ESE!Lupin condensed and Lupin and Sirius replies

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 147216

> Pippin:
> But you take it for granted that JKR isn't going to spring a
> big "unofficial" mystery on us again, and I don't. Because the
> first thing she'd have to do, if she wanted to fool us *again*,
> is convince us that there's nothing up her sleeve. It's been
> a straightforward fantasy adventure/bildungsroman from OOP
> on. Right. And I'm the Easter Bunny.:-)
> 

Neri:
Oh, I'm sure some unofficial mysteries will also be solved in Book 7,
but right now JKR's sleeves are full to the cuffs with huge official
mysteries that *must* be solved, and I'd say they are her first priority. 

> Pippin:
> OOP has the "official"  mystery of who hexed Podmore, with
> no "official" solution, just Hermione's guess that Lucius might
> have done it. 

Neri:
Actually the Sturgis Podmore mystery was officially closed:

**************************************
OotP, Ch. 25, p. 787 (Scholastic):

'So, he's got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?' said Harry.
'Like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it — and Bode?'

'Very good, Potter, very good . . .' said Malfoy slowly. 'But the Dark
Lord knows you are not unintell—

'NOW!' yelled Harry.
*************************************

BTW, I find it instructive that Malfoy's confession here is
interrupted by the chase. It illustrates JKR's critical problem with
the merging of the mystery genre and the adventure genre. In the
adventure genre you can't stop the pace of the plot all the time for
lengthy explanations and confessions. This is why JKR sometimes close
a mystery in a hurried way that perhaps won't satisfy you. Or
sometimes not at all, like in "how Harry got back the Marauders' Map
in OotP". The answer IIRC was something like "Oh, I thought you got
that by yourselves. Must I spell out *everything*? It would have
ruined the mourning atmosphere to explain it in the end of GoF". 


> 
> Neri:
> Incomplete yes, but I can't remember an official solution that was
> later turned 180 degrees. 
> 
> Pippin:
> You mean besides Snape being responsible for the hexing, or
> Sirius being a traitor?  We had no reason to doubt either of 
> those when they were first put to us.
> 

Neri:
I'll formulate what I meant more precisely. I can't remember a case of
an official mystery that was officially closed, and then opened and
turned 180 degrees. Snape doing the hexing and Sirius being the
traitor weren't solutions to previous mysteries. They were answers
that were presented at the same time with the questions.

> Neri:
> 
> Regarding Snape knowing the Marauders' nicknames, I'm personally sure
> he knows it from the pensieve. He didn't hear it the first time
> around, of course, but he probably visited this memory again, and I'm
> sure he wouldn't resist a chance to spy on the Marauders, even 20
> years after the fact. If Harry could hear the Marauders' conversation
> in the pensieve, then so could Snape. In fact, I always thought that
> the pensieve scene was written, in a small part, to answer the
> question of where Snape had learned the Marauders' nicknames.
> 
> Pippin:
> But Snape acts like he doesn't know for sure that the
> map is connected with the Marauders,and he *would* know if
> he'd had access to a pensieve at that time. He'd have
> known  about running around with a werewolf every month
> too.
> 

Neri:
Or he acts like he knows but can't prove it – unless he exposes his
worst memory. Not something he'd like to do. Of course he'd know the
Marauders ran with a werewolf, but that's hardly more than he already
knows or suspects. However, I find it significant that JKR took care
not to mention the animagi part in the pensieve memory at all. In
fact, she made Remus stop Sirius just in time before he let it out. It
must not be mentioned because in PoA Snape doesn't yet know about it.


> Pippin:
> So I'd say the question of
> how Wormtail could have done all that stuff is more open than
> ever. Snape certainly shows a dangerous contempt for a wizard who's
> supposed to have killed twelve people with a wand held behind his
> back, even if they were Muggles, a wizard he must know has 
> successfully lied to Voldemort, if your theory is correct. Or doesn't 
> Snape know about the life debt either?
> 

Neri:
Snape also shows contempt for Lupin, even in front of school kids
rather than pureblood DEs. And I doubt Snape knows about Wormtail's
Life Debt. There's no reason he'd know unless Dumbledore told him, and
Dumbledore wasn't a very informative person, you know. We already know
for sure he kept the second part of the prophecy a secret from Snape,
and it seems this wasn't the only thing. We don't have much reason to
think he let Snape know about the Horcrux hunt either.

> Neri:
> 
> I'd say the question "Who killed the unicorns in SS/PS?" is an
> officially solved mystery. Quirrellmort killed them.
> 
> Pippin:
> How can it be officially solved when Quirrell never confessed
> to killing them? 
> 
> I'm not sure we agree on what an "official" solution is. I'd
> say it's one where the culprit confesses and is removed from
> any possibility of recanting. The confessions of  Lockhart, 
> Quirrell and Barty Jr are final, IMO. 

Neri:
This is semantics. If you insist we can have Official Solutions of the
First Degree, Second Degree and so on. But the basic problem here
isn't semantic, it's a very real and practical problem. JKR can only
solve a limited number of mysteries in Book 7, especially if she wants
to do them justice. You multiply mysteries at a staggering rate, and
you refuse to close existing mysteries without a full confession, and
sometimes not even then (since you don't accept Wormtail's
confession). You have JKR herself supplying the official solution that
Wormtail killed Cedric, and you open it again. So you inevitably end
up with a huge number of mysteries to be solved in Book 7. 

> Pippin:
> I'm saying Voldemort knows about Wormtail's debt, but discounts
> its significance  as the kind of "ancient magic of which he knows,
> which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated
> -- to his cost" OOP ch 37. 

Neri:
That doesn't seem to fit with Dumbledore's words that "I'm much
mistaken if Voldemort wants his servant to be in the debt of Harry
Potter". I know Dumbledore was sometimes mistaken, but I think in this
case he was right on the money. 
 
 

> Neri:
> I think Lupin's forgetfulness is easily explained by the DADA jinx. 
> 
> Pippin:
> I don't think so.  It seems to work like
> the opposite of felix felicis, causing people to make foolish
> decisions confidently. It was foolish of Quirrellmort to
> touch Harry, foolish of Lockhart to try to obliviate someone
> with a broken wand, foolish of Fake!Moody to try to kill
> Harry under Dumbledore's nose, and foolish of Umbridge 
> to insult the centaurs. Needless to say it was foolish of 
> Snape to rush to the tower. 
> 
> So I would expect a foolish decision from Lupin, such as 
> deciding to leave a trail for Snape out to the Shack, not
> some kind of selective amnesia. 
> 

Neri:
I always thought that the jinx causes your secrets to be revealed (at
least I thought so after GoF, and Umbridge and Snape certainly fit
with this). Had Lupin only drank the wolfsbane potion 10 minutes
before he saw Sirius and Pettigrew on the map, he would have probably
kept his job.


> Pippin:
> And it's not OOC for Hermione, because
> when the arena shifts from words to action, she's still at this
> point got a tendency to freeze rather than fight.
> 

Neri:
Hermione charged mass-murderer!Sirius bare handed just an hour
earlier. And here she's not even expected to act, only to speak her
mind. She did that to Lupin, in full CAPS LOCK mode, when he was the
big bad werewolf and had all the wands in his hands. Was she OOC then? 


> Pippin:
> I admit I haven't been consistent about Lupin's motives. I'm
> not trying to argue the case like a lawyer, picking the most
> convincing story and discarding everything that doesn't fit.
> It's more like I'm trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with the
> picture on the cover hidden and some of the pieces still in the box. 
> I'm trying to guess what the hidden parts of the puzzle show.
> 

Neri:
As Faith would say, watertightness is the most difficult part in
making a theory float <g>.

If you attack Goodguy!Lupin because he behaves like a plot device,
because his supposed motives don't make sense, and so on, I think it
would only be fair to compare it with ESE!Lupin on the same ground.
It's very easy to attack the smallest details in Goodguy!Lupin (like
his steely tone of voice!) when ESE!Lupin is so nebulous that we're
not even sure what his motives can be. Pip!Sqeak at least presented
all the motives and actions of MAGIC-DISHWASHER!Snape in the Shrieking
Shack, step by step, in several very detailed posts. It made sense to
me considerably more than ESE!Lupin (MD!Snape at least doesn't change
his motives every 10 minutes) but it also helped to clarify the
weakness in the theory, for me at least - that it's so complicated. 

> Pippin:
> JKR usually doesn't tell us too much about the subvillains'
> motives until they have their big Idunnit and here's why
> scene. Quirrell was power mad? Riddle was Voldemort? 
> Who knew?
> 

Neri:
Of course she doesn't tell us about their motives. It would have been
a slight giveaway, I'd think <g>. But when their motives are uncovered
in the end they turn out to be very simple and consistent. Quirrell
doesn't change his motive at all since he's taken by Voldy.
Diary!Riddle merely changes his first priority from killing
muggleborns to killing Harry Potter. Crouch Jr. never changes his
motives. They are true ESEs. It's only Ever-So-Wavering!Lupin who
changes his motives four times in a single night.

> Pippin: 
> What  I can tell for sure at this point is that wavering *is*
> Lupin's character.

Neri:
Oh, I get it now. The consistency in ESE!Lupin's character is his
inconsistency. That could be JKR's line of defense from the critics. 

> Pippin:
> That's canon. He wavered about whether
> to continue the animagi outings, and he wavered as an adult
> over whether to tell Dumbledore about Sirius, and then
> about whether to pursue his interest in Tonks. So I don't
> think it would be out of character for him to waver a bit in
> the Shrieking Shack.
> 

Neri:
Don't you have a bit of a logic problem here? If Lupin's conscience
was troubling him, when the other Marauders were untroubled, that's a
good thing. If Lupin confesses to his own failings, which really
aren't worse than those of James or Sirius, that's not a sign of Evil.
Unless he was only playacting to hide his true evil objectives, but in
that case you can't blame him for wavering. 

> Pippin:
> I grinned when the website told us when his birthday was. 
> He's a Pisces, the sign of two fish swimming in opposite 
> directions. Pisces supposedly find it difficult
> to make up their minds. 
> 

Neri:
They are also supposedly sensitive, companionate, kind, selfless and
sympathetic, 
http://www.astrology-online.com/pisces.htm
which fits Lupin's character well, I'd say. 

Ain't astrology wonderful? You can prove anything you like with it <g>.


> Pippin:
> We also know that Lupin wants everyone to like him,  
> everyone he respects, at least. He doesn't seem to care 
> if Slytherins or Ministry officials like him or not. But it's 
> hard, isn't it, not to respect people who're fighting 
> for your freedom, even if they're doing terrible things? 
> 

Neri:
Even when they're doing terrible things to his friends? Even when they
support the very werewolf who had bitten him? Sorry, I don't think I'd
buy such a schizoid character. Perhaps I could accept him if JKR
described convincingly how these contradictions came about. But
creating such a character in the dark only to spring him on us as the
ESE, like some demon-ex-machina, that would be very bad writing.   

> Pippin:
> He's got to be tempted by what Voldemort has to
> offer, no matter how hard it would be to make
> Voldemort keep his end of the bargain. 
> 
> "If they're offered freedoms we've been denying
> them for centuries, they're going to be tempted."
> Those are Lupin's words, explaining why the Goblins,
> even though they know what Voldemort is capable of,
> might listen to him and help him.
> 

Neri:
And he's saying "*we've* been denying them". He's casting himself as a
human and a Wizard.
 
> Pippin:
> JKR established that AK leaves no mark, and had Dumbledore 
> repeat it in HBP, just to make sure we didn't forget it. 

Neri:
I never thought Dumbledore's blood came from the AK. It trickled from
the mouth. The first time I read it I automatically assumed it's
internal bleeding from the potion, which came out of his mouth when he
landed on his back. 

> She points out
> (deviously) that blood usually dries quickly, both in the episode with
> Harry's face, and by letting us know that dragon blood *doesn't*
> dry quickly. Horace magicks it off the walls and pronounces it 
> still usable.

> 
> After all that finicky detail, there's poor Dumbledore, supposedly
> lying dead for all that time, supposedly AK'd, with a trickle of
blood on his
> face that Harry easily wipes away. 

Neri:
Umm, it's not written that he wipes it "easily" and it's not written
that he wipes it "away". And from my own experience it isn't that
difficult to wipe a single trickle of dry blood (especially if your
sleeves are likely soaking with water and sweat). If that was a clue
it could have been written less ambiguously.

> Pippin:
> If it's not important, it contradicts 
> the logic of reminding us  about the rules for AK  and the logic of
how blood 
> is treated in the story, otherwise  a matter of some 
> significance. It might work in an absurdist or dreamlike fantasy,
> but the atmosphere of the books has become steadily more realistic.
> 

Neri:
I'm not sure at all that JKR ever formulized "logic of how blood is
treated in the story". This isn't like formulizing rules of magic (and
even the rules of magic aren't terribly consistent throughout the
story, you know). Blood is mentioned in *lots* of places in the
series, so why not connecting Dumbledore's trickle of blood to, say,
Nosebleed Nougat? It also makes blood trickle continuously. This would
of course suggest that Fred and George are producing potions for
Voldy. Hmm, this can be my humble contribution to the ESE!Weaslies theory.

I'd be a bit more interested in Dumbledore's trickle of blood if I
could see any advantages in it. However, Harry was still released from
the body bind within the few seconds after the AK, and I don't believe
Dumbledore would have released Harry willingly. So he at least lost
consciousness, and Dumbledore "spread-eagle, broken" shows he fell in
a violent way. I really don't like thinking about Dumbledore dying
slowly that way, and it wouldn't improve Snape's situation by much.

Neri