Harry Potter

Boggarts actually can become a "collective" embodiment of fear over time, at least according to Pottermore.

The page on Boggarts

Or if they're lazy, take the form of something most people are afraid of in general like a Giant Spider or snake

That reminds me- my worst fear (which is different than the one on my page) is heights. How would it represent that? At the very least, I have an idea for how I'd make it funny:

That would be comedy gold. Weirdly, even though I have a fear of height I never considered that before, probably because the boggart made enough jumps that when it faced Lupin it put his fear of what he is capable of when transformed and his self-hatred, it turned into the moon.

The boggart presumably would turn into something like an image of you falling off a ladder or something and being crippled or killed as a result. In other words, it becomes what you fear will happen to you.

It might be tough to try to find the humor in seeing yourself falling from a ladder and breaking your neck.

It's like how Voldemort's boggart would take on the appearance of his own corpse.

And Lupin doesn't so much fear himself as he does hate himself. He fears the moon because it turns him into something he hates.

Edited by M84 on Jul 19th 2019 at 12:31:39 AM

Yeah there is selfhatred too but he does admit that he is also afraid of hurting someone while transformed when talking about his Marauder days - calling himself foolish and saying that thinking about all of the close calls and all of the ways things could have gone tragically running around like that is terrifying.

Edited by akanesarumara on Jul 18th 2019 at 6:36:50 PM

Still, it's telling that his boggart doesn't straight up turn into a werewolf. Just the mini moon.

Edited by M84 on Jul 19th 2019 at 12:37:21 AM

True. Also telling is that Tonks's patronus changes into one: she does accept him fully and completely.

Which makes me wonder, do we even find out what Lupin's is? I know he doesn't really cast one properly and I remember hearing that's on purpose... but he must have one strong Patronus charm if even a purposefully shapeless one of his is enough to chase off a dementors when usually that takes a Patronus that fully takes form.

Edited by akanesarumara on Jul 18th 2019 at 6:39:01 PM

It was a wolf. Tonks' Patronus changing was meant to match his, like how Snape's matches Lily's.

And that wouldn't be too unusual. Remember that a lot of his happiest times in his youth were hanging around with the Marauders as a werewolf while they were in Animagi forms.

I wonder what boggart would transform if he snape see him.....

Harry's dead body. Because that would be the surest proof that Snape had utterly failed Lily.

Edited by M84 on Jul 19th 2019 at 12:52:39 AM

re: Lupin's patronus, ah ok thanks.

As for Snape... damn. Makes sense but it still hits hard.

I'm guessing Dumbledore's would be finding out who killed Ariana out of the three of them because all three options are equally horrible.

I don't feel too much sympathy for Snape though. Remember that Neville's boggart was Snape himself. Yeah, Snape was such a horrible Sadist Teacher to Neville that he was literally the poor kid's worst nightmare!

Also, the way he said "I see no difference" when a curse rebound turned Hermione's teeth into beaver teeth? Dick move, Snape. Dick move. Way to help worsen a teenage girl's possible body image issues.

Edited by M84 on Jul 19th 2019 at 1:19:51 AM

Lupin’s profile on Pottermore (collected into an ebook I just finished reading) specifies that his Patronus is a real wolf, not a werewolf, but that he is nevertheless unhappy to see it, as he is with anything that reminds him of his condition, and chooses to produce a noncorporeal Patronus whenever possible.

The embodiment of your positive emotions makes you unhappy...

Therapists would have a field day with Lupin.

Yeah I never forgot that he was Neville's bogart and that neither Neville nor Harry really did anything to trigger his animosity in the first place and you can make a case for his love/obsession with Lily being creepy, but the idea that his boggart is Harry dead is compelling.

mind. Blown. Yeah, he would definitely need a therapist.

Also I'm one of the people who would have agreed with Harry naming his kid after Hagrid and Lupin.

His treatment of Neville was in my opinion the worst aspect of his character.

His abuse of Harry can at least be somewhat rationalized, if only because Harry was a constant reminder that someone married the love of his life. That does not excuse it in any way, but you might argue that it is not pure malice that motivates him.

However he had no reason to abuse Neville, and seemingly only did it because he was in a position to do so. Which makes his own past as a victim of bullying even less tragic.

His actions against Voldemort were still heroic, mostly because he did them out of his own free will. Nothing forced him to repeatedly risk his own life, yet he did so willingly.

Though it is easy to forget how much Alan Rickman's brilliant performance has influenced the perception of his characters, in addition to some changes by the movies. I completely forgot that Snape in the books did not shield the trio against the werewolf in the third book for example.

I kind of wish Snape had been portrayed by a more outwardly disgusting or sinister-looking man with all his worst moments from the books left intact; it's genuinely difficult to have an honest discussion of the book character when so much of the perception is filtered through Alan Rickman's portrayal, who, for all his talents, can never really capture the book counterpart's more repulsive moments.

Rickman kind of had too much class and maturity to show how immature Book Snape was.

I will said dumblodore fear would be him as his sister murder.

And snape is a very intriging chararter, I will said he is more of "love cant heal your nature but ti can try to change it"

Didn't Rowling say he wanted to become a Deatheater in order to impress Lily? Pretty sure the issue is that he refused to change and it ended up costing him a friend.

Albus killing Ariana makes sense if we realize that Abe got Crucio'd by Grindelwald, unless he can cast that fast. But either other possibility would really shake Dumbledore, since he let things get that far.

By SWM, Snape probably had several fights with Lily about his friends, and calling her the M word was the point where she just...gave up on him, but it would have happened sooner or later.

Edited by Blueace on Jul 21st 2019 at 12:02:40 PM

I'd say all three would be equally terrible.

Either he killed his sister, which, yeah obviously gonna be hard on him.

Or his brother, who loved their sister, killed said sister, and Albus let it happen.

Or the love of his life, the one person in the village he thought understood him, killed his sister after torturing his brother.

Which, btw, I am still with Aberforth on this one: Albus should have just let Aberforth drop out and take care of Ariana. He offered himself, he was good at it, Ariana loved him, what's the problem with it? If Albus wanted to play family head so much he still could have by being the breadwinner...

Edited by akanesarumara on Jul 21st 2019 at 6:10:00 PM

"I know what'll impress the Jewish girl I like! Joining the Hitler youth!"