JK Rowling: “Remus Lupin is a heavily gay-coded character. I use lycanthropy as a loose metaphor for HIV. But he’s NOT gay. I’m gonna hurriedly pair him off with one of the only other single adult women to demonstrate that.”
JK Rowling: [pairs him off with the one woman capable of effortless shape-shifting, who is likely to have an extremely fluid concept and expression of gender and sexuality]
in addition to remus and tonks being reduced to pathetic out of character patriarchal caricatures the minute they got together they also have that disgusting age gap. i guess having explicitly lgbt characters in a kids book is bad and scary but having gross age gap relationships in a kids book is a-ok
also, to add on op’s point, tonks was also one of the only openly gnc women. she had short,spiky, unnaturally-colored hair, was described as physically clumsy and loud (and swore), punk-ish, preferred to be called by her gender non-specific last name, and if i remember correctly was even described to have a wardrobe with clunky boots or something.
my theory (that has been adapted from long-standing theories of others) has been that jkr realized that remus and tonks were her two characters that fandom was most often interpreting as gay or bi, and for whatever reason, she disliked this (perhaps it didnt fit her view of her characters, perhaps she thought the narratives were being taken out of her hands) and it came to mind that pairing them would handle this, despite the fact that their personalities dont really align, there had been no implication to it prior to the fifth book- and when it was implied, it was sudden and not very well paced.
the age difference was another whole bizarre thing, because tonk was described as youthful even for her age, and remus was described as older in both appearance and personality than one would expect from a thirty-something (due to his stress, poverty, & condition). the age difference was already weird for a dedicated romantic relationship, but the fact that the characters behave younger/older than they are even further expands this gap. like, why
also i just dislike/disagree with so much of what happened to remus and tonks characters after they became an item. tonks yelling at remus to have a child against his will, and remus abandoning tonks to fight/ help harry, were both ooc; while we dont know a lot about tonks, but she doesnt really strike as a person who wants kids/ would yell at her husband over kids in public over someone elses injury, and the entire third book is dedicated to describing how remus is not cowardly, does not abandon those he loves, and it generally not a reckless nor thoughtless person. not saying they cant have flaws but it was just out of left field
tldr, theyre both gay and jkr is an idiot
!!!!
i also hate that marriage changed tonks’ style, like she became more traditionally feminine because.. of the fact she’s in a relationship with a man?? that’s so fucked up
the more i think about this pairing the more fucked up it gets. on soo many levels it’s unbelievable
and your theory about jkr disliking the lgbt interpretations of those two characters and pairing them to kill two birds with one huge no homo stone sounds VERY possible. i don’t have a reason to not believe jkr is the kind of person who would do that
Bless this post.
and lets not forget that time in the sixth book when tonks yelled at him in public bc he didnt want to be with her ( in front of a family who just had their son nearly dying may i add ) and GRABBED WITH AND PUSHED HIM bc he was still saying no like wow not at all ooc and not at all toxic
Fuck JKR 