liked to read, always appreciated the value of knowledge, would do anything for her friends and, sometimes, got quite emotional (and tears weren’t used to portray her as weaker or less valuable than the other characters). And, of course, the bushy-hair (at least in the first three movies).
Relating to Hermione made me even more confident on my academic pursuits and reading habits, and eventually on my bushy-hair. JK Rowling will be forever in my heart, and I’m thankful to her for making such amazing, deep and relatable characters.
In a not so great development, I read Twilight in middle-school and felt deeply connected to Bella. Oh, deep adolescent dramatic love! I understood how she felt, because I would feel as devastated by my Edward leaving as she was in New Moon. I cried so very much, before school, during school — and until this day my friends won’t let me live this down -, and after school. But the worst part was that sometime around that period, I started dating, and my first romantic relationship started-out quite Edward-Bellaesque, sadly.
As a full-grown feminist, nowadays it’s easy for me to see how reading stories with strong female characters I could relate to impacted positively in my life. Likewise, my experiences made me aware of how dangerous it can be when characters are misrepresented, and relatable as such — especially for being insecure. Insecurities exist, and they should be portrayed — and these characters will, of course, be relatable. But, for young readers, it’s important that the plot develops the character so they can become strong and confident, and overcome their hardships by their own efforts and merits (although help from loved ones is always welcome, as long as they don’t magically fix everything themselves).
The lazy queerifying of Albus Dumbledore
When JKR announced that, well, Dumbledore is gay, OBVIOUSLY, my world didn’t really change at all. I was just your average heterossexual Harry Potter fan at the time, and all I thought was: “Really? Wow, I didn’t see that coming. But ok!”. Some years later, though, I managed to become truly HP Trash, as we like to call ourselves, and dove into online fandom without a life vest or any life savers around to keep an eye on me.
And the whole gay Dumbledore thing really started to bug me. It took me ages to understand the whole issue, because I was all like: “Well, isn’t it good that there’s an official queer character now though?”. But then the internet started educating me and I understood that saying someone is LGBT+ after the series is done doesn’t have the same value as making an effort to include truly strong, deep, three-dimensional queer characters within the narrative from the beginning.
And then Cursed Child came along and I was SO PISSED. Because JK, you had a golden opportunity right there. I’m sorry, but those boys are absolutely gay for each other, how could you let someone write their love so well and then disregard it completely in the end? I know JK didn’t write it herself, but they do sell it as the “8th Harry Potter book”, so she will have to take responsibility for it. And I won’t even get started in on the Fantastic Beasts franchise, their woman-beater actor and the fact that Dumbledore still won’t be openly gay in this.
Uncle Rick is saving the day, one gay at a time
Sometime during High School, I read Percy Jackson and the Olympians and really enjoyed it. I liked greek mythology, action-packed literature, so what’s there not to love? But once again, the plot thickens — internet was suddenly going on and on about
queer representation in Rick Riordan’s books and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
After putting it off for a couple of years, and having come out as queer myself since then, I’ve finally read Riordan’s books. I now advocate for LGBT+ representation in literature more than ever, and when it comes to children’s or young teen’s books, even more so. Because, as Uncle Rick says himself, THERE ARE queer children. So, of course, we should write to and about them.
Queer representation in Riordan’s books can be easily summarized by this post I once saw on Tumblr [SPOILER ALERT, kinda?]:
Everyone: we want more LGBT+ characters in our stories!
Rick Riordan: okay here have a gay Italian sad boy
Everyone: I mean, it’s all right but-
Rick Riordan: I undestand. Want a bisexual main character, who happens to be a god?
Everyone: oh that’s actually nice… but! How about girls-
Rick Riordan: you’re totally right. Here, have a pair of lesbian hunters
Everyone: …um this is actually pretty nice… how about-
Rick Riordan: a pansexual main character?
Everyone: yea-
Rick Riordan: with a gender fluid love interest? Say no more! Anything else?
Everyone: I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d get this far…
The “I didn’t think I’d get this far” part is completely bitter-sweet: LGBT+
community is still under-represented in popular culture, especially in YA literature. But things have been looking up, and Uncle Rick is one very nice example. Reading Magnus Chase taught me a lot of things I didn’t know about muslim culture, deaf-mutism and, yes, gender-fluidity. Even though many criticism can be made — some think Riordan’s characters feel a bit forced, or that some of the issues tackled aren’t represented as accurately or deeply as they should -, I still feel like Rick is trying, and most importantly, he’s LISTENING.
He is a middle-school teacher, and he is paying attention. He is observing and
listening to what the kids and teens have to say, what they want. And I feel like with every new book, he tries to do better than the last one. It’s not perfect, but it certainly is refreshing.
Go make me some gays now! And try not to do a terrible job of it
Even though you think you know something, you can always re-learn it. This applies to Riordan, who tries to re-learn his concepts of diversity and representation with each new series, and this applies to me: I’m repeatedly amazing myself with how much it is important to see myself in the books I read, and have positive diverse role models to pick from these narratives.
While reading Trials of Apollo, I had once more the opportunity to feel like “wow, this person is totally me”. Not just bissexual, but a flirt? I find the fact that Apollo is equally eager to hit on cute people from any gender quite amusing and relatable. But the thing that really got me about Heroes of Olympus, Magnus Chase or Trials of Apollo was something I said the other day, without even thinking it over: “I’m eager to read these books to my kids one day”. The importance of representation goes well beyond my personal satisfaction in seeing myself in a character — it’s also about wanting everyone and anyone to have the opportunity to feel the same.
Riordan won The Stonewall Award for his third Magnus Chase book, and in his acceptance speech, he said: “It’s a call to do better in my own writing. As one of my genderqueer readers told me recently: ‘Hey, thanks for Alex. You didn’t do a terrible job!”, and I thought: Yes! Not doing a terrible job was my goal!”. Even though some accuse him of being forceful or having secret agendas, and I guess I’ll never know if this is true, I’ve chosen to take Uncle Rick for his word: he is listening, and he is trying to not do terribly. That will have to do for now.
And JKR should be taking notes. It’s ok to be imperfect, but it’s important to try and do better when you have the opportunity. If you want your stories to be more diverse, stop tweeting about character’s sexualities and start writing them. And, with luck, when I read to my children as my mother read to me, I will have the pleasure to hold in my hands books more diverse than the ones I had when I was a child, and they will be able to relate to characters regardless of who they turn out to be.
