Perfidious!Lupin(WAS: Against Evil!Lupin responses (long))

[marinafrants <rusalka@ix.netcom.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49668

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999 <foxmoth at q...>" 
<foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> Perfidy: deliberate violation of trust, breach of faith (Random 
> House) Base treachery (Shorter Oxford) 
> 
> If malice is necessary for perfidy, then I withdraw the term.

The dictionary definition may not reqire malice, but I don't think 
I've ever before encountered the term in a context that didn't imply 
it.  Dictionary definitions sometime miss the connotations attached 
to words in actual usage.

<snip quotes of Lupin's confession in PoA>

> I think the closest parallel in Harry's experience is his theft of
> the Weasley car, when he realizes that because of him, Arthur 
> Weasley could be in trouble.
> 
> "Harry pushed his porridge away. His insides were burning with 
> guilt. Mr. Weasley was facing an inquiry at work. after all Mr. 
and 
> Mrs. Weasley had done for him over the summer." -- CoS ch. 6.

I don't think that's a parallel at all.  Harry is feeling bad 
because he was caught and then presented with tangible negative 
consequences of what he's done.  If he and Ron had gotten away clean 
with that Ford Anglia stunt, if no one found out and no one got in 
trouble, do you think he'd be sitting around angsting about what 
might've been?


> Harry feels terrible. But Lupin says he always managed to forget 
> his guilty feelings when it was time to plan the next adventure. 
> That makes him very different from Harry Potter. Lupin's actions 
> *were* calculated.  They were not  spur of the moment like Harry 
> stealing the car. 

That's exactly right, Lupin's actions *weren't* like Harry stealing 
the car.  They were like Harry keeping quiet about the basilisk 
voice.  Harry had plenty of opportunities to tell, he knew he should 
tell, he knew he was lying to Dumbledore about something important, 
and he did it anyway.

> 
>   There is nothing in Lupin's confession about mixed motives. 
> The way he tells it, his conscience and his duty were  on one 
> side and his cowardice and self-interest were on the other...and 
> cowardice and self-interest won, not just once, not just when he 
> was boy, but over and over and over again. Those whom he 
> betrayed (his word) were a man who had done everything for 
> him, and a boy who was the orphan son of his dearest friends. 

The fact that Lupin tells it like this, with no attempt to soften 
the description or put himself in a more favorable light, is what 
affirms his trustworthiness in my eyes.  I think that speech in the 
Shrieking Shack is the first time Lupin has fully admitted the 
extent of his wrongdoing, either to himself or to anyone else, and 
that's why he was so insistent on going through with the whole 
lengthy speech despite Sirius' repeated injunctions to shut up and 
get on with the killing.  If Lupin had stood there and tried once 
again to offer excuses or rationalizations for what he'd done, I 
would totally agree with you thaat he's not to be trusted.  But he 
doesn't; when he mentions the rationalizations for what he did, he 
talks of them in the past tense and freely admits that they were 
wrong.  His attitude contrasts favorably with all the other adults 
on the scene: Sirius, who's still stubbornly ensisting that Snape 
deserved the Prank; Snape, who goes ballistic at any suggestion that 
he might ever have been wrong about anything; and Peter, who can't 
open his mouth without spouting a dozen conflicting excuses for 
things much more terrible than anything Lupin ever did.  Now, we all 
know Peter is scum, but I don't see how it's possible to condemn 
Lupin as untrustworthy without also condemning Sirius and Snape.  Of 
course it's possible you mistrust all three of them, in which case 
your position is consistent.  I trust all three of them, which means 
my position is also consistent, and which also explains why none of 
my hedgehogs ever fly. :-)

> The way Lupin presents himself in his confession and the way 
> that Harry thinks of him cannot be reconciled. 

How exactly does Harry think of him, aside from "best DADA teacher 
we've ever had," which is true?  We know he trusts Sirius pretty 
much unconditionally (which I actually think is a mistake; I trust 
Sirius, but not unconditionally), and that he mistrusts Snape.  But 
we don't know what his attitude towards Lupin is after the end of 
PoA.  I doubt he sees him as "perfidious," but he may believe, like 
I do, that Lupin has done wrong in the past, but has learned from 
his mistakes and is unlikely to do the same wrong in the future.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com