Snape - a werewolf bigot?? Was: Say it isn't so Lupin!!!

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 170115

Jen:

> Why paint Dumbledore as being a progressive for letting 
> Lupin attend Hogwarts if that's all there is to the matter? 
> [...]
> I'm not sure how JKR means to present werewolves, what 
> the comparison is in the real world (I see no comparison
> myself), but she does seem to be saying their danger is 
> not the whole of their being, that if the possibility 
> exists to bring people who have been bitten into the fold of 
> mainstream society to live and work, there's hope for them.

houyhnhnm:

What Rowling said is that Lupin is a "damaged person, 
literally and metaphorically. [....] His being a werewolf 
is really a metaphor for people's reactions to illness 
and disability."

I have a problem with Lupin as a metaphor for people 
in the real world fighting discrimination because of 
illness or disability.  If that is what she really meant 
to say, then I believe her thinking is confused, because 
what people with illness or disability are fighting is 
something that is wholly within the minds of their 
persecutors.  It is nothing in themselves.  With 
werewolves it is what they really are that causes 
other wizards to fear them.

That doesn't mean that it isn't laudable on Dumbledore's 
part to want to give werewolves a place in Wizard 
society.  It *is* progressive. Just as he gave Snape 
a second chance, just as he arranged for Hagrid to stay 
on at Hogwarts to be trained as a gamekeeper (I suspect 
Dumbledore believed Hagrid was innocent; still he 
couldn't prove it.  Hagrid was not exonerated.) 

That is a different thing from hiring someone whose 
only offense is in the eyes of their beholders.  I 
think a better comparison for werewolves would be to 
those who have committed anti-social acts but are okay 
as long as they take their medication.

It is certainly more laudable to give a convicted sex 
offender, for instance, a chance at becoming a worthwhile 
member of society than to run him out of the neighborhood, 
but the fear of the neighbors in that case is not a 
baseless prejudice.  It is not like running someone 
out of your neighborhood because they have AIDS.

I think Rowling's comment likening Lupin to a person 
with a chronic ilness or disability was not well thought 
out.  I wish she hadn't said it.