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

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 115876

Pippin said

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

Sherry now

Pippin, you build a compelling case for ESE Lupin.  I hope you are wrong.  I
admit this is a very personal bias on my part.  As a disabled person, I
can't tell you how many times I've been told, that if I had enough faith I'd
be healed, or that I or my parents must have done some terrible thing for me
to be blind.  i've had people tell me that till they got to know me, they
thought I was developmentally disabled, though they did not use such a clean
politically correct term.  People talk to me as if I'm a child, or as if I
am also deaf and mute.  People think I am incompetent, though I have worked
successfully for many years.  People either think I am super human or only
part human, the other part some freak of nature or God.  Over the
generations, disabled people have been looked at with suspicion and fear,
especially people who are developmentally disabled.  Now, I'm not saying
that disabled people are all wonderful either; I've known some pretty scummy
disabled people and some down right criminals.  But to me, to have Lupin bee
truly ESE, would be confirming all the stereotypes the WW has about his
kind.  I see Lupin as the representative almost disabled person in the cast,
and I'd really hate to have the WW opinion of him proved correct.  It would
feel like a confirmation of many, many people's beliefs about all people
with disabilities.

So, as I say, I realize my feeling on the subject is based on very personal
bias, and your thoughts on ESE Lupin are very intriguing.  I just hope you
are wrong.

Sherry G