Werewolves and RL equivalents

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 170470

Jen wrote:  

> The curse ensures Lupin won't return as Dumbledore has not been able
to keep a DADA professor for longer than a year.  Actions determine
the actual cause of the event though, not the curse; Snape's actions
serve the story in some way since they are connected  to Lupin's
leave-taking.  
> 
> If Snape knew about or suspected a problem with the DADA position
that would lead to Lupin leaving regardless of his own actions, then 
it's difficult to see any reason for Snape to reveal the information
if his only goal was getting Lupin ousted.  Which means to me he 
either didn't know the curse would ensure Lupin was leaving or he had
 another goal in revealing the information.  <snip>

> What I meant by that is had Snape waited or not come forward when he
did, Dumbledore and Lupin would have revealed the outcome that Lupin
was leaving anyway -that's what was taken out of their hands, the
choice to present the information as they saw fit and include the
details they felt were necessary.  So Snape acted preemptively for
some mystifying reason.  I mean, people are arguing he didn't do it to
get Lupin fired and Snape's words had no bearing on Lupin's job
prospects or career, so why did JKR make Snape part of the story?  I
don't see a purpose for him telling the students about Lupin if it had
no meaning.  

Carol responds:
My feeling about Snape's role in all this can be summed up in two
words: red herring. (It's just like blaming snape's anger in the
Shrieking shack on a schoolboy grudge--also Lupin's interpretation
BTW). We all seem to agree that through a combination of Lupin's own
behavior and the DADA curse, he would have lost his job in any case,
so Snape's words have nothing to do with that. Nor do they have
anything to do with Umbridge's legislation, which is independent of
him and, if JKR's math is right (admittedly an iffy proposition), the
werewolf legislation prdeates the Lupin incident and has nothing to do
with it--although it might be the reason that Dumbledore hired Lupin
(to give him one last job before the legislation made getting a job
impossible).

At any rate, setting aside Snape's motive, which might have been petty
revenge or might have been simply informing his students that Lupin
was a dangerous man and now safely out of Hogwarts (he probably was
not yet convinced of the truth of Sirius Black's innocence or Lupin's
in aiding him), I think it's *Lupin* who makes it a big deal, implying
that if it weren't for Snape, he wouldn't have had to resign. His
being a danger to his students is treated like an afterthought when it
ought to have been his primary consideration. (He doesn't mention the
information he concealed from Dumbledore all year long, which was
surely another reason for Dumbledore's acceptance of or request for
his resignation.) *Maybe* Snape's remark was the stimulus for his
offering his resignation, which he did to preempt being asked to
leave, but it would have happened anyway, with or without Snape. 

So the only reason Lupin can have for mentioning Snape's remark to the
Slytherins is, IMO, to make it look, to himself and to Harry, as if he
could somehow have kept his job if only Snape hadn't "let slip" that
he was a werewolf. (The passive-aggressive thing again, blaming Snape
for the loss of his job when it was really his own fault.) I don't
think that even Harry buys it completely, since he and his friends
mention the so-called jinx on the DADA post as having led to one
death, one memory loss, one firing, and one teacher locked in his own
trunk for ten months. (Oddly, they leave out soul-sucked Barty, who
did actually teach the class though he wasn't hired for it. He seems
to me as much a victim of the curse as all the others.) So maybe
they're starting to see that Lupin couldn't have stayed at Hogwarts,
Snape or no Snape.

Anyway, aside from illustrating Lupin's apparent inability to admit
full responsibility for his own actions and face their consequences, I
think the reason JKR had Lupin mention Snape is simply to make Snape
look spiteful, paving the way for the seemingly evil Snape at the end
of HBP. (Not that Lupin has any idea that that's going to happen; I'm
talking about JKR's authorial strategies here.) If Snape doesn't
appear to be bent on vengeance against the "innocent" Marauders, how
are we (and Harry) going to suspect him of being actually evil when
the time comes? 

The reader who, unlike Harry, is willing to look past Snape's
personality can see Snape conjuring stretchers to take the unconscious
kids and Black, all of them in danger from both a werewolf and any
returning Dementors, back to the castle as a responsible, even noble,
action, but Time!Turned Harry's reaction to Snape's entering the
Shrieking Shack is to clench his fists and snarl, "Get your filthy
hands off it [the Invisibility Cloak]!" (PoA Am. ed. 403). And when
Hermione says, "Harry, look at Snape!" and Harry sees Snape conjuring
stretchers and lifting their unconscious bodies onto them to get them
off the grounds and into the hospital wing, he says nothing. We don't
even get Harry's reaction, just an objective description of Snape's
actions (412). Evidently Harry pushes the thought from his mind
because he doesn't want to react favorably to anything Snape does. No
credit for Snape where credit is due because Harry, like Sirius Black,
can't see the good in him, even as early as PoA. And since the reader
sees from Harry's pov, JKR seems to expect a similar reaction from
most readers, especially young readers who empathize with Harry.

And *if* Lupin is going to turn traitor, or do something wrong out of
weakness, the opposite process is going on. He's being painted as poor
innocent Lupin, victim of lycanthropy, anti-werewolf legislation, the
DADA curse, and Snape's petty vengeance topping it all off, bearing it
all so patiently, his secretiveness and other faults so minor as not
to matter because, after all, he was kind to Neville and (reluctantly)
taught Harry to cast a Patronus (so Harry could beat Slytherin at
Quidditch!). The funny thing is, I rather like Lupin, but I don't
trust him much more than Snape does. I don't know where JKR is going
with him, but he could well be DDM!Snape's opposite number, as Pippin
and others are arguing.

Carol, wondering what HBP Snape meant by saying that Tonks's Patronus
looked "weak" and wondering how that weakness will manifest itself in DH