Maligning Lupin

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 150557

> Christina:
> 
> That's exactly what I'm saying.  Lupin may not have had the greatest
> opportunities for paid work, but he had the education to do it. 
> Without the education, there was no hope at all.  Lupin knows how to
> fish and can only occasionally get to the river.  The other werewolves
> don't know how to fish at all.  Lupin has one obstacle to overcome;
> the werewolves have two.

Pippin:
The problem isn't only the difficulty of getting a magical education,
or of persuading people that werewolves can be reliable.

Lupin's situation is more like the one in Yentl, if you remember that.
It's about a Jewish girl in the old days who disguises herself as a boy
in order to become a Talmud scholar. She kind of knows she'll get
found out one day, but she's hoping that they'll make an exception
for her. Of course they don't. Lupin's in the same sort of situation --
he's got no hope of his chosen career without a revolutionary change
in the status of werewolves. Educating werewolves is not enough to
bring that aobut. 

And he's smart enough to realize it. In the movie, Yentl ran off to 
America. But where can Lupin go ?

> > Pippin:
> > I'm afraid your disagreement is with Jo:
> > 
> > "It's not possible to live with the Dursleys and not hate them,"
> > said Harry. "I'd like to see you try it." -- CoS ch 11
>  
> 
> Christina:
> 
> Harry and Jo aren't the same people, and Harry is most certainly wrong
> in this instance.  I highly doubt Jo meant for his comment to be taken
> as a fact, as I'm sure there are a great many people who could live
> with the Dursleys and be perfectly content,

Pippin:
Treated as Harry was? I find that hard to believe. It's true that
Harry doesn't hate Peter very much, but Peter is already 
exposed and beaten when Harry realizes what he is. It's no
longer necessary to hate him.

I don't see a Star Wars style rejection of hatred in canon. 
Hatred doesn't seem to be the path to the dark side,
it's the normal and useful feeling the characters have when they
are subjected to injustice. I see nothing in canon to suggest that
Harry shouldn't hate the Dursleys, or Umbridge or  Snape.

Hatred seems to be wrong only when it is displaced from the 
people whose actions have earned it onto others. So it's okay
for Harry to hate Snape when Snape makes a fool out of him
at school, but it's not okay for him to hate Snape for the
murder of Sirius  if Snape is innocent.

It's wrong for Malfoy to hate Hermione for being a knowitall or
a Muggleborn --he should really hate his father for making 
impossible demands on him. But that would be dangerous and
painful, so he displaces his hate and it becomes bigotry.


Christina: 
> I'm still not seeing the difference.  Lupin CAN predict the time of
> his transformations, no matter what.
> 
> Also, JKR's explanation makes sense unless you can remember the tiny
> reference of the moon passing between the clouds (or somesuch) while
> Harry2 and Hermione2 are waiting outside the Shack (while Lupin is in
> it, and is still untransformed).  JKR is never confronted with that
> contradiction, unfortunately.

Pippin:
 But you have to work it out. Canon does not make it
obvious, though there's no accounting for the moon's appearance 
(short of poetic license or error) otherwise. Harry does not seem to
know it, and so he has not  asked himself why it was that
Lupin's transformation came just at the time when it would allow
Pettigrew to escape. He's sure it was an accident. But it needn't
have been.
 
> > Pippin:
> > If Lupin dunnit it isn't just about the Bang. It goes to the heart 
> > of friendship and bravery, and how Harry perceives his own ability 
> > to distinguish good from evil and choose the good,  which is what 
> > the story is about.
> 
> Christina:
> 
> I'm dismissive of this as a thematic reason for ESE!Lupin because it's
> a theme that we've seen already - Harry is terrible at figuring out
> who is good and who is evil, but he's has some lessons.  He thinks
> James is super awesome until he sees him in the pensieve, and Harry
> must then distinguish in his head between the
> mean-but-he-grew-out-of-it evil, and the DE!evil.  And the seventh
> book is already steeped in this particular theme with Snape.  I don't
> think that ESE!Lupin is a fizzle, but I think that a bangy Lupin
> revelation would fizzle everything else, namely whatever JKR has up
> her sleeve concerning Snape.  In the same way that I have no problem
> with answering cool side questions, but there are more important
> questions that cannot be overshadowed.
> 

Pippin:
But the whole thing about Snape is whether people can do better with
second chances, and whether Dumbledore was wise to give him
one. 

Dumbledore does have a weakness of reckless trust,
JKR as good as said so. But what does this mean? Does it
mean that he should never have given Snape a second chance,
or does it mean that second chances are okay but the third or fourth
chances which Lupin got are pushing it?

If DD's trust in Snape was not misplaced then someone else has 
to have misled him. If his belief that people should be given 
second chances is not wrong, then Snape has to have been 
shown to have made better choices this time.

Harry  can't really understand that Snape is innocent and redeemed, (if
that's the case) unless some other of Voldemort's servants is shown
to have more responsibility for the death of Sirius and the catastrophe
on the tower than Snape did. He can't forgive Snape for being so 
bitter (if he does)  until he understand that there's more than a schoolboy
grudge behind it. Snape can't forgive himself (if he does) until he understands
that Voldemort could have learned of the prophecy without him. All of
which exposing the real traitor takes care of very nicely. 

Pippin