[HPforGrownups] Broken potionvial and Harry expectations WAS: Re: Bad Writing?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 163335

Lupinlore:
> And yet, as Alla points out, Harry's prospects would have been ruined
> save for the heavy-handed plot manipulations mentioned above.

Magpie:
Well....as much as I agree that an unfair teacher can have much farther 
results than just not liking class, I don't know that we can really talk 
about Snape's ruining Harry's career through his unfairness. It's more like 
Snape's ruining the career of any student not getting an O in Potions, 
because its his higher expectations for NEWT classes that would have kept 
Harry out (which seems to be okay by Dumbledore, just as McGonagall is 
allowed to only accept E students and above etc.)

Since Harry isn't an O student in any other class except DADA that I 
remember, and has never shown a particular interest or aptitude in Potions, 
I can't just assume that with another teacher he'd have gotten an O on his 
NEWTS. One might suggest that Binns might have been more harmful to him by 
boring him in class--and Trelawney's class seemed to be worthless too. So 
while I think it's totally valid to say that Harry should not have to put up 
with the stuff he puts up with in Potions, I don't think I'd blame Harry 
getting anything less than an O on Snape given Harry's experience in class. 
Ironically, as Pippin pointed out, there's a lot of blatant favoritism going 
on in Slughorn's class too--even more so, only it favors Harry.

-m