All about Lupin

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 121841


First, a note about terminology and some history.  ESE! is list 
shorthand for ever-so-evil and refers to the suspicion that a 
character may have an as yet unrevealed allegiance to 
Voldemort. If I say "ESE!Lupin" did thus and so, it's  identified as 
speculation by the ESE! tag itself, since all ESE! theories are by 
definition speculative. 

The original ESE!Lupin post is 39362--the first, as far as I know, 
to actually speculate that Lupin is a Death Eater. That was 
pre-OOP and  my theory has evolved quite a bit since then. 

I am in the process of compiling a table of all the clues, but 
briefly, in order to maintain Lupin's innocence you have to believe 
that on the night of the Shrieking Shack he somehow:

forgot he needed his potion
forgot that he would transform that night
forgot that Snape would be bringing the potion
forgot to deactivate the Marauders Map
did not  recognize the Invisibility Cloak although he ran right past 
it
forgot when he was due to transform

and was not reminded of any of these things although he 
touched on all of them in an hour of conversations.

Nope, that would make either Lupin or Rowling an idiot. I don't 
think so.


And so, I also can't believe that though Rowling placed Lupin 
between Harry and the veil, and thus between Harry and 
Sirius, had Lupin say, "Not at all" in response to Sirius's plea for 
forgiveness, and had the narrator note for  us that Harry knew 
Bella's scream "meant nothing",  Lupin  had nothing to do with 
Sirius's death. 

Rowling established with Quirrell that a deadly curse could be 
done without a wand, and with Dolohov that a  curse could 
be done without an audible incantation. 

I grant you that even with all that, Lupin is hardly an obvious 
suspect and has no obvious  motive. But then neither  did 
Quirrell, or Ginny, or Scabbers or...


> 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. <

Pippin:
I think you've misunderstood me.  I was discussing "warnings" in 
the context of a mystery plot. In a fair mystery, the author has to 
give the reader enough clues so that one could guess the 
identity of the culprit. In the case of ESE!Lupin, (speculating now) 
one of those clues is his suspicious behavior on the train.

 Lupin himself jokes, "I haven't poisoned that chocolate."
The issue of sinister intent is raised in the text for all to see. 
When I was growing up, children  were told the reason not to 
take candy from strangers was that it might be poisoned.

The allusion to pedophilia is not meant in any literal sense, IMO, 
but   to play fair with the reader by hinting that this character is 
capable of something truly abhorrent. 

The metaphor of Lupin as JKR gave it  was "people's *reactions* 
to illness"  (emphasis mine.) That's  a very important distinction, 
IMO.  What she might want to show us, I think, is that both  the 
stigma  and the aura of victimization  people sometimes employ 
to counter it are dehumanizing and that  it is  dehumanization, 
not  disease, that we should fear will turn people into monsters.

Pippin