Why Suspect Lupin? (WAS: Snape, Lupin's Mistakes Again)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 35092

This has got to be the most brilliant character sketch I've seen for 
awhile. 

/me notices the general theme. Elkins writes a post. Everyone gathers 
around and oohs and ahhhs. Don't let it go to your head. ;-) I'm 
jealous. I really am. And know that doesn't mean I will go to the dark 
side if Voldemort tempts me. 

Your post made me realize why it is that I love Lupin (and several 
other non-HP fictional characters actually, as well.) I couldn't take 
the line that I loved him because his strategic mistakes showed he 
wasn't perfect, as has been suggested so many times. 

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <theennead at a...> wrote:
> Mahoney wrote: 
> > On another subject, has anyone speculated that as for Black having 
> > suspected Lupin as being the spy, there might have been some 
reason 
> > related to, I dunno, Lupin's personality that suggested it? I.e., 
> > something other than, say, general distrust of werewolves? 
> 
> <raises hand>
> 
> I have.  
> 
> "'They call it the Dementor's Kiss,' said Lupin, with a slightly 
> twisted smile."

And at that moment, I was crying, "Harry! Harry! It's Sirius Black! 
When will you realize?" "Slightly twisted." That is awful. 

Kudos to all your listings of the darker parts of Lupin, the parts 
that chilled on first reading, and still chill now. 

> Of course, you'd think that Sirius and the Potters would have known 
> Lupin well enough not to be dismayed by that sort of thing, 
but...you 
> never know.  Horrible things were happening.  I can easily imagine 
> how Lupin's breezy and off-hand manner when discussing, say, 
somebody 
> that the group actually *knew* having been tortured or murdered 
might 
> have given even his friends pause, particularly if they were already 
> becoming suspicious of him for other reasons.

Perfect. Sirius and the others know and like Lupin well enough, but 
there's already something instinctively dismaying about his manner, 
even when there isn't a war going on. I'd guess that Lupin has been 
the object of suspicions, great and small, since he was very young. I 
suspected him. 

> Even Lupin's compassion could, viewed in a certain light, make him 
> seem a little suspicious, because it's a compassion born of 
> sensitivity and insight, of the ability to "read" others, to deduce 
> other people's personal vulnerabilities and motives.  Lupin's very 
> good at that; it's what makes him a good teacher.  But that form of 
> sensitivity can also be a rather unnerving trait, particularly in a 
> paranoid situation, one in which there are *secrets* that must be 
> kept hidden.  On a certain level, an emotionally astute individual 
> *is* a spy -- he knows your secrets...or at least he makes you feel 
> as if he does -- and I don't think that it did much for the others' 
> sense of security around Lupin.  I think that his very sensitivity 
> probably made him seem suspect.

To "read" others..... I should probably shut up about Tolkien. But in 
Tolkien, we see the same trait being used evilly: to manipulate and 
wound people, by Denethor. And Lupin has the potential to be a 
Denethor. As you mention, he goes for the jugular with Harry. Knowing 
Sirius Black not to be a responsible mature character under all 
circumstances (coughs, was that polite enough?), I'm sure Sirius has 
seen a lot more of that side of Lupin than Harry. That might lead 
Sirius to be much more prone to see Lupin as the possible traitor. 

>Lupin really does know how to target the jugular, and 
> there are times when I get the definite sense that he's got a bit of 
> a taste for it as well.  He's not a sadist...but he could be, and 
> if he ever did go bad, I think that's exactly how he'd do it.  It 
> does come across as a "dark streak" to his personality, IMO, and I 
> can easily imagine how that aspect of his character could have made 
> him seem highly suspect.

I love this. Keeps Lupin good beyond good, but still makes him more 
intriguingly dark than Voldemot. I've got to hand it to you.

> -- Elkins, to whom never even *occurred* that others might find 
> anyone but Lupin the sexpot character of the older generation, and 
> who was shocked -- just shocked! -- to learn otherwise.  ("'Sirius 
Is 
> Dead Sexy?'" she read to herself, and then blinked in confusion.  
> "Sirius?" she repeated blankly.  '*Sirius?*  Is that...that's a 
joke, 
> right?"  Then she remembered the flying motorcycle, and nodded to 
> herself.  'Ah,' she thought.  'Okay.  I guess some people do like 
> that sort of thing.')  

I didn't get it either. I was so stuck on Lupin, that I couldn't 
believe people could talk that way about psychotic Sirius Black. (just 
joking, please don't kill me, Sirius Black fans.) 

> (We won't even get into her response when she discovered the 
Snape-Is-
> Sexy people.)

I started laughing very, very hard. I'm a LOLLIPOPS member, but I 
don't blame Lily for causing ire to pollute our poor Severus. 

An interesting thing, though, imho, is that plenty of people want to 
"run off" with Sirius or Severus, but quite a few have expressed hopes 
of "marrying" Lupin.

Now why would that be? Is it acknowledgement that neither of the above 
is stable enough to become that committed? ;-)

Eileen