All about Lupin (and a little about Snape)

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 121871


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> 
> > Renee:
> 
> 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: 
Sure, the series can have elements of both. But when it comes to 
determining what the main issue is, people will have to make a 
decision, and the readers' ranks will be divided. 'Who is to be 
distrusted?' is the typical question of the mystery novel. Who's 
lying? Who's hiding something? Who among all the slippery types is 
the real villain? In a symbolical fantasy novel, trust is one issue 
among many, the main question being, IMO, how the main character 
will achieve his quest/do what has to do/ become what he's destined 
to be. The ESE!Lupin theory is clearly answering the whodunit kind 
of question by creating a supervillain who 
 
- was behind the Shrieking Shack incident with Snape
- joined the Death Eaters, betraying his greatest benefactor, 
Dumbledore
- betrayed his friends the Potters to Voldemort, misleading their 
Secret Keeper 
- killed a dozen Muggles
- framed his friend Sirius
- sent the Lestranges to torture the Longbottoms 
- destroyed a couple of innocent Boggarts, not to mention the 
vanished Grindylow
- framed and was ready to kill his friend Peter 
- killed Bertha Jorkins, probably as a werewolf during the full moon
- killed Cedric Diggory under his codename Wormtail
- bit the werewolf at the Dai Llewellyn ward of St. Mungo's 
- killed his friend Sirius in the MoM

He probably also tempted the werewolf to bite him when he was a 
child, introduced Quirrel to Voldemort, passed Tom Riddle's diary on 
to Lucius Malfoy instructing to put it in Ginny's cauldron, inspired 
Barty Crouch jr. to pose as Mad-eye Moody during the Quidditch World 
Cup (Lupin must have been one of the death-eaters there), provided 
Umbridge with a few Dementors (he can easily control them with his 
ESE!Patronus) and sent Kreacher to the Malfoys? 

Truly a villain of Luciferan proportions. Come to think of it, they 
share the first syllable of their names! And Lucifer started out 
like an angel of light, if I recall correctly, which would explain 
Lupin's first appearance as a lightbearer! Wow. 

But this Lupin far outshines Voldemort as the bad guy, and if he 
really exists, he'll probably overshadow Harry Potter, too, at the 
end - in whodunits, villains of this stature do have the tendency to 
occupy the centre of the stage at the end. So what it boils down to, 
I guess, is that I'm simply refusing to believe in the HP series as 
a whodunit with such a demasque at the end. I'm afraid no amount of 
theorising will bridge the gap between my HP series and yours.    

> > 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? 

Eh... the question whether Snape is after Harry's life, in PS/SS?
Who Tom Riddle was in CS? 
Who Scabbers really was, in PoA?
Why Hagrid is so huge, in GoF?
The secret of Snape's past, also in GoF?
Where we've got Fudge, in OotP?
Why people were so ready to believe Sirius was a Dark Wizard, also 
in OotP?
  

> > 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.<
> > 
Pippin: 
> 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.

Renee:
It would, if he did believe it. But I see no indication that he 
does; I rather see him confess his wrongdoings and shortcomings on 
several occasions. That something is possible in general doesn't 
mean it has happened in any particular case. Also, there's nothing 
new in the message that a dehumanising treatment often results in 
inhuman behaviour. What makes you think JKR isn't writing the 
opposite: an example of someone who is eventually able to rise above 
this kind of treatment? I actually think Lupin might be able to help 
Harry - also treated badly by various parties, to the point of being 
distrusted and socially stigmatised - to do so. 

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

Renee:
That statement still doesn't tell me if Snape has asked for pardon. 
I consider Dumbledore perfectly capable of accepting a Snape who 
returns to him saying no more than `I changed my mind', as long as 
he's sure Snape *has* changed his mind, and knows he had a very good 
reason to do so. Maybe it has nothing to do with contrition.