Lupin quotes was Re: Never again
pippin_999
foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid
Fri Dec 17 04:01:47 UTC 2004
Naama:
>
> I think that, again, you're jumping from one thing to another. 'To
care' for a character isn't the same as 'loving' a character. Of
course great literature makes you care about the characters. But
that sense of empathy and shared humanity is very different
from the simple liking/loving of a certain character. In fact,
they're almost diametrically opposed: the first is about going
beyond traits and personality to that vision of humanity as such,
whereas the second is exactly about partiality - liking/admiring a
character for their personality/traits (for the same reasons you
like/admire a person in RL).<
Pippin:
Erm, but if JKR is writing as one who is commanded to love her
enemies as her neighbors, and her neighbors as herself, then
ideally that distinction, and the one you make below, don't
obtain. I think it is relevant to the books, because that kind of
love is almost certainly what's behind the door.
Dumbledore berates himself, does he not, for caring more for
Harry than for the nameless faceless strangers? He could
almost be a CS Lewis character at that point, echoing Jesus's
lesson that more is asked from a good person because even
Roman tax-collectors are kind to their friends.
Naama:
> I would think that JKR certainly believed that. However, this
goes back to what I said above - the difference between
acknowledging humanity in a person as such, and simply
liking/disliking them. When JKR replies to the "who is your
favorite character" question, she is talking about personal
preferences - in fact, she is talking, in that context, as any fan
might. She is *not* talking from that very high moral ground you
describe. She is not taking God's point of view at that point. <
She is simply listing the characters she is particularly
fond of, admires, likes - those she is partial to. I return to my
question: do you really think she could be particularly fond of,
like, admire, a character who betrayed his best friends? After all,
once you have managed to convince yourself of Lupin's guilt,
didn't it make you not like him as a person? (I may be wrong, but
that's the impression I get from your posts.)
>
Pippin:
Oh, no! I am *much* fonder of clever, crafty ESE!Lupin than I ever
was of Ostensible!Lupin, that weak-willed, passive-aggressive
hard-luck case.*I* don't want to meet him, but that's because I
don't know what makes him tick. Jo does.
In a sense we've never met the real Lupin -- the wonderful man
Jo describes is fast becoming only the hollow shell of the
person he could have been. When he hugs Molly I want to shout,
"How dare you!" The worst of it is, I'm afraid he's sincere, and
actually has convinced himself things are going to be different
this time. But he is sowing the wind and will reap the whirlwind.
Alas.
Jo has idealized him as a teacher, I think, to make it clear that
in a world in which he was allowed to fulfill the role he was born
for, he would never have discovered his potential for evil, the
same potential that rests in all of us. That's the kicker -- she can
like him despite what he's done because at heart he's *not*
different than the rest of us--he represents the normal, basically
good person's potential to do wrong.
As Ursula LeGuin once said (paraphrase) the great fantasies
don't say tritely that there's a little bit of bad in the best of us
and a little bit of good in the worst of us. They teach that in each
of us rests the possibility to do tremendous good or the greatest
evil.
Pippin
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