Broken potionvial and Harry expectations WAS: Re: Bad Writing?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 163326

Alla wrote:
<snip>
> The fact that Snape is unfair and everyone knows that makes one and 
> only person's behaviour being wrong - **Snape** IMO. Undefensibly 
> wrong and even if other people accept it, ( and not everybody does, 
> actually), I do not see why Harry should.
> 
> I had my fair share of unfair grading experience back in Ukraine. I 
> am sure I mentioned it on the list, maybe even more than once. I 
> never had bastard like Snape in school( thanking my lucky stars 
> again and again) but when I was trying to get in to college, it was 
> pretty much a well known fact that jews cannot get into prestigious 
> college, any of them.
> 
> I guess by your logic Pippin by refusing to give up and refusing to 
> think that there is something wrong with me, but something very very 
> wrong with the system, I was engaging in not constructive behaviour, 
> lol :) I tried for three years over and over and over. I always got 
> the grade on the college entrance exams just a tiny bit lower than 
> it was necessary to get in it.
> 
> But never ever ever I thought that my expectations were incorrect.
><snip>
> And going back to Harry and Snape, I refuse to think that there is 
> anything wrong with Harry by expecting to be graded fairly, sorry.
<snip>

Carol responds:

I agree that there's nothing wrong with Harry's expecting a fair
grade, but I wonder if perhaps, because of your personal experience,
you're reading more into Snape's zeroes than is warranted by the books
themselves. Both of the zeroes that I recall occurred in Harry's fifth
year, OWL year, and neither affected his final mark in the course for
that year. Granted, Snape would not have allowed Harry into his NEWT
Potions class based on his E, but that E nevertheless indicates that
Harry was learning Potions in Snape's class in spite of both Snape and
his own inattention (for example, when he's more interested in the
conversation between snape and Umbridge than what he's putting into
his cauldron). Snape passes Harry every year up until OWL year, and in
OWL year, its his OWL score, not the marks he earns in Snape's class,
that determine whether he will be in Potions the next year. Snape,
understandably, wants Harry to pay attention and follow directions,
and most of the time, his low marks are for failing to do so. I agree
that the zero for the broken flask was unfair and that Snape's
gloating over it was petty revenge for the violation of his privacy in
Harry's Pensieve visit, but it does Harry no more long-term harm than
Harry's fantasies of crushing Snape like a dried beetle do to Snape.
Snape is, unfortunately for both of them, fanning the flames of
Harry's hatred with such pettiness, but he isn't ruining Harry's
career prospects, which depend on his OWL and NEWT scores, not the
marks he earns (or receives, earned or not) in any particular class.
(Harry's marks in Slughorn's NEWT Potions class are equally unearned,
but for the opposite reason. Harry is using Snape's knowledge and
experiments without knowing it to earn high marks he doesn't deserve.
There's your Karma or ironic retribution!)

Sweet are the uses of adversity. It strengthens character if we allow
it to do so.

Carol, who agrees that Snape is unfair but thinks that it's possible
to exaggerate the significance of such incidents by reading too much
into them or relating them to RL experience