Lupin's personality (WAS Re: Lupin as next Headmaster)

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 78417

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "maria_kirilenko" 
> <maria_kirilenko at y...> wrote:
> > (Don't feel that you have to like Lupin less because of his 
> > cowardice, though. To me, this trait is actually endearing. It 
> makes 
> > him astonishingly human in my eyes, even though there's 
absolutely 
> no 
> > self-identification in this scene for me at all. 
> 
> <snip>

> Marina
> 
> I think the saving grace for Remus is that he's an emotional coward 
> rather than a physical one.  We never see him cringing away from 
> pain or danger, or backing down from his enemies.  It's his friends 
> he gives in to.  (Thus proving Dumbledore's point about how it's 
> harder to stand up to your friends than to your enemies.)  To me, 
at 
> least, it makes him come across as sympathetic and vulnerable 
rather 
> than despicable.  Even as I strongly disapprove of many of the 
> things he's done, I sympathize even more strongly with the fear and 
> pain that led him to do them.
> 
> 
Laura:

We should distinguish between what Remus (this applies to James and 
Sirius and even Snape as well) was as a teenager and what hebecame as 
an adult.  Remus may have been on the spineless side at school (at 
least toward J&S) but as an adult, he seems to me to carry a lot of 
moral authority.  He never hesitates to stand up to adult!Sirius and 
he can keep such volatile personalities as Mad-eye, Tonks and Molly 
in line.  

We don't know what the course of events was that led Remus to evolve 
from a timid teen to a confident adult, but I wonder if it didn't 
have something to do with James and Lily's deaths.  If he believed 
that Sirius was responsible, then he could have concluded that his 
failure to stand up and volunteer to be secret keeper despite his 
suspicions about Sirius contributed to their deaths.  At that point, 
he must have done some very painful self-evaluation and decided that 
fighting LV was only one part of his moral responsibilities.  He 
found in himself (belatedly, but better than never) what DD had known 
was there all along.

I think he'd make a splendid headmaster.  Of course, Snape's head 
would explode...