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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 153044

Err..fixing for confusing typos:

Neri:
Perhaps you are drawing on your RL experience here, but it doesn't
seem to fit with canon. If it did, then Harry would have had an O in
CoMC, which he never had any trouble with, and Hermione would have had
an O in DADA. The fact is, the only two O grades that the narrator
told us about except for Hermione's are Harry's in DADA and Neville's
in Herbology, and in both these cases we were consistently shown that
the student has a real flare for the specific subject.

Magpie:
No, I'm drawing on canon, with which it fits fine. I saw Harry's OWL 
grades so accept what I'm told for them.  I'm also accepting what 
seems to be Draco's grades.  He's Draco's favorite teacher, and Snape 
has been shown to be demanding (as is his father) and not to suffer 
fools well.  He shows up in the NEWT class prepared for class.  It's 
a conclusion that's logical and unremarkable.

Draco sneers at the idea that "some people got Ds" on their practice 
OWL and laughs at Harry being in remedial Potions.  Snape holds him 
up as an example the first day.  Then he shows up in NEWT Potions 
with his textbooks in hand. 1+1+1=3.  No need for more on top of 
that.  Draco's O has been "foreshadowed" fine.  We hear Neville's 
good in Herbology because he's not good in other subjects and Harry 
can see it's his hobby, but not all O's have to come with a special 
story attached. It's just an Outstanding on a test.  Good students 
must just get them regularly and Malfoy getting one in Potions is no 
surprise. If Snape had been teaching Potions and it required an O I'm 
quite sure JKR would have still had Malfoy in the class.

Neri:
And notably, the narrator *was* consistent in showing Draco sucking up
to the teacher. Just five minutes into his first assignment in the
NEWT class he tried sucking up to Slughorn. If the narrator can be
bothered with foreshadowing and aftershadowing Draco sucking up in
potions, surely she can also be bothered with showing he's good at it?

Magpie:
Harry was consistent in describing Draco as sucking up to Snape 
because Harry sees Draco as a suck up, period, and it adds to Draco's 
characterization as a villain.  (If the sucking up went along with 
mediocre performance we'd hear about it.) What it's really 
foreshadowing is the relationship between Draco and Snape in HBP, 
which is more complicated.  I have a hard time imagining Snape's 
favorite can't pull an O on the OWL. Draco's being competent in his 
subject is more likely to fuel the favoritism rather than the 
favoritism fueling his grades.  For a kid who is not Harry's friend 
and in Slytherin I don't think we need more than some references to 
Draco being cocky and favored; it's not like he has to be the best. I 
doubt the author thought Malfoy's getting a good grade in his 
favorite class needed that much defense.

In Slughorn's class Draco's trying to win something.  That's not 
"foreshadowing" or "aftershadowing" Draco sucking up in Potions while 
working at EE level rather than O level.  It's Draco trying to get a 
hold of that liquid luck, Slughorn being a teacher who responds to 
sucking up.


> Betsy Hp:
> The actual number of students in Harry's class isn't really Flinty,
> IMO.  *Everything* in canon supports the number being around 40
> total.

Neri:
Except for JKR herself:

Magpie:
Who can't add for toffee, which is why everybody puts her writing 
skills above her maths skills.  Years from now when people read the 
books they're going to see the suggested 40 students and a random 
interview where the author said she liked to picture Hogwarts as 
having however many more students won't mean much. Just as Charlie 
Weasley will be whatever age canon suggests and not the answer she 
gave in the interview.

Neri:
Er... this kind of reasoning works in both directions, you know. If
JKR wanted to show that Snape's nastiness in class produces results, I
doubt she'd have left it up to her readers to calculate the ratio
between 10 NEWT students that are never explicitly said to get Os and
the total number of students in the year that she admits herself she
never consciously thought about. But as you say, speculation is fun 
<g>.

Magpie:
She isn't leaving it to that either.  She's characterizing Snape as a 
tough teacher with high standards without anything or anyone much 
challenging that in the book.  That's far more important in this 
world than numbers, imo.

Neri:
Now, can you imagine what would have happened if Mrs. Weasley hadn't
spotted this detail in the school list? We would probably have later a
conversation at Hogwarts that would go something like this:

Magpie:
Mrs. Weasley spotted the detail on the school list because it was on 
the school list, just as the fictitious new NEWT requirements would 
have been spotted on the school list in HBP if they existed.  
Hermione may have not thought to mention dress robes, but she would 
have mentioned NEWT requirments.  And she certainly would have 
mentioned it in retrospect when the boys showed they were clueless, 
the way she always does when they're clueless about something she 
knew about all along.  She doesn't, they don't, nobody  does.

We know about the dress robes on the list because it's in canon 
through the boys learning about it.  There is no such scene with 
Harry and Ron learning about the NEWT announcements.  In fact, canon 
suggests everyone's in the same boat they are.

-m