About Werewolves

[Janet Anderson]

No: HPFGUIDX 48207

I am a great admirer of Remus Lupin, but the following has occurred to me:

Lupin is a knowledgeable, skilled, and sensitive teacher, an ethical person, 
polite, amusing, and generally pleasant to be around. He's admired by his 
colleagues (for example, Madame Pomfrey and Professor McGonigall) and by his 
students. Because of these traits, his students, some of his teachers, and 
the reader are inclined to disregard the fact that he's also a werewolf.

The problem with this is that:

1) Werewolves, when transformed, are very dangerous. They have little or no 
mind or self-control, they are likely to attack anyone they encounter, and 
if the person they attack doesn't die then he or she will probably become a 
werewolf too.

2)  Until the invention of the potion Lupin takes, which was recent enough 
that he didn't have it during his childhood, there was no way to control the 
transformation.  Presumably werewolves either were locked up or ran away to 
uninhabited areas during their transformation.

3) Hagrid (I think) says there are werewolves in the Forbidden Forest. If 
these werewolves live there, they're probably surviving on hunting and 
gathering, live in trees or caves, etc. and are probably not safe people to 
encounter even when not transformed.

My point in this is that the widespread fear of werewolves is not merely 
bigotry but is based on an actual danger. That danger can be dealt with (if 
I were in the Ministry of Magic, I'd arrange for secure, available Werewolf 
Sanctuaries, open every full moon, for any werewolf who needed it, no 
hassles, no questions, no charge), but it *is* a danger, and the parents who 
raised a stink when they heard about Lupin were not just being Politically 
Incorrect.


Janet Anderson


*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
An ordinary person says, "You have a face that would stop a clock." A 
diplomat says, "When I look at you, time stands still."



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