Nitwit? - Remus John Lupin

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 168130

>
> Nikkalmati:
> 
> > OTH is it an indication of a close relationship in which 
> > DD is gently pulling SS's leg or reassuring him that wearing 
> > a hat with a vulture on it is no big deal and that DD is 
> > fine with doing it.?
> 
> houyhnhnm:

> 
> If Dumbledore set it up, it was hardly a *gentle* 
> leg-pulling it seems to me.  He may have been taking 
> too much for granted and making an old man's mistake 
> in failing to realize how deeply Snape was humiliated.

Pippin:
I don't think it was leg-pulling. I think Dumbledore had advised
Snape that it would be wise to *pretend* to take the incident
lightly, and he was gently offering Snape an opportunity to do 
that, whether by chance or design.

It was certainly JKR's design to show us how Dumbledore
wants Snape to treat the incident, just as Hermione wants 
Harry  to act like the Slytherin teasing doesn't bother him. 
When she tells Harry to ignore them, she doesn't mean
that what they're doing isn't hurtful.

Of course Snape seems immature, and a hypocrite
besides, for not taking this advice...and it's not like
he can't *act*, for heaven sake.  However, this disregards
one  important fact -- Snape believes that Lupin once
was part of an  attempt to kill him.

I think it's clear Dumbledore believes that Lupin knew
nothing of the "joke" till it was over. Not that he *wouldn't*
hire a former killer -- you think he wouldn't want Moses
on his staff? Or Saint Paul? 

But Snape isn't at all sure that Lupin has changed. In
fact, Lupin himself says he hasn't.  Snape can't 
afford to take Lupin's hostility as a joke unless he's sure 
that Lupin didn't really mean for him to be
harmed, and he's not sure of that at all.

Knowing this, there's something disturbing about,
"Forward, Neville, and finish him off!"  and  "the
boggart exploded, burst into a thousand tiny wisps of
smoke, and was gone." 

What would we say of Lupin's method if Neville's 
boggart was Jews? That they must have had it coming?

Snape is, in some ways, just as bad as Harry thinks he is.
But not, IMO, in *all* ways. And yet it's the whole Snape
that gets made fun of, not just the one who's cruel to
Neville, but also the one who saved Harry's life in first
year and the one who  agreed to make the difficult
and possibly dangerous to prepare wolfsbane potion.

Maybe we're just supposed to put ourselves in Neville's
place and not Snape's, but I can't help putting myself
in both places, and thinking that Neville paid dearly for
his bit of fun, and that Lupin was using him. Is that what
JKR wants us to think?  Well, I believe she'd like us 
to think for ourselves, IMHO.

Lupin's plight as a marauder seems to me like a kid
who's having his friends over for wild weekend parties
while his parents are out of town.  He knows his college 
fund and his job at dad's firm might be toast if they find 
out, he seriously fears that someone might OD or get in a
car crash going home, but worst is knowing that his
folks trust him and he's taking advantage of that. 

His friends are pretty much insensible to the dangers --
hey, lighten up, Remus, nothing bad's gonna happen to
*us*. But Remus knows that  worse things
can happen than you can imagine, because to him
they already have, and he's lived with that reality most of his
life. But his friends have this fantasy, and it's  so inviting
to escape into it for a little while.

And somehow it never seems as wrong at 10 PM 
on a Saturday night when his friends are cheering him 
on as it did at 4AM on a Tuesday morning when he was all alone 
with his conscience,  so he keeps on doing it. And he's lucky,
and the worst things that he's imagined never happen.

But twenty years later, when Remus knows that one of those wild
kids became a terrorist murderer, knowing that he's
breaking into the house and trying to kill someone, that
he knows a secret way inside that's not guarded, and 
being afraid to tell Dad about it because he might find out
about the parties...well, those are some seriously 
screwed up priorities, IMO. 

In fact, I have a hard time believing that Lupin's priorities
are that screwed up -- I find it much more plausible
that he  had some  darker secrets to guard.

Just thinking for myself here....

Pippin