Defending Trelawney

[Elizabeth Dalton]

No: HPFGUIDX 33026

After my scathing criticism of Trelawney, Cindy tried to defend her, and I 
wasn't buying it.

Cindy insisted:

> Wait!  Wait!  I can make you believe!  :-)  
> 

Well... not yet, you haven't. But I'm having fun while you try, so if 
you're still having fun, I guess we're all set. :)

> It seems that a good teacher ought to be able to do two things -- 
> master the subject matter being taught, and communicate it to assist 
> others in mastering it.  If the subject matter depends heavily on 
> whether the student has natural talent, it doesn't seem fair to judge 
> the teacher's performance solely by whether the students master the 
> subject.  

Yes, for the first part, but only partly, for the second. I'll get back to 
this with your examples about voice and music, below.

> 
> Here's the best case I can put together for Trelawney:
> 
> Elizabeth wrote:
> 
> > I think any success on her part was
> > blind luck. She wanted to see a Grim -- it's a famous portent of 
> >death-- so she
> > saw one. I think the resemblence to Sirius was accidental. 
> 
> Using that yardstick, Trelawney will never get credit for a 
> prediction, will she?  Correct predictions can always be dismissed as 
> mere coincidence because Divination is inherently subjective.  The 
> objective facts, however, are that Trelawney saw the Grim in the 
> crystal ball and the tea leaves.  We can dismiss it as a coincidence, 
> but the fact remains that the Grim is a big black dog, and she saw it 
> when there was exactly such a creature "stalking" Harry.  

Well, no, I still can't give her credit for this entirely, because the 
Grim *wasn't* stalking Harry. Sirius was. Sirius may bear a resemblence to 
the Grim, but he *isn't* the Grim, and a true Seer really ought to be able 
to tell the difference, don't you think? This would be a partial credit, 
at best.

Divination doesn't *have* to be inherently subjective. If it's to be 
useful at all, it should be measurable when it is correct. I note that you 
snipped all my suggestions about predicting cards or dice throws, or 
"Seeing" the contents of a sealed box. Other standard techniques Trelawney 
could use to validate her claims include documenting her predictions and 
storing them in sealed envelopes, to be opened and "judged" by an 
impartial observer at a later date, as indicated by the prediction in 
question. (Not McGonnagal-- I like her, but she's not impartial toward 
Trelawney.) These should all be items she was not, herself, capable of 
affecting, of course. Her "correct" score could thus be kept in a running 
tally.

The basic problem with her claims, otherwise, is that people in general 
are more likely to remember the ones which have come true, and to 
generously interpret any ambiguous predictions. Try this: just for fun, 
have someone cut out the horoscopes in this week's paper, remove the 
signs, and mix them up. At the end of the week, try to identify yours. 
Probably you'll find several good candidates, none of which may be 
correct. Trelawney is relying on this coincidence effect to validate her 
predictions. It's not in her interest to track her success.

Note that we could do this for her. I've suggested the idea of a Character 
Concordance before, and Trelawney practically screams for this technique. 
We could then realistically evaluate each of her predictions (at least as 
noted by Harry, who probably isn't impartial, but it's all we've got to go 
on).

> 
> Also, she seemed disappointed when Harry did not see Buckbeak being 
> beheaded.  I think that was because she had done her own Seeing and 
> seen the beheading.  Buckbeak was in fact beheaded, so score one for 
> Trelawney.  Perhaps she didn't also see Buckbeak's escape, but I 
> would think a Time Turner that changes events would foul up anyone's 
> Inner Eye.  :-)  

Buckbeak was *not* beheaded. The kids rescued him, and he flew off with 
Sirius, remember? If she Saw that, she's not a very good Seer!

I think she knew that was the most likely outcome, and thought Harry 
should be seeing it.

You may be right about the Time Turner messing up the Inner Eye, though. 
My guess is that plenty of other effects have also been fouling her Sight. 
;)

> 
> She was on target with Lavender's rabbit, and she predicted 
> Hermione's exit.  She was right about Neville's cup breakage.  Small 
> stuff, but correct nonetheless.

She was *not* right on target about the rabbit, as Hermione pointed out. 
Lavender got the news on the date, but the rabbit had died previously, and 
Lavender hadn't been particularly dreading the rabbit's death.

I would venture to say that she *caused* the other two events. She did 
practically all she could to drive Hermione out, and she really psyched 
poor Neville out about those cups. (This stands out in my mind, btw, as 
the "worst of Trelawney." Neville has enough going on without her picking 
on him, too.)

> 
> She made the following correct prediction in GoF:  "Your worries are 
> not baseless.  I see difficult times ahead for you . . . I fear the 
> thing you dread will indeed come to pass . . . and perhaps sooner 
> than you think."  Voldemort did return, so score a big one for 
> Trelawney.

Um... he's been picked for the triwizard tournament, against his will. How 
much of a guess does it take to predict that difficult things will happen?

> 
> Now, I admit I was incorrect when I said Trelawney predicted Harry 
> would get stabbed in the back by a friend.  Ron said that, which 
> shows that he's picking up a thing or two in Divination.  :-)
> 

<struggles to keep a straight face, and fails.> You're not convincing me, 
but you're very, very funny.

> 
> Oh, poor Trelawney gets no respect.  Trelawney and Moody do exactly 
> the same thing in their classrooms -- they put the kids through their 
> paces under real life circumstances, and they do hands-on practical 
> demonstrations.  Moody puts kids under Imperius, and only one kid 
> learns to throw it off.  Trelawney gives them various tools (crystal 
> balls, tea leaves), and they try to use these tools to See.  I don't 
> see much of a difference there.  

Well, first of all, one kid does actually learn to throw off the Imperius 
curse, which is more evidence than I think we get from Trelawney (Ron's 
"prediction" aside). Second, Crouch/Moody starts with a demonstration of 
real skill with the spiders, no mere "spooky manner" there, and his 
Imperius spell demonstrably works on the other kids.

I will agree with you that spending a whole year discussing Curses that 
the students aren't supposed to use and that can't be countered probably 
isn't great lesson planning. But probably (and this is not canon, only my 
guess) part of what they were studying is how to recognize when someone 
*else* is acting under Imperius, which would be worth being able to figure 
out.

In other words, you might be able to get me to demote Crouch/Moody with 
this argument, but you still aren't dong Sybil any good. :)

> 
> Indeed, in both cases, the students are largely unsuccessful, even 
> though the teachers' methods are similar.  As a matter of fact, Harry 
> rarely reports the predictions other kids are making, so perhaps they 
> are all making correct predictions, which would make Trelawney even 
> more effective than Moody.    
> 

Well, we could easily speculate away as to how effective any of the 
teachers are. (Fanfiction, anyone? Oops, wrong list. ;)

> Elizabeth again:
> 
> >Trelawney can't even tell that Harry and Ron are making up their 
> >answers.
> 
> True, the students pull the wool over her eyes.  Divination rests on 
> a foundation of trust, on the honor system, if you will.  As an 
> analogy, suppose a physical education teacher assigns homework that 
> kids run a certain distance and record it in a log.  Some kids decide 
> to lie and fabricate everything, and they don't get caught.  That 
> doesn't make the teaching method ineffective, IMHO.  It just means 
> these two kids aren't mature enough to be trusted, and as our parents 
> used to tell us, they're only hurting themselves when they cheat like 
> this.
> 

This is an ok analogy if Trelawney asked them to write a "dream journal" 
or something, but she didn't, she asked them to do Astrology charts, which 
have math that can be checked. If an engineering teacher assigns a complex 
problem of circuit design that relies on math, the teacher still needs to 
look at the math the student did, no matter what the circuit looks like.

Trelawney didn't even catch that they'd predicted their own deaths two 
months in a row. And she certainly didn't ask them to check their own 
results by tracking how accurate their predictions were, so if she was 
waiting for them to catch their own errors, this was a pretty poor way of 
setting that up.

(Still snickering over that "foundation of trust" line.... Con-artistry 
depends on a foundation of trust, too.)


> How do we know that Divination cannot be taught?  I figure it is akin 
> to music or voice lessons.  Some people have talent and some people 
> do not.  With enough study, the truly talented will master the 
> subject.  I think the jury is still out on Trelawney and on whether, 
> upon graduation, a few kids are good at Divination.
> 

Ok, the jury is still out, but the preponderance of evidence is that she's 
not teaching anyone anything. Having had both music lessons (instrumental 
and theory) and voice lessons, I'd also say that a good teacher can 
generally improve the measurable skill of even someone with mediocre 
talent.

But JKR loves to surprise us. I think it would be terrific if Lavender or 
Parvati DID turn out to be excellent at solid, accurate, useful 
divination, and that (much to HRH's surprise) turned out to be pivotal in 
some future conflict.

> That said, I don't mean to say I completely buy Trelawney's act.  I 
> do think she is one of JKR's better bit players, though.  Even after 
> two books, she is still shrouded in mystery.  I can't wait to find 
> out what happens.  My own prediction is that Trelawney will prove to 
> be a true Seer and much more impressive than our current impression 
> of her.
> 

Oh, I agree with this last paragraph. I like Trelawney enough that I'm 
going to *be* her this Saturday evening at my nephew's birthday party, 
after all. :)

Ok, Cindy has made her prediction. I don't agree with her arguments that 
Trelawney is a good *teacher*, but I'll go along with her possibly being a 
good *Seer*. (Maybe she just does the "airy-fairy" act for fun? Maybe 
being a Seer has made her a bit unbalanced? Maybe she deludes herself into 
thinking her Seeing works more often then it does? Who knows?)

What do the rest of you think? (If you're still reading, that is?)

Elizabeth
(Die-hard empiricist and former math and physics major-- who occasionally 
reads Tarot cards, but as a psychological tool)