Lupin as a teacher/Snape as teacher

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 138727

> houyhnhnm:
> 
> Would Neville's boggart have been Snape on a different day in a 
> different place?  He's seen plenty of horrors at St. Mungo's
whether  he actually saw his parents being tortured or not 
(or remembers it).  
> If Snape had chosen another student to bully in front of Lupin,
would  Lupin have picked that student instead of Neville.

Pippin:
Boggarts can take different forms for the same person even on the
same day and place, as Mrs. Weasley's did. Lupin may have his
own reasons for not pointing this out to the class, but Neville
seems to know it. He says that he doesn't want his boggart to
turn into his grandmother either. 

Lupin shows signs of legilimency. There are numerous times 
when it looks as though he's reading someone's mind. He asks 
the class to visualize their boggart, and, IMO, he picks up on  
two of them that have imagined a real person (Harry did think 
of Voldemort first, though he forgot this) and arranges for them
not to demonstrate their boggarts to the class. Why not
Neville also? 

I would expect anybody who says things like "I must be
grateful" to exhibit passive-aggressive tendencies, and IMO,
the boggart lesson is a perfect example. I don't doubt 
Lupin felt some sympathy for Neville, but if that really
mattered to him, why didn't he take further action when,
as a result of the boggart lesson, Snape began bullying
Neville worse than ever?

The boggart-lesson is a wonderful teaching experience
for the *reader*, and as Rowling is writing a novel, not
a self-help book, it's more than sufficient, but what 
*Neville* needed was not a one-off demonstration.
He needed patient, repetitive,  one-on-one  coaching. That's
what he got from Harry in the DA. It's not what he got
from Lupin. And if Lupin is such a brilliant teacher,
and I believe he is, he knows that.

No, I'm afraid it was mostly about Lupin's hidden 
resentment of Snape. 

I believe what JKR is showing us is what happens if
a person remains an adolescent in terms of moral
development. Many of her baddies are described
as babies or babyish in some way. Lupin is 
not like that. He is not totally self-interested. But
his altruism is bounded by his personal feelings and
interests -- and he seems unable to see beyond 
them to any greater good. 

Pippin