All about Lupin

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 121840


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> 
> 
> > Pippin:
> You could just as well say that all the death omens linked to 
> Sirius in PoA were a failure, since they had no consequences 
> there, and  children would be unlikely to remember them until 
> OOP. JKR obviously means the books to be re-read. She often 
> makes cross-references from book to book  that a child might 
> not notice -- for example,the way the obstacles from the first 
book 
> echo the themes of the succeeding volumes.

Renee:
It doesn't matter if children don't recognise such references with 
hindsight. They aren't *warnings* adressed to kids in the age range 
from, say, 7-10 when PoA came out. These kids will be adolescents 
age 15-18 when the last book in the series comes out, so by the time 
the warning is supposed to hit home, they don't need it anymore. And 
even later generations of 7-10 year olds probably won't be able to 
grasp it if the warning is incorporated in a book that's defintely 
not directed at their age group. 

Also, what message will kids get out of it, given the fact that 
Poppy Pomfrey approves of Lupin's chocolate dealing immediately 
after she hears about it, thereby suggesting that having some 
chocolate at the ready ought to be part of a DADA-teacher's job 
description? Some warning that would be... As far as I recall we 
haven't seen any of the DADA-teachers shown to be evil and/or 
untrustworthy hand out candy of whatever kind.   

 
> Renee: 
> > My main problem is that JKR said that she'd like Lupin to be 
> her daughter's teacher.  <
> 
> Pippin:
> I think JKR genuinely wishes Lupin could escape from the doom 
> she has laid out for him, just as she wished Sirius could. 

Renee:
As we don't know yet if she has laid out such a doom for Lupin, it 
seems better to me not to speculate about what JKR does or does not 
wish. And if it should turn out that she has, I'd still find the 
remark disturbing, even if she'd feel sorry for him.
<snip>

Pippin
 > ESE!Lupin is a metaphor for what happens if you, unlike Snape, 
> are too afraid of the consequences to confess and seek pardon. 
> ESE!Lupin, like many on the list, thinks all werewolves will be 
> judged by his actions, and that there is no way Dumbledore 
> would pardon him if he knew what Lupin had done.
> 
> 
> This is where the pedophilia comes in, IMO, as  a metaphor, and 
> *only* as a metaphor,  for the unforgivable.  <snip>

Renee:
But to me, pedophilia as the metaphor muddles the issue. I can, 
theoretically, see how werewolves could be used as a metaphor for 
sexual aberration (though I still think JKR's remark about her 
daughter rules this out and it's much more likely they're a metaphor 
for people with cripping and potentially dangerous diseases). To 
make the sexual aberration the metaphor would be turning things on 
their head. It would be like arguing that Mrs. Black is presented as 
a Nazi/fascist to provide a metaphor and a warning against for the 
wrongness of pureblood mania. But it's the books that contain 
symbols for the RW, not the RW that contains symbols for the books.