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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170394

lealess:
Lupin is being passive-aggressive when Snape comes into the classroom 
with the potion and tells him he should drink it directly. There's a 
little power play going on, perhaps a hangover from Marauder days, 
perhaps the result of having Harry in the room.

Magpie:
Yes, when Snape comes in he's defining Lupin via his disease, probably
making him feel different and rubbing it in, and Lupin is getting some
control back. 

Dana:
What I was trying to say, and you seemed to be missing the details of 
the difference, is that a sexual predator is like that by choice. 
Sexual predator get off on their fantasies and they start to live in 
that fantasy so much that they want that fantasy to come alive, they 
want to make it to become reality and they make consious choices to 
make it so. 

Magpie:
I don't see how I could be missing that when I believe I repeated it in my
post. A sexual predator doesn't perhaps choose to have the compulsion he
has, but as a human he is able to control his impulses. A transformed
werwolf without wolfsbane, by contrast, no longer has access to a human
mind and so can not be held responsible for biting someone-unless, like
Fenrir, he arranged it when he was human.

The point *I* was making, as I said, was that the distinction you are
drawing is all about culpability and what is going on in the mind of the
predator. The sexual predator can control himself and a transformed werwolf
can't. So it's not a good analogy. But the analogy I thought wynnleaf was
making was that in terms of DANGER there is an analogy. Because people need
to be protected from a sexual predator in the area and from a transformed
werewolf. If a registered offender moves into a community people are going
to ask: How can our safety be protected? What if the wolfbane doesn't work?
What if my child happens to be near him and that happens? Fenrir may have
taken conscious choices to place himself near Lupin as a child, but Lupin
would have just been acting like a normal kid when he got bitten. 

Dana:
I think you mean Betsy as Wynnleaf only commented on the prowling bit 
which werewolves actually do not do (except Greyback because he is 
driving by other things then just his werewolf instinct) they just 
hunt like a real animal hunts. They will not prowl until the right 
victim crosses their path they will hunt anyone that crosses their 
path. 

Magpie:
I meant what I said, that they are dangerous to people in the vicinity. The
fact that they may only kill people who cross their path hardly matters to
the person living in the area who might cross their path. Sexual predators
are known to attack on opportunity as well. I don't think you can speak
with quite such authority on exactly how werewolves are in the HP-verse,
though. We have no canon whatsoever about exactly how they might hunt.
Lupin feels being with Animagi made him a bit more human and he certainly
wasn't hunting on those nights, but I don't know whether we can say for
sure that they don't hunt under any circumstances. I mean, what is
"hunting" in that case anyway? He gives chase if he spots prey. He sees a
person and the hunt is on.

Dana:
Lupin does not posse a treat in his human form so it is actually an 
overreaction to be nervous when you are near him. 

Magpie:
Again, not that point. Nobody's saying it's rational to be nervous around
Lupin on a Saturday afternoon during the quarter moon. If Lupin lives next
door and it's a full moon night, it's not irrational to really hope he
didn't miss a dose or that the wolfsbane wasn't prepared incorrectly etc.
Which is why like it or not it's not *completely* irrational for someone to
be nervous about their child at school with him--it's possible he could
wind up loose and transformed without wolfsbane, and many people might
consider that just too close for them, given the fear wizards seem to have
of werwolves.

Dana:
 People react to everything they do not know and 
diseases are one of them and people not wanting to have a sexual 
predator in their midst are actually right especially if they have 
kids but people who state that someone with AIDS or any other type of 
disease has to move if they live next to them are wrong. 

Magpie:
Yeah, they're wrong. But Lupin doesn't have AIDS, so we can't just take
what's true for that disease and directly apply it. Knowledge about how not
to get infected works a bit differently with a werewolf, obviously. You
don't get infected if the werewolf took exactly the right dosage of potion,
or is securely confined or you are.  If one of those things doesn't work,
ways of not being infected are going to bear a bit more resemblance to
hiding from or not getting killed by a monster, unless you are lucky enough
to be in a position to bring the wolf in without hurting him.

lanva:
Never mind the fact 
that he (or DD)may have discussed the effects/dosage/instructions 
with Lupin before. Surely he knows by now that it must be drunk 
quickly.

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? Which he does, I might add. "If you need more?" Please, 
Sevvie, don't make me laugh. Snape's the one who brews the stuff; 
he knows when the moon will be full -- who better to know 
exactly when, how often, and how much his "patient" will need, but 
the manufacturer and Potions Master Extraordinare, Severus Snape.

Magpie:
Yeah, Snape and Lupin are *both* being passive-aggressive. Snape's rubbing
in that he wants Lupin to drink it right that second (and he's got more in
case Lupin thinks he needs it!!) and Lupin's saying he will drink it when
he's ready. It's a powerplay going on in front of Harry, with both men
knowing that Harry is there as part of it. Of course Snape could have just
set it down and not brought up werewolves in class. So could Lupin have
drunk the Potion in front of Snape like a good boy who knows what a risk it
all is. But they're totally at each other.:-)

Lanval:
Sad, but hardly comparable here. People diagnosed with a mental 
disorder, IMO, suffer from said disorder all the time, not just once 
a month, until they are (maybe, maybe never; often those are 
lifelong conditions) pronounced cured by some medical authority. 
Who can say to what extent the medication works? 

Magpie:
I don't know about that. I don't think it's a direct analogy by any means,
because a mental illness is woven into the being of a person differently
than Lupin's condition, but I think there's certainly something there about
chronically ill people and the way they can react to their medicine. Not
just mentally ill people. I know from reading and from friends who are
bipolar that with that condition going off meds often is something that
happens a lot for a lot of reasons that I don't think apply to Lupin--in
his case, really, the wolfsbane might be seen as the opposite since his
werewolf self isn't his real self at all. But I absolutely think there's
something complicated in Lupin's relationship with wolfsbane.

lanva:
Lupin, on the other hand, is a perfectly sane, normal person with a 
normally functioning brain for 27 days of the moon cycle. I see no 
indication that he resents being forced to take medication, feels he 
doesn't need it, is sick of being sick, etc, which are usually the 
reasons people give when they go off their meds against orders.

Magpie:
I think there are some other reasons too. But in Lupin's case I have no
trouble believing at all that he would be forced to take medication, and
might be sick of being sick. Goodness, why not? His illness controls his
entire life! He would hardly show it, given his personality, and yet in
this scene especially Snape's even rubbing it in. Like I said, I don't see
him disliking wolfsbane itself the way some people might dislike their
medicine, but I think it's got more meaning for him than that.

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. I see no evidence that he had any intention of 
not drinking it. Calling that a blase attitude is going a bit far, I 
think, and mostly conjecture. 

Magpie:
I don't think she's saying he has a blase attitude in general, but that
he's showing one (intentionally) to Snape. Lupin's entire part in the books
revolves around doing irresponsible things. He goes running with the
Marauders regularly in school, he covers up for Sirius, he forgets to take
his Potion in PoA. Of course these things don't define the entire man if he
were a person, but as a literary creation, if Lupin was a chesspiece this
would be part of his signature move. It's not conjecture anymore than
saying Sirius can be reckless. 

Lanva:
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? 

Magpie:
I don't think the point is that he's choosing to go through the
transformation. He is having a power play with Snape by not drinking the
concoction immediately, which sets up the repitition later when he forgets
it.

Lanva:
This notion that the Hogwarts students's safety somehow depended 
solely on Lupin taking his wolfsbane potion is, IMO, blown a good 
deal out of proportion. 

Magpie:
I don't see how it can be blown out of proportion. It's not like we're
given back ups for Lupin while he's at Hogwarts. He's teaching at the
school and controlling his condition through Wolfsbane. That's significant
to the plot. Sure there are things that could be done other than
wolfsbane--Lupin didn't have it when he went to school as a kid. But
wolfsbane is important in PoA. Too much "everything's dangerous at
Hogwarts" and the plots of every book stop mattering.

Another thing I love about the Snape/Lupin scene with the Potion, btw, is I
think when Snape comes in and sees Lupin with Harry that's already a blow
to Snape. I mean, we know the guy lives in the past, and he hates having
Lupin there. I think he saw those two together and went right into the same
kind of defensiveness he had in the Pensieve scene, as if now there's two
of them plotting. And he starts his own passive-aggressive attack on
Lupin--which Lupin parries in the most Lupin-like way.

Dungrollin:
Snape is the ultimate ESE!Lupiner. He is *paranoid* about Lupin.

Magpie:
Hee! Agreed.

Dung
See, I'd put it the other way around. Snape has convinced himself 
that Lupin is in league with Black, (possibly that he always had 
been, and was in on the sk betrayal of the Potters, too), and that if 
Lupin's attempts to get Black into the castle to kill Harry continue 
to fail, he can always try to lure Harry out of school and into 
Hogsmeade where he'll be easy to catch. I'd stick the "oh, and if he 
forgot to take his potion he could run amok around the school and 
infect someone" as the afterthought, rather than the believing him to 
be in league with Black as the afterthought. 

Magpie:
Interesting to think that given that Snape's view of Lupin is so emotional
and paranoid (which doesn't make him always wrong, but not right either),
he really might think he would not take the Potion on purpose. The Prank,
after all, was all about setting up Snape the way Fenrir set up Remus. He
may on some level just associate Lupin with using his disease on others.
It's not really rational to think Lupin would intentionally not take his
potion, but Snape isn't always rational when his buttons are pressed.

Betsy Hp:
That first bit pleases me, because it means JKR has chosen to stick 
pretty close to classic werewolf myth. The second bit doesn't please 
me because one of my favorite Stephen King comments (from "It" 
maybe?) is that adults invented the werewolf but children invented 
the silver bullet (though, hmmm.... maybe it was vampires and 
stakes?). The third bit confuses me: what poem?

Magpie:
Sorry--the werewolf poem: "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his
prayers at night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the moon
is full and bright". That was made up for the movie.

lanva:
I really think that had Snape not been so hostile before 
Lupin was even hired, Lupin would have let the past be the past. He 
seems to have more important matters on his mind than dwelling on a 
old schoolboy grudge.

Magpie:
I think that's true--Lupin himself says he neither likes nor dislikes Snape
and I believe him. But of course Snape was going to be the first aggressor
because not only is he the more emotional one but he's the one who feels
slighted. The Marauders *won* and both Lupin and Snape know it. Even with
the Prank Snape's still enraged and Lupin can still say it's just a stupid
joke. I think Lupin handles Snape in a way that drives Snape crazy--and
that's just Snape, but I think the scene with the Potion is part of Lupin
struggling with Snape. It's just also setting up the later scene where he
forgets the Potion.

Which just fascinates me because JKR *could* have had Lupin be all frantic
about taking the Potion to set up just how important it was that he always
get it on time, and then in turn use that to show how shocked he was by
seeing Peter (because we'd know how important it was). The scene she wrote
was imo more interesting and says things a bit more interesting about
Lupin. He's never just the Patron Martyr Saint of Werewolves.

Dana:
JKR has used the basis of myths to create her own but her werewolf 
story is not based on the actual myths or folklore. She in HBP makes 
Harry and Lupin himself state that werewolves do not regularly kill 
but under certain circumstances they can. The main objective of a 
werewolf in JKR's story is not about killing the victim but about 
infecting the victim to make another werewolf. The werewolf reason 
for wanting to bite another human is about reproduction and thus 
about existence. 

Magpie:
Err...says you, maybe. You're saying that a werewolf biting another person
is about survival of the species, but that's just your personal idea of how
it works. There's no canon that being bitten by a werewolf makes you some
other species for whom contagion is like sex. Lupin has never spoken of
having the urge to create other werewolves (and if he did that would open a
whole nother can of sexual predator worms so maybe we don't want to go
there). Perhaps under the full moon he simply becomes *aggressive* without
needing to actually kill, because he's not attacking creatures for food.
When werewolves are hungry they apparently do eat their victims. If the
disease gives them an impulse to infect then it's the disease that has an
impulse to reproduce, like a virus or something. *Greyback* is the only
werewolf we've heard say anything about wanting to produce more werewolves,
and there again he's doing it with his human mind, trying to create an
army. Lupin seems to associate reproduction with purely human means--like
Tonks.

We might actually throw another illness into the mix here, which has
probably been left out far too long: how about some rabies? Isn't that
probably also a basis for the legend?

Dana:
Your analogy is precisly what people do and should not do when it 
comes to disease and disabilities but indeed should always be on 
alert when it comes to sexual predators. 

Magpie:
Yeah, but isn't that kind of why the werewolf analogy is problematic to
people to begin with? Because for most of the month they're just
people--not sexual predators or people with AIDS or otherwise. For three
nights they're not people at all (un-wolfsbaned), they're fully-fledged
monsters. Perhaps it would be better to say it's like a regular person who
has a pet animal that three nights a month becomes savage--unless it's
given a correct dose of wolfbane. If it's not, it must be kept confined.

-m