Werewolves and RL equivalents (was:Re: Snape - a werewolf bigot?...)

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 170290

Betsy Hp:
> But that's what makes Lupin's lycanthropy so hard to wrestle with, 
> IMO.  She could have done whatever she wanted but JKR *kept* the 
> mindlessly driven to infect or kill the nearest available human 
> part of being a werewolf.  Which makes it impossible, IMO, to 
> compare being a werewolf with having AIDs or having a disability.  
> Unless you want to suggest that folks who have AIDs or with 
> disabilites routinely ravage the countryside trying to make other 
> people be just like them.  Or, you know, dead.
<snip>

Dana:
To be honest with you I do think JKR meant to draw a direct parallel 
with Lupin's disease and diseases and disabilities in RL but not in 
relation to people ravaging the country side but how devistating 
these diseases can really be on human life. Her mother had MS and I'm 
sure she would have called that disease the monster that is disabling 
her mother eventually killing her. Lupin's disease is projected 
outward but I don't think that you can deny that AIDS as a disease is 
a monster that is silently killing the people it infects. When it was 
first discovered it did rage through society and it killed people 
randomly and rapidly. It is still raging through the continent of 
Afrika killing devistating numbers of people. It is not the people 
infected with the disease but the disease that they are infected with 
that provides the analogy. It is not Lupin that is the monster but 
the disease that turns him into a monster unlike Greyback who is 
already a monster as a human and becomes worse so when it is a full 
moon. People infecting other people with for instance HIV on purpose 
did not become monsters because of their disease but because of them 
already being utterly monsterous for wanting the power over other 
people's faith. 

So in this case when Lupin transforms into a werewolf he is actually 
no longer Lupin but his disease which is driven by the instinct of 
that creature inside. I do not think a parallel to sexual preditor 
can be made for the simple fact that these people are always on the 
prowl no matter what time of the day it is. Greyback might have this 
motivation but it is certainly not part of him being a werewolf as he 
has to make a human decision to place himself within striking range 
of his chosen victim. 

JMHO

Dana