Say it isn't so Lupin!!!

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 170031

>
> Pippin:
> > I think OOP shows us very strongly what is wrong with this
> > line of reasoning. It is just not enough to have acceptance from
> > your friends. That can't make up for being deprived of your
> > rights or being considered so monstrous no stranger would ask
> > you to dinner, or let you be near their children,  or even 
> > share a hospital room with you. 
> 
> Dana:
> And yet he still tries to live as any other wizard and against all 
> odds he maintains himself and keeps control even though life is 
> getting harder by the day. 
> OotP does not show us there is something wrong with this reasoning 
> because it is Hermione, Winky, Dobby and the rest of the house elves 
> that show us that change cannot be pressed upon a group that doesn't 
> want change.

Pippin:
But he's not allowed to live as any other wizard. Legislation has been
passed that keeps him from getting a job even if someone like
Dumbledore wants to hire him. Lupin at least *does* want change,
Sirius says Harry should hear him talk about Umbridge and her anti-
werewolf legislation. 

Hermione did get sidetracked in OOP from her original focus on
getting Wizards to recognize Elf rights, but she is still the loudest
and most consistent voice against bigotry. She has yet to experience
institutionalized anti-Muggleborn feeling first-hand, of course, but
I'm guessing  that's going to change now that Dumbledore has been 
silenced. Anyone think she's going  to confine *her* protests to 
peaceable, legal avenues when her rights are threatened? 

> > Pippin:
> > Lupin's is not the voice against bigotry in canon. What has
> > he ever done to win acceptance for werewolves?  He has always
> > tried to conceal what he was, as a student and then as a teacher.
> > It's Hermione who has been working to change the hearts and
> > minds of the WW. If she continues to believe in equal rights,
> > and tells Harry why, despite Lupin's treachery, he should too,
> > it will do far more for the cause of civil rights  in the RW than
> > creating pity for werewolves, who after all don't exist.
> 
> Dana:
> Yes, he is because he chooses to remain living among wizards and not 
> chose the life that has been dedicated for werewolves by Greyback. 
> Lupin was send to spy on the werewolves but he in order to do that 
> had to gain some trust and now with Greyback gone, Lupin might become 
> the factor of change within the werewolf group and with them and his 
> friends together, after LV is defeated, they can start to demand to 
> be given rights like other humans within their society do. 

Pippin:
Voldemort was gone for twelve years, and in that time things only
got worse. 

Dana:
> I'm sorry but to me it seems ESE!Lupin is just a figure of the 
> imagination and actually proofs JKR's point because applying the 
> suspicion to him being ESE is what the rest of the WW does too, that 
> werewolves cannot be trusted. 

Pippin:
We'll soon know which theories are remarkably prescient and which
are remarkably silly :) If I've invented all this, I'll be gobsmacked
though. I never knew I had it in me ;)

But you're right, Lupin's downfall, should it 
become public knowledge, will make things harder for werewolves.
Yes, indeed. But nobody said it was going to be easy, did they? 

Dana:
> On the contrary, his problem of telling the truth in PoA because of 
> the internal conflict he was struggling with, indicates that he would 
> never want to betray his friends and he could not chose between 
> revealing a secret he shared with one group of friends to a person 
> who gave him a chance to a normal life, who made it possible for him 
> to have these friends. So instead he denied Sirius using his animagus 
> form to enter the castle. It was wrong no doubt about it but he still 
> did not want to just betray any of them. 

Pippin:
His reasoning was that Sirius was entering the castle through other
means, by some dark arts he'd learned from Voldemort. That doesn't
sound as if he had any doubts about Sirius's loyalty to the Dark Lord.
If you really mean you believe he'd be loyal to a friend even when 
he thinks they've gone over  to the Dark Side, then you're an ESE!Lupin 
supporter. Welcome!

Dana:
Sure he states that he just 
> did it because he was scared of losing DD's trust but he also gives 
> himself the guilt of his friends becoming illegal animagi, while 
> James and Sirius are surely not people who could be told what to do 
> and even if Lupin had been against it they would have done it anyway. 

Pippin:
He could have stopped it at any time. All he had to do was tell
them that it had to end or he'd go to McGonagall. I've never taken
an actual count of the times we've seen Lupin tell Sirius what to 
do, but I guarantee it outweighs the times we've seen Sirius tell
Lupin what to do. There are a lot of times when Sirius does what
he wants and Lupin, though displeased, doesn't say anything. But
when Lupin does talk, Sirius listens.

Dana:
> It is just my opinion but I do not think any of the books gives 
> indication that Lupin was put in there to show a disease will give 
> you no other option then to be ESE. 

Pippin:
*Not* the disease, but *human* weaknesses.  ESE!Lupin's downfall is
not the wolf inside but his human failing of cutting his friends too
much slack, which he rightly calls cowardice.  

 I believe that Lupin genuinely honored Dumbledore 
and believed that Dumbledore's way (which I take to be gradual 
peaceful change) was a better path.   But IMO, once he'd gained
the trust of his fellow werewolves,  he didn't have the 
guts to break with them over it. 

Pippin