Hermione, Snape and all that jazz

[jstuart57]

No: HPFGUIDX 70049

irene_mikhlin at b...> wrote:

> Well, I surely let Sirius and James to get to me. With a big pinch 
of 
> salt on top.
> That's why I agree with Darrin (stone the crows!): it's impossible 
to 
> say "oh, let it go, it was a good line" without saying that James 
just 
> put a jolly good show and Snivellus should have let it go already.

I say:

How can we put making a rude comment about someone's teeth on a par 
with hexing someone with impedimenta and then with scourgify, 
physically flipping him up-side-down and showing off his pants, 
threatening to remove his pants in front of his peers, then locomotor 
mortis, and then who knows what?

I'm not saying to let it go because Snape had a good line.  I'm 
saying to let it go because it simply wasn't that bad as some are 
making it out to be.  

I was <ahem> Rubensesque in my high school years.  Yet even if 
something had made me suddenly overnight sprout a chest a la Dolly 
Parton proportions, and a teacher had made a similarly rude comment, 
I'd still have been far less traumatized than if I had been 
physically assaulted by my peers who threatened to remove my blouse 
and my brassiere.

Back to Snape.  I think Snape would have sent Hermione to the 
hospital wing in a few moments, if she hadn't already run off 
herself.  I can imagine him staring and sneering, watching her coldly 
for a second or two as the teeth grew down to her waist and then 
saying, "Hmm. Perhaps you do appear a bit long in the tooth, Miss 
Granger.  Hospital wing," and then swooping away into his classroom.  
But Hermione ran off and the hall erupted into a "confused din."  You 
notice he didn't give Hermione a detention for missing class.  

And I don't think Ron was turning to Snape in hopes of getting some 
sympathy for Hermione or because he expected Snape to "do something" 
as a teacher as much as he was hoping to get the Slytherins in 
trouble, caught red-handed so to speak.

If, as someone who is a product of the British school system 
mentioned, it is an acceptable/expected part of the British 
educational culture for teachers to snipe at their students like 
this, then Snape's actions did not cross any line within the context 
of JKR's universe.  Someone else has mentioned that Snape might be 
better off teaching at a university level, much like that 
curmudgeonly professor of the old television series 'Paper Chase.'  
Once Voldemort is defeated, maybe Snape will.  I can't imagine Snape 
truly enjoys teaching walking bundles of hormones, most of whom have 
no real interest in or understanding of the subtleties that is potion 
making.

JoAnn