All about Lupin

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 121853


> Renee:

> 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.   <

Pippin:
I don't see those readings as mutually exclusive. Harry was told 
at the beginning of his quest that the great terror of Voldemort's 
reign was that people, "Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get 
friendly with strange wizards or witches...terrible things 
happened." One of Harry's problems along the road is deciding 
which of his companions he can trust, and the complication is 
that while he thinks this is easy, "I can tell who the right sort are 
for myself," in all but a few cases it's been quite difficult. 


> 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. <

Pippin:
How can anything about a continuing character be resolved in 
the third book of a seven book series? JKR is quite fond of her 
switcheroos. I can't tell you the shivers I got when I read PoA 
again after OOP and got to where Harry sees the book with the 
dog on the cover: Death Omens: What To Do When You Know 
The Worst Is Coming. Yipes! And for three years I'd been smiling 
at Harry's childish fears. But JKR got the last laugh, didn't she.

Renee:

>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. <

Pippin:
Hasn't JKR said that she doesn't believe anyone is evil in the 
beginning? What a lovely graphic way to show this in the story! It 
is essential to ESE!Lupin's tragedy that he have power for good.

> 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?"

Pippin:
Sort of. The way people react to another's illness has to affect the 
way the person with the illness regards himself. Consider what 
Hermione does in PoA. She covers up for Lupin because she 
trusts him, and because she thinks werewolves get a raw deal. 
He's a victim and she feels sorry for him.

 But when Lupin embraces Black, she says, "Don't trust him, 
he's a werewolf!" Not, "Don't trust him, he's just thrown his arms 
around a man who wants to kill you! "  There's no room in 
Hermione's cosmos for Lupin to be a desperately wicked 
*human being*--she only sees him as human as long as she 
believes he's innocent. 

It would be a psychological disaster for Lupin to believe this 
about himself; that his guilty deeds make him not a human who 
can repent and be released from punishment but a monster who 
must be destroyed.

You asked about Snape: IMO, Dumbledore's pardon is implicit in 
the words "He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."


Pippin