ESE!Lupin condensed

[spotsgal]

No: HPFGUIDX 146822

>Pippin:
>For the reader, the message is one that anyone who is serious about
>defending minority rights has to face. Sometimes those who once were
>the best and brightest bring disgrace on themselves and manage to
>fulfill the most derogatory stereotypes about their people while
>doing it.

Christina:

But we already have somebody that fills this role - Fenrir Greyback.  
Even while defending the rights of werewolves to live as other people 
do, we must face the idea that there really are some werewolves that 
go around biting other people's children.  So it would be superfluous 
for Lupin to fill this same function.

>Pippin:
>In the Shack his is the calmest voice, as if, the narrator notes,
>Hermione had spotted a problem in an experiment about grindylows.
>The most excited he gets is "very tense" and that's when he first
>enters. After Pettigrew is transformed, and Lupin sets eyes on this
>supposed traitor and murderer, does Lupin display loathing and anger?
>Not a bit. His voice is "light and casual", then he speaks "more
>coldly" "evenly" and "grimly." As they're about to kill Peter, Black
>is shaking, he is described as having "a terrible fury in his face."
>Not Lupin. "You should have realized," said Lupin quietly, "if
>Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Good-bye, Peter."

Christina:

The problem with looking at Lupin's behavior in this way is that Lupin 
is characteristically an unemotional person.  Merely sitting in a 
chair and covering his face with his hands (in HBP) is such a shocking 
show of emotion that Harry states that he's never seen Lupin "lose 
control" before and that the display is almost "indecent" to watch.


>Pippin:
>He bargained with Voldemort to save Lily, revealing that Peter was
>the secret keeper.

Christina:

Huh?  Now, I'm a firm believer that Lily and Lupin were friends (from 
JKR's comments and the fact that they were prefects together), but if 
Lupin was going to ask Voldemort to let anybody live, wouldn't it have 
been James?  I am still hard-pressed to believe that Lupin would
*ever* betray Dumbledore, but I scratch my head even harder when
thinking about why Lupin would betray James and Sirius.  He makes it
clear at the end of PoA what a profound difference their animagi forms
made in his transformations.  He says that they made the
transformations the "best times of my life."  Lupin says that aside
from his transformations, being at Hogwarts made him "happier than I
had ever been in my life.  For the first time ever, I had friends,
three great friends."  Also, talking about James cheers Lupin up in
HBP.  I just can't imagine why somebody would choose to betray all of
the people that made their lives happy in order to go over to the side
of the people that prove all of the negative stereotypes about
werewolves that Lupin tries so hard to go against.  If Lupin *has*
found his adult life unbearable, it's only because, as ESE, he killed
or imprisoned all of the people that had ever loved or accepted him!  

People have differing opinions of whether the series is character- or
plot-driven. JKR herself has insisted that it is character-driven. 
Even if it is mainly plot-driven, the actions of the characters still
make sense (it is IC for Harry to rush to the DoM to save Sirius, it
is in character for Sirius to rush to the DoM to help Harry, it is IC
for Dumbledore to keep the information about the prophecy from Harry).
 I just can't make heads or tails Lupin's motivations to be ESE here.
 And as Renee mentioned, I don't see how Lupin could have gotten the
Secret Keeper information in the first place.

>Pippin:
>McGonagall says he wasn't in James and Sirius's class, and she knows
>the difference between a weak wizard and one who only lacks >confidence. 

Christina:

As somebody mentioned earlier, I doubt McGonagall would find Neville 
to be in Harry's "class," but he proves to be much stronger than we 
think he is.  Also, Peter being the spy doesn't require much magical 
strength or talent.  All he has to do is sit back and let his friends 
give him information, and then give it to the Dark Lord.  Peter is 
always twitchy and nervous, so there's no need for him to act cool and 
collected as he's passing on information from the Order.

>Pippin:
>He could not endure the social disadvantages of living as a werewolf,
>yet only among his own kind did he feel normal.

Christina:

I could believe this if not for the fact that Lupin is the least
happy, and "thinner and more ragged-looking than ever" when he has had
the most contact with his supposed "brethren."  The only canon we have
about Lupin's feelings of normalcy while transformed are him saying
that he felt the least wolfish when transformed not in the company of
his fellow werewolves, but in the company of his three best Animagi
friends (who you believe that he promptly went and betrayed)!


>Pippin:
>JKR continues to talk about clues and red herrings, and to drop hints
>that things aren't as they seem. It's my guess that the last three
>books form a single mystery -- the murder of Sirius Black-- and this
>will have to be solved.

<snipping from Neri's fantastic post>
>Neri:
>Finally, I think the main problem with ESE!Lupin is that, as a
>shattering end-of-the-series-that-is-only-one-book-away revelation,
>it doesn't explains any of what I consider to be the "official" big
>mysteries that must to be solved in the HP saga....Instead, ESE!Lupin
>mainly "solves" mysteries that are officially already solved, like
>who was the spy that betrayed the Potters, and things that were never
>even presented as mysteries in the first place, like who killed
>Cedric and who killed Sirius.


Christina:

The big question surrounding ESE!Lupin is: Why?  What's the point of 
ESE!Lupin?  Pippin partially answered this by speculating that the 
grand mystery of the series (the last three books, at least) is the 
identity of Sirius's murderer.  But using Pippin's own words, the 
books are Harry's story, not Lupin's (or Sirius's).  Having a 
revelation scene in which Lupin confesses being the perpetrator of the 
evils in *all 6 books* will suck up major page-time, not to mention 
distract the series from what I think is a much more likely candidate 
for Grand Mystery - how will Harry defeat Voldemort?  This is the 
question we've been asking ourselves from day one, and everything in 
the series, from the invisibility cloak to the Weasley twins to the 
Accio charm to the prophecy to Snape exists for the purpose of aiding 
or hindering Harry's quest to defeat Voldemort.  All of the little 
side questions (some which we have answers to already) tie into the 
main one - why didn't Harry die in 1981?  Why didn't Voldemort die in 
1981?  What are the things that Voldemort has done to ensure his 
immortality?  etc, etc.

I also find the Evil Overlord nature of ESE!Lupin unsavory.  It 
basically says that one man is behind the vast majority of crimes in 
the series - betraying the Potters, killing Cedric, framing Sirius, 
killing Sirius, etc.  He's a supervillian!  It goes against the way
that JKR seems to be trying to show how a wide variety of people can
commit evil - Snape gives Voldemort the prophecy, Peter betrays the
Potters and kills Cedric, Bellatrix kills Sirius, etc.  Having Lupin
responsible for all of these things gives him such a status as an
evildoer that I fear he could temporarily overshadow even Voldemort!

Finally, the highly speculative nature of ESE!Lupin and the extreme
lack of canon that suggests that this is a series of events that are
likely makes it feel like a very pulled-out-of-the-sky kind of theory.
 It is based on a series of assumptions that have little or no canon
support (Lupin feels more camaraderie with the werewolves than with
the Marauders, for one).  I firmly believe that you could take any
character in the series and, with enough thought, make them ESE in
this exact same way.

Christina
...hoping that the formatting on this one is square, still wishing
Yahoo had a spell-checker