The irony is: the one fictional character I ever feel strong identification with (regarding my gender identity) was written by a transphobic author.
The character’s name was Remus Lupin.
I first knew Lupin from the third film of the series. I was in fifth grade. I’d never read any of the books before—I was more into Goosebumps and Animorphs. And back then, depression hadn’t hit me yet but dysphoria had already been lurking in the shadows for a while, waiting for puberty to come round and slap me in the face.
So that day, I came late to the cinema. I had to sit apart from the rest of my family. Alone. Surrounded by strangers whose faces I couldn’t see. So I turned my head and looked at the screen; there, Aunt Marge was turning into a balloon. Harry was up for another trouble. Poor lad.
Then I met Lupin for the first time, in the train scene. Getting rid of dementors and giving out chocolate and all. He was kind and helpful. Smiley, but sad. There was something comforting in that character, but I just couldn’t put my fingers on it. Throughout the whole film, I was rather fixated on Lupin’s plot, especially when he decided to leave his position due to his lycanthropy.
I remember being as confused as Harry. Why should Lupin leave? Wasn’t he an amazing teacher? And people love him? Does being a werewolf equal being evil? But he was a kind person??? Weird.
I didn’t think much about it until the seventh book came out. Even then, I still hadn’t really cared about the fandom either. But as I was holding the book in my hand, reading the blurb, I could sense that something big was about to happen by the end of the story. Perhaps something as big as a war.
And I remember thinking: The werewolf guy. Did he survive?
Thus began my obsession.
The seventh book was the first Harry Potter I read. Then I read the third book, because Lupin. Then I read the fifth, and the sixth, also because Lupin. Eventually I read the fourth, first, and second book as well (exactly in that order) before re-watching the films in chronological order.
But I refused to watch the eighth film. I refused to accept Lupin’s fate.
My obsession then grew from enjoying the books/films to writing a fanfic about Lupin, creating an original character using his initials, and even sending the actor who played Lupin a handwritten letter. I was also hoping to meet someone like Lupin to be my mentor, to no avail.
Thanks to Lupin, I now love any artworks depicting wolves. I have a shirt with a wolf drawing that glows in the dark. A good friend in college once gave me a carved wolf head with a magnet as a congratulation gift, of which I still keep. My desktop was a picture of a wolf and a snake for many, many years. I even named another original character of mine ‘Wolfgang’ and he was born in Wolverhampton.
I. Was. Obsessed.
Fast forward to 26 year old me, sitting in a car, still crazy about wolves, and was looking forward to see the first Fantastic Beasts film. In the internet world a friend was having a give-away event—write a short essay about your favourite character from Harry Potter, she tweeted, and I’ll buy you a ticket to watch Fantastic Beasts!
I thought, fun. Worth a try. I already knew who my favourite character was. I just needed to elaborate why.
And slowly, through that essay, I realised the reason behind my obsession: I saw Lupin as myself, and his journey as similar to mine.
Lupin spent almost all his life being lonely. He only had a few close friends—those who didn’t mind him being a werewolf. He had a hard time looking for decent jobs due to the prejudice against werewolves. He understood that people despised his condition—not him per se—and that he probably deserved their hatred. He hated himself. The one girl who swore to love him with all her heart had to suffer because he thought himself as unworthy of love. He feared his child would bear the same fate as him: being discriminated against due to a condition he never even asked for. A condition that would always hurt him and everyone else around him, no matter what he did to prevent it.
Those fear, those insecurities, those pain and self-hatred… they’re all the same as mine. That’s how I always feel, being trans.
Now, when Rowling arranged Lupin’s plot, was she actually writing about transgender? Doubt it. She probably thought of another marginalised group, or maybe she thought of no groups at all, and just wrote Lupin’s experience as nothing more than ‘what it’s like if you’re a werewolf that everybody hates’.
So when I felt like Lupin’s story resembled mine… was I wrong? Did I simply read too much into it and see something that wasn’t there? Could be. But does that make what I think of Lupin wrong? Not really.
The thing is, through this reflection, I realised when I appreciate an artwork, chances are I put my own background, views, and experience—and not the artist’s—as the consideration for my appraisement. So in other words, regarding Lupin, I might have unconsciously separated the art from the artist’s views.
Another friend also informed me that once an art is published, it no longer belongs to the artist. It now belongs to the people. And whatever those people think of the art, chances are none of their thoughts are wrong, even when they differ so much from the artist’s intended meaning.
So if I want to judge a work by its intended meaning, then I think it’s not possible to separate the two, since an art is pretty much the fruit bore from the artist’s mind.
But if I want to judge a work of art regardless of its initial context, then I’d say there are some pretty decent quotes in Harry Potter that we can still appreciate, such as:
Happiness can be found even in the darkest times if one only remembers to turn on the light.
Or:
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
Or my favourite one:
If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
Those are good stuffs.
Through Lupin, there are two very important lessons I’ve learned.
First: that even when the world hates me, there would still be people like Prongs, Padfoot, or even Wormtail who would go to drastic measures (like turning themselves into animals) just to make sure I wouldn’t be alone. And perhaps, if I’m lucky, I might find myself a Tonks. Like Dade did.
(But I wouldn’t hold my breath. I know how reality is.)
And the second: one of the best ways to defeat fear is through laughter. This might be responsible for my very questionable sense of humour—but as long as laughing at stupid things can help me survive my lowest moments, I’ll laugh. I’ll laugh my heart away.
Regarding Rowling, it was rather disheartening for me to find that someone I thought I could look up to disagreed about my existence. But that’s okay. The wizarding world cursed lycanthropy as well, yet Lupin survived that hatred.
So maybe I, too, can survive.
If I could meet Rowling in person, I think I’d thank her for creating Lupin, and thus giving me a hope I didn’t know I needed.
