Broken potionvial WAS: Re: Bad Writing? (was: JKR and the boys)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 163015

wynnleaf wrote:
> <snip> I think the notion of proposing that some other student
intentionally caused the vial to drop and Snape did nothing about it
is quite a stretch. <snip> If Draco caused the vial to break in full
view of Snape, yet Snape did nothing and even taunted Harry with it,
then this goes beyond what we've been shown in the past of Snape's
allowances for Slytherins.

Carol responds:
I agree. It was either Snape breaking it "accidentally" in full view
of the students, which seems almost equally unlikely, or the potion
vial slipping when Harry's back was turned, which Draco and Snape
found amusing and which Snape used, once he realized that Hermione had
Evanescoed the rest of Harry's potion, as a reason to give Harry a
zero, just as at other times he's given Harry a zero based on the
appearance of the potion. Harry's anger was not at Snape for
ostensibly breaking the potion vial, which breaks when his back is
turned, but for the unfair point deduction. 
> 
wynnleaf:
> If Snape did not actually drop the vial, and JKR was deceiving both
> Harry and the reader, then it would almost certainly be because she
> wanted Harry to think something bad about Snape that wasn't exactly
> true. <snip> But as I've said before, if Snape didn't drop the vial,
we'll have to find out in Book 7, or any "deception" on JKR's part
regarding this has no point.

Carol:
I disagree. I think that not seeing what Snape actually did or didn't
do contributes to Snape's ambiguity. It's also yet another example of
Harry's pov creating a reality that doesn't necessarily exist. Another
minor example that won't be returned to--Harry doesn't see Snape throw
the jar of cockroaches, which merely explodes above his head, but he
assumes that he threw it. However, the exploding jar looks to me more
like accidental magic of the kind that causes sparks to fly from
Snape's wand in PoA and caused Harry to "blow up" Aunt Marge. we won't
be told, either, that Snape knew perfectly well that DD was coming
downstairs and kept Harry there to keep him from running off down the
wrong corridor, which I'm pretty sure is what really happened despite
Harry's conclusion that Snape was trying to thwart him.

The scenes are open to different interpretations and allow us to draw
our own conclusions about Snape, which may or may not be the same as
Harry's. But there's no need to show whether Snape did or didn't drop
the vial. It's the point deduction that was unfair. But, as I think I
suggested in another post (in which I brilliantly attributed the scene
to the wrong book), and as Steve has explained in some detail, the
individual marks have yet to keep Harry from passing Potions,
especially since this scene actually occurs in his OWL year, when the
end-of-year mark can have no bearing on whether he passes the class or
not.

We're not going to get the missed bits of the Quirrell/Snape
conversation Harry overhead in SS/PS or of the Draco/Snape
conversation that he overheard in HBP. (The Snape/DD conversation that
*Hagrid* partially overheard and inadequately reported is another
matter.) We just need to be aware that what Harry "knows" is not
always accurate and that offpage action is subject to varying
interpretations. (Harry's interpretation, as presented by the narrator
or by Harry himself in dialogue, may or may not be right--all too
often, when we do discover what really happened, Harry is wrong.) 

But until or unless the "whoops!" moment is explained, what actually
happened will remain ambiguous. Which is fine with me. Not everything
can or should be explained, and if JKR were to account for all the
times that Harry has been wrong, even just wrong about Snape, she'd
have to write several chapters of pointless and boring exposition.
It's a character moment and a conflict moment and its best left with
the reader suspecting, but not knowing, that Snape dropped the vial.

Carol, who still thinks that it was Harry who carelessly placed it,
causing both Snape and Draco a moment of unexpected and vindictive
pleasure