IC Contact: Scorched (Lupin's forge)
Oct. 4th, 2010 03:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumenrelegandusThis is Remus Lupin. Please message me here for any questions regarding the Clinic or tutorials at the dojo.
If you have just arrived and know my voice, call me. I'll find you.
Sona si latine loqueris.*
If you have just arrived and know my voice, call me. I'll find you.
Sona si latine loqueris.*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Video.
Date: 2011-05-31 05:57 am (UTC)I agree with you, insofar as magic is one of many manifestations of an unequal distribution of power. Wealth is another kind; heritage; class; connection; beauty; intelligence; ability to control. All of these things can corrupt. For the sake of these things are better ideals twisted and made into mere tools to increase or maintain control. Yet they can also be used to help, protect, and serve.
So while I find your premise sound, I ask, why single out magic?
Video.
Date: 2011-05-31 02:19 pm (UTC)Because that's how I was raised.
Video.
Date: 2011-06-05 12:22 am (UTC)[studies Arthur a moment, wanting to leave room rather than lecture.
But then decides to add,] In my family, too.
Video.
Date: 2011-06-05 10:22 pm (UTC)[Genuine astonishment: this is the first time anyone not from Camelot hadn't been baffled by the idea that those magical might be considered different from others. Let alone someone who was unabashedly magical themselves. ]
How did you— [ Overcome the prejudice? Live with yourself? The questions seem too intrusive and he stops abruptly, tries a different tack.. ] How am I supposed to let that go? It's been months, months, and even the most harmless slight of hand still brings to mind my father's lectures.
Video.
Date: 2011-06-08 05:48 am (UTC)[Even while asking, Lupin's expression inspires a certainty that if Arthur refuses, Lupin won't think any worse of him.]
Video. | wow, that edit.
Date: 2011-06-08 07:29 am (UTC)Magic corrupts was the primary theme. Sorcery used for harmless tasks, or even for healing, was dangerous because it encourages the idea that perhaps magic isn't inherently evil. Magic is an honourless refuge. It cheats, and takes unpayable prices. The best of men would lose morality if they had such powers at their fingertips. If we didn't maintain laws against it, the realm would fall into chaos. And if the law was broken without punishment, our enemies would think us weak, and then we would be at war again.
[ His voice is dry, and whether or not he agrees with any of the above statements is not immediately obvious. ]
Never forget that the Old Religion killed your mother, Arthur, and it will do the same for you, given half a chance.
[ Not that Remus is an appreciative audience, but Arthur has always had a particular talent for mimicking his father's words. ]
I suppose, given the frequent attempts on my life by vengeful sorcerers, I was inclined to believe him.
Video. | Yeah, sorry... ;-)
Date: 2011-06-13 05:31 pm (UTC)Forgive me, Arthur, for contradicting you; but in order to proceed with a discussion I must ask for a specific question.
Video. | These things happen!
Date: 2011-06-13 08:12 pm (UTC)Video. | It may come back... but I think Arthur knows all of it already ;-)
Date: 2011-06-14 06:04 am (UTC)It just seems to me that much of what I could say is already in your mind. Indeed, we have had something very like this conversation before. So I must ask: is there anything in particular you're seeking by way of response? Do you have any question for me?
Video. | Even as I was writing my response I was like, whoops! Ruining Merry's plans!
Date: 2011-06-14 06:23 am (UTC)I suppose in the end I want you to lead by example, as it were. To show me that I was wrong, just through not being a zealout.
And for someone to talk to. That magician, Tonks, with her it sort of went all wrong, but she told me I'd go better with you.
[ A slight raise of the eyebrows. ]
"The best of us", were, I believe, her exact words.
Video - after rechecking that it's private | You could never do that ;-)
Date: 2011-06-23 05:41 pm (UTC)At last, a bit strangely sad a bit not sad at all of a smile]
I've been preoccupied with trying to be such an example, even—especially?—when no one was looking for one.
I hope that my actions follow my intention. If they don't, I count on friends such as you to point it out to me.
...Since nothing requires magic from me at the moment, I'll give a verbal example.
I came to the magical world by a strange path. From a young age I found the blessing to go with the curse. Some only see one or the other.
[the next hesitation is acutely clear in meaning. He's trying to figure out how to say what he's never said before.
Because it's a different world, a different lifetime; because of the relevance of the example, because to share it is the only measure of redemption it has; to live up to Tonks's expectations; because he may need someone to talk to, about Tonks; because Arthur asked right.]
My family were mixed. My father used magic. My mother did not. She came from a culture, a religion, that vilified magic, but she set that aside for love of my father.
When I was eleven… something terrible happened. It…
[Arthur wasn't here when Lupin had outed himself. Though Lupin wants to be fully honest with him, and believes it's safe to do so, he's convinced that at this moment, explaining the Furry Problem would in fact only distract from what at this moment is a more important point.]
I can tell you about it in another conversation. For this one, know it was an accident, but though I had lived comfortably in both worlds, magical and nonmagical, it forced me suddenly and violently to choose. I had to flee to the magical world, abandoning my family in the nonmagical one. It also lead, eventually, to my father's death.
This profoundly impacted my mother and younger sister. My mother reverted to her hatred and condemnation of magic. This taught my sister to hate and condemn. When her own magical nature began to manifest… she tried to suppress and reject it. But she couldn't eliminate it. So she was only left to hate herself.
I saw her years later, when we were both adults. Her life had suffered terribly for this repression and self-loathing.
Rejection does not make something go away, Arthur. It only creates an enemy out of what may have been inherently neutral. It warps and distorts and nurtures misunderstanding. Or, when something does have negative potential, it compounds the problem by eliminating any balance of positive potential.
Magic exists, and it often lives in humans. They do not choose it. There are many who do not have it who wish they did, and some who get it who wish they had not. Neither can change who they are.
Since the magic exists in humans, its nature is entirely dictated by the nature of that human. Whether it's constructive or destructive, corrupting or ennobling… and usually either in turns. It's rare to find anyone absolute or pure in either extreme, in personality or action, or, by extent, use of magic.
[he lifts his wand into frame]
This is not a sword. It was not created for the clear, unavoidable purpose a sword has. It is more diverse and pliable and ill-defined than that. It can serve as a sword. It can also serve as a screwdriver.
Yet even a sword can be used for good or ill depending on who's holding it. The same with a wand, and the magic it channels: it's only a tool. It has no inherent nature or judgment. What one must judge is the choices of the one using it.
Magic is dangerous. Because it amplifies those choices. Intent becomes manifested more quickly, more directly, and with further-reaching impact, than with other kinds of tools.
Since it exists in humans, who cannot choose not to have it, whether or not convinced they should try… rejecting or repressing the magic or those people is what warps and galvanizes it into something that is evil, something that goes out of control.
The way to use magic safely, for the practitioner and those who seek to coexist with them, for oneself and those around us, is to seek ever greater understanding and control.
The prerequisite step of which is accepting it.
Video
Date: 2011-06-24 01:38 pm (UTC)So in believing sorcery was dangerous and required restriction, my father created the danger.
[ Just a thought aloud; he's not even asking for confirmation. Realizing this comes with the additional understanding that others had already tried to convince King Uther of this very fact, tried and failed. ]
[ He sets his jaw. ]
I'll do better.
Video
Date: 2011-06-24 03:45 pm (UTC)Always has enough energy for a genuine smile.]
I know you will. You already are.
Video
Date: 2011-06-24 10:42 pm (UTC)Thank you.
[ For all of it, for living up to promises and letting Arthur share and returning in kind. ]
. . . What happened to her? If you don't mind my asking. Your sister?
Video
Date: 2011-06-25 03:19 am (UTC)I know she rejected her invitation to the wizarding school I attended. It must have been hard for her in non-wizarding school to hide her abilities and stifle those impulses.
Right out of school she married a man who treated her very badly. Any feeling of self-worth she had left was surely...
When I found her again we'd both changed our names, in opposite directions—I from the non-magical tradition to a wizarding name, she the other way around… we'd changed identities and worlds… and couldn't seem to find each other even in the same room.
I heard from her only once more. She wrote to me that she was going to leave her husband. I don't know if that means our conversation had anything to do with… if I could have done one good thing in her life to make up for…
I don't know where she is what she's doing now. I don't even know if she went through with it. Or if he let her get away with it.
Video
Date: 2011-06-25 04:21 am (UTC)Video
Date: 2011-06-25 05:51 am (UTC)If anything, you may have helped cleanse one that wasn't closing.
[a faint smile] You're… very like and extremely unlike the last person I could talk to in this manner. It's something I've missed badly.
Never apologise for asking me anything. We answer because we want to. Or need to.
Video
Date: 2011-06-25 07:15 am (UTC)I have never had anyone to talk to in this manner.
[ His jaw clenches, a little embarrassed, but when he looks back to the camera he recovers quickly, or appears to. ]
Right, well! I don't suppose if we ever get that Door working you'd like to come back to Camelot and join my council? I'd give you a title and everything.
Video | absolute icon win
Date: 2011-06-27 06:25 am (UTC)I'm honoured, my friend and liege, but I think even if the course of history would not implode from such a thing, my head might.
[And he's tried functioning among those whose future he knows and found he neither likes it nor excels at it one bit.]
I think you'd find you already possess the necessary council.
[Go ahead and interpret that metaphorically. Time later to discover it's not.]
Video
Date: 2011-06-27 07:12 am (UTC)Fine. My offer stands, anyway.
[ And that's about it for this conversation. ]
Maybe next time we talk you'll change your mind.
Re: Video
Date: 2011-06-27 07:26 am (UTC)(Or maybe only Lupin could think so.)
In any case, Arthur would have recognised the Marauderly lift of an eyebrow]
What would be the title?
Video
Date: 2011-06-27 07:33 am (UTC)That's... a Dukedom, I believe.
[ It is very difficult to tell if he's serious. ]
Video
Date: 2011-06-29 06:28 pm (UTC)