Who's more out of line? (WAS: Snape and respect)

[Tom Wall <thomasmwall@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51113

MELISSA (AND MANY OTHERS SIMILARLY) WROTE 
RE: HERMIONE'S TEETH:

The last straw for me came in GoF, chapter 18, when 
Hermione's teeth are hit by a spell and grow past her 
chin, and his only reaction is to say, "I see no 
difference." That was cruel and unprofessional. Snape 
is a teacher, an adult. It's one thing for Malfoy's 
group and Harry's group to be tossing insults back and 
forth, but he has a duty to be above that. No matter how 
hard I try, I just can't like Snape.

I REPLY:
I'm amazed and the number of people that jumped on this 
thread all at once. When I posted my devil's advocacy bit 
yesterday, there was only the original post. When I check 
today, there're, well, WAY more than that. ;-)


So:

For everyone who got so upset over Snape's treatment of Hermione: 
were you equally upset when Crouch/Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret 
and started bouncing him around? 

Were you as shocked and angry as McGonagall, or, like Ron, did you 
think it was farily amusing? I bet that some of us even thought that 
Malfoy *deserved* it, didn't we?

IMHO, if we want to be technical, this is a far more serious and  
grievous offense, and it's a total betrayal of the relationship 
between teacher and student. Far worse, at any rate, than letting a 
cruel remark out. 

And don't try to argue that it wasn't Moody anyways: *we* didn't know 
that when it happened. 

Yet somehow I bet that most of us here still thought it was 
uproariously funny.

-Tom