OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Cindy wrote:

Wizards just don't get the concept of apologies, do they?

No. They don't.

'Way back when Real Wizards Weren't Squeamish, I suggested that the Potterverse's wizarding culture was at heart a warrior culture, and I still stand by that. (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.) Warrior cultures tend not to put much stock in apologies. I mean, how many times do you run across characters apologizing to each other in Norse Eddas? Or, for that matter, in any sort of warrior saga? Just think of how differently the Iliad would have played out, if any of the principles had been able to apologize, or for that matter to accept an apology gracefully once one was offered!

Cultures that develop with a strong warrior ethos don't really do that whole apology thing. Aristocratic Romans who came the conclusion that they'd seriously done wrong weren't supposed to go around apologizing to everyone. What they were supposed to do was to commit suicide like...well, you know. Like Good Romans.

Now admittedly, we haven't run across a whole lot of noble suicides in the HP books. But I have to say that if we did, it wouldn't strike me as at all out of character for the wizarding culture as it's been presented so far.

Now Hermione, she knows how to apologize.

Yes, she does. Like any self-respecting adolescent, she can be stubborn about it, but she does at least seem to have some familiarity with the entire concept.

But then, Hermione was raised by muggles, right? I mean, properly raised by muggles, not just locked into the cupboard beneath the stairs, like Harry was. So it's not really surprising if she's a little weak on that whole Real Wizards Don't Apologize concept. But don't worry: Hermione's a very quick learner. She'll pick up on how to be a properly pride-driven and bloody-minded idiot like all of the rest of them in no time at all, I'm sure. ::sigh::

Seriously, though, David made mention of the apparent inability of these characters to apologize as evidence that they are personally "damaged." I'd agree with that, but I'd also take it one step further: I think that their entire culture is fairly well damaged, and that their discomfort with the notion of apologies is really one of the very mildest manifestations of said damage within the series.

Cindy later qualified her rant, by adding:

That said, I have to kick myself, because I overlooked perhaps the biggest, most important apology in the books. In my favorite scene in my favorite book, no less:

"Forgive me, Remus," said Black.

"Not at all, Padfoot, old friend," said Lupin, who was now rolling up his sleeves. "And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing you were the spy?"

Ah, yes. That certainly was a sincere and heart-felt plea for forgiveness, wasn't it? No attempts to excuse himself, no attempts to explain himself, no attempts to justify himself — not even a "Peter turned me against you!" accusation stuck in there somewhere as a partial defense. Just a pure and simple request for forgiveness.

That's hard. That's about as sucking-it-up as apologies get, really. And coming from someone like Sirius Black, it really means a lot, don't you think? Even after all those years in Azkaban, the man still has a good deal of that Proper Wizarding Pride. He's not really at all the "forgive me" type.

But just look at how Lupin reacts to it, will you? Look at his tone. It's breezy. Light. Casual. Childhood nicknames, "not at all, old friend." I mean, it's flippant, really. It very nearly borders on the facetious.

That's how Lupin always signals discomfort or distress. It's similar to that breezy tone he takes when he talks to Harry about the dementors, and about Sirius Black, and about the Dementor's Kiss. It's similar to the tone he takes nearly every time he is forced to deal with Snape as a colleague. For that matter, it's a relation to the tone that he's been taking with Peter throughout the Shrieking Shack scene.

Sirius' apology may strike us as admirable or touching, but its effect on Lupin seems to me to be one of extreme discomfort. It embarrasses him.

Cindy wrote:

A lot of people have expressed dissatisfaction with this scene, and perhaps one reason is that neither character has any good reason to be apologizing. I don't know.

I don't really think that's it at all. For one thing, I think it is perfectly reasonable to apologize to a close friend for having wrongly suspected him of treachery and murder. That represents such a profound failure of trust that to my mind, it certainly warrants some form of apology. And it particularly warrants an apology from Sirius, because while Lupin would seem only to have come to believe Sirius to be a murderous traitor after his arrest, Sirius suspected Lupin on the basis of no solid evidence at all. It's hard to avoid the suspicion that Lupin's lycanthropy had something to do with that, and even if it hadn't, I'm sure that Lupin thinks that it had. I'm equally sure that Sirius is aware that Lupin would assume that it had. And really, that's pretty ugly. Given all of that, it seems perfectly proper to me for Sirius to ask for forgiveness.

No, I think that the reason that so many readers express feelings of dissatisfaction with that part of the scene is that the tenor of Lupin's response strikes an off-note. The tone is just all wrong. It sounds insincere, unconvincing. It sounds a bit like a brush-off. And that leaves them feeling a certain degree of anxiety that perhaps things aren't really settled between the two men, that perhaps there are still some hard feelings there that aren't being resolved.

Eloise wrote:

The point about sincere apology is that it isn't just some magic social formula, it's the recognition that something has gone wrong between two (or more) people that needs to be put right if the relationship is to carry on or be healed. It's an acknowledgement of how the situation is and that something needs to be done about it.

Yes. And I think that this is really the underlying cause of that reader anxiety with the "apology." Remus' response leaves many people with an uneasy feeling that he's in some way resisting the offer to heal the breach.

I don't think that he is, myself. I think that he's just profoundly uncomfortable. As Eloise said, it's often much harder to respond to a sincere apology than it is to offer one, and what Sirius is asking forgiveness for there really is big. "You thought that I'd sold myself to Dark Forces and was planning on betraying you and James and Lily and their infant son to death? You just happened to figure that the one werewolf in the group was also probably the traitor? Oh, well, really now, Sirius, please don't trouble yourself about that any longer, all right? I mean, it could have happened to anyone."

No. Even if Lupin isn't holding onto any hard feelings at all, it's still got to be difficult for him to think of a way to respond, and so he tries to gloss over his discomfort by offering up a light and breezy apology right back. I also don't think that he's at all comfortable with Sirius breaking the Real Wizards Don't Apologize rule — it's not really manly, you know, to ask quite so earnestly for another's forgiveness; it's not...well, it's just not done.

He's uncomfortable, and he's embarrassed, and so he descends into flippancy.

That's how I read it, anyway. I thought it rather sad, myself.

Eloise wrote:

'Real Wizards don't Apologise'. Real Wizards suffer from a great deal too much pride, if you ask me. And they're not helped by being male. . . . But there are ways and ways of showing regret, of moving on. Isn't that what Harry and Ron did in that 'apology that wasn't an apology' scene that restored their friendship? . . . .They both knew the other was sorry for their part in the rift between them and in the end, because they both recognised the situation, it didn't have to be said.

The big reconciliation moment of Shrieking Shack isn't that rather awkward apology at all, IMO.

It's the embrace.

—Elkins, whose own dicentra spectabilis has just started to shoot up, although now that it is hailing, she rather imagines that it's wishing it had waited a bit longer; and who is very happy with the idea of nice peaty smoky Islay single malts on board the Fourth Man hovercraft, but who thinks it best if Eloise herself sees to its acquisition, as nice peaty single malts are very hard to come by here in Oregon, where we instead produce sweet pale Reislings and effete cordials (twee but tasty!) made from various and sundry regional types of berry-fruit...