Scary Teachers - Good Teachers (was: Re: Hagrid and Snape...)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 152991

> Tonks:
We know that Ginny is the 7th daughter of
> the 7th daughter.  So it would seem that she has a significant role
> to play in the final book somehow. And I wonder if Molly and DD are
> related a long way back thus making Ginny a "true Gryffindor".  I
> know that they can't have a strong immediate family connection
> otherwise DD and Aberforth would come to Christmas dinner at the
> burrow.

Magpie:
This is a total nitpick but that 7th daughter of a 7th daughter thing 
(which I know is from JKR, not you) drives me crazy.  Ginny is NOT a 
7th daughter of a 7th daughter.  To be that both she and Molly would 
both need SIX older sisters.  That's what that bit of folklore is 
about.

Regarding the Gryffindor thing, I find something a little fishy about 
blood not mattering and Ginny being  "true Gryffindor" via the 
blood.  Not that it couldn't be true, of course, since we've seen the 
Slytherin line.  Just seems a little more of having one's cake and 
eating it too.

Neri:
I fully agree. My strong impression during all the books is that there
are much more than 280. Just one example out of many: Harry doesn't
know *both* seventh-years Gryffindors Belby and McLaggan when Slughorn
introduces them in HBP, and they must have been in Gryffindor house
through the five years of Harry being there. I flatly refuse to
believe he doesn't know them after five years if there are only 10
Gryffs in his year and about another 10 in the year above him.

Magpie:
Harry needed to be told the name of a kid he's been taking class with 
for five years in OotP.  I don't think there's anything he couldn't 
have missed about the other kids in the school.  Even if there are 
more than 280 students it's still ridiculous Harry wouldn't know the 
names of the kids in his house, imo.

Neri:
Logically there would be several other EE students with no
textbooks jumping on this golden opportunity, but somehow they never
arrive. Why? Perhaps McGonagall and all the other heads of houses just
failed to inform them? Or are Harry and Ron the only students in the
year that got EE in potions? It doesn't make sense. Much simpler to
assume that Ron and Harry just missed some notice that the others 
didn't.

Magpie:
As far as we know, there just are no other students who decided to 
take Potions because they got into it.  Perhaps it would have made 
more sense to have a few more students besides Harry and Ron asking 
for books, but it's not impossible.  Perhaps all the other students 
who really needed Potions made sure to get O's in Snape's class. As 
odd as that is, it's still far simpler than creating an elaborate 
announcing system that only Harry and Ron don't know about, 
especially when they're friends with Hermione the exposition machine 
and she doesn't know there's a new Potions teacher any more than they 
do at the feast, nor does she know about any new NEWT requirements, 
which she would have told them about.  It never makes sense to 
assume Hermione has missed a notice about anything.  

This is not to say that the rest of the class *must* be OWL 
students.  Perhaps some of them showed up trying to take the class 
with EEs even without knowing about a change and they got in--
Neville's trying to sign up for NEWT classes he's not qualified for 
too.  So I think it's a reasonable assumption that Harry and Ron are 
the only EE students, but there's enough wiggle room to say that they 
aren't.  Though if the only reason we're thinking that is so that 
Snape comes across as less of a teacher, I think that's a lost 
cause.  If he was ultimately ineffective after all his sniping, we'd 
hear about it.  Seems to be the evidence is that he does get results.

Neri:
Would Draco get an Outstanding in Potions? We have five years worth
information on him in potions class. Can you point me a single example
of him showing any excellence? You know, giving the right answer,
getting his potion to be the right color before the other students,
helping his friends, any of the things Hermione does five times in any
lesson.

Magpie:
Yes, I think Draco could easily have gotten an Outstanding in 
Potions, because getting an O on an OWL does not, as you seem to be 
suggesting, mean he must have been performing miracles and awing the 
class, or even that the narrator must be consistently telling us that 
Draco's doing really well on this or that Potion.  It just means he's 
one of the A students in a demanding class.  If Draco had been shown 
to be having trouble in Potions then yes, I would wonder about him 
getting an O, and the narrator would no doubt say how that happened.  
But since Draco has consistently been shown to have no trouble in 
Potions, which has nothing to do with sucking up to Snape, I see no 
reason to think he can't have an O. It's not something the narrator 
needed to foreshadow that much.

Neri:

****************************************************************
HBP, Ch. 22:
Ernie was looking rather grumpy; determined to outshine Harry for
once, he had most rashly invented his own potion, which had curdled
and formed a kind of purple dumpling at the bottom of his cauldron.
Malfoy was already packing up, sour-faced; Slughorn had pronounced his
Hiccuping Solution merely "passable."
****************************************************************

If these are the elite, the WW is in trouble.

Magpie:
No it's not.  Ernie making the bad decision to create his own Potion 
to beat Harry and it not working out does not suggest he wasn't an O 
OWL student. Draco, one of the students Slughorn studiously ignores, 
making a hiccupping solution does not suggest he's not an OWL 
student.  Actually, they both to me come across as perfectly 
believable O students in that scene, which is what canon implies that 
they are to begin with.  It's not impossible that either one of them 
could be an EE, but there's nothing that shows they can't be O's.  

-m