#like that man literally tells a 13yo harry that he’s gambling his parents sacrifice away. fuck man. that’s heartless

[padfootastic]

Remus is definitely the most woobified, sugar-coated marauder in fanon. He was so interesting in canon when he was portrayed as a character who was on the good side but with typical villain traits: charismatic manipulator, selfish, gaslighter, etc. His motivations were understandable too. What are your thoughts on him? How do you feel about him in fanon vs canon?

hello 💜 i absolutely agree with you! re remus: i have one super rambly answer here which i still fully stand by. also some more thoughts under a cut so remus fans can skip this one lol

honestly, fanon remus makes me so annoyed i don’t think i can even properly articulate it lol. it’s gotten so bad that people will completely forget how the man acted in the books and then have go and say ‘oh it was completely out of character for him to do x’ when like,,,,no? (i mean, if u don’t care about canon then great, just say that and we’re gucci) like i’ve literally seen people argue him trying to run out on his wife and unborn kid was ooc as if we didn’t get multiple examples of his cowardice (self admitted) and avoidance tactics. like, he was not a saint and he definitely was not a morally upstanding person. he often comes off so much more favourably compared to sirius and james when the man wasn’t any better. all his faults are whitewashed into ‘he was scared of losing the only friends he had’ which is such a shit excuse (even more than the ‘poor werewolf’ one). i once saw someone saying ‘how do you think remus would’ve reacted to harry’s illegal tournament entry’ as an aside to ‘how would sirius have reacted as a free man’ and i remember being completely baffled because…we know how he reacted? which is that he didn’t. the man didn’t even bother to send a letter to harry, didn’t show up before the task when everyone else’s families did, didn’t help him with any of the crises, wasn’t there post graveyard. like, there’s a theme here. remus has no interest in cultivating a relationship with harry (or if he does, he has a very shitty way of showing it). honestly, he’s kind of terrible at relationships in general imo.

i’ve mentioned this before, i think, but also the double standards with which he’s treated coupled with the complete lack of accountability is so frustrating. like, remus can mess up more than anyone else but it’ll never stick. for eg, you’ll have so many people saying sirius treated harry like a second coming of james (and i do blame the movies for that one) but remus’ repeated usage of james as a way to manipulate harry is completely ignored. like that scene in poa is actually cruel. sirius’ forced absence from harry’s life is thrown in his face, but remus is never once questioned. (it’s why him being called a second godfather is a pet peeve of mine tbh). he wasn’t a known werewolf until poa, what the fuck was he doing until then? that’s the thing right, there’s so many gaps in his storyline that u can fill it any way u want. fans will do it favourably, while people like me who don’t like him won’t.

there’s also the whole sirius aspect of it, for me. as far as fictional characters go, i think remus is terrible for sirius. like most people think the exact opposite, yeah? remus is out of sirius’ league, there’s a power dynamic that’s skewed in sirius’ favor, remus’ low self esteem, trust issues blah blah. but i genuinely believe it’ll be sirius who comes off worse in a r/s relationship. so ykno, that just adds to my bias lol.

editing to add: guess it’s the hallmark of a successful manipulative character, though, that he flies under the radar the way he does eh? like that’s the sign of success right there, that he can pull all the shit in the world without it sticking to him so good on him lol

#remus lupin critical #like that man literally tells a 13yo harry that he’s gambling his parents sacrifice away. fuck man. that’s heartless #and it’s not like he did anything to make harry understand why he must be careful. didn’t have one meaningful convo with him did he? #but feels the need to pass judgements like these #i’m sorry if u were expecting a more neutral/balanced answer lol #my dislike for him has exponentially increased in the past few months #i can accept he’s an interesting character bc of how utterly grey he is. but that doesn’t mean i rly like him lol #i think i could’ve? if the remus fandom wasn’t the way it was #clearly they like the fanon version of him better but i just can’t get behind it tbh #it’s just annoying how he’s constantly treated with baby gloves s’all #also!! the fanon view makes it so that the ooc tag is *never* used #so even if u want to escape it u can’t #like i’m sure someone would be like ‘well pen if u don’t like remus just stop reading & bitching?’ #but that’s not possible when he’s *everywhere* and u can’t even filter it out lol #and i’m constantly living in the hope that it won’t be that way in a fic #which does happen ngl. just very rarely #pen’s asks