The "existence" of characters beyond the written word

Spiral Stairs

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I’m sure most of you heard that J.K. Rowling “announced” that a character in the Harry Potter series – Dumbledore – “is” gay. (Disclaimer: I have not read any Harry Potter books; I have not seen any Harry Potter movies.)

Something struck me as very odd about this statement. Dumbledore is a fictional character. He exists – and “is” whatever he “is” – only because Rowling put some words on a piece of paper. As a result, to my mind, the circumstances and facts relating to his “existence” are solely those that are spelled out on the page. It just doesn’t make any sense to me, as a reader, to think that the author still “controls” the character after “The End.” I am free to imagine other aspects of characters, but it bothers me that an author feels free to hover just offstage, ready to pop in after the curtain’s come down and tell us more facts about characters who are, for literary purposes, gone.

Since I have not read any Harry Potter books, I am not invested in Dumbledore as a character. I don't "know" him. By analogy, I imagine what it would feel like if John Updike said in an interview that Rabbit Angstrom -- whom I do "know" -- was gay (or a CIA spy, or an alien). I would feel pissed and cheated. When a writer closes the book on a character, the reader is implicitly told, “There you go. I’ve said everything I’m going to say. Everything else is up to you.”

Does it bother anyone else?

(Further disclaimer: I have not found Rowling’s actual quote. She has been paraphrased, at least, as saying the character “is” gay, as opposed to saying that she “thinks he might be” gay. I think the latter might be a fair comment from Rowling, as she is simply expressing an inference that could be drawn from the words she has written, as opposed to asserting a completely independent fact.)
 

Angelinity

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doesn't bother me. considering the new theory proposing an infinite number of universes where every concievable course of action is individually explored, i don't exclude the possibility that organised thought -- and written fiction especially -- may actually create realities somewhere in the omniverse. characters may well continue to develop?

for its creator, the character certainly continues to exist and develop beyond 'The End'.
 
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ColoradoGuy

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Interesting question. With the popularity of the Potter books I wouldn't be surprised if aspects of the characters and their fictional world enter the language in the way other fictional characters and their worlds have, forming part of the common store of language even for those who have never read the books. Several Dickens characters have done this; for example "pickwickian" is in the OED for "generous, jovial, and plump". Maybe Dumbledore will achieve that, too.
 

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Interesting question. With the popularity of the Potter books I wouldn't be surprised if aspects of the characters and their fictional world enter the language in the way other fictional characters and their worlds have, forming part of the common store of language even for those who have never read the books. Several Dickens characters have done this; for example "pickwickian" is in the OED for "generous, jovial, and plump". Maybe Dumbledore will achieve that, too.

It's also one of those things where the public wants more out of an author (and I guess the characters) in a kind of "human interest story" way.

For example, R. Chandler said that Philip Marlowe had briefly attended Oregon State University....though this is not mentioned in any of the books.

It's sort of a case where journalistic demands generate a penumbra of fiction around the actual fiction.
 

JoNightshade

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As far as I'm concerned, everything exists inside the novel. If it's not in the text, it's not there. Fans and lit students can debate about it all they want, but the text is the text.

Personally I thought it was in bad taste (incidentally, I don't read the Potter books either) for the author to start "adding" stuff after the fact. If it was important enough to her, she ought to have included it in the books. She didn't, so clearly it wasn't.
 

JLCwrites

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Agreed. Let the reader create the character in his/her own mind. Should an author embellish and add more information about characters after the book is published? IMO, no. I understand that recently the public wants to delve deeper into an author's imagination, but what ever happened to the reader's imagination?
 

Higgins

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As far as I'm concerned, everything exists inside the novel. If it's not in the text, it's not there. Fans and lit students can debate about it all they want, but the text is the text.

Personally I thought it was in bad taste (incidentally, I don't read the Potter books either) for the author to start "adding" stuff after the fact. If it was important enough to her, she ought to have included it in the books. She didn't, so clearly it wasn't.

How can everything exist "inside the novel"? There are all kinds of assumptions about the universe and society and the meaning of songs and sounds and gestures that only make sense if you connect them up with things outside the novel. For example, if the hero is presented as driving a Starlight 51, drinking whisky, listening to Elvis on the radio and taking to his friend about the high school football game they played the day before...you're going to use all kinds of external information to make sense of that...and then suppose the author says later that (as it happens) he never drank and drove in high school, that's going to alter your feelings about the hero.
 

JoNightshade

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How can everything exist "inside the novel"? There are all kinds of assumptions about the universe and society and the meaning of songs and sounds and gestures that only make sense if you connect them up with things outside the novel. For example, if the hero is presented as driving a Starlight 51, drinking whisky, listening to Elvis on the radio and taking to his friend about the high school football game they played the day before...you're going to use all kinds of external information to make sense of that...

Contextual/factual information is much different than the emotional reality of a particular character. What I mean is not that you can't reference things outside the novel (although I hate brand names), but that your character has no reality besides the words on the page. He exists within the universe you create for him.

and then suppose the author says later that (as it happens) he never drank and drove in high school, that's going to alter your feelings about the hero.

No, it's not. It definitely shouldn't, in fact. Fiction is fiction. Either you buy the story when you read it or you don't.

This is why I prefer not to know anything about the authors who write the books I like. :)

Anyway this is just my opinion, how I look at things. Arguing about this stuff is delving into the field of--

oh, is this in the critical theory board? Dangit!

See you guys later. :)
 

DonnaDuck

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The way I see it, if the details were important enough for the story, it should have been included in the story itself, as in the text. I am quite content with what I read and let my mind do the rest but there are many people out there, especially in the Potter fandom, that won't let the sleeping dog lie and want to know every minutiae about every character for whatever reason. I think the author adding in things after the fact, for me, doesn't change the book at all, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. 20 years down the road when a new generation of people are stumbling upon these books, is it going to matter what came out of her mouth after the books were written? It's not like "Dumbledore is gay" is going to be written on the inside cover, nor is any other detail she's given about the world in interviews but not put in the books. As far as I'm concerned, what she, or any author, says about their work holds little bearing, especially when it comes to time because in order for people to find out information like this, they're going to have to dig for it, presuming they even know it exists. The book will transcend far beyond the interviews so I tend to not listen to them.
 

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The way I see it, if the details were important enough for the story, it should have been included in the story itself, as in the text. I am quite content with what I read and let my mind do the rest but there are many people out there, especially in the Potter fandom, that won't let the sleeping dog lie and want to know every minutiae about every character for whatever reason. I think the author adding in things after the fact, for me, doesn't change the book at all, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. 20 years down the road when a new generation of people are stumbling upon these books, is it going to matter what came out of her mouth after the books were written? It's not like "Dumbledore is gay" is going to be written on the inside cover, nor is any other detail she's given about the world in interviews but not put in the books. As far as I'm concerned, what she, or any author, says about their work holds little bearing, especially when it comes to time because in order for people to find out information like this, they're going to have to dig for it, presuming they even know it exists. The book will transcend far beyond the interviews so I tend to not listen to them.

What about books such as The Magus, which exist in two very different versions? Your choice of which version of the same fiction to take as the fiction and which to take as "outside" the fiction is pretty much outside the fiction.
 

DonnaDuck

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What about books such as The Magus, which exist in two very different versions? Your choice of which version of the same fiction to take as the fiction and which to take as "outside" the fiction is pretty much outside the fiction.


I have no idea what you're talking about so I can't even comment on your point of reference. I take it this is a book written in two different ways? If so, considering there's only one version of each Harry Potter book then there's only one point of author-drawn reference for the fiction world itself.
 

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I have no idea what you're talking about so I can't even comment on your point of reference. I take it this is a book written in two different ways? If so, considering there's only one version of each Harry Potter book then there's only one point of author-drawn reference for the fiction world itself.

So different kinds of fiction have different rules about what is inside and what is outside. That seems reasonable to me. Evidently the Harry Potter books are firmly exclusive of any outside elements...even those specified by their author, whereas when John Fowles said in 1977 or so that the 1965 version of the Magus was effectively outside the current version (1977), then that put the entire earlier version of the book on the outside of the fiction. I assume if one of the Harry Potter books was superceeded by a new version that would be a different problem from what happened with the Magus.
 
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I reckon the author can - has a very strong right to - say anything he or she likes about their creations. They are his creations, after all! Their right to tell us what happened to them doesn't end after we turn the last page.

After all, don't many of us do character sketches, aspects of which are never written into our books?

I think it makes the characters even more rounded. I like to think of them having a life beyond the page. We all have lives beyond the internet, don't we? None of us are one-dimensional AWbots. Why should a literary character be a one-dimensional "on this page only" person? Don't we want to make them as real as possible?

I just hope Rowling knew Dumbledore was gay from the beginning and didn't just make it up later on for impact. Perhaps she gradually came to realise he was gay. I'd like that, if the discovery slowly crept over her. It would make him uberreal if there were things about the character even the author didn't know. I'd like to think he 'came out' rather than she outed him. ;)
 

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Yes, we map out characters for ourselves. Why should the rest of the reading world feel the need to know the minutiae of my characters' lives? Flattering, yes, but not necessary. Rowlings characters have become the "next generation Hollywood" that should have paparazzi following them. Next thing you know Hermione will be getting out of her Mercedes sans panties and Harry will be screaming "Fire Crotch" with Ron stumbling out of rehab. There's a big difference between a need and a want. The readers don't need to know every little bit about a character, they just want to and it's up to the author whether to divulge that information. Rowling could have just as easily said 'no, he never found true love" and left it at that. She chose to go further with it.

They are, after all, not real. If the book can be understood as is, how important is outside information to it? Your life isn't going to improve if you know what sneakers this character wears. It's asinine. My characters are mine, figments of my own imagination that I put down on paper for others to read, not flesh and blood human beings worthy of tabloid journalism and I think this whole Harry Potter thing has escalated to that. We're sick of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and Hogwarts is where the fresh meat is. It's created fictional tabloids. I say let them have their private lives. We don't need to know anything beyond the books, we just want to.

By the way, Dumbledore was gay from the beginning, according to Rowling. She just didn't feel is pertinent to bring it up until the end since it only played a role in the final book.
 

Spiral Stairs

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After all, don't many of us do character sketches, aspects of which are never written into our books?
Yes. And if, upon pigs learning to fly, I am ever seated across from an interviewer who wants to know more about one of my characters, I will say, "I think character X might be [blah blah blah]," or "I meant to suggest the possibility that character Y is [blah blah blah]." I would not (unless coerced by aforementioned flying pigs) assert an extra-textual statement as a fact about a character. At that point, when the words have already been committed to paper and the book bound, I am in the same position as a reader.

I think it makes the characters even more rounded. I like to think of them having a life beyond the page. We all have lives beyond the internet, don't we? None of us are one-dimensional AWbots. Why should a literary character be a one-dimensional "on this page only" person? Don't we want to make them as real as possible?
I like to imagine the other dimensions of characters as well. But I feel that I have an agreement with the author that I will be allowed to fill in the blanks that the author doesn't. Think about it this way: A writer usually wants to include key descriptive details about a character relatively early in a story. It can be jarring to learn, 280 pages into a 300-page book, that the protagonist has only one arm. Sometimes, obviously, such a delay serves a literary purpose. That's fine. But I don't want the author throwing crap at me just to rock the boat. And it's even worse if such crap is thrown after the character has made his final appearance in a written work of literature. It's so jarring, in fact, that I think it's unfair.

Aside: There has been some really interesting discussion along these lines about the Sopranos series finale. If you didn't see it, you've probably heard that the series ended with an abrupt cut to black in the middle of a shot of Tony Soprano, leaving a world of possibilities open. Legions of fans wondered "What happened to Tony? Was he whacked? Was his family whacked? Did he continue to sit in that booth eating onion rings?" Some demanded that David Chase tell them what happened. He hasn't said what he envisioned would have been the next shot, if the show had continued. Since it didn't continue, Tony Soprano ceased to exist, and nothing happened to him next.
 

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Yes. And if, upon pigs learning to fly, I am ever seated across from an interviewer who wants to know more about one of my characters, I will say, "I think character X might be [blah blah blah]," or "I meant to suggest the possibility that character Y is [blah blah blah]." I would not (unless coerced by aforementioned flying pigs) assert an extra-textual statement as a fact about a character. At that point, when the words have already been committed to paper and the book bound, I am in the same position as a reader.


I like to imagine the other dimensions of characters as well. But I feel that I have an agreement with the author that I will be allowed to fill in the blanks that the author doesn't. Think about it this way: A writer usually wants to include key descriptive details about a character relatively early in a story. It can be jarring to learn, 280 pages into a 300-page book, that the protagonist has only one arm. Sometimes, obviously, such a delay serves a literary purpose. That's fine. But I don't want the author throwing crap at me just to rock the boat. And it's even worse if such crap is thrown after the character has made his final appearance in a written work of literature. It's so jarring, in fact, that I think it's unfair.

Aside: There has been some really interesting discussion along these lines about the Sopranos series finale. If you didn't see it, you've probably heard that the series ended with an abrupt cut to black in the middle of a shot of Tony Soprano, leaving a world of possibilities open. Legions of fans wondered "What happened to Tony? Was he whacked? Was his family whacked? Did he continue to sit in that booth eating onion rings?" Some demanded that David Chase tell them what happened. He hasn't said what he envisioned would have been the next shot, if the show had continued. Since it didn't continue, Tony Soprano ceased to exist, and nothing happened to him next.


Endings are tough. Closure is probably impossible. Given that we live in a culture (and who does not?) where characters and Gods and myths can be told and re-told...who is to say that Tony Soprano or Dumbledore cannot reappear. In fact right here they already do...."always already" as some have translated Saint Derrida. Deja encore, toujours deja without any diacritic markings...on and on...time stops for no reader or writer-turned-reader as in a movie where we see the words "The End" but in endless frames of film.
 
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ChunkyC

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By the way, Dumbledore was gay from the beginning, according to Rowling. She just didn't feel is pertinent to bring it up until the end since it only played a role in the final book.
Yup. And she probably wouldn't have brought it up at all except that someone asked her point blank whether Dumbledore ever had love in his life, or words to that effect. She could either tell them the backstory she'd created for him, lie, or not answer at all. I think she did the only thing she could, she told them the backstory.
 

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When a work of fiction is read by anyone other than the author, the characters are no longer the sole property of the author. The reader contributes quite a lot to the creation of the character. Thus, the author has no right to change the reader's view of published text, nor does the reader have any obligation to let it be changed.

In this case, Rowling's action was that of a fanfic author (which is to say, a kind of reader), and not that of the originating author. The originating author can ONLY contribute to the text prior to publication.

Dumbledore now belongs to the millions of readers, and at this point Rowling is just one of those. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing consequential either.
 

Mud Dauber

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When a work of fiction is read by anyone other than the author, the characters are no longer the sole property of the author. The reader contributes quite a lot to the creation of the character. Thus, the author has no right to change the reader's view of published text, nor does the reader have any obligation to let it be changed.

In this case, Rowling's action was that of a fanfic author (which is to say, a kind of reader), and not that of the originating author. The originating author can ONLY contribute to the text prior to publication.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I read your post a number of times and I can't understand what you mean by the author having no right to change the reader's view of published text. I don't think she was trying to change anyone's view. I gathered the same thing as ChunkyC, that it was a situation where the person asking sort of pinned her for an answer, and she just decided to answer honestly.

And how was her action that of a fanfic author?
 

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When a work of fiction is read by anyone other than the author, the characters are no longer the sole property of the author. The reader contributes quite a lot to the creation of the character. Thus, the author has no right to change the reader's view of published text, nor does the reader have any obligation to let it be changed.

In this case, Rowling's action was that of a fanfic author (which is to say, a kind of reader), and not that of the originating author. The originating author can ONLY contribute to the text prior to publication.

Dumbledore now belongs to the millions of readers, and at this point Rowling is just one of those. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing consequential either.
I understand your point, which is why I regard fanfic as a variant of reader-response critical theory (which is sort of what you're describing).
 

Ava Jarvis

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Why punish the author for being the author? It seems kind of ungrateful. "Hey, we know you spent a couple decades of pain on this opus, but really, your opinion doesn't count anymore."

What's wrong with saying, "Hey author, it's kind of cool that you're letting us know more details. It's not going to make me really sweat about it, but hey! You're still thinking about the characters! Must be interesting to be a writer...."

Characters have an existence before the text and after the text. For most writers, main characters don't ever die. They are a strange presence in your head, but no more strange than your memory of friends or acquaintances are.

And characters have existences that are under the text as well. Dumbledore being gay is one of those things that swam under the surface of the text; now that we know, it makes several plot points much clearer. In fact, I wondered if he was gay in book 7, because of one of those plot points that had come up. And I do not wonder about the gayness of characters lightly.

I just wonder why people get so defensive about it all. Does anyone freak out about the Silmarillion, which is pretty freaking expansive?

Oh wait, some people do. But usually not as vividly.

Sheesh.

Still, I understand not wanting to find out that a person you knew so well---and that's what the most driven of characters do, get people involved with them---has some kind of disturbing underside, or something else you've never seen and never expected to see.

And if it were a real person? Just to be expected. No one shows you their complete face at any one time. Neither do compelling characters. At best you get hints.

Fact is, writers construct characters like real people. That's why such characters are so memorable, beguile us so much. What the hey.

Anyways, the movies are not done yet.
 

Ava Jarvis

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:song:
He is so mysterious
His middle name's Tiberius
:song:

Just thinking about how Star Trek: The Animated Series was officially declared non-canon by Gene Roddenberry. Except that tidbits like the "T" in James T. Kirk standing for "Tiberius" have effectively become canon.

By the way, Warp 11 rocks. Here's the Lyrics to "Everything I Do, I Do with William Shatner.
 

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Endings are tough. Closure is probably impossible. Given that we live in a culture (and who does not?) where characters and Gods and myths can be told and re-told...who is to say that Tony Soprano or Dumbledore cannot reappear. In fact right here they already do...."always already" as some have translated Saint Derrida. Deja encore, toujours deja without any diacritic markings...on and on...time stops for no reader or writer-turned-reader as in a movie where we see the words "The End" but in endless frames of film.

More on always already:

http://ideasofimperfection.blogspot.com/2006/01/always-already.html

http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=57
 

Kentuk

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SpiralStairs When a writer closes the book on a character, the reader is implicitly told, “There you go. I’ve said everything I’m going to say. Everything else is up to you.”

Not true, writers put a great deal of forethought into their characters and writting. There is a lot of stuff that doesn't make it into the book and more stuff that gets cut by evil editors. How do you know Rowlings isn't going to write another Potter. Poor women probably woke up the other night with the best plot ever and now can't help herself.
 

ChunkyC

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Good point, Ken. As far as an author "changing a reader's view of published text", every sequel in every series ever written does exactly that. My perception of Harry Potter grew and changed with every book.

Again, in this particular case, Rowling probably wouldn't have said a thing had she not been painted into a bit of a corner. And even then, what she said was a clarification. Cripes, people beg authors for background material that didn't make it into the book all the time. Complaining that the material once revealed wasn't what they wanted it to be is not being fair to the author at all.