Lupin and Sirus... gay?

[alshainofthenorth]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "Scully931" <scully931 at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> Yes, I saw the same thing as you did. I thought, "Oh, poor Lupin 
was 
> in love with Lily and he's a werewolf!" Never crossed my mind about 
> him being gay until I read it here either. Still don't think that. 
> But, I'm not getting into all that again! :-)
> 
> Deborah
> 
> --- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, Valerie Flowe 
> <valerie.flowe at v...> wrote:
> > From: "sopraniste" <sopraniste at y...>
> > <snip>
> > My main objection is the scene between Harry and Lupin on the 
> bridge,
> > when everybody's in Hogsmeade, and they get talking about Lily and
> > James. He says some nice things about James, of course, the guy 
was
> > one of his best friends after all, but this scene made it VERY 
> clear
> > to me that poor Remus was in love with Lily! I thought this was a 
> very
> > nice addition, and it made me like poor Remus (who was already my
> > favorite character) all the more. It never occurred to me until it
> > came up on the list that others might see him as gay.
> > 
> > Flop
> > 
> > [from Valerie]
> > I keep wondering if this is not one of the things JKR was 
alluding 
> to when
> > she said Cuaron was foreshadowing some future plot in books 6-7. 
> Though I
> > know in response to an interview question she said she was not 
> going to do a
> > "spin-off" book, expanding on the Marauder's time period. Too 
> bad...I find
> > it all very fascinating.
> > Guess I could spend lots of time debating on what exactly will be 
> revealed,
> > but hey, that's another chat group altogether, isn't it?!
> > 

Alshain (who for the record dislikes love triangles:)

Being the voice of dissent here, I didn't interpret movie!Lupin's 
words as a sign of romantic interest in Lily. Deep platonic love, 
more likely. The way I saw it, there was an estrangement between 
Remus on the one hand and James and Sirius on the other (engineered 
by Peter, no doubt, who had set up the only Dark creature he knew as 
a fall guy) in the year before Voldemort's downfall.

Lily on the other hand would never believe Remus was the spy, as 
she's a woman with an independent mind and strong opinions, not as 
likely to be prejudiced against werewolves as her pureblood husband 
and his pureblood best friend (Once you get enough propaganda into 
people, any preconceptions about ethnic minorities passed to you in 
your childhood can start to surface again, no matter how intelligent 
or well-educated you are. See Germans vs Jews, Serbs vs Bosnians, 
Hutus vs Tutsis.) And as she isn't the one who's been bosom friends 
with Remus since they were eleven, it wasn't as likely to be personal 
for her. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Remus felt gratitude and admiration for 
her -- she seems very much to be the kind of person he'd like to be 
if he had the guts. He doesn't strike me as a person who'd languish 
in unrequited love, either -- he's much too practical and has his 
emotions too firmly under control. Most likely he'd smack himself 
firmly over the head and tell himself to "Stop moping and get on with 
it, Lupin, it's never going to work out, so go for a walk and clear 
out the cobwebs in your attic and then get started on something 
useful for a change."      

Then again, I also thought there was a distinct possibility that 
Remus and Sirius had been a couple before everything went to pieces, 
so I can't say how I would have reacted without that particular 
preconception. Much the same, I hope. Actually, I don't think the 
sexual orientation of Messrs Moony and Padfoot will have anything to 
do with the price of butter. JKR writes Harry as seemingly regarding 
grownups as pretty much asexual; it doesn't seem to occur to him that 
they have the same kinds of hormones as he has. 

FWIW, the hug or the joint Christmas present can't be taken in a 
vacuum, the subtext and the way the two characters act around one 
another matter more. No shipper in my experience has said, "Only gay 
men hug each other. Sirius and Remus hug. Therefore, Sirius and Remus 
are gay men." In POA, Sirius is the one person who can disrupt Remus' 
usual calm, and vice versa, Sirius calms down considerably once he 
realises that Remus believes him. It isn't Dumbledore or Fudge that 
matters for him, it's Harry and Lupin. In OOTP, Remus' presence at 
Grimmauld Place seems to be Sirius's only hold to sanity -- the times 
when he's alone are always when he's worse. And no shipper would 
think less of Remus and Sirius' friendship just because they see them 
as having / having had a sexual relationship. There's no reason you 
can't share both romantic love and deep friendship. But as I said, I 
don't think their sexual orientation is going to matter for the way 
the story develops. They are who they are, and if they're revealed as 
straight or gay or keep their asexual personas, it isn't going to 
change their personalities overnight.

Finally, apologies for the epic. 
Alshain