[HPforGrownups] Application of lessons

[Barb P]

No: HPFGUIDX 45015


While the students may not have used Transfiguration to conquer any of the large threats experienced during the first four books, Transfiguration WAS responsible for one of the most daunting challenges on the way to the Philosopher's Stone (McGonagall's enchanted chess board), the Animagus Transfiguration was important to the plot of the third book, and specifically, McGonagall transfiguring herself into a cat and back to human was introduced near the beginning of the first book, telling us very quickly that this is something possible for witches and wizards to do (although we don't learn of its rarity until much later).  This is also an important plot point in GoF (Rita Skeeter) and it is Hermione's knowledge of Transfiguration, I believe, that leads her to conclude that Rita is an insect Animagus.  Rita was not the extreme threat in GoF that Voldemort and Crouch/Moody represented, but she was a minor adversary who was conquered by Hermione's Transfiguration knowledge.
 
The class which has proven to be truly useless is Astronomy.  First, we don't ever witness Astronomy classes; second, the boys could use their knowledge of this in making their star charts for Trelawney, but they just make up everything for her and don't even try to do it right; third, Sinistra is such a shadowy figure that some people aren't even convinced of her gender; fourth, we don't know any other details about her, such as first name or age (from the books--if JKR has revealed these things in an interview, I'm not aware of it), let alone a physical description of the professor.
 
Oh, and I've yet to see Hermione apply Arithmancy to anything practical, despite her near hero-worship of Professor Vector.  And really, the only practical use Hagrid's classes have provided are the bond between Harry and Buckbeak.  Otherwise COMC classes have been fairly useless as well.
 
--Barb
 
 GulPlum wrote:Now, my point is this: of everything on the Hogwarts curriculum, the one subject they've not applied *at all* in their adventures is Transfiguration. It's presented as an important subject and we witness at 
least once lesson in each of the books. Yet Hermione, who appears quite good at it, hasn't found a use for it a single time yet.

In a roundabout way, this ties in with a thread a few days ago in which I nominated McGonagall for "unnecessary character" status (I admit that the 
connection only just occurred to me having written all of the above). I'm therefore wondering: is Transfiguration as useless to the plot as its 
teacher, or is JKR  deliberately holding back and saving up Transfiguration (and McGonagall) for a BANGY moment at the climax of the series?


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