@ami_angelwings The quintessential example for me in How Not To Do Things is Rowling declaring Dumbledore was gay. Like, there is absolutely no evidence in the text. As far as I know she's never produced a rough draft where e. g. the character reflects on a past relationship, is explicitly like "Oh I was in love with $male_character,", etc., there's no other characters who call themselves gay, are in same-sex relationships, etc., the series is unequivocally heterocentric.

If in any of the later spin-off works (which I'm not familiar with), it's made explicit, that's a different matter and you could certainly reinterpret the series in light of that, but like, it doesn't make the character gay retroactively.

Conversely look at e. g. Ender's Game, which is frequently noted to have a homosexual subtext (both homoerotic and homophobic). People have speculated, based on his works, that Card himself is gay but self-loathing and closeted. He would likely deny all of that. (And even if one disagrese with this particular example, I'm sure you can think of plenty of similar cases.) I think this is a pretty good case of why creators should not even be the authority on their own intent!

And like these are just contemporary examples where the author is alive, kicking, and giving interviews. Looking back at works from like hundreds, even thousands of years ago, you can put them in a much, much bigger picture that would have been impossible to see at the time. Or like look at "cult classics" that take on new meaning and significance through successive audiences that you can't see just from looking at the original work.

anyway I've blathered long enough but you get my drift