DD and the rat (was:Re: Minerva McGonagall/Dumbledore)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 115867


Rams:

> "Scholastic.com February 2000 Online Chat 
> 
> If you had to choose one teacher from your books to teach your 
> child, who would it be and why? 
> 
> A. It would be Professor Lupin, because he is kind, clever, and 
> gives very interesting lessons. "
> 
> I do not think she would want her daughter to be tutored by a 
 traitor. Also, JKR is making a point against prejudice in the WW. 
 She will be proving the anti-werewolf legion right by making 
Lupin ESE! :)<

Pippin:

She's also said  that  that he's damaged, both literally and 
metaphorically, (The Scotsman, Nov 2002),that's he a metaphor 
for the way people react to illness and disability, (*not* for
illness and disability themselves)  and many, many times that 
she loves all her characters even the bad guys. She's said she 
would like to meet Lupin, and I believe her. I think she'd like to 
take him by the shoulders and shout, "STOP!!" 


I don't think ESE!Lupin theory undermines what JKR's trying to 
say about prejudice. We understand that it's wrong for the WW to 
be prejudiced against halfbloods even though Voldemort is one. 
But AFAWK, Voldemort was already loveless and ruthless even 
as a child, and never wanted to be anything else. It took more 
than prejudice to make him what he became. He could have had 
any position the wizarding world had to offer when he left school.

But Lupin was a Gryffindor, who, IMO, ended up on Voldemort's 
side only because he began to feel that outside Hogwarts there 
was no useful place for him in the light.

Lupin is a kind, clever person who gives good lessons, and if 
only he had always been allowed to work as a teacher, JKR 
might be saying, he could never have been tempted to choose 
the Dark Side. Hagrid was willing to wait, willing to accept status 
less than a full wizard and take a servant's job in order to stay at 
Hogwarts until he could become a teacher.  Lupin wasn't. He 
says straight out that those tempted by the rights and freedoms 
his kind have been denied for centuries may join Voldemort.

On the single, narrow but to him all important  issue of 
non-human rights, ESE!Lupin felt Voldemort was right and 
Dumbledore was wrong. On  that basis he chose Voldemort, 
and ultimately and to his horror, as symbolized by the prophecy 
orb which is his boggart,  all that Voldemort represents, 
including the betrayal of his closest friends.

Pippin

* Voldemort has no doubt convinced his non-human allies that 
he intends to betray the puristas once he's in power, just as he's 
convinced the puristas that he means to betray the non-humans.