Chapter Eighteen: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
In chapter eighteen of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Remus is kind of selfish, Sirius continues to act like a mass murderer, and we get oodles of delicious Marauder exposition.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
I have a bit of a conundrum with this chapter, because while I love it so, so much, find it fascinating and well written, it’s actually difficult to write about, other then say “Remus explains his life and it’s amazing and sad.”
But I shall do my best. Onwards!
So last we left off, Sirius and Remus are trying to convince our trio with sliiiightly different strategies that Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew.
Remus: Hi guys let me talk in this even tone with backstory, motivation, and clear, rational details.
Sirius:
Lupin calmly explains how he was bitten, Dumbledore let him into school and planted the Whomping Willow, created the passageway to the Shrieking Shack, and how he made three friends who learned his secret and became Animagi to help him cope.
Sirius:
We do get a moment mid fascinating Lupin exposition that shows Remus’s worst character flaw: his desperate need to be liked and belong to something. It’s one thing for him to roam around as a teenage werewolf with his illegally transformed friends. This is not great, but I think understandable. But as an adult man, he makes a conscious decision not to tell Dumbledore about Sirius being an Animagus, when this is clearly how Sirius is escaping detection. Remus is one of my absolute favorite characters, but his actions are selfish on more then one occasion.
Sirius hears about Snape being at Hogwarts, and we ALSO see Sirius’s worst character flaw: his cruel and reckless streak. Sure Snape is an odious little worm, and sure he was trying to get Remus expelled, but Sirius played a prank on him that could’ve killed him. And the murderer would’ve been Remus. Do I think Sirius was deliberately trying to kill Snape? No, not at all, I think it was a thoughtless attempt to scare him. But I do appreciate that these flaws make JKR’s characters layered and interesting.
Then of course, Snape shows up to ruin everything.
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Why doesn’t Sirius realize he needs to act less like a lunatic to gain our trio’s trust?
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Do you think Remus or Sirius has the worst fatal flaw?
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