Lupin's resignation and the legacy of hate

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 99729

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" 
<stevejjen at e...> wrote:
> Amy Z:
> > You are right that Lupin can only speculate about Snape's 
> motives.   Considering the context, though, he's being pretty 
damn calm.   Snape  informed students of something that 
Dumbledore, as well as Lupin, wanted kept quiet.  Whether 
Lupin would have resigned without this scandal, we can't know; 
but Snape robbed him of the chance to  leave  with dignity and for 
a noble reason.  Instead, he forced both Dumbledore and Lupin 
into Lupin's resigning.<<

> 
> Jen R: I've been wondering whether Snape's announcement at 
the Slytehrin table didn't also lead to another "legacy of hate"
i.e.,  Umbridge's anit-werewolf legislation that 'makes it almost 
 impossible (for Lupin)to get a job' (US, chap.14, p. 302). 
According  to Sirius, this legislation was drafted two years before 
OOTP,  meaning sometime during year three. 
> 
> I used to think Snape might be the impetus behind the 
legislation,  but he didn't appear to know Umbridge at all. More 
likely, Umbridge seized on the scandal at Hogwarts to further her 
own agenda, and  perpetuate the stigma surrounding werewolfs. 
> 
> So certainly the legacy of hate *does* live on, but I think it goes 
 both ways.<

Pippin:

You mean, if Snape had kept quiet, and Lupin had resigned to 
"spend more time with his remaining limbs", there wouldn't have 
been a scandal and Umbridge couldn't have used it? You think 
there should have been a cover-up?

Or are you saying the scandal would have been lessened if 
Lupin himself had told the school why he was leaving? Because 
I don't see that Snape's announcement deprived him  of the 
opportunity to do that. Of course it wouldn't have looked so noble  
if he'd told *everyone* that Snape outed him just because he 
didn't get an Order of Merlin. Think about that when you think 
about whether Lupin gave out two different explanations for why 
he was leaving.

The problem is the one that came up in the My Remus 
thread. Whether you are inclined to excuse him under the 
circumstances or not, Remus proved he was untrustworthy 
when it came to taking his potion. He  proved, unfortunately, that 
the werewolf stereotype is an accurate description of him.

 Of course that does not prove that it  is accurate for werewolves 
generally, but both Lupin's  detractors in the novel and many of 
his supporters on the list behave as if it would. As if the way to 
refute the stereotype were to show that no werewolf is capable of 
such behavior.  But that is to deny the humanity of the werewolf.
  
It is what the jargon-mongers call one-dimensionalizing the 
Other. It takes the whole range of human experience and 
compresses it into the narrow limits of a useful moral example.
IMO, Lupin has just as much right to appear harmless and do 
evil as Ludo Bagman or Gilderoy Lockhart. And JKR, as an 
author, has the right to force her characters to deal with that 
situation in her novels, just as people have to deal with it in real 
life. 

Pippin