Quote from Naaga on March 4, 2023, 12:19 pm

The point of this post I am making is to highlight everything wrong with the Remus Lupin as a person. Yes, the seemingly most innocent member of the marauders who gets the most favorable treatment out of them in the fandom. Here, I am posting this meta Fanon vs. Canon: Remus Lupin Edition where the author have done a very good analysis of his character and I wish to hear your thoughts pertaining to it.

Fanon vs. Canon: Remus Lupin Edition by metametatron4

For a sub about the HP books, I see a lot movie-inspired ideas about Remus Lupin's characterization floating around, including on a recent Lupin-the-teacher post. The point of this post is to highlight some underrated elements of Lupin's character in the books (it so happens that Lupin's underrated elements are largely the negative aspects of his character, so this post will be skewed towards his faults and weaknesses since most of his positive qualities are well-known and well-discussed). It's also for those fans who say things like Lupin's behavior in DH is OOC.

The truth is that Remus Lupin is a far more nuanced and layered character than most of his fans give him credit for. There's much more to his character than his classroom behavior, so here are aspects of Lupin's characterization that are often ignored.

• Lupin can be manipulative and hypocritical:

“Don’t expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them — gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks.”

He walked away, leaving Harry feeling worse by far than he had at any point in Snape ’s office.

This is a scene where Lupin guilts Harry. Lupin has just covered up Harry's secret trip to Hogsmeade in front of Snape. (This is also the scene where Snape interacts with the Marauder's Map. Unlike the movies, it doesn't take place when Harry is walking the corridors at night, Snape stops him, and Lupin serendipitously comes along. Instead, Draco has reported seeing Harry in Hogsmeade to Snape, who catches him back in the castle and orders Harry to empty his pockets, revealing Zonko products and the map, which prompts Snape to call Lupin through the Floo.) The moment Lupin, Ron, and Harry leave Snape's sight, Lupin confiscates the map from Harry and takes him to task, not entirely unlike Snape had.

Lupin makes Harry feel guilty for his reckless actions, "worse by far than he had at any point in Snape’s office," by bringing up his parents' deaths. He specifically brings up what Harry hears when the dementors approach him (his mother's screams, as Harry told Lupin in confidence) to shame Harry into obeying the rules. Lupin doesn't mince words with Harry, saying, "Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them — gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks." In other words, Lupin implies Harry views James and Lily's sacrifice as casually and cheaply as the Zonko products he risked his life to go to Hogsmeade to buy.

You could argue that Lupin's harsh words to 13 year old Harry are warranted given that Harry's life is believed to be in danger by (assumed) mass-murderer Sirius Black, but by the end of the book, we know that Lupin was sitting on three gigantic secrets: 1) that Sirius Black is an Animagus, 2) that Sirius knows hidden entrances to and from the school, which the Marauders mapped out during their school years, and 3) that Lupin is now back in possession of a map that tracks the movements of any person in Hogwarts. Lupin had the nerve to hypocritically accuse Harry of "gambling" his parents sacrifice when Lupin himself kept quiet on crucial information on Sirius, even after Sirius had forced his way into the Gryffindor common room and gotten inside Harry's dorm. Had Sirius truly been a murderer, Lupin would have endangered Harry and the entire school. We know that Lupin truly believes Sirius guilty, otherwise he wouldn't have found a need to try to "make" Harry "take Sirius Black seriously," so why did he keep quiet?

• Lupin's need to be liked:

Lupin’s face had hardened, and there was self-disgust in his voice. “All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn’t do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I’d betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I’d led others along with me ... and Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it . . . so, in a way, Snape’s been right about me all along.”

Lupin has the self-awareness to realize his faults and "self-disgust" towards some of his major failures in PoA. Lupin admits to Harry that he had been "battling with [himself]" all year whether or not to tell Dumbledore the truth about Sirius. He confesses why he made the choice to keep quiet: he "was too cowardly" and he didn't want to admit he "betrayed [Dumbledore's] trust while he was in school" because "Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to [him]." In Lupin's own words, he selfishly prioritized his own good standing with Dumbledore and good reputation over the lives of all the children at Hogwarts, including Harry. Lupin enjoyed his popularity as a well-liked teacher, but he when it came to the students' safety he floundered. He "convinced himself" with the lie "that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it" when he knew better. But this lie doesn't make Lupin any better. In some ways, it makes him worse because he operates under the pretense that Sirius learned dark arts from Voldemort that are so powerful they can break through the Hogwarts protective enchantments and extra security, yet he doesn't tell Dumbledore about the secret passages to take a partial protective measure against Sirius. He sticks his head in the sand.

By Lupin's own admission he is fine betraying Dumbledore trust and lying to Dumbledore (as he continues to do the entire year). This is worth thinking about because Lupin respects Dumbledore. He is fine maintaining Dumbledore's trust on entirely false pretenses, on a total lie, and this doesn't bother him at all. Lupin prizes Dumbledore's trust over Dumbledore himself. It's Dumbledore's "trust" that means "everything" to Lupin, not having a genuine relationship with Dumbledore involving honesty, truth, and hard work like owning up to his teenage faults. Between Lupin's treatment of Dumbledore, Harry, and Tonks (as I'll get into), we see a coldness to the way Lupin treats people that contrasts with his cool teacher persona.

Although Lupin seems to be cognizant of his own flaws, calling himself "cowardly," he reacts badly when someone else points out his flaws, as we see when Harry calls him a "coward" in DH and Lupin responds by hurting him with a spell. More on this below.

• Lupin being manipulative continued:

Back to my first bullet point, we see Lupin be hypocritical or manipulative to Harry elsewhere. Here's what Lupin says of the Map:

“I don’t want to know how it fell into your possession. I am, however, astounded that you didn’t hand it in."

Lupin's astounded moralizing to Harry isn't hypocritical because he used the map as a student and was one of its creators. It's hypocritical because Lupin reprimands Harry for choosing not to "hand it in" when he himself doesn't take the map to Dumbledore. In HBP, Lupin will also assume a moralizing tone when he tells Harry the following about Snape:

“You are determined to hate him, Harry,” said Lupin with a faint smile. “And I understand; with James as your father, with Sirius as your godfather, you have inherited an old prejudice."

Lupin calls Harry's hatred of Snape an "old prejudice" Harry has "inherited" from James and Sirius when he himself has added to Harry's reasons to hate Snape, telling him that Snape was spiteful about losing the chance on getting an Order of Merlin (unlikely, since Snape goes on to murder Dumbledore on agreement, thus destroying his reputation in the eyes of the WW) and framing the relationship between Snape and James/the Marauders as Snape being "jealous" of James' Quidditch talent. He kept up a war of pettiness with Snape while he was an adult and teacher, but turns around two years later and expects Harry, a teenager, to act with more maturity than he himself displayed.

“Harry, I’m sure James would have wanted me to stick with you.”

“Well,” said Harry slowly, “I’m not. I’m pretty sure my father would have wanted to know why you aren’t sticking with your own kid, actually.”

Lupin’s face drained of color.

In DH, Lupin tries to join Harry's mission from Dumbledore. When Harry hesitates and asks how Tonks is doing, Lupin deflects the matter and tries to manipulate Harry into agreeing by bringing up what his dead dad would have wanted. Harry doesn't take the bait and counters that James would have wanted to know why Lupin was leaving his own unborn child.

• A father figure to Harry? Lupin, the flake:

“Tonks will be perfectly safe,” said Lupin. “She’ll be at her parents’ house.”

There was something strange in Lupin’s tone; it was almost cold.

...

“She’ll be perfectly safe there, they’ll look after her,” said Lupin. He spoke with a finality bordering on indifference. “Harry, I’m sure James would have wanted me to stick with you.”

...

You don’t understand,” said Lupin at last.

“Explain, then,” said Harry.

Lupin swallowed.

“I — I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better judgment and I have regretted it very much ever since.”

“I see,” said Harry, “so you’re just going to dump her and the kid and run off with us."

Lupin's statement that Tonks will be "perfectly safe" with her parents is the same sort of behavior we saw from him in PoA when he convinced himself that Sirius must have entered Hogwarts not as an Animagus but with dark magic he learned from Voldemort. Lupin's convinced himself of a lie. We the audience know that it is a lie since we read about Bellatrix vowing to kill Tonks herself at the beginning of DH and we know that Ted Tonks later goes on the run, but Lupin must know he's lying to himself too. He's the one who informed Harry that Death Eaters broke through the powerful enchantments protecting the home of Ted and Andromeda Tonks and tortured them with the Cruciatus Curse at the start of the same conversation where he insisted Tonks will be safe at her parents' house:

“At the same time that they were smashing up the wedding, more Death Eaters were forcing their way into every Order-connected house in the country. No deaths,” he added quickly, forestalling the question, “but they were rough. They burned down Dedalus Diggle’s house, but as you know he wasn’t there, and they used the Cruciatus Curse on Tonks’s family. Again, trying to find out where you went after you visited them. They’re all right — shaken, obviously, but otherwise okay.”

“The Death Eaters got through all those protective charms?” Harry asked, remembering how effective these had been on the night he had crashed in Tonks’s parents’ garden.

“What you’ve got to realize, Harry, is that the Death Eaters have got the full might of the Ministry on their side now,” said Lupin. “They’ve got the power to perform brutal spells without fear of identification or arrest. They managed to penetrate every defensive spell we’d cast against them, and once inside, they were completely open about why they’d come.”

Once again Lupin has placed his own interests above the safety of others. He hopes to run from his responsibilities as a father and husband, the feeling that he had made a "grave mistake" by marrying Tonks, and his fears about what his condition means for Tonks and their unborn baby. His behavior here mirrors his faults from PoA.

It's up to Harry to be the parental figure to Lupin in this instance. Harry acts as Lupin's moral compass, convincing him to return to his family. (Harry also had to be a moral compass to Lupin when he stopped Lupin and Sirius from murdering Peter in PoA and when he denounces Lupin's minimizing of SWM in OoTP.) While Lupin expected 13 year old Harry to feel guilt and shame and correct his behavior when Lupin reprimanded him, Lupin reacts violently and immaturely when Harry has harsh words for Lupin's behavior:

Lupin drew his wand so fast that Harry had barely reached for his own; there was a loud bang and he felt himself flying backward as if punched; as he slammed into the kitchen wall and slid to the floor, he glimpsed the tail of Lupin’s cloak disappearing around the door.

Many fans like to believe that Lupin was a father figure to Harry, but his own limitations often got in the way of them fostering a closer relationship. Lupin was reluctant to tell Harry about his connection to his parents in PoA, didn't write to Harry at all during GoF (in contrast, Sirius, a hunted fugitive, who lived in a cave at one point and ate rats to be close to Harry, kept up correspondence with Harry through GoF), didn't write to Harry through HBP either, even after Sirius died (although once the Order reconvenes in the summer between GoF and OoTP, Lupin is presumably set to spy on the werewolves who join Voldemort, which is a risky position), and didn't inform Harry on his own wedding until after the fact (Tonks was the one to tell Harry). In HBP, we see Harry "disappointed" that Lupin doesn't write - perhaps he had hoped Lupin would take more of a fatherly role than he had? Perhaps Harry hoped Lupin would take more of a friendly role? Either way, Lupin kept his distance from Harry.

Harry had received no mail since the start of term; his only regular correspondent was now dead and although he had hoped that Lupin might write occasionally, he had so far been disappointed.

Until Harry's words in DH send Lupin back to his family, Lupin was always held back by his self-hatred and tendency to lie to himself. Lupin asking Harry to be Teddy's godfather is Lupin acknowledging Harry in a parental role [to Teddy] and puts Harry in the role of his peer. The two don't have a father-son relationship although they could have, had Lupin sought to be more involved in Harry's life in the past. By DH, Harry has become Lupin's moral compass and rejected Lupin as a moral compass for himself, as we see in the "coward" scene. It is further solidified by Harry's rejection of Lupin's unsolicited advice after the Battle of 7 Potters. Lupin berates Harry for choosing to disarm rather than kill (or firing a stunning spell during a broom chase that would've lead to Stan Shunpike falling to his death), but Harry never chooses to kill an enemy, using his "signature spell," Expelliarmus, to defeat Voldemort.

This shouldn't be taken to mean Harry in any way dislikes Lupin. Harry still brings back Lupin's spirit with the Resurrection Stone for comfort in the Forest, along with his parents and Sirius. But Lupin's role is slightly different from the others. Sirius answers Harry's "childish" question, reassuring Harry it doesn't hurt to die. Harry's parents remind him that he's been "so brave" and they are "proud" of him; he has their parental approval. Lupin is there to relieve Harry from the burden of guilt and gives Harry, who feels "sorry" and somewhat responsible for the others' deaths, a sense of peace. He and Harry talk about his son, Teddy. It's as if when Harry talks to Lupin, he reoccupies the role of an adult, going from being afraid for himself to being concerned about a baby (his godson).

“I didn’t want you to die,” Harry said. These words came without his volition. “Any of you. I’m sorry — ”

He addressed Lupin more than any of them, beseeching him.

“ — right after you’d had your son ... Remus, I’m sorry."

“I am sorry too,” said Lupin. “Sorry I will never know him . . . but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life.”

Lupin's passivity makes him a very interesting Gryffindor, but Lupin shouldn't be mistaken for being mild-mannered. While he can be passive and frequently is, we do see an edge to his character. Lupin advising Harry to kill in DH, firing a spell at Harry after being called a "coward," and jumping to kill Peter in PoA are all examples of this. We see him speak of his own wife with a "cold" tone and "indifference" and watch him sink to manipulative behavior in his relationship with Harry, whom he likes. The fandom's flanderization of Lupin is a crime to his character.

*I have limited my examples mainly to Lupin's interactions with Harry for the sake of brevity and because bringing up Lupin's interactions Snape sends people into a Snape vs. Marauders debate. This post is by no means exhaustive of Lupin's flaws/weaknesses or of Lupin's character as a whole.

For what it's worth, I'll also add that Lupin's statements about Lily "being there for [him] when no one else was" and seeing beauty in people are movie only. Lupin makes no such statements about Lily in the books.