Snape and Neville (Was: Re: Snape's grading may not be fair, but..._

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 74951

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sydney" <sydpad at y...> wrote:
(about Neville)
> Herbology I think suits him because it doesn't pressure him to do
> spells, or at least it doesn't seem to involve spells;  just nice
> gardening stuff (albeit with man-eating plants).  Attention to 
detail,
> care-taking, and independent pottering-around suit him right down 
to
> the ground (no pun intended).

That's very true.  The thing is, thouggh, most of these aspects are 
also true of potions.  Which makes me suspect that Neville could've 
excelled in Potions almost as much as he excels in Herbology if he 
had a teacher who was interested in teaching him instead of 
browbeating him.


>For my part, I
> think when Snape is given a job, he wants to win at it-- and if 
that
> means dragging his students through passing grades by the hairs of
> their heads, that's what he'll do.  It doesn't seem likely that he
> WANTS to be a crap teacher-- I think he wants to be a good teacher,
> but, lacking the necessary people skills, resorts to trying to
> browbeat his kids into success.  It's a personal pride and duty 
thing.
>  I don't know if that counts as a hidden virtuous motive though!
> 

See, I don't think Snape wants to be a teacher at all.  I think what 
he'd really like is a nice, solitary research facility somewhere 
where he could mess around with experimental potions all day, and 
maybe torture some small animals on weekends. <G>  Instead, he's 
stuck teaching a bunch of stupid brats, so he takes out his 
frustrations by tormenting those brats as much as he can get away 
with.  I agree that personal pride and a sense of duty (and a desire 
to keep his job) make him want to make sure that the brats learn at 
least the bare minimum, and that he tries to insure this by 
browbeating them into it.  But I don't think he's interested in 
motivating them to excel, or teaching them meaningful life lessons, 
or improving their characters through tough love.  He just wants 
them to finish school, go away, and stop annoying him.

Which, now that I think of it, is another reason why Snape doesn't 
fail the students he hates -- if he did, he'd just be stuck with 
them for an extra year.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com