Lying and Cheating & Potions!Genius....

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165542



Magpie wrote:
> <snip> If it's so valuable against Voldemort why isn't he
experimenting outside of class instead of things he'd rather be doing?
Instead he chooses to try out these amazing ideas only when it's
assigned to him in class and he wants to do well on the assignment
(and when he can't do the assignment at all he's not worried about
it--he's satisfied that his joke answer goes over well), and not make
any Potions that we see on his own. <snip>

Carol responds:

Exactly. And the answer is *not* that he's preoccupied with fighting
Voldemort or worrying about dying, as Valky suggests. If he were, he
wouldn't have procrastinated in getting the memory from Slughorn, just
as he procrastinated in GoF in preparing for the three tasks. He's not
thinking about dying at all: he's thinking about Draco Malfoy,
Quidditch, and Ginny. "Harry lay awake for a long time . . . trying to
convince himself that his feelings for Ginny were entirely
elder-brotherly" (HBP Am. ed. 289); "Harry lay awake for a long time
in the darkness. He did not want to lose the upcoming match; not only
was it his first as Captain, but he was determined to beat Draco
Malfoy at Quidditch even if he could not prove his suspicions about
him" (292). Not the thoughts of a boy preoccupied with dying any time
soon, or with defeating the Dark Lord whose chosen him as his nemesis.
He's no more interested in homework *as homework* than he's ever been,
Voldemort or not Voldemort. 

In Slughorn's class, he just wants to finish his potions without
losing his unearned reputation for brilliance, which is why he
switches the covers and gives Slughorn the new book disguised as the
old one with the rationalization that it cost twelve galleons, so
Slughorn is getting the better deal.

Look how desperate he is when he doesn't understand Golpalott's Law,
and the Prince (who does understand it and may well have arrived at
conclusions resembling Steve's--better to have a Bezoar on hand than
worry about figuring out an antidote to a blended poison when the
victim may die in the meantime--although, of course, a Bezoar doesn't
work on all poisons and some have no antidotes) doesn't explain it to him:

"He did not have the faintest idea what to do next. . . .

"'You sure the Prince doesn't have any tips?' Ron muttered to Harry.

"Harry pulled out his trusty copy of Advanced Potion-Making and turned
to the chapter on antidotes. There was Golpalott's Third Law, stated
word for word as Hermione had recited it, but not a single
illuminating note in the Prince's hand to explain what it meant.
Apparently, the Prince, like Hermione, had no difficulty understanding
it. . . .

"It took Harry only five minutes to realize that his reputation as the
best potion-maker in the class was crashing around his ears. Slughorn
had peered hopefully into his cauldron on the first circuit of the
dungeon, preparing to exclaim in delight as he usually did, and
instead had withdrawn his head hastily, coughing, as the smell of bad
eggs overwhelmed him" (376).

Meanwhile, Hermione is "decanting the mysteriously separated
ingredients of her poison into ten different crystal vials." Then
Harry finds the bezoar note scrawled across a list of antidotes, and
is reminded, surprise, of the first-ever lesson in Snape's class: "A
stone taken from the stomach of a goat, which will protect from most
poisons" 377). (BTW, I think Snape actually said "against," not
"from," but the point is that, finally, Harry is learning, from Snape
and Snape, Inc., what he should have learned from Snape along,
especially given the lessons on antidotes in GoF.

"It was not an answer to the Golpalott problem, and had Snape been
their teacher, he would not have dared to do it, but this was a moment
for desperate measures" (377).
> 
Valky:
> > The way I see it is that Harry is rushing things, trying to
squeeze everything he can out of a short moment between now and his
ultimate showdown with Voldemort, testing the HBP's Potions notes
under the supervision of a competent teacher is actually one of his
wiser decisions in doing that.

Carol responds:
Aside from the first lesson, in which he tries out the hints and finds
that they work (and, by the fourth lesson, have led to a reputation
for Potions brilliance that he knows is unearned), when does he *test*
them out? He knows that they'll work and that he'll get Slughorn's
praise, and he keeps his old Potions book disguised as a new one to
insure that he keeps on getting that help (and the jinxes and hexes as
well). 

But where and when does Slughorn *supervise* him? Does hopefully
sniffing his causdron and coughing at the smell of rotten eggs count
as "supervision of a competent teacher"? Unlike Snape, who prowls the
classroom making sure that students are following directions and
pointing out exactly what they've done wrong when the potion is the
wrong color, Slughorn seems to do virtually nothing in the class
except assign potions straight from an antiquated book (as opposed to
the improved potions that Snape casts on the board with his wand).
When and where, aside from conveniently mentioning why the pepperming
leaf the HBP suggested is a good addition, does Slughorn help Harry
understand the theory? He only praises Harry's "nerve" for presenting
him with a Bezoar and notes what Harry should already have learned
from Snape (and finally remembers, thanks to HBP!Snape), that a Bezoar
is an antidote to most poisons.

Hermione, who has half-finished her antidote comprising fifty-two
ingredients (with no help from any textbook because she understands
both the principle and the procedure) gets no credit at all. Forgive
me for indulging my feelings here, Mike and Steve and Valky, but it's
monstrously unfair. And even Slughorn notes that bezoars "don't work
on everything" and "it's still worth knowing how to mix antidotes"
(378)--which Hermione has learned how to do and Harry hasn't.

Magpie:
> He doesn't seem to be rushing things at all, to me. He seems to
spend the year at a fairly relaxed place, studying the Prince's book
because it interests him (mostly for the spells and the Prince as a
made-up person) not because he's desperately trying to gain skills for
Voldemort. It's a handy excuse to make when Hermione's on his back,
but everything you mention here (that he wants to test out all this
under the supervision of a teacher and learn as much stuff as he can
before he meets Voldemort) doesn't sound like HBP!Harry at all.
> 
Carol:
Exactly. He test out the *spells* but not the potions improvements,
which he merely uses in class and takes credit for. (Imagine if he had
somehow ended up with the HBP's book and Snape had still been the
Potions Master. OW!)


> > Valky:
> Harry is trying to get good and get it fast in case tomorrow is the
day Voldemort comes for him. <snip>

Carol:
Is he? I don't see it, sorry. And if that's his goal, he's failed
dismally given the disastrous results when he tries to do the antidote
experiment. *Snape* teaches him about bezoars, and thanks to
HBP!Snape, he finally gets it, luckily for Ron. But as far as
potion-making in general and potions theory is concerned, he's exactly
where he would have been with the unannotated book. He can add
ingredients and stir them with his wand. Heck, I could do that (only,
of course, I'm not magical so it wouldn't work.)
> 
Magpie:
 To me, to be honest, I find it far worse to claim Harry is what
Slughorn claims and deserves that praise than to say he doesn't. It 
makes me think of the Dursleys turning everything Dudders does into 
something good.

Carol:
Exactly. *Harry* know that he's not a Potions genius. So do Ron and
Hermione (and Draco, who's smouldering with anger at the end of the
antidote lesson, just as Harry would be if Draco had gotten away with
that cheeky pseudo-solution). Would anyone be praising Draco's
resourcefulness if the book had fallen into his hands rather than
Harry's? I think not, even though he's quite literally under a death
threat to himself and his parents, giving up Quidditch and not doing
his Transfiguration homework so that he can work on the cabinet. Not
commendable, of course. I'm not feeling sorry for Draco for getting
himself into such a mess, assuming that he volunteered the information
on the Vanishing Cabinets out of revenge for his father's arrest, but
he *is* operating under duress and Harry, Chosen One or no, is noth
thinking about death or danger that I can see.

At any rate, since Harry himself admits that the HBP is the genius and
he's just getting credit for using the results of someone else's
research, I don't see why people (not you, Magpie!) are still doing
the same thing Slughorn is doing and crediting him with a talent he
doesn't have and hard work he hasn't done, alternately with "it's okay
to take shortcuts because he's dying"--a thought we never hear from
Harry himself.
> 
> Steve:
> 'Golpalotts Method' was implied in the potions lesson, but it wasn't
stated (as far as I remember). 

Carol:
Slughorn, that "competent teacher," doesn't explain it. Neither does
the HBP, who doesn't need to make notes to himself because he
understands it perfectly well. Under ordinary circumstances, Hermione
would have explained it to Harry and Ron, but she's understandably
miffed that Harry is taking shortcuts and not really understanding the
material. (Ernie Macmillan does, BTW: he's muttering "Specialis
Revelio" under his breath. Hermione is doing it nonverbally. I'll bet
she can do the DADA spells nonverbally, too, beating Harry out in his
own specialty because she hasn't let resentment of Snape prevent her
from learning from him, either in Potions or in DADA.)

Steve:
True Harry did not apply 'Golpalotts Method', but he did find a fast
and practical solution to a very real and likely problem. And as far
as I'm concerned, he learned that particular lesson better than any of
the other students, because Harry taught himself, aided by the 
'Book', to find practical solutions to practical problems; not
theoretical solutions to theoretical problems. <snip>

Carol:
Harry taught himself, *aided* by the book? Harry came up with a fast
and practical solution? That's not how I read it. Harry attempted to
do the experiment, failed miserably because he didn't know the theory,
and resorted to "desperate measures" at the end of the lesson to avoid
losing the reputation for brilliance in potion-making that was
"falling around his ears." He did, thank God, *finally* learn the
lesson that Snape had been trying to get him to absorb for five years:
when someone is poisoned (unless it's a poison that doesn't have an
antidote, as the green potion in the cave appears to be) "just stuff a
bezoar down their throat."

Granted, it's a good thing that Harry *did* take that shortcut on the
Potions experiment because had he not done so, Slughorn (who's about
as much help in a crisis as Winky) would not have had a Bezoar in his
Potions kit. But Harry would not have known about Bezoars at all if it
hadn't been for Snape and his teenage incarnation in the Potions book.
> 
> Magpie:
> <snip> Kids have been trying to get away with "but what does it
matter how I got the answer when I got it right!" for years. The point
being that you're supposed to be learning what you're being taught in
class today, not do it the way you learned in sixth grade. Which is, 
remember, what Harry is doing. Bezoars aren't a new thing. The
practical solution that Harry learned that day was the one the rest of
the class learned years before. They tried to move on to learning a
more complicated law. I think we can be pretty sure Snape would have
taken points for any student answering with "cheek" instead of an
antidote brewed according to what he was teaching.
> 
> Steve:
> So, it is hard to say Harry cheated on something that is essentially 
> meaningless.
> 
> Magpie:
> I'm sure all the teachers on the list appreciate your putting them
in their place there.:-)

Carol responds:
Thanks, Magpie. As a former teacher, I appreciate that. I would hope
that students retain what they're taught into adulthood. In any case,
teachers do expect a student to know what he's doing, or they did in
my day, which is why a math student, for example, is expected to show
his work rather than using a calculator. But, as we've repeatedly
shown, Harry isn't doing his own work. He's not conducting research
out of class. He's using the HBP's brilliant ideas, the result of
*his* out-of-class research and experimentation, and claiming them as
his own. And when he hides the Potions book, he's back to square one.

Nor does his reputation for being a Potions genius help him get the
memory from Slughorn, whose reaction when Harry states (immediately
after the antidote lesson) that he thought there might be more to the
memory is to scream "Then you were wrong, werne't you? WRONG!" (380)
and to stop holding Slug Club meetings.

Now I, for one, am glad that Harry had the book and that it jogged
Harry's memory of Snape's first Potions lesson. I'm glad that Felix
Felicis helped him get the memory and helped protect Harry's friends
on the night that Draco let the DEs into Hogwarts. But none of that
makes Harry a Potions genius or makes it right (on a scale of
kumquats, not watermelons) for him to claim someone else's ideas as
his own, even implicitly, as he admits to himself and Hermione that
he's doing.

Just because an action has good consequences doesn't make the action
right. Otherwise, we should be praising Draco for complaining to Daddy
about Hagrid and Buckbeak and the Committee for the Disposal of
Dangerous Creatures (or whatever it's called) for sentencing Buckbeak
to death and sending Macnair to Hogwarts to execute him. After all, if
it hadn't been for those actions, Sirius Black would never have
escaped on Buckbeak. All's well that ends well, right? (Please don't
take my words at face value here!)

Carol, who thinks that all this defense of Harry's admittedly small
sin of omission on the grounds of "well, he's dying!" or "he's really
a Potions genius doing his own work" boils down to a reluctance to
credit the real genius, the HBP himself, Severus Snape, with his own
brilliant ideas and research