Snape and the Kappa: a Flint? (Was: Snape and Lupin's Character Arcs)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 119355


Note: Yahoo asked for my ID at this point and prevented my original
message from posting. If this is a duplicate, I'll delete the first
one since this one contains small revisions. Carol

Nora wrote:
<snip>
> He still treats the class rather poorly, and going by any standard
of taking over someone else's class for them, his behavior is
completely unprofessional. <snip> Which is why I think the kappa error
(which is NOT a flint, because it's not a textual inconsistency--it's
a direct revelation, and makes perfect sense) is also so funny, when
you find out about it.  Snape considers himself the Great DADA
Master--and apparently he hasn't read the book. <snip>

Carol responds:
I'm still not convinced of this reasoning. If it were *Snape's* error
(as opposed to JKR's), Hermione, who *has* read the book, would have
pointed it out (or at least cast a significant glance at Harry and
mentioned it afterwards). There's no point in having Snape make an
error in PoA if that error isn't pointed out in PoA, especially if the
idea is to reveal that Snape is less of a DADA expert than he
perceives himself to be. JKR has no guarantee that her readers have
read FBWFT--many of them probably haven't.

I don't know when FBWFT came out, but it was clearly after CoS. It may
be that JKR herself hadn't adequately researched Kappas when she wrote
CoS, just as she seems not to have thought about Squibs when she wrote
SS/PS and therefore has the Longbottoms fearing that Neville is
"all-Muggle," which doesn't fit at all with her later conception. Or,
if you don't like that example, there's her shiftiness in her answer
about "ancestor" for "descendant" and the classic Flint example I
mentioned before, in which poor Marcus is held back a year because JKR
forgot that he was a seventh-year in the previous book. It's as if she
can't admit a mistake and when possible, blames it on the character.
So, I'm suggesting, when she discovers that she was wrong about Kappas
being found in Mongolia, she covers her own error by attributing it to
Snape.

You say that this isn't a Flint because there's no inconsistency
between books. But there *is* an inconsistency between Snape's saying
that Kappas are found in Mongolia and the "corrected" or "official"
version in FBWFT, and that inconsistency is just as much a Flint as it
would be if the inconsistency were in the HP books themselves.

And for those who think that JKR doesn't have any
errors/inconsistencies/Flints that aren't math-related, check out the
descriptions of Prefect's badges in SS/PS and OoP. Funny how
"identical" badges can be silver in one book and red and gold in the
other. She didn't take the time to check her facts, just as she
apparently didn't check them before having Snape say that Kappas were
found in Mongolia. Again, if it were intended to be *his* error, it
would have been revealed as an error in PoA itself. Hermione, who is
present and has read the book, doesn't even react in this scene and no
more mention is made of it in PoA or any later book in the series
itself. In fact, I can find no place in the books where his knowledge
of DADA is questioned. Granted, he calls in Lupin regarding the
Marauder's Map, claiming that he's asking Lupin to examine it for Dark
Magic since that's his supposed area of expertise, but that's clearly
a ruse since Snape clearly suspects Lupin as one of the makers of the
tricky piece of parchment.)

In addition, if we're considering levels of "canonicity," surely
what's in the HP series itself trumps information contained in works
outside the series, just as that information would trump the hasty and
sometimes inaccurate responses that appear on her website (Colin
Creevey's camera, for example). I almost wish that site had not been
set up, but that's a topic for another forum. I don't want to detract
from my main point, which is that the Kappa error may be JKR's rather
than Snape's and is not sufficient evidence that he's not as qualified
as a DADA expert as the Pensieve scene, showing his detailed and
painstaking answers on the DADA OWL, suggests he already was at an
early age.

Carol, wondering if Nora can provide evidence *from the HP books
themselves* to support her view that the FBWFT text should take
precedence over PoA in this instance