[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape and DADA

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 112041


--- eloise_herisson <eloiseherisson at aol.com> wrote:
> What is more intriguing from the plot development perspective is
> just 
> how this is important to the next two books. Just what is it that 
> could be given away by JKR answering this question fully? what *is*
> the worst that would be brought out in him? Why the laugh at that 
> point, the "somewhat"? It reads to me like the consequences would
> be 
> pretty dire and I have a strong feeling that Dumbledore knows 
> something about it that he's not told Snape and which consequently 
> JKR can't tell us.
>
> ~Eloise


The worst in Snape is his inability to understand people.  He
consistently assumes the worst of others (especially those he doesn't
like - which seems to mean the entire world outside of Dumbledore and
McGonagall).  Especially he assumes the worst about Harry.

I think the key to this mystery is his soliloquy to Harry about not
wearing emotions on your sleeve or you'll be easy meat for the Dark
Lord.  Snape views almost all emotions as potential sources of
weakness and therefore things to be clamped down on hard for safety's
sake.  

Should he become DADA professor, he would view his task as training a
miniature army of aurors, without regard for their youth, their
innocence or their human tendency to make mistakes.  The battle is
too important to risk losing: victory means the survival of the
entire wizarding world.  Talk about emotions or feelings or settling
for less-than-perfect results is so much self-indulgent nonsense in
the face of the larger battle.

This lack of perspective would actually work against Snape's efforts
to teach DADA.  I'm sure he sneers at the idea of learning about
grindylows or other obscure creatures that most students would never
run into unless they went on safari or around the world.  This isn't
DADA to him.  What they should be learning, in his opinion, is all
the dark stuff that swirls around the dregs of society and what
Voldemort is capable of; how to defend yourself against sudden
attacks from behind; how to protect yourself.  "Constant Vigilance!" 
wouldn't begin to describe Snape's teaching methods of DADA.

Magda 



		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail