#and remus making harry godfather is another can of worms i haven’t even touched here lmao

[padfootastic]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the fight between Remus and Harry in DH. Because throughout the series we see Remus manipulating Harry by bringing up James, but for the first time, Harry brings up James in a situation that is the most relevant, and Remus goes BERSERK.

hello 💜💜 i’m so sorry for how long this has been lying in my inbox but i’ve got so much to say and not enough time for it 💀

i don’t think anything i say re this will come as a surprise to anyone who knows me lol i feel like that fight was such a good opportunity to show, in narrative, remus at fault without excusing his actions and the text still missed the mark. i’ve talked before about this, but remus always gets off scot free with no consequences or even reproach for any of his shitty actions and i think this comes under the same banner. iirc even hermione’s like ‘wtf harry’ because of his response, right?

but here, we see him acting shitty in a manner u absolutely cannot ignore. i mean, there’s a point to which ur willing to ignore a grown man’s agency and actions, right? and i feel like ‘abandoning ur wife and unborn kid in the middle of a whole war’ is waaaaaay past that point. we can talk all day about how he thought he was in the right, how he might’ve actually brought misfortune to them by virtue of who he was, but that still doesn’t excuse what tonks would’ve been going through, esp considering her own dad pulled a similar stunt.

you bring up such a great point re james. remus had absolutely no problems invoking his name when he wanted to guilt trip harry (i keep saying this but their conversation in poa horrifies me every time i think about it) but the moment he gets it back? it’s all ‘oh woe is me how dare u’. kinda makes me think remus never had to deal w the consequences of his actions (which like,,,am i wrong tho) bc all the misfortune he has, he attributes to his condition and never his own actions. he basically operates on an external locus of control and the people around him keep enabling it. (ofc a lot of this is conjecture + influenced by what i’ve seen in fandom bc we (i?) don’t actually know that much about him & his motivations from the text) and i think when he actually is held accountable, he’ll go straight on the defensive bc he doesn’t know how to handle it.

imo remus is super, super self destructive and not that capable at maintaining healthy relationships. for all that people go on and on about james and sirius being assholes and bullies, remus is actually so much more insidious in terms of being ‘toxic’. i really think harry was so right for doing what he did, not matter how much shit he gets for it, because someone has to. his friends won’t, people in authority aren’t, and he gets to go through life blaming everything except himself.

i feel like this is super unsympathetic to him lol but that scene in dh is actually one of my favs just because someone is finally saying something to Saint Remus and the fact that it’s harry, of all people? u go bby!!! it was also such a thoughtless action on remus’ part bc he’s telling this to a literal orphan who grew up abused and neglected. also!! the way it portrays him on the complete end of the spectrum as james (who we know is the ‘embodiment of bravery’ in the text bc of his actions therefore, remus is an absolute coward which, self professed but now proved further) which really makes u understand harry’s pov too, i think. because he idolised his dad, ykno? and he’s heard remus talk about their bond before, and we know harry’s judged people by comparing (and associating) them to his parents right? so it just makes remus come off even worse.

ultimately, i think it was just another selfish + narrow minded action in a long list that we can attribute to remus. can we explain them? sure. but does that justify it? i personally don’t think so, but others can obv disagree. remus wasn’t thinking of tonks or baby teddy or harry when he offered to accompany them, no matter how much he tried to spin it that way and i think that lying (to both others & himself) is v characteristic of his personality throughout the whole series. he’s a serial manipulator and no one’s safe from it, not even him.

(i’m reading this and it’s so rambly gosh. i hope some of it made sense?)

#remus lupin critical #re ted doing something similar #i read a fic where that was explored #and andromeda was so angry and so hurt that ted left them #and it really changed my whole opinion on such a minisucle plot point lol #and then got me thinking about the parallels between his actions and remus’ #something about people claiming to be selfless while actually being v v selfish #bc ultimately their actions didn’t (wouldn’t have?) help(ed) #but they would have eased their conscious #but fuck what the people who were left behind thought right? #and remus making harry godfather is another can of worms i haven’t even touched here lmao #that one bothers me ngl #only my love for teddy keeps it at bay lol #this one’s a bit…unfiltered bc i just wrote what came to mind #but yeah #differing opinions r always welcome ofc #we love discussions on here #pen’s asks