[HPforGrownups] Re: Let's talk about Lupin

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 146179

 Marianne:
But, Lupin is still in contact with other Order members.  He knows
his werewolf assignment is not a sentence for the rest of his life,
even though he sounds bitter about it to Harry.

Debbie:
He does have some contact with other Order members, although his association
with the werewolves must limit that, as indicated by the fact that he is
rarely around.

Also, Order headquarters is no longer at 12 Grimmauld Place.  Whatever its
shortcomings, 12GP was a home, and Lupin's close friend lived there.  We
don't know where the Order's new HQ is, but it might not be the kind of
place where any hospitality is offered.

Marianne:
His coping
mechanisms as you've described them would make more sense to me if
Lupin knew that, indeed, this was to be his life from now on- stuck
with the werewolves forever. I'd be more likely to attribute
his "offness" in HBP to grief over Sirius, feeling bad because he
can't make Tonks back off without hurting her feelings, and dread
because he's again involved in the kind of guerilla war he fought in
once before, and he's once again losing people he cares about. But,
as we don't hear him say any of this, it's pure speculation on my
part.

Debbie:
Undoubtedly grief over Sirius is part of the reason for Lupin's gloom.  And
I read in his HBP behaviour a general wariness of entering into any more
close relationships because in spite of the general loneliness and poverty
he has endured, the greatest pain has come from the loss of those he loved.
He knows he can handle the loneliness, so he chooses it over the possibility
of being burned again.

Marianne:
I see your point with regards to Lupin's fatalism and that he may be
reverting to ingrained coping mechanisms.  However, this, too then
strikes a wrong note.  If we assume that Lupin spent his days in
isolation and loneliness after the Potters' deaths, on the edges of
society, living hand to mouth, shut off from "normal" people, how do
we account for the active, sympahtetic, affable, confident DADA
Professor?  Where do those social skills come from?

Debbie:
Being pleasant and approachable doesn't require great social skills, and
though Lupin is kindly, he works very hard at maintaining barriers to his
innermost thoughts and feelings.  (Isn't his seeming lack of emotion of of
the planks in the ESE!Lupin platform?)   Despite his close association with
James, he is reluctant to get at all close to Harry (Sirius is Lupin's
absolute opposite number in this respect).  Lupin seems relatively at ease
at Hogwarts in POA, but it's a place with very fond memories for him,
and his peers are largely the same people who were his teachers when he
attended.  Also, I bet that at least Dumbledore must have remained in
contact with Lupin during the dark years.  (He can't have been entirely
alone, as you say, though visitors were probably rare.)

Marianne:
Maybe Lupin is
simply a really good actor who has an innate gift for teaching that
he can turn on like a light switch after years of isolation.  Or
maybe, even though he could not keep jobs long-term once people
found out about him, he was not quite so isolated and ostracized.


Debbie:
I think he has an innate gift for relating to others who have suffered from
loss and loneliness, making him particularly good at reaching that kind of
student.  Harry and Neville both fall into this category.  (There's also the
curious suitcase labeled "Professor R.J. Lupin," suggesting that he's taught
before.)

Marianne:
You and I are both speculating about Lupin's life, and certainly you
could be right on the money. We're probably on the same scale, just
at different points along it.

Debbie:
True, but there's no other way to fill in the blanks about him except to
extrapolate based on our respective understanding of his character, since he
doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve.  And it can be very annoying to have
filled in the blanks one way, only to have a fact suddenly revealed that
requires you erase everything.

Marianne:
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying he took on the
werewolf spying job because it fit in with his innate feelings
of "this is all I'm good for/I deserve no better"? It seems to me
that DD asked him, as an Order member, to do this because he'd be
the most believable person.  And, Remus, being a good soldier,
accepts his assignment.

Debbie:
Lupin commented somewhere in OOP that he was of limited use to the Order
because he was a werewolf.  One of his jobs was probably to keep up Sirius'
spirits.  That job disappeared at the end of OOP.  Chances are that he leapt
at the opportunity to take on the werewolf assignment.  It made him useful,
and helped get his mind off the fact that the last link to the good old days
was gone.  I think his withdrawal was a grief reaction which caused him to
fall back on his old defenses.


Marianne:
I guess the subtext was too subterranean for me to see ;-).  Your
earlier point about Lupin not being one to open up about his
feelings is well-taken.  However, that's a double-edged sword. From
my perspective, he doesn't want to say outright that he's not
interested because he doesn't want to hurt Tonks by that kind of
rejection.


Debbie:
There are some hints, for example Molly's behavior.  Tonks evidently has
confided in Molly (she is there when Harry arrives at the Burrow) and she
made several efforts to bring them together.  Surely she would have told
Molly if Lupin had told her he didn't return her feelings, and if she had,
Molly wouldn't have kept trying to bring them together.  Lupin says in the
hospital wing that he'd explained his reasons "a million times" -- if he
really didn't care for Tonks surely he would have told her the truth at some
point instead of repeating the same old excuses.

And when Harry asks Lupin about Tonks' changed patronus, "Lupin took his
time chewing his turkey and swallowing" [while he thought of something to
say, then finally came up with] "'Sometimes . . . a great shock . . . an
emotional upheaval . . .'", a statement that I believe is the source of
Harry's mistaken assumption that Tonks was in love with Sirius.

In light of your comments, I can see how the clues were susceptible to
multiple interpretation.  But interpretation may also depend on one's
mindset; deeply buried beneath my cold, analytical exterior lies a closet
romantic.  To tell the truth, I much preferred this to the teen romances,
which I found rather comical whether or not they were intended that way.

Marianne:
I guess I'm not convinced that Lupin is suffering under the burden
of deciding that he's not deserving of being loved.

Debbie:
Perhaps his ailment is better described as a belief that he's too dangerous
to be loved.  I don't think he believes it so much as he uses it as a
self-defense mechanism.  And If he doesn't allow himself to become
entangled, he won't suffer as he did when his friends died.

Debbie
who can't remember the origin of the quote "it is better to have loved and
lost than never to have loved at all"


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