Snape Isn’t Responsible For Lupin Losing His Job

Snape isn’t responsible for Lupin losing his job

Let’s look at the timeline:

The Shrieking Shack drama.

Lupin turns into the werewolf.

Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the Hospital Wing.

Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

Snape has a meltdown in front of Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore.

In the morning Snape tells Slytherins that Lupin is a werewolf.

Harry talks to Lupin who’s been fired.

A lot of people think that Lupin was fired because Snape told his secret. But Lupin was actually fired because he betrayed Dumbledore’s trust—multiple times, as a student and as a teacher.

Lupin knows it himself:

“I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s trust, of course ... he had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmaster would have done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others’ safety. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally. But I always managed to forget my guilty feelings every time we sat down to plan our next month’s adventure. And I haven’t changed ...”

Lupin betrayed Dumbledore’s trust as a student when he was roaming around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade as a werewolf.

“That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you’d given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?”

“A thought that still haunts me,” said Lupin heavily. “And there were near misses, many of them.

Lupin himself admits that there were many near misses. He’s extremely lucky that he didn’t infect or kill anybody. If he had, if others had found out about him, Dumbledore would have been finished as a headmaster.

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 knew Sirius was an Animagus. It was crucial information. Everyone—including Dumbledore, Snape and Lupin himself—believed it was Sirius who had betrayed the Potters. Lupin was (again) extremely lucky that it turned out it was in fact Pettigrew.

The Ministry and Dumbledore did their best to protect Harry, but the whole army of Dementors was helpless against Animagus Sirius. Lupin himself is disgusted with what he did.

That betrayal is even worse, because Lupin being a teacher in the same year Sirius is on the loose is probably not a coincidence. Dumbledore must have asked the person he trusted and who knew Sirius very well. Dumbledore hoped that Lupin would have some information about Sirius and help protect Harry; being a good DADA teacher was a pleasant bonus. But Lupin failed to do the very job he was hired for.

Lupin managed to deceive Dumbledore and Snape who were both skilled in Legillimency. What’s more, during the first war Lupin probably was trying to convince other werewolves / spying for Dumbledore just like during the second war, so probably he knew at least a little Occlumency. The thing is, Lupin was hiding something the whole year (that he knew Sirius was an Animagus) and Snape saw some clues that Lupin wasn’t entirely honest. Lupin admits it too.

So let’s get back to the timeline:

Dumbledore wants to know what happened in the Shrieking Shack. He’s heard the children’s account, but he must want to hear the story of the three adults involved in the incident: Snape, Lupin and Sirius. Lupin is obviously unavailable.

We know he talks to Sirius:

“Last night Sirius told me all about how they became Animagi,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “An extraordinary achievement — not least, keeping it quiet from me.

He tells Harry this in the morning, after Lupin has left. The conversation probably took place when Sirius was arrested, after the Shrieking Shack incident but before the rescue. Lupin was in his werewolf form at that time, somewhere around Hogwarts.

The most disapointing thing for Dumbledore must be the fact that it is Sirius, not Lupin, who tells him all about Lupin’s first betrayal as a student. That also reveals Lupin’s second betrayal—that he didn’t tell Dumbledore about Sirius’ ability, even though he believed him to be the traitor.

Dumbledore must be determined to hear Lupin’s account. So as soon as the night ends and Lupin turns back into his human form, Dumbledore has a conversation with him. We know it happened because when Harry talks to Lupin, Remus has already been fired. The only way it could happen is that the Headmaster fired him personally.

Of course Snape couldn’t fire Lupin personally, he was just a teacher, he had no power to do so. The only way Snape could have had Lupin fired was to tell the Slytherins about Lupin (which he did), inform the school governors himself or have the students (like Draco Malfoy whose father was a governor) inform their parents and then wait for the governors to force the Headmaster to fire Lupin. However, there was too little time for that. Alternatively, he could have just told the Slytherins about Lupin, thus manipulating Dumbledore and forcing him to fire Lupin. BUT (1) Snape is very loyal to Dumbledore and it would be surprising if he went behind his back and endangered his position as the Headmaster; (2) there’s no indication that Dumbledore is mad at Snape. He certainly would be if Snape forced him to do something he didn’t want to do.

But Dumbledore is mad at someone else.

“Well — good-bye, Harry,” he [Lupin] said, smiling. “It has been a real pleasure teaching you. I feel sure we’ll meet again sometime. Headmaster, there is no need to see me to the gates, I can manage...”

Harry had the impression that Lupin wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

“Good-bye, then, Remus,” said Dumbledore soberly. Lupin shifted the grindylow tank slightly so that he and Dumbledore could shake hands. Then, with a final nod to Harry and a swift smile, Lupin left the office.

"Mad" is perhaps too strong, Dumbledore is rarely outraged. He’s disappointed. He isn’t emotional (neither "Oh, that horrible Snape, what did he do to my precious Lupin?" nor "Oh, you horrible Lupin, you’ve almost eaten my precious Harry Potter!"), he assesses the situation rationally. He’s rather cold. Whatever he’s said to Lupin earlier has made Remus embarrased. Lupin wants to leave as quickly as possible when Dumbledore has come to avoid further embarrasment. He knows he screwed up and he knows that Dumbledore knows it too.

We know about two conversations. But there was another adult involved in the Shrieking Shack incident, someone who Dumbledore trusts more than Sirius (whom up until that night he believed to be a traitor and a murderer) and Lupin (who let him down at least once by forgetting to drink his potion and by not staying behind in the Shrieking Shack, thus almost killing a few people, including Harry Potter—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg). Snape. However, although it’s logical for that conversation to take place, we don’t know when it could happen. After the Shrieking Shack incident Dumbledore talks to Sirius, so he couldn’t talk to Snape then. Then he suggests the children use the Time Turner. Then Snape has a meltdown and is probably too unstable to hold a rational conversation. Then finding Lupin could be a higher priority than talking to Snape since Dumbledore already knows most of what happened, Snape is biased and wasn’t present or was unconscious for the most part and Lupin right now is a danger to students and Hogsmeade villagers (including Dumbledore’s own brother).

Another thing that is worth mentioning is that Snape kept Lupin’s secret for over 18 years, including two years when he was a faithful Death Eater and Lupin was a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Snape is also deeply loyal to Dumbledore. It would be illogical for him to betray Dumbledore like that and to face no consequences for that. So, logically, Dumbledore must have given him some sort of green light, even if it was just a mild sugestion that it was up to him now.

To sum up, the adjusted timeline looks like this:

The Shrieking Shack drama.

Lupin turns into the werewolf.

Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the Hospital Wing.

Dumbledore talks to Sirius and finds out about Lupin’s first and second betrayal.

Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

Snape has a meltdown in front of Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore.

At dawn Dumbledore finds Lupin and talks to him. Lupin quits / is fired.

Dumbledore talks to Snape, probably implying that he isn’t bound to keep Lupin’s secret anymore.

In the morning Snape tells Slytherins that Lupin is a werewolf.

Harry talks to Lupin who’s been fired.

Lupin got himself fired all by himself by keeping crucial information from Dumbledore and endangering students, including Harry Potter.

Snape is responsible for ruining Lupin’s reputation but not for Remus losing his job.

Snape isn’t responsible for Lupin being unable to have a job afterwards, because Remus has already had this problem.

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.

Somehow his empleyers knew about his condition or quickly figured it out. If Lupin had been discriminated all his adult life, it wasn’t because of Snape.

He worsens Lupin’s situation, but it’s been already bad. His situation, his prospects don’t really change after that. They were bad, now they’re slightly worse.

The REAL Crystal Council

Rewatching Part one of Crystalized just makes me more enraged at the season so far. A big issue is the council having too many uninteresting and disconnected villain’s. I feel there are far more relevant, competent, and interesting characters to build a season off of that are accessible in our current timeline.

I’ll run down a small list of gripes with each current member and then I’ll explain some of my choices, as well as their far more interesting relationships.

CURRENT MEMBERS

Harumi: Her arc was complete in Hunted and rewriting her death would backtrack the most impactful moment she had. Passes by just barely because she is an interesting character to explore and redeem further, but so far they reversed her to Lloyd angst instead of pursuing the far more interesting and dramatic relationship she and Pythor would share.

Aspheera: Talk about a waste of space. Her lore was contradictory to Ninjago history when it first came out in Fire chapter and I figured we were finally done and could renounce those events from the timeline. She is beyond idiotic in nature, and her motivations have always been ridiculously shallow, even to the point of satire in this new season. The only thing she can add is Wu angst that was already put to rest during the completion of his arc in Hunted and Motm (Her relation to Wu is also fairly annoying. Do the writers seriously think Wu is in the wrong, or is Aspheera simply this selfish and ignorant to her own actions?). She has no relation to any other character in the entire show and her base personality is difficult to watch at times.

The Overlord: Cool voice and all, but resurfacing this after so long with no lead up is just opening old wounds again. For the sake of structure I’ll keep him, as he is the main point of the council, but even the Crystal King is on thin ice. (My theory is Oni magic tipped the balance enough to let him escape but there has been no inclination up until now that he would return, so having him appear as the big bad feels like a poor, fanservice decision.)

The Mechanic: The worst offender. This guy is on the same level as Fugidove and Ultra Violet. They were a trio and he never “leveled up” as they say in the show. He was always a one off, or a stooge for someone stronger, smarter, more devious, or more motivated. The Mechanic on his own has no intentions, no goal or purpose. He’s literally a low level thug who wasn’t even named until season 6. If they need a Prime Empire representative, I’d much prefer a plot about a villain kidnapping Unagami, since they are essentially code that could be reprogramed. That would open up a good story for Jay and Zane to bond over together. But no. The mechanic has no reason to be this high up. He has committed nothing on his own, has a bland personality, and his metal tech should be easily defeated by Jay, who is a skilled technician with lightening powers.

Mr. E… er F: If they are not Echo Zane, it’s literally dead weight. The pinnacle of nothing. Mr. E was a mysterious badass biker robot that was good friends with Harumi. They gruesomely died in front of Harumi to give her doubts about her decision. Pythor just ‘rebuilding them” without any notion of the same hard drive/soul device just means they essentially just have a nindroid drone from Rebooted on the MAIN COUNCIL. The one hope for them is if they are actually Echo Zane, like the original draft. We saw the lighthouse, and Nya very distinctly screamed “Is anybody there???” to no response, despite knowing Echo Zane exists. If Echo is not Mr F, than both that scene and the character inclusion is irritating.

Pythor: He’s fine. Always been a staple petty man just slithering around. In the Canon novel, Pythor’s Revenge, he was last seen begging the Serpentine for help in sabotaging Borg, to which he was kicked out of the caves. He’s charming, entertaining, has a long standing history with the overlord, and could have a plot with Harumi if they choose to mention it.

Skull Sorcerer: He was so forgettable I literally forgot to type him on the list until just now. Although a staple of Cole’s season (and I love that season), this role for him is disconnected from his previous appearance and practically OOC in my book. King Vangelis loves his people and created the mines to make the city prosperous. He clearly wants to protect his daughter as well. The real villain of that season is the Skull itself, which is seen to corrupt Korgran in the flashback, and is implied to mess with Vangelis’ psyche. When the skull disintegrated, he immediately begged for mercy and forgiveness. The best course of action for Vangelis is a redemption arc, since he was just a King of an isolationist country disconnected from Ninjago that partook in slavery. We can visit him in prison and he could reveal everyone who was buying from him, although it was under a codename so he has no idea who it really goes to after the middle men pick it up. Instead of this approach, I fear he will just be some boring powerless guy wearing a mask. Vangelis as the SS did not have a single interesting thing to say. it was tropey generic villain jabber and it seems they may fall back on that instead of pursing something better.

THE COOLER CRYSTAL COUNCIL.

The council I have created, along with my sister, may be too much to unpack in one grand season, but I can simply no longer ignore how boring the current members are when others out there can be justified. It is grand, yes, but even one of these additions instead of the latter inclusions would make for a more exciting season.

Pythor: The snake can stay. Forever endearing, with a background in helping the overlord and a connection to season 1, as well as the long lasting Serpentine war arc.

Clouse: He only got his time to shine in Canon Malaysian plays, and off screen in books and semi-cannon Tommy fanfictions. This man is, in the shows current lore, still out there in the Underworld. Since WotD is still a WIP, we don’t know what his end is, but for now he could be back with something as easy to get as Travelers tea. I’m sure the Overlord is quite aware of portals and proud of how Clouse succeeded in merging Ninjago back into one land using dark matter.

Harumi: If Canon is reversing her death than I suppose I can too. I can’t ignore the potential she has outside of Lloyd and the character growth she still could obtain.

Nadakhan: A bit of an OP one, but you could make it work. Wishes can be very powerful and the Overlord could see the potential. He already wanted revenge on Ninjago since they destroyed his homeland and the Overlord could easily make that happen. The Overlord is also incredibly powerful. I’m sure there are wishes and ways to keep Nadakhan in line. We know he is currently in the possession of Clutch powers, making him more a part of WildBrain than Mr E. He is also personally connected to Jaya, which was something very important from last season.

Time Twins: Lloyd says since their location is ‘unknown’ they are ruled out. I disagree. The best villains to bring up are the ones with no known location and there is no reason that the Ninja should rule out that possibility based on location alone. They just had a short reminding us of their existence. I would place them in Aspheera’s spot, serving as a reminder of Wu’s past, while also being in it for petty vengence. These two were also wronged by the Alliance and this new, darker alliance could be the push they need for redemption, as I’m a raved Twim sympathizer.

Oni Garmadon: I know he has been shown in the trailers. It would be cool if he were a spy of some sort. He gets sent the invitation as a notorious villain at the end of his journey in the Garmadon comics. Having regained some humanity, he accepts the invitation to sabotage the organization. The Overlord could help him remember the past, or at the very least his time has Lord Garmadon, which was still kinder than how he acts now.

THE RELATIONSHIP CHART

Look at all those lines. Now that’s a group of characters and not a bunch of useless bland faces about to be vessels for the Overlord. I’ll run down this list for you under the cut.

Keep reading

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the-doe-prince

1 year ago

I’m rereading OOTP right now and I find that scene between Severus and Sirius in the kitchen to be highly relevant in the context of Severus as a feminine-coded character (and Sirius as a representation of toxic masculinity). Sirius is very outwardly aggressive in this scene in a conventionally masculine way, while Severus weaponizes his sarcasm and wit in a way that could be thought of as a more “feminine” form of defence. While Harry describes Sirius’s voice as getting progressively louder and angrier, he describes Severus’s voice as “soft” in contrast (as he usually does, which is also interesting in the context of Severus as a feminine man/GNC character). Sirius gets up and tries to intimidate Severus physically, and Severus grips his wand inside his pocket in a way that reminded me of a victim of domestic violence preparing to defend herself against her abuser.

I’m not sure how much of this was intentional considering how rigid JKR’s views on gender have unfortunately turned out to be, but I can’t help but read Severus as a feminine character, especially since he’s meant to act as a stand in for Lily in the same way as Sirius acts as a stand in for James. It’s very easy to read Sev as gender non conforming and/or LGBTQ, although given JKR’s own views it’s doubtful she meant for us to read him that way (but fuck her, she’s a massive transphobe, the characters are ours now, we can do what we like with them).

Note to self, start checking your inbox regularly. These changes to Tumblr are killing me because the notifications when I get messages or asks are hit-or-miss at best.

Anyways, this is such a great observation! I'm only just learning about coding and that that is even the term for it from reading about it from other Snape bloggers like @idealistic-realism00, @raptured-night, and @professormcguire since I only took the required English courses both my undergraduate years and beyond that my major was in sociology.

So, I'm not really any kind of expert but I do have a lot of personal experience from being biracial and queer myself just with learning to read between the lines and find representation for myself where I can and I think that is the case for a lot of people from less represented, marginalized backgrounds. We have a certain instinct for these things so even without any kind of formal study we sort of know the "codes" (for better or worse depending on what the author's intent is and if it's a negative dog-whistle or something more positive to get around censorships of the time) if that makes any kind of sense.

For me, I always saw Sirius and Snape as two sides of a coin. There were some very obvious parallels and contrasts between them and this really goes to that in a lot of ways for me. Both Sirius and Snape are two men who made pivotal choices in their youths that very much define them and have led to a great deal of internalized guilt and impacted their behaviors as adults. Both Sirius and Snape find themselves confined to their childhood homes at different points, Sirius at Grimmauld Place with Kreacher and Snape at Spinner's End with Peter Pettigrew (both Kreacher and Peter are characters that also are known for betraying Harry and costing him someone he loves at different points and making a turn around in regards to Harry because of kindness or mercy he showed to them).

Where Sirius made the choice to make Peter the Secret Keeper with only James, Lily, and Peter knowing and it ultimately led to the death of the Potters and him being sentenced to twelve years in Azkaban, Snape also unwittingly delivered part of the fated prophecy that led to Voldemort targeting the Potters. Most interesting for me is that Snape's friendship with Lily and Sirius's friendship with James could be read as either platonic or a case of unrequited romantic feelings. There is the observation in SWM made by Harry that while Sirius was clearly a looker who attracted the attention of girls, his attention was fully on James and not on those admiring glances. So, when looking at Sirius's relationship with James through a comparative lens to Snape's with Lily they could be platonic friends or both Sirius and Snape could have had romantic feelings for their best friends while, ironically enough, Sirius had to watch James fall for and succeed in winning over Lily just as Snape had to do the same.

In the case of Snape and Sirius there is also a degree of regression and arrested development stemming from trauma (and both men at different points make the clear mistake of seeing Harry as a stand-in for James as a result of said trauma). Where Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban able to hold onto his sanity against the Dementors in part because he knew he was innocent and the truth of what happened was a deeply unhappy thing for him, Snape spent decades in Dumbledore's service at Hogwarts (a place with its own unhappy associations for him having found it was not a refuge from life at Spinner's End with Tobias as he had hoped but another place where he would be bullied relentlessly, overlooked by his Head of House and housemates for being a poor half-blood with no status, subject to institutional failures resulting from yet more adult authority figures in his life not protecting him, groomed by Voldemort's followers and responsible for alienating his closest friend as a result) teaching children when clearly he does not have the temperament and, courtesy of his role as a spy, concealing his own truths and intentionally not allowing people to know the best of him. In a sense, both men had a negative public image that ran counter to the full truth about them and both of them died without being able to see those misconceptions vindicated (Sirius died still presumed by the Ministry and general public to have been the traitor who turned his friends over to Voldemort and murdered innocent people and Snape died knowing he had delivered information to Harry that would lead to his death and unsure of the outcome of the war with everyone thinking him a coward and murderer).

There's just, a LOT of parallels there between the two when you start to unpack them as characters. Even the fact that they both came from domestic dysfunction and unhappy home lives. It makes their mutual antagonism all the more of a tragedy because if not for Sirius's prejudice (which is arguably more understandable given his family and their long tradition of being sorted into Slytherin) against Slytherins and antagonism of young Snape on the train and the years of bullying and bad blood that followed, these two men had the most potential to understand each other. Alas, they do not, but it is their likenesses that makes their differences in how they clash all the more interesting because, as you noted, there are stark differences there. Sirius is all overt masculine energy; hot-headed and physically imposing while Snape is more strained, the ice to his fire.

Most striking to me was always the difference in how little respect Sirius showed to Snape's body while he was unconscious (further demonstrating how little Sirius has changed from the teenage boy who once stood with James and exposed Snape to laughing schoolmates) versus how Snape conjured a stretcher while still under the impression he was the one responsible for betraying the Potters (and the death of Lily). In that way, we get to see how Snape has developed as a person away from his past choices and learned from them. He may still regress, as he does quite plainly when forced to return to the Shrieking Shack and is confronted by Sirius and Remus there, but he isn't quite in the full state of arrested development as Sirius (but given his circumstances in Azkaban that isn't entirely surprising either; there is a tragedy to Sirius's character for all that there is as much of a darkness as there was in Snape during his time as a Death Eater and the fact so many Marauder apologists who double as "Snaters" refuse to acknowledge that outside of romanticizing the angst of it all while vilifying Snape is quite possibly an even greater tragedy, imo) which is why Sirius's death came in part due to his inability to move beyond his past and find it within himself to treat Kreacher with a modicum of understanding or empathy (in addition to his desire to be part of the action again and recapture his lost youth when it was him and James in the Order together) while Snape's death came only after he had to reconcile with the fact his original raison d'être for becoming a spy (to protect Harry for Lily as penance) ran counter to what was needed to defeat Voldemort for good and he still chose to stay the course instead of pursue his own agenda and act on his own self-interests.

In short, Sirius's death was partly due to the fact he couldn't move beyond the past. While Snape's death came as a result of the fact he had grown enough as a character to set aside his past motivations and see things through because he had become someone who conjured stretchers even for hated enemies and risked his life to save all those who he could save (including Sirius and Remus).

Thanks for the ask and I'm so sorry it took so long to respond but it gave me even more to think about. The masculine vs. feminine coding just adds an extra element to Snape and Sirius's dynamic when it was already interesting to me and I've always had a lot of thoughts about how those two were written with so many parallels and points of contrast. Love this ask!

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the-doe-prince

1 year ago