Real Wizards Don't Apologize

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 36779

Cindy wrote:

> Wizards just don't *get* the concept of apologies, do they?

No.  They don't.

'Way back when Real Wizards Weren't Squeamish, I suggested that the 
Potterverse's wizarding culture was at heart a warrior culture, and 
I still stand by that.  (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)  
Warrior cultures tend not to put much stock in apologies.  I mean, 
how many times do you run across characters apologizing to each other 
in Norse Eddas?  Or, for that matter, in any sort of warrior saga?
Just think of how differently the Iliad would have played out, if any 
of the principles had been able to apologize, or for that matter to
accept an apology gracefully once one was offered! 

Cultures that develop with a strong warrior ethos don't really do that
whole apology thing.  Aristocratic Romans who came the conclusion 
that they'd seriously done wrong weren't supposed to go around 
apologizing to everyone.  What they were *supposed* to do was to 
commit suicide like...well, you know.  Like Good Romans.  

Now admittedly, we haven't run across a whole lot of noble suicides 
in the HP books.  But I have to say that if we did, it wouldn't 
strike me as at *all* out of character for the wizarding culture as 
it's been presented so far.


> Now Hermione, she knows how to apologize. 

Yes, she does.  Like any self-respecting adolescent, she can be 
stubborn about it, but she does at least seem to have some 
familiarity with the entire concept.

But then, Hermione was raised by muggles, right?  I mean, *properly*
raised by muggles, not just locked into the cupboard beneath the 
stairs, like Harry was.  So it's not really surprising if she's a 
little weak on that whole Real Wizards Don't Apologize concept.  But
don't worry: Hermione's a very quick learner.  She'll pick up on how
to be a properly pride-driven and bloody-minded idiot like all of the 
rest of them in no time at all, I'm sure.  <sigh>

Seriously, though, David made mention of the apparent inability of
these characters to apologize as evidence that they are personally
"damaged."  I'd agree with that, but I'd also take it one step 
further: I think that their entire culture is fairly well damaged,
and that their discomfort with the notion of apologies is really one 
of the very *mildest* manifestations of said damage within the series.


Cindy later qualified her rant, by adding:

> That said, I have to kick myself, because I overlooked perhaps the 
> biggest, most important apology in the books. In my favorite scene 
> in my favorite book, no less:

> "Forgive me, Remus," said Black.
> "Not at all, Padfoot, old friend," said Lupin, who was now rolling 
> up his sleeves. "And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing 
> you were the spy?"

Ah, yes.  That certainly *was* a sincere and heart-felt plea for 
forgiveness, wasn't it?  No attempts to excuse himself, no attempts 
to explain himself, no attempts to justify himself -- not even 
a "Peter turned me against you!" accusation stuck in there somewhere 
as a partial defense.  Just a pure and simple request for forgiveness.

That's hard.  That's about as sucking-it-up as apologies get, 
really.  And coming from someone like Sirius Black, it really means a 
lot, don't you think?  Even after all those years in Azkaban, the man
still has a good deal of that Proper Wizarding Pride.  He's not 
really at all the "forgive me" type.

But just look at how Lupin *reacts* to it, will you?  Look at his 
tone.  It's breezy.  Light.  Casual.  Childhood nicknames, "not at 
all, old friend."  I mean, it's *flippant,* really.  It very nearly 
borders on the facetious.

That's how Lupin always signals discomfort or distress.  It's similar 
to that breezy tone he takes when he talks to Harry about the 
dementors, and about Sirius Black, and about the Dementor's Kiss.  
It's similar to the tone he takes nearly every time he is forced to 
deal with Snape as a colleague.  For that matter, it's a relation to 
the tone that he's been taking with Peter throughout the Shrieking 
Shack scene.

Sirius' apology may strike us as admirable or touching, but its 
effect on Lupin seems to me to be one of extreme discomfort.  It 
*embarrasses* him.


Cindy wrote:

> A lot of people have expressed dissatisfaction with this scene, and 
> perhaps one reason is that neither character has any good reason to 
> be apologizing. I don't know.

I don't really think that's it at all.  For one thing, I think it is
perfectly reasonable to apologize to a close friend for having 
wrongly suspected him of treachery and murder.  That represents such 
a profound failure of trust that to my mind, it *certainly* warrants 
some form of apology.  And it particularly warrants an apology from 
Sirius, because while Lupin would seem only to have come to believe 
Sirius to be a murderous traitor after his arrest, Sirius suspected 
Lupin on the basis of no solid evidence at all.  It's hard to avoid 
the suspicion that Lupin's lycanthropy had something to do with that, 
and even if it hadn't, I'm sure that Lupin thinks that it had.  I'm 
equally sure that Sirius is aware that Lupin would assume that it 
had.  And really, that's pretty ugly.  Given all of that, it seems 
perfectly proper to me for Sirius to ask for forgiveness.

No, I think that the reason that so many readers express feelings of 
dissatisfaction with that part of the scene is that the tenor of 
Lupin's response strikes an off-note.  The tone is just all wrong.  
It sounds insincere, unconvincing.  It sounds a bit like a brush-
off.  And that leaves them feeling a certain degree of anxiety that 
perhaps things aren't really settled between the two men, that 
perhaps there are still some hard feelings there that aren't being 
resolved.


Eloise wrote:

> The point about sincere apology is that it isn't just some magic 
> social formula, it's the recognition that something has gone wrong 
> between two (or more) people that needs to be put right if the 
> relationship is to carry on or be healed. It's an acknowledgement 
> of how the situation is and that something needs to be done about 
> it.

Yes.  And I think that this is really the underlying cause of that 
reader anxiety with the "apology."  Remus' response leaves many 
people with an uneasy feeling that he's in some way resisting the 
offer to heal the breach.

I don't think that he is, myself.  I think that he's just profoundly 
uncomfortable.  As Eloise said, it's often much harder to respond to 
a sincere apology than it is to offer one, and what Sirius is asking 
forgiveness for there really is big.  "You thought that I'd sold 
myself to Dark Forces and was planning on betraying you and James and 
Lily *and* their infant son to death?  You just happened to figure 
that the one werewolf in the group was also probably the traitor?  
Oh, well, really now, Sirius, please don't trouble yourself about 
that any longer, all right?  I mean, it could have happened to 
anyone."

No.  Even if Lupin isn't holding onto any hard feelings at all, it's 
still got to be difficult for him to think of a way to respond, and 
so he tries to gloss over his discomfort by offering up a light and 
breezy apology right back.  I also don't think that he's at all
comfortable with Sirius breaking the Real Wizards Don't Apologize 
rule -- it's not really *manly,* you know, to ask quite so earnestly 
for another's forgiveness; it's not...well, it's just not *done.*  

He's uncomfortable, and he's embarrassed, and so he descends into 
flippancy.  

That's how I read it, anyway.  I thought it rather sad, myself.


Eloise wrote:

> 'Real Wizards don't Apologise'. Real Wizards suffer from a great 
> deal too much pride, if you ask me. And they're not helped by being 
> male. . . . But there are ways and ways of showing regret, of 
> moving on. Isn't that what Harry and Ron did in that 'apology that 
> wasn't an apology' scene that restored their 
> friendship? . . . .They both knew the other was sorry for their 
> part in the rift between them and in the end, *because they both 
> recognised the situation*, it didn't have to be said.


The big reconciliation moment of Shrieking Shack isn't that rather 
awkward apology at *all,* IMO.  

It's the embrace.



-- Elkins, whose own dicentra spectabilis has just started to shoot 
up, although now that it is hailing, she rather imagines that it's 
wishing it had waited a bit longer; and who is very happy with the 
idea of nice peaty smoky Islay single malts on board the Fourth Man 
hovercraft, but who thinks it best if Eloise herself sees to its 
acquisition, as nice peaty single malts are very hard to come by here 
in Oregon, where we instead produce sweet pale Reislings and effete 
cordials (twee but tasty!) made from various and sundry regional 
types of berry-fruit...