to elaborate on bookshop’s thoughts, the reason that tonks/lupin was disappointing is not because the concept of tonks and lupin being in love is bad. it’s not. i shipped it way back when and i still do. the reason is that the romance was developed in a way that actively pushed back against queer interpretations of either character. as soon as it’s revealed they’re in love, their narrative becomes marriage-baby-settling-down so fast i think i got whiplash, suddenly he’s calling her “dora” instead of the gender-neutral name she tells people to call her, and pottermore tells us that she’s the only person he was ever in love with, which precludes the possibility of any previous same-gender relationships that might have led to a bisexual identity. it’s a huge disappointment, considering the fact that she’s important to a lot of readers as a gender-non-conforming-possibly-genderqueer character who doesn’t give a crap about others’ expectations and he’s deliberately, unsubtly queer-coded (jk rowling intended werewolves as a metaphor for aids stigma). the straightening of tonks and lupin and the related furthering of the series’ idealization of one way of living your life (“settling down,” nuclear family, putting radical ideas aside as you get older) are a big bummer.
Someone finally put this into words.
