Lupin vs Snape (was Lupin and "Severus")

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 157057

> Renee:
> 
> >the situation in the HP series is different. The
> > only person who voices any concerns about Lupin's personality *in the
> > series* is Snape (I refuse to count Umbridge) - and once he knows
> > Lupin wasn't helping Sirius to get into Hogwarts, all he does is
> > calling Tonks's werewolf!Lupin Patronus weak. And I wouldn't call
> > Snape a reliable witness when it comes to giving testimony about the
> > Marauders.
> 

Pippin:
So much for the theory that Snape outed Lupin because he wanted
revenge. <g> Isn't the underlying reason for Snape's hatred supposed
to be his belief  that Lupin was in on the attempt to murder Snape?
 
<snip>
> Sydney:
> 
> Hee!  Guilty as charged... although I like both Snape and Lupin!  I do
> see why the ESE! theories about him arise, because much more than the
> Austen parallel, if Lupin was a character in an Agatha Christie story
> I would be all over him as the prime suspect.  The Nice Young Man who
> is so helpful and hangs around the periphery of the story!  It's
> almost too obvious!
> 
> I don't think I can jump on that bandwagon, mostly, I have to admit,
> on account of the Alchemical theory of the series' structure, which  I
> don't even really understand.  But it WAS used to predict Lupin and
> Tonks getting together, which for me came from Outer Space, so I have
> a lot of respect for it.  Under that scheme, Lupin stands for worldly
> niceness, or something like that, in which case his
> passive-nice-but-ineffectual thing fits perfectly.

Pippin:
I think Christie would have put Lupin and Tonks together too. I mean,
once Sirius was gone, who else is there? And as JKR points out, it makes
a  lovely red herring. 

But alas, those who think ESE!Lupin is plausible don't like it, and those
who like it don't think it's plausible. I don't really like it myself -- I've
got no desire to see Lupin brought down --but it fits the evidence, IMO.

 Lupin is, IMO, even more repressed than Snape. His subconscious
desire for payback shows itself as passive aggression and the anger
he subconsciously wishes he could express to others projects itself
and becomes the fear of what his friends would do if they discovered
what he was really like.  Would that fear drive him to murder? 
We know he was ready to kill Pettigrew.

That in itself ought to be a great big bouncing ferret of a clue. 
A murderer in full possession of his faculties has to be called
something worse than 'weak', IMO.

The thing is, left to his own devices, Lupin might well be only
weak rather than evil. But he's not likely to be left alone. Voldemort 
would not let such a weakness remain unexploited, and we know he 
was capable of tricking normally shrewd and wary people such as 
Slughorn and Hepzibah, so why not Lupin? 

If Lupin found himself helping the werewolves more than he 
should out of a desire to be liked, Voldemort would find out. Then
what? Would Lupin have the courage to throw himself on Dumbledore's 
mercy? I don't think so. 

I must point out that the ESE! prefix has morphed away from its original 
meaning. It used to mean 'secretly a servant of Voldemort' but is now
used by some to mean 'a whole-hearted servant of Voldemort' which 
probably doesn't fit Lupin.

I could see that if the choice were starkly between supporting Voldemort 
and certain death, Lupin would die rather than betray his friends. But 
Voldemort is far too clever to put things that way.

 I think Lupin's grief for Dumbledore was real. But nobody thought 
Draco could succeed, so Lupin could have been involved in the attack 
on the school and still have expected Dumbledore to survive. 

Pippin
placing a side bet that the prank was a real attempt at murder
but Sirius was not the culprit