Prisoner of Azkaban — Improving the Boggart

This is my favourite film in the Harry Potter franchise. Alfonso Cuaron may not be the most regarded director in the franchise, but he is definitely one of the most important. This film singlehandedly flips the style of Harry Potter that we have come to know and love and gives it a gritty, ‘real world’ feeling that will be developed upon in the later films. But, even with all this brilliance and stylistic change, there is still one thing that bothers me. The under development of the Marauders in the film.

SPOILERS FOR THE FILM AHEAD — but you have had since 2004, so yeah

Emphasising the Marauders

In this movie 3 out of 4 Marauders are seen and this is understandable, you know since James is X_X. But throughout this film it is not once mentioned that Lupin is Mooney, Pettigrew is Wormtail and Sirius is Padfoot until all three of them are in the same room. It is not even developed upon when Harry is given the Marauder’s Map by Fred and George.

In a film that strongly uses the Marauder’s Map as a plot device, you would think that the gang would question who the Marauders are. My initial idea for giving the viewer this information was for the gang to go looking for information, similarly to when they looked for information on Nicholas Flammel in the Sorcerer’s Stone, except this time actually finding it themselves. However, I feel like this would not work, just because it is too in your face and would reveal Lupin as a main player too soon. Instead I think subtle exposition dumps about the Marauders would work i.e. Snape calling Lupin — Mooney — in a moment of aggression, or Lupin commenting on Harry’s patronus, commenting that his father’s nickname was Prongs, small subtle dumps like that. This would allow the viewer to piece together the story of the Marauders before they have all come together, putting more emotional impact on the meeting of the Marauders.

Furthermore, improving the understanding of the Marauders would help humanise Sirius and question how he became a ‘killer’, giving us a constant feeling of — this doesn’t feel right or something with Sirius’ story is wrong. Allowing us as the viewer to be truly taken aback when the twist comes later in the movie.

The Boggart

Now we have a better understanding of the Marauders and Sirius especially, we can start to develop Harry’s relationship with him. It always felt strange to me that when Harry is being hunted by a ‘serial killer’ — with posters of his face everywhere — he is more afraid of the dementors that are trying to stop Sirius than the psychopathic murderer who is coming to kill him, it’s odd. To fix this I simply think that the boggart scene should no longer have the boggart turn into a dementor for Harry.

In the film, Lupin says — “I thought it might be Voldemort”. Setting up Harry’s fears as Voldemort or dementor, and he is fearless in every other sense. However, in his position I am almost 100% sure that anyone would be most scared of the psychopathic mass murderer who is following you. Because of this I think that Harry’s boggart should turn into Sirius.

Having the boggart turn into Sirius would give a few interesting developments for the characters. First of all, Harry would now be seen as fearing Sirius, which in turn means Ron and Hermione will now understand that Harry is truly worried about his situation. And rather than just walking off after the boggart dementor situation, Lupin would see his friend for the first time in years and will be able to see how Harry views his godfather.

This lets us focus more on the Marauders relationship along with Harry and Lupin’s relationship. As for Harry’s dementor lessons, we can still have that after the quidditch match, just that the lessons are for different reasons. Since the Boggart is used as a stand in for a dementor, Harry could learn how to change the Boggart, as Sirius, into a dementor. In this time Harry would need to defend himself from Sirius. Additionally, we could see Lupin showing subtle signs of discomfort in seeing Harry defend himself against Sirius.

Before the Shrieking Shack

Now we know that Harry is afraid of Sirius, we now know that Lupin is Mooney, and we know that Lupin had a relationship with Sirius, we can now have Harry asking more questions about the Marauders. It could go something like this:

Harry gets the map — “Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs” — Hermione: Didn’t Snape call Lupin Mooney? — Harry: Wait Lupin said my Dad’s nickname was Prongs. — Ron: But who’s Wormtail and Padfoot? We don’t know anything about them — Harry: No, but Lupin does.

Harry goes to Lupin and instead finds Snape (Lupin is recovering) — Snape: Potter, what are you doing here? — Harry: Sorry professor, I need to ask professor Lupin about something — Snape: Lupin is not available at the moment. I’m sure I could answer your questions Potter, what do you need to know? — Harry makes up a fake question, Snape sees through it — Snape: What is that in your hand?

Snape and the map scene now happen here — Snape realises that Harry was going to ask about the Marauders — Lupin interjects and takes Harry into the office — Harry: Sir I need to ask you about the Marauders — Lupin is shocked — Harry: We know that Prongs was my Dad, we think Padfoot might be McGonagall (*cause she is an Animagus cat), but we have no idea who Wormtail is.

Lupin: Yes, I know the Marauders. Your dad was Prongs … Padfoot was a good friend of your fathers, and Wormtail was a man called Peter Pettigrew. He was killed by Sirius Black while he tried to protect your family (*now we see that Lupin does not know Sirius is innocent but still feels for him enough to not tell Harry he that Sirius is Padfoot). But why ask me, many teachers here could tell you about the Marauders? — Harry: Well sir, I don’t know how but Hermione figured out that you were Mooney, so I thought it would be righ…

Lupin is furious — Lupin: Get out now! You will give me that map and you will never speak of the Marauders again — Harry leaves and stops in the door — Harry: I’m sorry sir, but you said Peter Pettigrew was killed. I’ve heard that too, but the map showed his name the other night. I don’t think it works.

Lupin now panting in exhaustion from his anger (showing a bit of his werewolf side) — Lupin: That’s not possible — Movie carries on as it normally does.

From this we learn that Lupin is Mooney and does not want anyone to know, something is wrong with the map/Peter Pettigrew and that Lupin doesn’t want Harry to know who Padfoot is, either out of respect for James or out of respect for his old friendship with Sirius.

Marauders Meet at the Shrieking Shack

When Lupin arrives, there is now more subtext that we can use to try and figure out what is happening. We can see Harry’s sheer fear of Sirius, now reinforced by the boggart scene, overcoming him, and leading him to attacking Sirius while Lupin tries to calm him down. Harry gets confused by Lupin trying to calm him down, Snape comes in, scene plays out how it usually does, except this time Lupin gets to reveal that Sirius is Padfoot, one of the Marauders. Lupin can then go on to talk about the Shrieking Shack and how the Marauders used it so Lupin wasn’t lonely when he turned to a Werewolf, giving us even more backstory on the Marauders and setting them up as the good guys just helping their friend.

From here the scene continues and Harry lets Sirius take Scabbers, Wormtail is revealed. Now the three Marauders are all in the room and are all outed as Marauders to the trio, they can start talking to each other using their nicknames — Padfoot, Mooney and Wormtail showing how close they all were and now gives an additional emotional value to the scene. The scene continues as it normally does with Wormtail being somewhat arrested. As they are leaving the shack, they talk about the old days of the Marauders before the betrayal.

We now have the backstory of the Marauders, showing how the good the Marauders were for Lupin and how close James and Sirius were. We can also see how sneaky Wormtail is, making him a better antagonist and, in turn, making Sirius a better character than he already is. Yes, this is partially shown in the original version of the film, but with the whole backstory of how they became Animagi, Animagus's, I don’t know anyway, how they became animal wizards to help Lupin, making the effect of the betrayal hits harder.

The Rest of the Film

The rest of the film would carry on as it usually does, maybe with some dialog changes. The only thing I would change in the rest of the film is Lupin giving back the map. I would have him give Harry the map and symbolically pass on the mantle of the Marauders, which we will later find out is a strong part of the Order.

Conclusion

The main reason I want to see this change is because I had to research the Marauders after the film to figure out who they were, which led me to a rabbit hole for some of the best and most emotional parts of Harry Potter. Yes, the Marauders are expanded upon much more in the books, which is exactly why I think that their importance should be translated more effectively to the films. Plus, we would get more Gary Oldman and Gary Oldman is always a win.

And yes, that last sentence was copying FullFatVideos on YouTube, go check them out :).