Lupin's behavior (Was: CHAPDISC: DH11, The Bribe)

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 180650

> Mike:
> I don't know what the rest of the Order was doing, but it seemed to 
> me that Lupin was the only one acting responsibly at this time. OK, 
> maybe he was doing it for the wrong reasons.

a_svirn:
On the contrary, he was offering his help for all the right reasons. 
You've listed them yourself in your excellent post. You may argue 
that he abandoned his family for all the wrong reasons, but that's 
another and *separate* issue. 

> Mike:
> The only place where I have a slight disagreement with a_svirn is 
in 
> Lupin's actual reason to offer help. After Lupin's long self-pity 
> rant and his admission of running from the problem, it seems 
obvious 
> that the *real* reason Lupin is there is not completely altruistic.

a_svirn:
I have these two problems with apostrophising Lupin's outpouring as 
a "self-pity rant". First it's too dismissive. It's like saying 
Lupin' exaggerated the graveness of his situation in order to win a 
pity vote from the Trio. Which is simply not true. Everything he said 
was perfectly accurate. Under the circumstances he *was* a liability 
and a danger for his family. His child *did* face a lifetime's worth 
of shame and scorn from the rest of wizading community, even if he 
wouldn't turn out a werewolf. Even before Voldemort's coup Tonks and 
Lupin couldn't stay at Harry's birthday party because Scrimgeour was 
coming and the Ministry was too anti-werewolf. How much worse the 
situation became after the coup?  Furthermore, Lupin had no way of 
knowing that Harry would sort out Voldemort in a few months, if at 
all. And under Voldemort's regime what chance had an official half-
werewolf to start Hogwarts, for instance? Or in fact, to survive? All 
in all, being an official bastard may well have been preferable to 
being an official "quarter-bred". Which brings me to the second 
problem. 

When all the listers who despise Lupin for this moment of weakness 
say that he was whining and wallowing in *self*-pity, they seem to 
overlook the fact that the whole thing wasn't about *him*. He had 
long since accepted his life as an outcast and did not complain. 
Well, out loud, at least. It was only when he faced the possibility 
that he condemned his own child to the same miserly existence he 
cracked. And, frankly, anyone would, at least for a while. In any 
case, whether he was right or wrong in abandoning his family, his 
primarily concern was his child's welfare, and not his own. Which 
hardly counts as selfish, now, does it? It was a loose-loose 
situation: abandon the family and cause Tonks pain and condemn the 
child to a fatherless life, or stay and strip them both from the only 
chance to conform to the new regime. You think Lupin made the wrong 
choice? Perhaps. Rowling is certainly of that opinion. But it was by 
no means an easy choice, and there wasn't a ready-made answer to it, 
like "parents should stay with their children". 


> Mike:
> I don't care that Harry was right, witnessed by Lupin's transformed 
> reaction to fatherhood. I don't care that Harry shocked him into 
> this, and that it was probably a good thing in the long run. I also 
> don't care that Lupin was offering his help for all the wrong 
> reasons. My gut reaction was to think, "It's about time someone 
said 
> that to Remus." But my sense of fair play said, "How dare Harry 
call 
> Lupin a coward for offering help? And how *dare* he impose his 
> morality like some Godfather on a man that has risked his life 
> numerous times in the fight against Voldemort and to save Harry?"

a_svirn:
Hear, hear!

a_svirn