Werewolves and RL equivalents

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 170320

> lizzyben:
> This is an interesting perspective, and it does make a lot of 
> sense. So, Rowling wasn't talking about the way society perceives 
> his disability, but the way Lupin himself does? I tried to find the 
> full quote to get some context -
>  
> "Professor Lupin, who appears in the third book, is one of my 
> favourite characters. He's a damaged person, literally and 
> metaphorically. I think it's important for children to know that 
> adults, too, have their problems, that they struggle. *His being a 
> werewolf is a metaphor for people's reactions to illness and 
> disability*. ... I almost always have complete histories for my 
> characters. If I put all that detail in, each book would be the 
size 
> of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but I do have to be careful that I 
> don't just assume that the reader knows as much as I do. Sirius 
> Black is a good example. I have a whole childhood worked out for 
> him. The readers don't need to know that but I do."

Dana:

Actually it is two folded Lupin himself dealing with his problem and 
the way people react to that problem as the quote also points out by 
the additation of this *His being a werewolf is a metaphor for 
people's reactions to illness and disability*.

Many people will call the disease they are dealing with a monster 
raging inside them or find themself grotesk if their body is deformed 
because of their disease. Lupin calling himself a fully fletched 
monster emphezises in my opinion the bitterness he feels about what 
he is and his behavoir as a human in trying to compensate to me not 
only indicates how much he actually hates it but his fear to not be 
seen like anything else then just that and from the reaction we have 
seen in this topic alone he is actually right isn't he. 

JMHO

Dana