Nitwit? - Remus John Lupin

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 167978

> > Alla:
> > 
> > I am sorry, but **I** saw nothing of Lupin's arranging for Snape 
to 
> > be publicly humiliated in PoA. I saw Lupin trying his best to 
> > restore Neville's self confidence after **Snape** publicly 
> > humiliated him.
> 
> Pippin:
> So you are saying the *only* way for Neville's confidence to be
> restored was for Snape to be humiliated? It would speak
> poorly of Neville, IMO, if the only way he could be built up
> was to see Snape run down.

Alla:

What I said was that I saw nothing of Lupin **arranging** for Snape 
to be publicly humiliated and I stand by this intepretation. I 
believe Lupin chose the way that worked better for Nevile. He 
managed to make him laugh at greasy bastard, good for Neville I 
would say.
 
Pippin:
> We can contrast the way that McGonagall dealt with Harry's
> experience with Trelawney. Harry was terrified by the prediction
> of his death, but McGonagall did not find it necessary to terrify
> Trelawney in order to restore Harry's confidence. She simply
> made it very clear that she did not put much stock in such 
> predictions, that Trelawney had a habit of making them and
> that none had come true and that --well, it wasn't her policy
> to speak ill of her colleagues, implying that there might be
> something to say otherwise. Not all sweetness and light, of
> course, but nothing to put the whole school in an uproar either.

Alla:

Actually I saw **a lot** of similarities between how Mcgonagall 
dealt with Harry's fears after Trelawney's predictions. Sure, she 
**said** that she does not speak bad of her colleagues, but  IMO the 
way she talked about Trelawney's predictions was indeed rather 
subtle or maybe not so subtle way of speaking bad of her colleague, 
who I maintain deserved that. McGonagall IMO was primarily concerned 
about Harry, and whether the side effect of her remarks would be 
that class' opinion of Trelawney would go down, did not seem to 
concern her much.

Just as IMO what Lupin did, he was primarily concerned with Neville 
and not whether the side effect of his dealings would be Snape 
humiliated, just as IMO it should have been.

But really it is neither here, nor there, because no matter how we 
interpret what Mcgonagall did, I believe that Lupin chose what 
worked best for Neville. IMO of course.

Pippin: 
> Lupin might have dealt with Neville's loss of confidence in
> a similar way, and arranged for Neville to deal with his 
> boggart privately, as he did for Harry (but not for Hermione,
> who flubs her exam thereby.)

Alla:
Eh, he might have been of course, but why should he? 
I think Lupin  was playing it by ear and doing right away what he 
thought was best for the child who was humiliated here and now. I 
think it is perfectly reasonable to think that he decided that 
Neville should be helped **right now**, and any considerations of 
Snape dear should be secondary at best.

IMO for Lupin - Neville mattered more than greasy bastard and I 
applaud him for that. This of course just the interpretation, 
**not** a fact, but I believe it is a valid one.

And of course it was sooooo funny for me. Hear me JKR? Did you write 
something like that in book 7? :) Pretty please?


> > 
> > Alla, for whom the strongest point in favor of Lupin never being 
> > evil or Voldemort servant always will be JKR's remark that she 
would 
> > want Lupin to teach her daughter.
> >
> 
> Pippin:
> Why not? Lupin in our world might never have faced the choices
> he has in the WW, where he's been deprived all his life of rights
> and freedoms which many of us take for granted.
> 
>  Is social pressure and an instinct for compliance enough to turn 
> people who aren't notably cruel or malicious into collaborators 
with 
> evil? I'm afraid so. And if you don't believe me, there's the 
Stanford
> Prison Experiment.
> 
> http://www.prisonexp.org/

Alla:

Why? Because she did not say I want Lupin as if he existed in ou 
world teaching my daughter. Because I do not see her imagining that 
the character  who went evil for any reasons would teach her 
daughter. Social pressure, whatever, any reason IMO.

IMO this is  the highest **thumbs up** JKR can give the character - 
deeming him worthy of teaching her child.

I do not remember her saying that she would want Snape teaching her 
daughter for example.

So, yeah, any time I read Lupin can be evil, I think of JKR wanting 
him to teach her kid and I think that he cannot be.

It is like JKR saying IMO - oh yeah, I want Voldemort to teach my 
daughter, after all in our world he could have turned out different.

I think this was author's liking of the character as he "exists" in 
Potterverse, because he does not exist anywhere else, if that makes 
sense.