Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy aren’t fags, but their counterparts in Rainbow Rowell’s continuing novel, Simon Snow and Basilton “Baz” Grimm-pitch, are.
In our current “post-potter” era, a new generation of queer magic novels published in boarding schools have emerged that directly challenge the lack of lgbt representation in j.k. rowling harry potter series collectively, they reinvent a series that was the quintessence of childhood and adolescence for many young queer people, giving them center stage.
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these published stories are expanding the limited space for queer people in the wizarding boarding school genre by taking core elements of harry potter: what it means to be a chosen one, tropes of villainy, wizarding societies, living in a boarding school, romance school—and making it queer.
All publication dates for these new novels occur after the end of the Harry Potter series in 2007, and this is no coincidence. Why did these stories start popping up after the release of Deathly Hallows? Looking at the magical boarding school genre that preceded these queer stories, namely Harry Potter, is a good place to start.
[warning, there are dragons here! This article contains spoilers for Continued by Rainbow Rowell, In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany, and J.K. rowling.]the magical boarding school trope
While the magical boarding school genre predates Harry Potter, with novels like Ursula K. Le Guin, or the Charmed Life of Diana Wynne Jones, the Harry Potter series cemented the trope within pop culture. Harry Potter brought a sense of familiarity to the trope: it took place in our own world, and Hogwarts looked a lot like traditional British boarding schools, complete with schools and uniforms.
The familiarity between our world and Rowling’s world invites readers to pull up to a metaphorical chair in the Hog’s Head pub for another round of Butterbeer. Not only is our world in Harry Potter, but Harry Potter is in ours. immersive experiences like the wizarding world of harry potter and the extensive marketing of hogwarts house products (there are a limited number of slytherin scarves a human being can own) further demonstrate that the harry potter series encouraged readers to get into the stories. Just like with Hermione, it didn’t matter if our parents weren’t magical, maybe one day we’d welcome our owl with an invitation to Hogwarts.
However, as much as Harry Potter invites readers into the world, Rowling primarily wrote about only one part of the population: straight (and primarily white) people. the harry potter series takes place in realistic britain where lgbt people are supposed to exist, but the lack of lgbt wizards and witches sends the message that while lgbt people may exist in britain, they have no place in the magical world. And it’s safe to say that they certainly aren’t going to get a letter from Hogwarts.
harry potter and the representation that disappears
harry potter as a series and j.k. Rowling, by extension, has a long documented history of failing queer audiences. but what about dumbledore? He was gay! some fans will no doubt scream. Sure, he was, but his exit was via Rowling’s declaration at Carnegie Hall that Dumbledore was “gay, actually” when asked by a fan if he had ever been in love. however, this comment only discussed his sexuality long after dumbledore was safe and dead (and after the last book in the series was published). she also chose to make him celibate for the rest of her life. not a great start. this little action is similar to j.k. Rowling’s problematic idea that Professor Remus Lupin’s lycanthropy was a metaphor for AIDS. both comments echo the ways j.k. Rowling has alluded to LGBT representation in her books: in passing, or nothing.
Unfortunately, this trend has continued into the extended world of the Harry Potter series. The supposed “Eighth Book,” the 2016 Cursed Child play, follows Harry’s son Albus and Draco’s son Scorpius as they navigate their own time at Hogwarts. It repeats the same plot from the first seven novels: stop Voldemort from winning, this time going back in time to relive some of the series’ most memorable moments.
However, for many queer people who read the series, there is something new. albus and scorpius’s relationship seemed very, very happy. The play talked a lot about fated mates, jealousy over potential girlfriends, and a seriously harsh metaphor of Albus sorted into Slytherin as the odd black sheep of the family.
the play was dismantled by media critics such as aja romano and ilana masad, who saw the bizarre awkwardness of albus and scorpius’ relationship and the subsequent hasty heterosexual romance between scorpius and rose, ron and hermione’s daughter, for read as “queerbaiting,” a tactic used when creators imply queer content but don’t deliver it.
Although the casting of a black actress for the role of hermione in the play points to some progress toward a diverse portrayal of the wizarding world, thanks to both its time-travel trope and the absence of visible queer people, the Damn kid was more interested in reviving the commercial successes of the past than expanding the wizarding school trope into the future.
Another element of the Harry Potter Expanded Universe is the recent series of films based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. David Yates, the film’s director, stated that, despite featuring a young Dumbledore fighting his former male love interest, they would not explicitly address his sexuality. these lackluster responses go on to show that in j.k. rowling, visible lgbt people are as rare as surviving the killing curse.
Thanks to gaping holes in representation, several post-potter series have sprung up to offer criticism of Harry Potter’s shortcomings in presenting lgbt characters in similar settings.
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Some of these stories rise above the post-Potter haze of pop culture, playing on magical boarding school tropes while queering without directly acknowledging or attempting to replicate the original, including Every Heart, A Door by Sean McGuire (tor.com, 2016) and ginn hale’s lord of white hell series (2010). Each one takes place in a magical boarding school and includes LGBT characters. In particular, Every Heart a Door is significant for its inclusion of LGBT characters outside of the common relationship defined queerness in LGBT young adult fiction, while the Lord of the White Hell series is notable for doubling down on the eroticism of lodging for people of the same sex in boarding schools, with the main character kiram kir-zaki and javier tornesal having sex while sharing a room.
But more important are the stories that offer criticism simply for existing. These are direct responses to Harry Potter written by self-proclaimed fans who not only acknowledge the lack of LGBT characters in Harry Potter, but fill the LGBT void with their own published works. two notable examples are sarah rees brennan’s in other lands (2017) and rainbow rowell’s continue (2015).
living in a post-potter world: in other lands
In Other Lands follows Elliot, an obnoxious bisexual boy who is able to cross over to a magical land where smuggling technology explodes and mermaids exist. He attends the magical school, the Border Camp, in the Borderlands, a part of Britain that only a few special people can cross into. The border camp looks more like a magical Sparta than a cozy old castle, and it’s here that Elliot meets Luke Sunborn, the chosen heir to the Sunborn clan, and Serene, an elf who hails from a fiercely matriarchal elven society. /p>
elliot is influenced by the legacy of harry potter in the narrative itself. In other lands he is well aware of his position within popular culture and the ways in which he will be referenced in comparison to Harry Potter. Elliot says, “I don’t need you to explain to me the concept of a magical land full of fantastical creatures that only certain special children can enter. I am familiar with the last centuries of popular culture. There are books. and caricatures, for the illiterate”. The book lets readers know that he is aware that it exists in connection with Harry Potter by sharing the same genre and tropes.
this close connection to harry potter is made even more apparent when brennan herself writes in a blog post: “i found harry potter fanfiction and thought it looked like fun so i decided to write it too. i wrote about my favorite character [draco malfoy]…and what-if scenarios and turning into rats and fighting crime and any number of romantic entanglements.” These romantic entanglements included fanfiction written by Brennan between Draco and Harry.
Being aware of its connection to Harry Potter both outside and inside the story, the novel serves as an effective avenue for criticism. Elliot, despite being the protagonist of the novel, is not the chosen one. instead, he reluctantly acknowledges himself as luke’s sidekick or, at worst, as elliot describes himself, “an iago, a pathetic pseudo-villain.”
what’s special about elliot is the way he refuses to complete the arc that his character’s trope should naturally follow; he refuses to play draco to luke’s harry. Elliot decides not to conspire against what he perceives to be Luke’s position as the apparent lead or golden boy. Going one step further, Elliot and Luke end up romantically involved at the end of the story. having a relationship between the supposed chosen one and the “pathetic pseudo-villain” can be seen as similar to draco and harry’s arrangement, although both boys break these stereotypes, as elliot becomes a pacifist and stubbornly refuses to participate in the war and luke is a introvert who does not fit the social mold of the charismatic “chosen one”.
Elliot and Luke’s relationship and connection to traditional romantic tropes is far from the only lgbt element in their novel, and it’s not what defines it as a queer reinvention of the magical boarding school genre.
as lee mandelo said in tor.com’s review of the novel, one of the many surprising aspects of in other lands is the way it allows its characters to have sex. Elliot sleeps with men and women and covets various magical creatures throughout the novel. he’s so horny and oh my god he’s endearing… harry potter’s chaste kisses and forever loves are long gone, replaced by elliot trying to find books on how to eat his maybe elf girlfriend and fighting homophobia in our world.
This is not to say that Elliot doesn’t try to fit into Harry Potter’s rather archaic notions of “forever” romantic love. about his then perhaps girlfriend, serene, elliot declares: “if you must know, she is the soul destined for mine, and we will be together forever”. luke’s response criticizes the alarming notion throughout the harry potter series that lifelong romantic partners are determined in the preteen years: “that’s weird…we’re thirteen.”
try to picture yourself marrying your crush from high school and you might start to see luke’s point.
brennan’s novel addresses exclusion by making magical human society (elves less accepting of queer male relationships as a firmly matriarchal society) devoid of entrenched homophobia. Nobody really cares that the golden boy luke sunborn is gay.
by making the composition of the main trio two-thirds lgbt, with the final third, serene, possessing a complex view of gender and gender roles, the story refuses to accept the fantasy of wizarding schools as lacking of sexuality. and gender minorities.
“gay harry potter”: continues
carry on, by rainbow rowell, is perhaps the biggest harry potter meta-critique on the market. It serves as the final installment in the Simon Snow novels, a fictional series that originates from Rowell’s earlier novel, Fangirl. In Fangirl, the main character, Cath Avery, writes fanfiction about the two main characters of the Snow Novels, Simon and Baz, just as many fans of the Harry Potter series wrote stories about Harry and Draco. continues, the final novel in the real simon snow series, makes those fanfictions come true and, spoiler alert, simon and baz do end up together in the end.
rowell herself has commented on this harry potter connection in several interviews. In an interview with Pop Sugar, she states, “The references to Harry Potter and other stories are really intentional in this book […] I want you to feel like, oh, this is familiar.” She goes on in an interview with Vanity Fair to suggest that she knows Harry and Draco as characters because she was invested in them as a fan and enjoyed referencing them through Baz and Simon.
by making the understudies for harry (simon) and draco (baz) both be lgbt characters, rowell introduces some interesting twists to the chosen narrative both stories grapple with. what does it mean to be a chosen lgbt trying to save a world that doesn’t fully acknowledge your existence? Much of the story involves Simon coming to terms with what it means to be the wizard’s heir, though ultimately when Simon loses the very power that made him the chosen one, it’s not the world that defines his position, but his boyfriend. baz. .
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“I’m not the chosen one,” he says.
I look him in the eye and scoff. my arm is a steel band around his waist. “I choose you,” I say. “Simon Snow, I choose you.”
Rowell admits that, “after living with these [chosen] stories for so long, I found myself really questioning them.” As a queer reader, it’s also hard not to question the chosen narratives of the fantasy genre, as they select the strongest person among them to save society, and that savior is often white, male, and straight. Since traditional fantasy has a tendency to tokenize or exclude queer people, queer people are often not seen as society’s greatest weapon for good, no matter what advances and contributions they make.
simon might wonder what the equivalent of dumbledore the wizard will say if he finds out simon kissed a boy, but simon knows that as long as he’s expected to save the world, there’s no time for him to think about his sexuality.
“In the end, I only do what is expected of me. when monotony haunts me, I fight it. when he sends dragons, I kill them. when you trick me into meeting a chimera, I’m gone. I can’t choose or plan. I just take it as it comes. And someday, something will catch me off guard or it will be too big to fight, but I will fight anyway. I’ll fight until I can’t anymore, what to think?”
Being the chosen one and constantly sacrificing himself to save the world means Simon can’t waste time wondering if he’s anything but straight. the chosen one does not have that luxury.
The boarding school trope itself is approached from an lgbt perspective. Like the Lord of White Hell where roommates are eroticized, Baz and Simon are chosen to be together by “The Crucible” which determines the location of rooms through magical force. What follows are years of sexual agony for Baz as he realizes that he is attracted to Simon and Simon’s growing obsession with Baz’s constant whereabouts.
“It made us roommates,” [simon] says.
I shake my head. “we were always more.”
“We were enemies.”
“You were the center of my universe,” I say. “everything else revolved around you.”
here, like the sorting hat, the melting pot seems to know the needs and wants of the students. In this case, he recognizes Baz and Simon’s weird desires even before they recognize it themselves, by bringing them together as roommates. the mcguffin sorting hat apparently ships with the best of them.
carry on is a triumph in this regard. It takes the Harry Potter narrative and Harry and Draco dynamic that drew many fans into an odd reading of their relationship and makes it canon. He openly acknowledges this and invites readers to see themselves and their experiences in the pages of a popular fantasy novel. It’s no coincidence that many fans hail him as “the gay Harry Potter.” This drive to be seen and visible, one that Harry Potter as a franchise struggled with, is a key point of the novel’s creation. Rowell clarifies this fact: “People kept saying, ‘I can’t wait for the subtext,’ and I have such a negative reaction to that. no, this is not corny, they won’t, some subtext. that is not a game that I am interested in playing […] as a culture, we are ready for the text”. Carry On, more than any other novel, brings these themes of being visible into play and puts them on the page for all to see, loudly and proudly.
There is joy in the resistance of taking a medium and making it your own. there’s also something giddy and wonderful about reading stories that miss old tropes or, in the case of continuing, literally transform a piece of fiction into something new and subversive. however, there is no denying that reworking a narrative to include minorities points to a larger problem: that the text did not include them in the first place.
when j.k. rowling declares that dumbledore is gay after the fact of his death, alludes to queer characters or engages in sexual harassment, it is a disappointment to lgbt fans, people who perhaps more than anyone need an immersive story that takes them into a new home. that breathes magic in other lands and continue to really do the heavy lifting by acknowledging the harry potter series and creating a place within it for queer people, queer experiences, thus criticizing the failure of previous books to include them.
These new authors recognize the lasting impact Harry Potter left on their stories and have missed it: Instead of waiting to be welcomed to Hogwarts, they have sent their own Parliament of Owls, inviting a new generation of readers to new, more inclusive magical worlds.
jessica lives in ontario, canada, with her embarrassingly large collection of shōjo manga from the 1970s. she recently completed her ma where she cried out about lgbtq media representation. she spends her spare time writing queer fantasy stories, petting dogs, and drinking tea. she can be found via instagram or owl post.
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