God bless Conan Doyle, wherever  that spirit of a spiritualist is now. He may have been quirky, but he knew how to do some things right, a fact made plain last week as the great Literary Agent of our time violated the Canon of her faithful one more time.  And we Sherlockians know about literary Canon.

Conan Doyle gave us 56 short stories and 4 novels of Sherlock Holmes, and that was that. There were a few pieces of ephemera and unpublished bits, to be sure, but Conan Doyle put everything of importance about Sherlock Holmes in those original sixty works. All of it. The good, the bad, and the “we’d rather not talk about . . .” As a result, Sherlockians have made hay in that well-fenced field for decade after decade.

Fans of other creators’ work have not been so fortunate.  Anything that begins with “Star,” as in “Star Wars” or “Star Trek,” have such a sprawling and still-changing universe at their disposal that one is surprised that fan civil wars haven’t broken out. “Canons” can barely be defined before they’re altered or expanded. Nothing neat and tidy there at all.

But those are TV and movie worlds, of course. Books are more solid, more detailed, and nothing is so black-and-white as words on paper,  right? Well, unless you’re talking about the Canon of Harry Potter.

When author J. K. Rowling finished her seventh book of the Harry Potter series, that was supposed to be it. Over and done, his Canon complete. But his fans still had questions, as fans do. While giving a glimpse of Harry’s future, it left out certain details. What line of work did Harry go into, for example? Well, J.K. was happy to fill that detail in for the fans in an interview: Harry became an auror for the government.

And with that, the first crack came into the solid foundation of the seven-book Potter canon. 

J.K. Rowling let a few more extra-canonical details slip this summer, but last week she let out the one that had the news media bussing. Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was gay.

And the crack in the Potter canon opened wide . . . .

You could say, “Well, maybe being gay isn’t a big deal in the wizard world,” and you might be right. Dumbledore did get a “tell all” book written about him in the course of the stories, and it didn’t come up. But among wizards and witches there were some pretty damned intolerant racists,  so you also have to wonder what else they were intolerant of. (Remember the whole “muggle” bit?)

Since the big media splash on Dumbledore, I heard one commentator saying that the wizard now became “the most beloved gay character in fiction,” and I think that is when the injustice of it all really hit me. Yes, Dumbledore could have been the most beloved gay character in fiction . . . if he’d have been gay when we were reading the books! By leaving that one little detail out, J.K.  Rowling didn’t really give us the chance to  get to know him as he was. One can ‘t help but feel a bit cheated . . . now, we have just one more public figure who got outted a bit late in the day (you’d think he was a Republican congressman!), and we’ve got plenty of those.

Hopefully, Rowling will one day write another Harry Potter book to “officialize” all of these unofficial bits she’s been adding to the Potter canon, but in the meantime, I just have to be glad for good old Conan Doyle. He may have not liked Holmes quite as much as some of us do, but he knew when to leave him alone. When the cake is in the bakery shop window, it’s time to stop adding icing.

But while we're at it, why exactly does Dumbledore get to be “the most beloved gay character in fiction?” Sherlock Holmes has been gay a whole bunch of times in the last century, if you stumble across the right books or pornos. If there's a title to be bestowed, maybe we'd better start campaigning, as you know how we Sherlockians are about Holmes getting into character rankings . . . .

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver