[HPforGrownups] Evil!Lupin explains it all for you

Sat Jan 18 20:01:45 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 50064

"pippin_999 <foxmoth at qnet.com>" <foxmoth at qnet.com> wrote:
<<Well, Maria  made me think about why I am being so stubborn 
here. When I first read PoA, I liked Lupin just as much as Harry 
does  until I got to that confession. It really disturbed me. It is
so full of self-hate. I do not like self-hating characters.

I'm afraid I don't read the confession as a Damascus moment. I 
read it as the whinging of a perpetual guilt-tripper. Those are  
stock figures in my culture (think Woody Allen). You feel guilty 
because you're different, so you do something stupid and get in 
trouble. That makes you feel better, because at least it's *you* 
making you feel guilty now, but then you  angst over the 
consequences, you start feeling guilty again, and the cycle 
repeats ad nauseam.<<

Did his confession really make you feel that way? I've never thought about Lupin like that, and I still don't. He doesn't seem to me to be full of self-hate - just self-disgust. Well, he is right to feel that way. But self-disgust does not automatically mean self-hate, and I don't think there is anything in Lupin's confession that suggests it.

Now, about this guilt-tripper thing. Again, that's really speculation more than canon. We don't know if Lupin was feeling guilty about being a werewolf, maybe he was, but if he says it anywhere, that would be in his confession, and even then we'd have to read between the lines, which can lead to all kinds of conclusions. IMO Lupin was feeling guilty about two things - romping around Hogwarts grounds as a werewolf 15 years ago and not telling DD about Sirius (which are, if you think about it, the same thing - breaking DD's trust). There is nothing wrong with him feeling guilt about it <understatement>. So, if you're saying that he used his behavior to feel guilty when really he was masking with this guilt the guilt he was feeling because he just plain hated himself (Beg pardon for mutilating the English language :) ), which is what I think you are saying, I don't agree.

<<What Lupin did as a teen wasn't any worse, objectively, than 
what James and the others did. <<

Just. I agree.

<<What made it much much worse 
for *him*, IMO, was his outsider status, his debt to Dumbledore, 
and the possibility that other werewolves were going to be set 
back in their struggle for acceptance. <<

I agree with the 'debt to Dumbledore' bit, which is what Lupin mentioned, but I don't know about the outsider status. He himself definitely felt like an outsider, but nobody else thought so, but IMO that contributed much less to his feeling guilty than the fact that he was breaking DD's trust and endangering others' lives.

<<Think of the way Harry felt when he realized Hagrid and others 
like him were counting on him to do well in the Tri-Wizard Cup. 
Lupin must have felt pressure like that, too. <<

How do you figure that? I don't think their circumstances are a bit alike. Harry felt pressure because he was school champion and was expected to do well. Lupin wasn't.

<<There was no way he 
could feel good about himself. And if you're going to hate 
yourself, why not hate yourself with good  reason? <<

Again, you're saying that he uses his behavior to mask his feelings of guilt that are based on his self-hate. Maybe, but I don't think so. I mean, he probably does not like himself very much (or did not - maybe his MWPP group gave him all the love and friendship he IMO lacked, and gave him the self-respect he needed to have). After James died and he lost all three of his friends he was just plain unhappy and miserable - can you imagine losing in two days the three people you've cared for the most? I can't and I certainly don't want to find out. 

So, OK, Lupin is an unhappy person who doesn't like himself very much. That would mean that he isn't good at inventing fake reasons to excuse himself for misbehavior. I think that's a good trait. 

Umm... Did anything I said make any sense?

<<Pippin
whose Ever So Evil Lupin theory was first posted at #39362 and  
will probably have to revise it severely in late June.<<

Oh, yes <g>. I hope there will be a lot of Lupin in OoP, and I hope your theory doesn't turn out to be true. 

BTW, I posted replies to Pippin's theory recently and they are messages 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49445

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49536

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49597

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49749

Also, here are some more messages (not written by me)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49526

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49567

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49668

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/49702

Regards,

Maria,

who thinks Lupin made mistakes, but is essentially a good person.

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