Snape and Lupin's Character Arcs (was: Lupin's Char Arc)

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 119363



Lupinlore:
Err, what's your point?  Ignorance of the law is no excuse.  Nor is 
the fact that many, maybe even the majority, of the Wizarding World 
would find his methods acceptable.  We are under no obligation 
whatsoever to cut him a break on those grounds.  Now, that probably 
sounds arrogant, judgemental, and self-righteous.  So be it.  But if 
the majority of the Wizarding World holds with Snape, well, the 
majority of the Wizarding World is twisted and corrupt in this 
context.  Sorry.  At one time the vast majority of U.S. Southerners 
believed slavery was perfectly all right.  In fact, at one point the 
vast majority of both Americans and English felt that slavery was 
perfectly all right.  Does that mean that early abolitionists were 
supposed to cut slave traders and slave holders a break .


Alla:

I do agree with you, Lupinlore, but for a bit different reasons. IF 
I were convinced that JKR writes the tale about the world with 
morality, which completely alien to ours, I may be inclined to cut 
Snape a litte bit more slack, the thing is I don't.

First and foremost - muggleborn witches and wisards come to WW from 
muggle world. It is VERY hard for me to believe that their morality 
changes drastically when they come to WW.

JKR's morality is bound to manifest itself in some shape or form and 
her morality is also ours.

There are many ugly things in WW (to the point when I wondered 
earlier whether such society is indeed worth saving), but i also 
believe that JKR wants to do a VERY radical shake up of such society 
at the end. In what form, I am not sure.

Going back to teaching - well, there is MUST be a reason that  JKR 
introduced Lupin's lessons and showed to us that Lupin is better 
teacher than Snape, so my striking suspicion is that she likes Lupin 
style teachers more  than Snape ones.

Since such teachers do exist in WW, so we can hope that at the end 
their syle will be more accepted in the schools than what Snape does.


I also agree with you that something which was right for society at 
one point of its development will not necessarily be right thing to 
do for such society later in time.