Snape, Hagrid and Animals

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 143709


> Marianne S:
> The thing is, while Hagrid may have been a bit over-eager to start
> things off with a bang, he was able to model for the students and
> the class had already witnessed how to follow the hippogriff
>  directions properly. Draco DELIBERATELY CHOSE to not follow those
> directions. 

Draco didn't choose not to follow the directions;  he wasn't paying
attention to what Hagrid was saying.  Careless, no doubt, but if YOUR
child was clawed by a giant animal, would you honestly be on the side
of the guy who flung him into the corral with it?  Draco was
whispering with his friends;  is this an extraordinarily unusual
activity in a class of thirteen-year-olds?  Shouldn't Hagrid have
repeated the directions several times if not everyone was listening? 
Snape at least writes his instructions down on a blackboard.

I could give someone quite clear directions on how to handle a horse
that needs sensitive handling; I still woudn't throw a kid up into the
saddle and tell them just not to jerk the reins. The point is, as
"Fantastic Beasts" points out in the hippogryph entry, large animals
that need sensitive handling should be handled only by experienced
persons, because making an error is so easy and has such damaging
consequences.  As a pilot friend of mine once told me, flying a plane
isn't difficult, you just can't make any mistakes!  Is hippogryph
handing that straightforward anyways?  What do they construe as an
insult?  Draco was slashed in the first few minutes of class, which
was then halted;  a dozen kids messing around with hippogryphs for a
whole hour without a mishap... I dunno.

I'm not saying that Draco wasn't responsible at all;  but the start of
this thread was, I believe, the assertion that he bore ALL the blame.
 Hagrid's classes are an accident waiting to happen;  that one did
happen to a kid that's not very pleasant doesn't mean there was
nothing wrong with the class.

-- Sydney, who isn't a riding instructor or anything, but has signed
enough giant liability forms to know a thing or two