Reflections on Lupin: DD’s trust, identifying with Snape, and self-image

[oiboyz]

No: HPFGUIDX 135574

Some observations on Lupin's scene in "A Very Frosty Christmas":

   Lupin tells Harry that DD's trust in Snape ought to be good enough
for all of them: 'It comes down to whether or not you trust
Dumbledore's judgment, and I do.'

   So let's look at DD's judgment of Lupin in PoA.  DD let him teach
in spite of Snape's furious and repeated warnings that Lupin might
help his old friend Sirius get into the castle.  And in a way Snape
was proved right.  Rather than 'fess up to all the dangerous things
the Marauders had done in school, Lupin kept the secret of Sirius'
animagus form, even though he knew it was probably the key to his
escape from Azkaban and his ability to sneak into Hogwarts.  There
could hardly be more important information for keeping Harry safe, and
Lupin abused DD's trust by not telling him.  It was a weak sort of
selfishness rather than malice, so DD was more right about Lupin's
character than Snape was-- but he wasn't completely right.  And think
of the consequences had Sirius actually been evil.  He could easily
have murdered Harry in his bed, and Lupin would have had no one to
blame but himself.

   No doubt Lupin is glad that DD gave him a chance anyway.  In a way
he repays the favor by accepting DD's judgment of Snape, even though
Lupin knows better than anyone that DD's not always completely right
about people.  I wonder if Lupin has decided that Snape, like himself,
probably *means* to overcome his character flaws and do the right
thing, even if he doesn't always manage to do it, and therefore he
ought to be shown a little grace.

   And now that the poor werewolf isn't getting his Wolfsbane potion
any more, he must be back to full-on, savage transformations.  Since
he lives with other werewolves now, does that mean he's going on
rampages with them?  Could he have hurt anyone during a full moon?  At
the least, he's probably not doing much to stop the other werewolves
from biting people-- after all, as a double agent he's got to appear
sufficiently nasty to win the other side's trust.  That's another area
in which Lupin probably sympathizes with Snape.


   Now a few excerpts from Lupin's conversation with Harry:

******************************************
   'What have you been up to lately?' Harry asked Lupin....

   'I've been living among my fellows, my equals,' said Lupin. 
'Werewolves,' he added, at Harry's look of incomprehension.  'Nearly
all of them are on Voldemort's side.'
******************************************
******************************************
   'Who's Greyback?'

   'You haven't heard of him?'  Lupin's hands closed convulsively in
his lap.  'Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive
today.  He regards it as his mission in life to bite and to
contaminate as many people as possible....'

   Lupin paused and then said, 'It was Greyback who bit me.'
******************************************
******************************************
'I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is
making much headway against Greyback's insistence that we werewolves
deserve blood, that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people.'

   'But you are normal!' said Harry fiercely.  'You've just got a-- a
problem--'

   Lupin burst out laughing. 

   'Sometimes you remind me a lot of James.  He called it my "furry
little problem" in company.  Many people were under the impression
that I owned a badly behaved rabbit.'
******************************************

   I'm with Harry on this one; I'd like to yell at Lupin.  'You're not
contaminated!  You just happen to be a werewolf!  Now stop that!' 
Note how Lupin calls other werewolves "fellows" and "equals", even
though they're apparently a bunch of savage, disgusting Voldemort
supporters.

   I suspect that living among his "fellows" when they're such nasty
creatures has been a blow to Lupin's self-image.  He's heard all his
life that werewolves are dangerous freaks, so he must be fairly
strong-minded to have turned out so well-adjusted anyway.  But now,
having joined a werewolf pack has got to be affecting Lupin in ways he
can't control.  It's hard to pretend to part of a community without
internalizing their values to a certain extent.  There are stories
about anthropologists who went native....  It sounds like this spying
assignment has Lupin more depressed about being a werewolf than ever;
I hope he gets some leave time now and then.

   Then again, all that I'm-not-normal-I'm-contaminated stuff could be
just a habitual defense mechanism, saying nasty things about himself
so no one else has a chance to do it first.

   Or maybe Lupin's self-image is perfectly all right and what we're
seeing in this passage is merely his sense of self-deprecating irony.
 In any case, I'm sure Tonks will find ways to cheer him up.  Lupin's
looked shabbier than ever in every book since PoA; next time we see
him he'd better be healthy and spiffy and cheerful.  You listening,
JKR? :)

-oiboyz