All about Lupin

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 121842


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
><snip ESE!Lupin theory> 
> 
> > 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.

Renee:
I see what you mean now; thanks for explaining. So you were talking 
about the mystery reader, not about the gullible child that has to 
be warned against malicious adults who fake being nice. 

In that case, we seem to be back at the fundamental difference: You 
can read the HP books as one big mystery novel where unmasking the 
villain whodunit all is the main objective, and you can read them 
as, by and large, a symbolical fantasy series of which the separate 
parts may contain a mystery or two, but where the overall questions 
remains, how the hero will fulfill his destiny/quest with the aid of 
others.   

 
>  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.

Renee:
Yes, I recognise the allusion, and we're *meant* to be wary of Lupin 
after Quirrell and Lockhart, but at the end of PoA the issue is 
resolved. And as I'm not reading the series as a whodunnit but as a 
fantasy series full of symbolism, I remember that before he made the 
joke about the chocolate, Lupin's first acts in the book are to 
spread light in the darkness and to drive away an evil entity. 
Realising this, and remembering the rest of PoA, I know now what to 
make of this character, which enables me to see the joke for what it 
is: the first instance of Lupin's somewhat edgy, self-depreciating 
humour.         

Pippin:
> 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.

Renee:
Before I comment on this: You're reading this also as "people's 
reactions to their OWN illness?"