[HPforGrownups] Re: Maligning Lupin

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 149696

Christina:

But it isn't just two.  We only know two werewolves personally, but we know
OF many more.  Fenrir Greyback has a nice little group going, and as Lupin
says, they don't take to wizards nicely.  The werewolves are attracted to
Fenrir because of his opinion that "we werewolves deserve blood, that we
ought to revenge ourselves on normal people."  They don't sound very nice to
me.  Lupin is held up as the exception to the rule, and so erasing that
exception isn't just a "we only know two werewolves and they happen to both
be evil" kind of thing.  It's a "Lupin has finally joined his brethren in a
werewolf evil-fest."

It is only after Ron comes to know that Lupin is good and trustworthy that
he loses his prejudice against werewolves.  And that follows real life,
where sometimes people just have to get to know a person from the group they
fear/dislike to lose their prejudice.  I don't think that an ESE!Lupin
situation would feature Ron saying, "Well gosh, guys, Lupin was the only
good werewolf we know, so I guess they're all rotten now," but when you use
a character to make others overcome their prejudice, and then make the
character evil, I see it as a sort of thematic hole.  Then again, I suppose
you see it as good trickery :)


Sherry now:

Since JKR has said that lupine represents disability or illness, ESE lupine
is an outcome I just can't accept, and it would probably be the worst
possible scenario for me of any possible outcomes.  Of course, there are
disabled people who are criminals, just as there are disabled people who are
doctors, lawyers, home makers, teachers, customer service reps and any other
cross section of society you can think of.  But the world hasn't come far
enough in its acceptance of disabled people for an ESE Lupine and an ESE
Greyback to be the visible representations of werewolves we see.  looking at
lupin's life is often like looking into a mirror.  His difficulty in finding
work, his society's fear of him, it's all very true in the real world.  What
Christina said above, about Ron only getting to know lupine before
overcoming his prejudices is right on target.  I can't tell you how many
people have told me they were afraid of me, till circumstances caused them
to get to know me.  JKR has had a strong theme running through the books of
showing the wrong in the Wizarding world's prejudice against all kinds of
different peoples, creatures and species.  If she turns around and now does
a flip and implies, I fooled you, all that I wrote about prejudice was not
true when it comes to werewolves, then all she has written about anti
prejudice will be a lie.  And in a practical sense, there just isn't enough
room in the next book, I'm thinking, to add a whole new plot twist.  she has
so much to clear up as it is.

Sherry