Snape, Harry, Dumbledore, and flaws in the books

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 105860

Laurasia:

After all, is he is a kind  powerful headmaster, why  does he let a 
nasty bullying teacher bully his kids. Surely,  Dumbledore should 
stop it the second he discovers it.  Either he doesn't know, or he 
isn't the kind powerful head master Harry thinks he is, or else he 
wants it to happen. >snip<

Pippin:
It doesn't seem to be Dumbledore's job to evaluate the teachers. 
In PoA, it's the school's board of governors who tell Hagrid he 
started too big  and should have done flobberworms.  Snape's 
bullying style is unacceptable to a lot of us, along with 
Trelawney's outright fraud and Hagrid's incompetence, not to 
mention Binns, but the BoG apparently doesn't have a problem 
with any of it. 

 It's also perfectly consistent with a Dumbledore who believes in 
letting people make up their own minds and would 
rather have people disagree with him and be wrong,  than agree 
only because he's Albus Dumbledore and he said so.

Laurasia:
> For instance, it would matter little whether Ron and Hermione 
were  there with Harry, so long as he made it through the 
obstacles. Their  presence there makes little difference to 
Harry.<

You don't think it makes a difference to Harry that Ron was 
willing to die for him? Or that he discovers that, despite 
appearances, courage and friendship  are more important to 
Hermione than books and cleverness? Harry may not act any 
differently in the short run, but this is a seven book series.

And what about the fact  that Harry has to *choose* go on alone? 
He knew he would be no match for Snape and he could have 
gone back with Hermione to get help. Similarly, he could have 
tried to help Ron open the blocked passage in CoS rather than 
go on alone to the Chamber.

Laurasia:
>What is Hermione's breaking point? She's never been tested, 
so we don't know. <

Pippin:
We know when she decided to break rules for Harry--that was a 
test.  There are many others. She's not the main character, so 
her tests aren't going to be as dramatic as Harry's, and they're 
not going to come when they would undercut his.

Laurasia:
 What does it take to scare Ron? 
> Hey, they guy goes into the forest after the spiders, even 
though it  is what he fears most in the world out of loyalty to his 
friends-  Harry, imprisoned!Hagrid and petrified!Hermione. He 
doesn't runaway like a coward! He vomits into the pumpkin 
patch, that's all! 
> What does it take to make Ron lose his faith in Harry? 

Pippin:
We know that. It happened in GoF, when Ron thought Harry had 
entered the TWT without him. Again, Ron's tests aren't as 
dramatic as Harry's and they are timed so that they don't distract 
our attention from what Harry is doing.

Pippin