XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)

[pippin_999]

> Neri:
> May I humbly (heh!) point out that all this wonderful lit analysis
> depends on one critical assumption: that there's a story here.
> Something with three acts, a protagonist, an antagonist, etc.

Pippin:
 
Well, of course there's a story -- it's a very old story --
call it "Curiosity Killed the Cat." Eve, Pandora, Goldilocks. 
(There's something  womanish about Snape, isn't there?)
Always a prohibition, an instigator, and a temptation. 
The temptation is what's missing here -- what made
entering the willow irresistable?  What made Snape set
his caution aside? 

We thought we knew, we thought Snape would never 
dream that Sirius was playing a trick on him...but that was 
when we thought Snape and his gang were the bullies and 
James and co were the innocents.  JKR chose to reverse 
that...she didn't have to. 


 JKR has pages and pages of backstory about characters like
Theo Nott -- do you think she doesn 't know why Snape entered the
willow?  Why make the point that Snape is always cunning and
careful enough to keep himself out of trouble, why contrast  it
with Bertha Jorkins  so that Dumbledore can ask, "But why, Bertha,
why did you have to follow him in the first place"

Neri:
> Remember, JKR have only two books left. She doesn't have enough room
> in there for a whole prequel with six major characters (at the very
> least the four Marauders, Snape and Lily) and still keep track of so
> many characters in the here and now. And considering how Lucas
managed
> his prequels (yuck, yuck and YUCK) I'm rather thankful for that.

Pippin:
It's only difficult to account for the inconsistencies if you insist
on innocent  Lupin -- I tried writing Lupin's confession once, and it
took me about a page and a half. The difficult thing about it
is matching  the half-guilty, half-arrogant tone -- so that it
sounds like Lupin telling it.

That, as JKR says, comes from actually writing  the
backstory (instead of deducing it from the clues as I am) so that you
can "move your characters across the page."

 And she's said that we'll learn 
everything about the Marauders we need to know.

Pippin