Harry Potter Fans Have A Real Problem With Lupin's Teaching Style
Any longtime "Harry Potter" fan will know that the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts is essentially doomed to fail from the moment they first take on the role. Rumor has it that the position itself is cursed, and as such, no single professor in the entire series manages to last more than a year within the position.
Throughout Harry Potter's (Daniel Radcliffe) time at Hogwarts, the class was helmed by the sadistic Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), the utterly incompetent Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), the absurdly paranoid Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody (Brendan Gleeson), and Harry's personal favorite, professor Remus Lupin (David Thewlis). On top of the fact that Lupin was a best friend to Harry's father back when he attended Hogwarts, Lupin endeared himself to the young wizard with his intriguing lessons about dark magical creatures — covering everything from Hinkypunks to Grindylows to Red Caps during his stint as a professor.
Although these lessons about dark creatures certainly positively impacted Harry's time at Hogwarts, some fans online feel that Lupin's teaching methods were highly problematic, particularly regarding his lesson about boggarts.
Exposing the fears of an entire class is a horrible idea
One of the most memorable scenes from "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is when Remus Lupin teaches the Gryffindors about boggarts: magical creatures with the ability to shapeshift into a person's greatest fear. Lupin decides to give his entire class hands-on experience with this creature by forcing each student to line up and face an actual boggart one-by-one, which fans on Reddit believe to be extremely messed up.
"Showing what your [boggart] looks like infront of the whole class is low key cruel imo," wrote u/Majiska394, describing how embarrassing it would be to have your fears exposed to everybody. "I imagine the students would be pretty traumatized having to face their worst fear," wrote u/stomponator. Other users, like u/Jrlofty, pointed out that this particular class has an even worse effect in the books: as professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) decides to torture Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) after discovering that Neville's boggart was a haglike version of himself.
Although Lupin's class certainly taught the Gryffindors the importance of facing their own fears, it's clear that the actual execution of this lesson leaves much to be desired. One has to assume that having your greatest fear exposed to your peers would make life at Hogwarts extremely challenging — which is saying something, given all the questionable things happening in Hogwarts already.