Hooch's eyes...

[Barb]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at y..., "David " <davisaacs at h...> wrote:
> I notice the second time I went to the movie that Zoe Wannamaker 
> (who plays Hooch) had very strange yellow, cat eyes. At first I 
> thought that it may have been just a nice touch my Chris Collumbus. 
> 
> But I was readin CoS last night, and it described Mrs Norris's eyes 
> as being yellow. I could be jumping to comclusions, but I think 
> there's no doubt that Mrs Norris isn't an ordinary cat, and I've 
> always thought she was probably an animagi. And Hooch does one 
> flying lesson a year, and a couple of of Quidditch matches, and 
> that's it...I've often wondered what she does with the rest of her 
> time.
> 
> So, my theory is that Hooch is an animagi and in her spare time she 
> helps Filch find students who are breaking the rules.  What do you 
> think?

Unfortunately, if JKR wanted to eventually make Hooch and Mrs. Norris 
the same entity, it was ruined by the cat's having red eyes.  (I'm 
not sure what the purpose of that is.)  Also, Hooch greets the class 
by telling them that it is their FIRST flying lesson, so the 
implication would be that there are more to come that simply aren't 
covered in the book.  One also gets the impression that she only 
teaches first-year students, so I'd call her a part-time teacher.  
She does not seem to be an all-purpose substitute teacher since it 
was Professor Grubbly-Plank (sp?--sorry; books not handy) who subbed 
for Hagrid at one point and not Hooch.

Another reason why it is unlikely that she is an Animagus is that 
Hermione would have noticed her name in the list of registered 
Animagi; I doubt that a teacher would be an illegal unregistered 
Animagus.  I also doubt that JKR would have more than one cat 
Animagus at the school, so if I'm correct, that eliminates Mrs. 
Norris and Crookshanks as possible Animagi.  

Even if Hooch WERE an Animagus, given her description, a more likely 
form for her would be a hawk or other bird of prey.  In the end, 
though, JKR has a fondness for using animal similes when describing 
humans' physical appearances (Mrs. Weasley=tiger, Snape=bat, 
Hooch=hawk, etc.), and it's going a bit overboard to assume that each 
time she does this it's because the character is an Animagus.

--Barb