Lupin, (him only, really)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 117882


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:
> If Remus is also called Wormtail, then JKR has not lied, she's  
> hidden behind a double meaning. She is, after all, the person 
> who had Dobby explain that  telling Harry the diary  plot didn't 
> have anything to do with "He Who Must Not Be Named" was 
> supposed to be a clue. 

I'm still getting hung up on one thing.  So far, I don't think you've 
given a deeply compelling reason for why Remus Lupin, Moony, 
werewolf, would be called Wormtail, and dealt with the canonical 
existence of the actual Wormtail.  It doesn't make sense unless it's 
highly artifical and deliberate obfuscation on the part of 
Voldemort.  We have very good reasons to call Peter Wormtail, 
Voldemort uses that name for him (decreasing his human status in 
doing it), and it's on the Map.  But every 'reason' for calling Lupin 
that frankly creates more questions of the 'buh?' kind than elegant 
realizations about the actual thematic meaning of his supposed 
actions.  And, well, none of them are actually in the text, either, 
unlike good Peter there.

<snip>

> But there are a number of things that have yet to be explained -- 
> the peeling letters on the case,  the inconvenient timing of his 
> transformation in PoA, the twelve year gap in his history, the 
> ambiguous description of his boggart, his apparent failure to 
> perform the riddikulus spell successfully, his absence from 
> Harry's christening, the mysterious business for the order, and 
> the reason that Lucius Malfoy did not attack him when he leaped 
> in front of Harry and Neville at the DoM, to mention just a few.

Well, the christening absence has been explained by JKR as *only* the 
parents and the godfather being there--which indicates that Sirius 
was closer to the Potters than Lupin was.  This fits, no?  I agree 
certainly that we do not 'know' Lupin well at all, but my hunches 
also put some of the things that we consider 'suspicious' down to 
writing style and/or plot demands.  (Re: Lucius Malfoy, I'm wary of 
arguing from absence to actuality in that case--it could be 
meaningful, or it could just be JKR not describing the actions taken 
because her focus and thus the narrator's is swinging another place.)

> The answer to all of this does not have to involve a secret 
> identity, but that's usually been the case. It is JKR's favorite 
> device for concealing motive. (I know there may be innocent 
> explanations for all these things. The point is, they have to be 
> invented. They're not in the books.)

I think my contention would be in many cases that the more innocent 
explanations are more straightforward and easy to draw, and therefore 
in *some* cases, not all, more likely to be right.  It's the ones 
where they aren't that she hits us with--but make everything work 
like that, and it loses its impact.

There are a lot of things that JKR just assumes we'll 'get'.  How 
Harry got the map back so he could have it in OotP is a particularly 
good example.  All kinds of fun speculation, and she's like "Oh, I 
assumed you all would have figured that out--sorry...".  It's the 
game to guess which things are hiding other things, and which aren't--
but the more things you have to suppose are hiding, the more your 
castle ends up being built on air and connecting its foundations to 
itself, rather than down to the ground.

ESE!Lupin is certainly possible.  But making Lupin into the murderer 
for all those murders requires building extrapolations onto 
extrapolations.  It's rather like a house of cards, except maybe the 
top half will turn out to be solid, and it's the bottom that will 
crash...

-Nora should really be writing on decidedly non-conspiratorial 
subjects