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Sarah wrote:
One reason I would suspect Lupin as being somewhat-evil... During the Conversation in the shrieking shack, between Lupin and Sirius, Lupin, says that he was not told about the switch to Peter as the secret keeper, because Sirius suspected Lupin as being in alliance with Voldemort.
That doesn't really make sense. Why would Sirius and James suspect Lupin over Peter?
Well, primarily, I think that they suspected him because he is a werewolf.
No. It's not very nice, is it? But even the most tolerant of individuals can possess internalized bigotry, and Sirius does tell us that those were very paranoid times. Werewolves are classified as "dark creatures." Voldemort was a Dark Wizard. Sirius and James would not have been human if they hadn't had moments of doubt.
Even if one refuses to entertain the notion that James and Sirius were prejudiced against werewolves per se, though, the fact still remains that Lupin's condition would have rendered him unusually vulnerable to both pressure and temptation from the enemy.
He is both unemployable and impoverished, which renders him vulnerable to bribery or offers of a stable income.
He is a member of a hated yet invisible minority, which renders him vulnerable to blackmail.
He is a member of a marginalized social group, which renders him vulnerable to social resentment and to misguided idealism. Voldemort's people could well have made promises that once the current status quo had been overthrown, werewolves would finally be granted the acceptance that they had failed to receive from those currently in power. Indeed, it is strongly implied that they made just such promises to the giants.
He is effectively chronically ill, which leaves him vulnerable to false hope. Dark magic has tremendous power, doesn't it? Its practitioners can do unexpectedly potent things. Can they cure lycanthropy? Alleviate its symptoms? Might they claim that they could?
Honestly, if Sirius and James didn't find themselves worrying about Remus' vulnerability to all of those things from time to time, then I'd say that they must have been disgustingly insensitive.
I also think that Sirius' behavior in the Shrieking Shack strongly suggests that Sirius, at any rate, most certainly did suspect Lupin at least in part because he was a werewolf. Just look at what happens.
Sirius is not really playing with a full deck at all in the Shrieking Shack. He's vengeance-driven. He's half-mad. His emotional responses to things aren't entirely normal, and neither is his affect. He is grinning madly; he delivers lines like "There'll only be one murder here tonight" while leering maniacally at a bunch of schoolkids who he knows perfectly well believe him to be a crazed killer after Harry's blood; even when overpowered he keeps on agreeing to the accusation that he murdered the Potters (although he does at least try to explain the rest of the story, it's still not exactly sane behavior)...I mean, the guy can't seem to muster up a single normal human emotional reaction to anything going on around him.
So what changes? What finally gets to him? When does he actually start to weep?
Lupin. Lupin comes in and extends his trust. Instantly. Unquestioningly. Later on, he will have some questions about Sirius' admittedly rather improbable story, but he doesn't raise any of them at first. Instead, he offers his hand. He offers his embrace. He offers his immediate and unhesitating trust.
And then Hermione outs him as a werewolf, and the kids all start screaming accusations at him. Ron delivers his "Get away from me, Werewolf!" line. Hermione declares that she should have exposed him from the start. Harry, told that Dumbledore worked to convince the rest of the staff to accept Lupin as trustworthy (Yes, "trustworthy" is precisely the word used) screams out, in JKR's adorable capital letters: "AND HE WAS WRONG! YOU'VE BEEN HELPING HIM ALL THE TIME!"
And that is when we are told that Sirius has crawled over to the bed, that he is shaking, and that he has covered his face with his hand. Indeed, he would seem to have been reduced to tears.
I'd say that Sirius suspected Lupin all those many years ago because he was a werewolf. Wouldn't you?
Poor guilt-ridden Sirius.
If you're looking for suspicious things about Lupin other than his lycanthropy, though, then I think that there are still plenty of those. Back in February, Mahoney (whom I am pleased to see back with us!) asked a very similar question. She asked:
On another subject, has anyone speculated that as for Black having suspected Lupin as being the spy, there might have been some reason related to, I dunno, Lupin's personality that suggested it? I.e., something other than, say, general distrust of werewolves?
I do think that there are plenty of reasons other than his lycanthropy that Sirius and James might have suspected Lupin. My full defense of this claim is message number #35040, but here in summary:
He chose to specialize in the Dark Arts. He has a black sense of humor. He responds to emotional distress by retreating into a very cool and seemingly heartless manner. He speaks of dark or upsetting matters in a breezy and flippant tone of voice. His demeanor when practicing magic is unsettling (the specific words that JKR uses to describe his wandwork are the words that she ordinarily reserves to describe the demeanor of her sadistic villains). He is unnervingly sensitive to others' thoughts and needs. He has a pronounced jugular instinct. He has the capacity for cruelty.
He is more than clever enough and emotionally controlled enough to have made an effective spy, and he had experience with it. As a member of a hated yet invisible minority population, a certain type of deceit and self-misrepresentation was already a fundamental part of Lupin's identity. All werewolves are spies. His friends would likely have understood this. It might well have given them pause.
By the time of canon, Lupin would also seem to have developed a more than a few self-destructive or self-sabotaging tendencies. These may be symptomatic of emotional damage from the Potters' deaths. Then again, he may always have had those leanings, and if so, then that would make him pretty suspect too, wouldn't it? After all, you just don't get much more self-sabotaging than selling yourself to the Dark side. Forgetting to take your Wolfsbane Potion pales in comparison.
Sarah again:
Lupin must have done something to make them suspicious. . . .If you ask me, he must have done something odd which tipped James and Sirius off....
Lupin was suspect to begin with, by simple virtue of being who he is. They were suspicious and paranoid times. In such times, any action might be viewed as an "oddity," an incongruity, a tip-off. In such times, just about anything can set the snowball of paranoia rolling right down the hillside. (For an illustration by example, check out any of Theory Bay's "Order of the Flying Hedgehog" threads. A keyword search for the words "Ever," "So," and "Evil" should do the trick. ;->)
But on the subject of Hedgehoggian speculations, Pip wrote:
I think it is very likely that JKR is going to introduce a theme of 'prejudice causes some of its victims to turn to evil'. She's already hinted at that with Dumbledore's suggestion in GoF that the Giants have turned to Voldemort because he has promised them rights and freedom.
Evil!Lupin would fit in very nicely with that theme.
Indeed, this is the only Evil!Lupin scenario that I really find at all canonically plausible. In spite of all of Pippin's heroic efforts, I don't really think that he's already turned. But I remain open to the suggestion that JKR might decide to do such a thing with him in future volumes. As Marina wrote:
If a potentially good and noble man is going to be pushed toward evil by bigotry and hate, I wanna see it happen now, not hear a speech about how it happened fifteen years ago. "Show, don't tell" is the motto.
I think the situation is ripe right now for a "temptation of Remus Lupin" storyline.
I think so as well. I think it would be a great subplot. I don't know if I believe that JKR's planning on it, but I'd certainly enjoy it. And I do tend to agree with Pip that we're more than likely to see someone get corrupted at some point in the story.
I still hold out hopes, though, that JKR plans to tie "Elephant In the Drawing Room" House Slytherin into that particular thematic function somehow.
Sarah again:
Everyone always said how weak Peter was, and how he hung around his powerful, protector like friends. So then why would they suspect Lupin and not Peter...
They only speak about Peter in precisely that way after they already know that he's turned. McGonagall, believing him to be a martyr, does call him both a weakling and a tagalong, but she doesn't slant this observation at all in the direction of Peter being attracted to power, or seeking protectors. Only Sirius does, and he's speaking from hindsight.
As for why they wouldn't have suspected Peter...well, if he was anything back then like he is these days, then why on earth would anyone have suspected him? He really doesn't come across as someone who would make all that competent a spy, does he? He gives the impression of having no emotional control whatsoever. And he can't tell a decent lie to...well, to save his life.
He does seem to have an unusual facility for leading others to underestimate him. That, however, is a talent which by its very nature almost always goes completely overlooked. ;-)
—Elkins (now off to the homoeroticism thread, to tackle a much bigger Elephant in an altogether darker Drawing Room).
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on June 20, 2002 12:34 PM
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