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

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 170326

> Lanval, citing PoA:
> The door opened, and in came Snape. He was carrying a goblet, which 
> was smoking faintly, and stopped at the sight of Harry, his black 
> eyes narrowing.

zgirnius: 
I don't understand your reading of this scene. Why do you think 
Snape's eyes narrow? I took it as a surprised reaction to Harry's 
presence. If I am right, he was expecting to be bringing the potion 
to Lupin at a time when Lupin is alone. 

> Lanval:
> Why, WHY, couldn't Snape just set down the potion, as Lupin 
politely 
> asked? Why press it even further, after Lupin states clearly, and 
> without any annoyance, impatience, etc, that he *will* drink it 
> directly? 

zgirnius:
Nerves on Snape's part are another possible explanation. He may 
prefer to SEE Lupin drink the stuff. He brings it in and hopes Lupin 
will drink it, but Lupin instead asks him to put it down on the desk. 
Hence the reminder that it needs to be drunk directly.

> Lanval:
>  Even if it's only in front of the Potter boy. Because 
> even he, it turns out, asks questions, which must be evaded. 

zgirnius:
A smoking potion that Harry suspected of being a poison is already 
going to lead to questions. I don't find anything particularly 
suggestive in the rest of the dialogue. Lupin may need more of the 
potion...what is more suspicious about that than the simple presence 
pf the smoking potion and Lupin's need to take it?

> Lanval:
> Then the next week, when Lupin's *out of order* -- how about a 
> werewolf discussion in class? And an essay, just to make them delve 
> a little deeper into the subject... 
> 
> Oh, I agree that there's a power play going on here.

zgirnius:
A week later, yes. 


> Lanval:
> Okay, again, where's the canon for Lupin being a habitual childish 
> brat about taking his potion, and being willfully irresponsible? We 
> see ONE instance, and as I've pointed out above, it's very much 
open 
> to interpretation. 

zgirnius:
We se the incident just cited by you upthread, and another, on a full 
moon night, when he does not take the potion at all, and seems to 
forget that he even needs to, even after he is reminded of it.

> Lanval:
 Here he shows up in the afternoon in 
> Lupin's office, one would think he would have done the same on that 
> afternoon of the SS scene.... but no, he tells Lupin "I've just 
been 
> to your office", and at that point it's evening, way past dinner), 

zgirnius:
The afternoon visit was during a Hogsmeade visit, so over a weekend. 
The SS events occur on a weekday during final exams. Snape and/or 
Lupin may be busy in the afternoon on a weekday, administering a 
test, or what have you. 

Further, according to Snape, the reason he brought a goblet to 
Lupin's office in the first place that evening was that *Lupin* 
forgot to take it earlier. It could also be that this was the reason 
Snape brought the potion on Halloween, by the way, which would also 
explain Snape's feeling that he does need to remind Lupin of this 
stuff, despite any past experiences they may have had.

To me it makes much more sense that it isd Lupin's responsibility to 
find Snape and get his potion, than that Snape is supposed to always 
bring it to him. It is, after all, Lupin who is ill.

> Lanval:
> and that Snape obviously could have chosen to do the safe thing and 
> left Lupin in the shack.

zgirnius:
Huh? Snape's going in himself, based on what he knew at the moment he 
entered the tunnel, was imperative. Lupin was in there with at least 
Harry (the cloak Snape found at the Willow would have indicated that 
to Snape). Once in there, he had no say, since he was knocked out by 
the Trio.

> Lanval:
> So what *if* Lupin had 'passive-aggressively' decided he'd rather 
> not take Sevvie's smelly concoction, and submit to an agonizing 
> transformation instead, just for fun and because he hates being 
> told what to do? 

zgirnius:
I don't doubt that he understands the need to take the potion - his 
discussion of it with Harry in HBP suggests as much. But I do think 
he has procrastinated with it, likely on both occasions that we are 
shown, and this was a factor in the events at the end of PoA.

> Lanval:
> Would he have been stupid (career-destroyingly, 
> friendship-with-DD-destroyingly, murderously stupid!) enough to 
just 
> lie in bed, waiting for the moon to come out? Or, perhaps, he would 
> have retired to the Shrieking Shack, the dungeons, *any* safe room, 
> whatever, and locked himself in, as he has likely done all his 
adult 
> life. 

zgirnius:
This is not a hypothetical; in one instance, we know what he would do 
under those circumstances. The night of the Shack incident, he did 
NOT take the potion. He was later reminded of the fact that he did 
not take the potion (Snape mentions it), and he still LEFT the Shack.