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

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 153050

> 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.)

Neri:
I've just now remembered – stupid of me to forget it – in fact the
narrator shows Draco to be sucking up not only before the OWLs to
Snape and after the OWLs to Slughorn, but even *during* the OWLs:

*******************************************************************
OotP, Ch. 31:
Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy had found a different way to induce panic.
"Of course, it's not what you know," he was heard to tell Crabbe and
Goyle loudly outside Potions a few days before the exams were to
start, "it's who you know. Now, Father's been friendly with the head
of the Wizarding Examinations Authority for years — old Griselda
Marchbanks — we've had her round for dinner and everything..."
******************************************************************* 

Now, I know about this "unreliable narrator" argument that can be used
to contradict practically anything, but this is too much. Are you
saying that Harry just imagined that he heard these words? Ron,
Hermione and Neville hear them too, and they discuss them. Are they
too unreliable?

The fact is, the narrator (not Harry) very consistently characterizes
Draco throughout the series as the sucking up student. Not just to
Snape. Also to McGonagall (when he frames the trio in SS/PS), to old
Marchbanks, and to Slughorn. In fact, this characterization is so
consistent that if I were *explicitly* told in canon that Draco has an
O in his Potions OWL, my first and automatic thought would be that his
father indeed managed to bribe someone in the Examinations Authority. 

Now, it *is* in principle possible that a sucking up student would
also be a good student, but it is not very likely. If you're really
good at something you don't usually need to suck up, and you'd want to
take the challenge and prove that you can do it without the sucking
up. Had the narrator made any attempt to show us, just once, that
Draco is indeed good at potions *independently* of his sucking up
relationship with Snape, I would be ready to consider it. But as it
is, the narrator practically prevents me, with Draco's words above,
from believing that he could have achieved an O in his OWL in any fair
way. 


> 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.

Neri:
I'm not challenging that, although I'd say you still need to explain
what does Snape have against Hermione, the best student in his class.
What I do challenge is the claim that Snape's style of teaching, while
being very nasty to some students, at least produces results. Of
course, anybody is entitled to his own opinion regarding the results
that such teachers produce in RL, but within the story, I don't see
JKR suggesting it in regard to Snape, nor in regard to any other
teacher. If at all, she suggests the very opposite.

Neri