Hagrid and Draco WAS:Re: Dumbledore as a judge of character/ Trelawney and Snape

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 166144

 
> Alla:
> 
> I absolutely can conceive of that happening. That is no guarantee, 
> for sure, but what I had saw on that lesson was Hagrid being 
> enthusiastic and genuinely wanting to teach ( mistakes and all), I do 
> see him losing his enthusiasm **after** that lesson. I think it is 
> conceivable that it influenced him that much.
 
Hickengruendler:

I only agree with you as far as PoA goes. i do think that him showing 
Flobberworms to the class showed, that he had become overly careful and 
lost most of his enthusiasm. Basically, he went from one extreme 
(showing the Kids Hippogriffs during their first lesson), to another 
(showing them something completely boring).

But in the later books, he was back to his old enthusiasm (as the 
Nifflers, Thestrals and Blast-Ended Skrewts showed). The Skrewts, in 
particular, didn't even really exist. They were cross-bred by Hagrid. 
The students will never met any Blast Endes Skrewts outside of Hagrid's 
classes. (The one in the maze doesn't count. If Hagrid 
hadn't "invented" them, there would have been none to put in the maze). 
Therefore what else could be Hagrid's reason to show them the class if 
not his enthusiasm for them? He had his newest hobby and he didn't even 
consider, that the students might share it. And he's honestly 
surprised, that nobody wanted to continue the subject? I wouldn't have 
either.

That said, I don't think Hagrid is all bad as a teacher. The lessons 
with the Nifflers and the Thestrals (until Umbridge arrived, that is), 
were IMO very good ones and showed, that he has some real Potential. 
What he needed was some guidance, and even though I don't want to blame 
Dumbledore for everything, seeing that he was the one hiring Hagrid, he 
also was in some responsibility to give him some guidance.

But I want to come back to a few mentioned examples about Dumbledore's 
so called bad judgement, because I didn't agree with even half of them. 
I will mention the ones, where I didn't agree with.

- I will leave Snape out. Because he wa sthe reason for this debate, 
and using him as an example now seems just wrong. I think most of you 
know anyway, that I think Dumbledore was correct in trusting Snape.
- Binns was mentioned, but we don't know if Binns was hired by 
Dumbledore. Maybe he is teaching history since Armando Dippet's times 
or even longer, and Dumbledore can't fire him. (Thouih it does make me 
wonder, if there's any chance that the students might get a decent 
history teacher).
- Another example was Trelawney. But Dumbledore never misjudged her. I 
think he saw her for what she was from the very beginning. He even 
mentioned that he didn not want to hire her until she made the 
prophecy. Giving her the position was solely to protect her and the 
prophecy from Voldemort. This might have been a doubtful decision. In 
fact, I agree with what Alla wrote some time ago, that this is a prome 
example for the problem for Dumbledore's character, that he has to fill 
two shoes as the leader of the good guys and Headmaster of a school. As 
Headmaster, his decision to hire Trelawney was simply wrong, but as 
leader of the good side, it's not only understandable, but really 
necessary, that he acted, like he did. And I think in this case JKR saw 
the problem as well and explaine dit somehow, in having Dumbledore 
mention, that he thought about not continuing the subject anyway, 
meaning he didn't expect the students to learn much from Divination at 
all. But no matter if we agree with Dumbledore's choice to hire 
Trelawney in spite of her doubtful abilities, he still did not misjudge 
her and recognized her as mostly a fraud from the very beginning.  
- Lockhart was said to be the only choice. That's the explanation 
within the books. I know there are some problems. (Why not giving Snape 
the post, who at least knew something about the subject? Why not asking 
Lupin or Moody a year earlier? Etc, etc.) But the explanation given was 
that Dumbledore had to hire Gilderoy, because nobody else wanted to 
teach this subject anymore. 

Hickengruendler