Trelawney isn't a fraud

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 111494

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <submarimon15 at y...> 
wrote:
> I'm sorry if this has been discussed from this viewpoint already, 
but 
> I have never seen it. Also, before you want to look at me with a 
> Snape-like disgust, there is quite a bit of proof the shows 
Professor 
> Trelawney to be an actual Seer, though obviously not as great as 
her 
> great-great-great grandmother, Cassandra, or whatever relation she 
> was.
> 
> This means however, that Harry, Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, 
Umbridge 
> and even Dumbledore are wrong about her. Right now you may be 
> thinking that this is a little much to push aside, but I'd 
appreciate 
> it if you hear me out. The fact that these people don't like 
> Trelawney, is that well to be blunt: She's annoying and likes to 
make 
> large productions of drama while she talks. (ie: PoA Christmas 
Feast)

Meri now: I don't think it is that they don't like her, per se. IMHO 
they find her a flighty, flaky person, but Sybil isn't someone they 
hate. She's overly dramatic, yes, and she's bats out of her belfry 
but I'm pretty sure they don't detest her. 

> First off a question: Why do we automatically think Trelawney is a 
> fraud?
> 
> The answer to this is quite simple: Everyone Harry interacts with 
and 
> trusts thinks she is. His opinion is biased due to the fact that 
he 
> doesn't have the Sight. We are reading the story from his POV, 
thus 
> he is taking nearly everything she does into a negative light.
> 
> Harry dislikes her because he isn't a Seer, and thus he cannot 
> understand and cannot be taught Divination. Because of this, he 
finds 
> it very annoying and frustrating. Ron is also not a Seer (yes yes, 
> I've heard arguements on this board saying otherwise, but the 
point 
> is he doesn't know it if he is) so he finds it annoying too.

Meri: I'm not sure it's their lack of posession of the Sight that 
makes Harry and Ron dislike Trelawny and her classes, it is probably 
more due to the fact that she gives them lots of busy work homework 
and keeps, inconvienently predicting Harry's death. Which can, I am 
sure get rather depressing. In all of Harry's words, and I've read 
PoA and GoF at least a dozen times, I am sure that I never percieved 
him as being frustrated by not being able to See. 

 Same for 
> Hermione, and the fact that she can't learn it without being a 
Seer 
> frustrates her quite a bit. 

Meri: I agree with you here. If Hermione can't learn something out 
of a book it is just not worth learning for her. As Ron says, she's 
just not used to not being the top at something for a change. 

> McGonagall dislikes Trelawney because like Hermione, she is not a 
> Seer and likes to research things. She's strict. She likes rules 
and 
> facts, not Interpretation and Divination.

Meri: Again, I agree, but I don't think that MM dislikes Trelawny 
personally. It is her subject that MM has a problem with. And if MM 
is not friendly to Trelawny she's not overtly hostile either, no 
matter how much Trelawny's flightiness and battyness might annoy 
her. Just look in the scene where she gets fired in Order. Who comes 
to Trelawny's aid? McGonogal. 
 
> Umbridge is determined to sack Dumbledore's teachers all year 
round. 
> Trelawney is seen as an annoying figure. Umbridge would sack 
nearly 
> all of the teachers given the chance, but because Trelawney 
teaches 
> Divination and Umbridge isn't a Seer, she is once again labeled a 
> fraud and set on Probation.

Meri: Well, we don't really know DU's motivations, do we? She seemed 
to have been targeting people important to DD and his cause, so 
Trelawny seems an odd choice as she is not close to DD or the other 
faculty, she isn't (that we know of, anyway) a member of the Order, 
nor is she seemingly aware that she made the Prophecy that started 
this whole thing off. So, unless DU had ulterior motives to her 
actions then her attacks on Trelawny are a little out of character. 
 
> Lastly, Dumbledore. I know that a lot of people like to assume 
he's 
> right when he tells Harry things, but in this case he isn't right, 
or 
> he worded his thoughts about Trelawney wrong. He says that 
Trelawney 
> has only made two actual PREDICTIONS that were true. This isn't 
the 
> case. She has made only two PROPHECIES. There is a difference. 

Meri: Interesting distinction. I think that there is a difference as 
well. Here's hoping that the random predictions that Ron makes 
(especially that "die, Ron, die" one) don't ever come true like 
hers! 

Though 
> it is not firmly stated in canon, there is nothing to suggest that 
> for each regular 'prediction' made, she must go into a trance and 
> remember nothing after. Let's look at the predictions she makes in 
> the first Divination class in Harry's 3rd Year.
> 
> Trelawney predicts that Neville will break a teacup in the first 
> class. It does happen, and knowing Neville we could say that she 
> easily knew he was clumsy. But how did she know he was clumsy? The 
> students have probably never even seen her before as she rarely 
> leaves her tower (not even for meals!). There is a very slim 
chance 
> that Trelawney would know Neville is clumsy and has a habit of 
> breaking things as soon as the first class starts.
> 
> Another of Trelawney's predictions in the first Divination class 
is 
> that "the thing Lavender is dreading will happen" and she gives an 
> esimated date. Right on schedule, Lavender's bunny dies. This 
could 
> be a complete coincidence yes, but given her other two predictions 
> right after each other that come true I find it hard to give this 
one 
> to pure coincidence.
> 
> The last prediction is that a student will leave around Easter for 
> good. This may not like a hard thing to guess, given that you 
either 
> have the Sight and do well or don't have it and struggle, but she 
> gets the date right on again. This is the second time she has 
> predicted the correct time frame so I once again find it hard to 
give 
> it to pure luck.
> 
> Throughout Harry's third year she constantly tells him about his 
> problems with the Grim and how she keeps seeing it while reading 
his 
> tea leaves and the like. She's not seeing the Grim, she's seeing 
> Sirius in his Animagus form. She calls it the Grim because that's 
> what she knows as she doesn't know anything about Sirius' animagus 
> form. Since the Grim means peril, she constantly tells him he is 
in 
> mortal danger. Harry shrugs this off because it's laughable to him 
> and Ron- he's always in danger!
> 
> So basically, why can't Trelawney predict correctly all the time 
or 
> especially, when Umbridge asks her to? She's told us this many 
times 
> over: The Inner-Eye does not work on command. Why does she 
constantly 
> predict Harry's doom, and love all the miserable predictions Harry 
> and Ron make? She's very dramatic, I think we can all agree on 
that. 
>

Meri: You forget that she did predict correctly on demand. In Order 
she tells DU, when asked to make a prediction, that DU is (and I 
don't have my book with me, so this is a paraphrase) in grave 
danger, and of course she is, because she gets smacked around pretty 
good by the centaurs at the end of the year, so there's another one 
right for Sybil. 
 
Meri