Hogwarts Teachers - Lockhart (was History at Hogwarts) (was Re: Wizard Persecution )

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 126244


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "magistera_coi" 
<magistera at g...> wrote:
> 
> SSSusan "cubfanbudwoman" <susiequsie23 at s...> wrote:
<SNIP> 
> 
> Jumping in (another new face here) - while Lockhart is pretty 
useless
> at teaching DADA, he's certainly effective at teaching Harry why 
one
> shouldn't be caught up in one's own celebrity. Granted, Harry 
doesn't
> so much need to learn this, but maybe Dumbledore thinks he should.

Hmmm.  But what about the other students who aren't getting DADA 
skills?  Granted, Harry is clearly the most important student at 
Hogwarts with regard to the coming war, but does that justify 
teaching him some vague, and almost certainly unneeded, lesson about 
celebrity at the expense of his own DADA education and that of 999 
others?

It's questions like these, combined with questions of practicality 
like how exactly Dumbledore is supposed to plan and anticipate and 
control unforeseeable and uncontrollable events, that make me think 
superpuppetmaster!Dumbledore, and for the most part 
regularpuppetmaster!Dumbledore, is almost purely a creation of 
fandom.


> After all, one of the (alleged) points of leaving him with the 
Dursleys, 
> aside from the whole blood protection thing (which I personally 
think
> is very shoddy) is to keep him from growing up as TBWL, constantly
> aware of his celebrity.

I agree that the whole blood protection thing is so riddled with 
unanswered questions (e.g. exactly what did DD say to Petunia?), 
plot holes (e.g. why don't the DEs just kill Harry while he's out of 
the house at Muggle primary school?), and character contradictions 
(e.g. an "epitome of goodness" who appears to be extremely tolerant 
of child abuse) as to be a major, major problem.  However, the 
whole "not turning Harry's head" explanation is even worse, so I 
think we have to go with the first one, bad as it is.

By the way, I tend to agree with nrenka on this one.  That is I 
don't think JKR has the books plotted out in nearly the detail or 
clarity she likes to let on, and she may well have changed her mind 
about the reasons for Harry being at the Dursleys between Book I and 
Book IV when the blood protection first gets mentioned.  That is she 
may have originally intended to go with DD's explanation to 
McGonogall in Book I, then realized later that just wasn't going to 
cut it and decided to emphasize an alternative that, unfortunately, 
raises as many difficulties as it solves.


Lupinlore