[HPforGrownups] RE: Snape as Neville's teacher/ First Impression of Draco/Marauders

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 168383

Alla:
>
> With this I agree 100%. Besides the clear proof that we see that
> gentle hand helps Neville better, as I think AD once said herbology
> and potions are interrelated disciplines and let's say now Snape is
> professor Sprout customer as to ingredients.

Magpie:
I don't know who AD is here, but I think that's a bit of a stretch.
Herbology is nothing like Potions that I can see. Neville really does seem 
to be bad at the subject (which draws Snape's attention that first day). 
Herbology is a far more peaceful situation for him, caring for living things 
and coaxing them to grow. Potions is about precise measuring and attention 
to detail, and if he messes one thing up the Potions don't work--it seems 
designed to be hit his weak spots. The fact that the things grown in 
Herbology make up some of the
ingredients doesn't relate the two subject that I can see.

Alla:
>
> While Neville may not be genuis in Potions, there is no reason IMO
> for him to do especially bad and be so frightened of the same
> plants, when now they are simply being cooked.

Magpie:
But who says Neville's "afraid" of the plants in Potions? He's not--he's 
afraid of doing the cooking wrong, which he does. Cooking is a totally 
different thing. Plants were ingredients in paints too, but that doesn't 
make good gardeners artists. Neville is bad at the more precise mixing of 
and making of Potions, and he doesn't seem to have a natural grasp of what's 
right and wrong, as he does
in Herbology. He's got a green thumb, but he's not a chef or a chemist. I 
think another reason the one subject might be more his style is that 
gardening is traditionally considered a calming activity while Potions is 
the opposite. A different kind of concentration is involved. I get the 
impression JKR is showing Neville's strong and weak points with these 
subjects--Herbology is connected to his patience and kind nature; Potions is 
about tests of precise skill of the type he's bad at.

Alla:
>
> He IMO should be much more enthusiastic of the subject because
> plants are present here too, if for no other reason.

Magpie:
I don't think so, actually. There are animals present too, and some think 
it's horrifying that Snape would have Neville do anything with them. If 
Neville likes to help plants grow, I don't see why he'd have particular 
interest in chopping up dead ones any more than having a pet toad means he 
should be particularly interested in adding toad guts to a Potion.

Alla:
>
> Say, he was doing that badly on first lesson - one advice, one extra
> study lesson and Neville may have been already feeling much better.

Magpie:
Maybe, yes. I don't think yelling at him helped him. But from what I've seen 
of Neville's personality I don't think it would have necessarily made him 
very good at the subject. He would have had a more pleasant time in the 
class and may have felt better about it and done better at it in class.

alla:
> You know, Dana, I think a lot of people think that per JKR Neville
> is the most appropriate candidate to become a teacher in the
> epilogue.
>
> Many people think that it will be Herbology he will be teaching. I
> will bet you now that he will be teaching potions and maybe JKR even
> mention how different his lessons were from the ones that greasy
> bastard was teaching, hehe. Or at least I would love that to happen
> very much. Heeeee, with Snape doing community service and servicing
> as Neville's assistant. MAHAHAHAHHAHA.

Magpie:
If I were a parent of a kid at Hogwarts, I'd be pretty angry at that
outcome. I know the old saying of "those who can't do, teach," but Neville 
does not fit into that example in canon, imo. The reason people who weren't 
naturals at a subject make good teachers for beginners is that they often 
understand the problems they have and so can explain how they overcame them. 
Neville doesn't seem to have reached that level. He's bad at Potions, but he 
doesn't seem to have grasped why in a practical way. He might be more 
patient with kids getting things wrong, but he doesn't seem like he'd be 
much help to them beyond that. Having Snape stuck being his assistant would, 
I think, just result in Neville bumbling through class looking obviously 
inept (with possibly not even a Potions OWL to his credit) while his 
assistant had the real skill needed to teach--and made him more nervous and 
miserable because of it.  I don't think the difference in classes would 
necessarily reflect well on Neville. (It's ironic that a new Potions teacher 
in HBP doesn't play that way either.)

Ceridwen:
It is interesting that I have never gotten the impression that Crabbe
or Goyle are good at Potions, or much of anything else besides
decorating Draco Malfoy.  They don't seem to be overtly portrayed as idiots 
in the books before HBP.  Does anyone else think Crabbe and Goyle are 
obviously poor students?  Or is that just me?

Magpie:
There are references to the Trio thinking they might fail, and Ron says that 
Goyle looks blank and confused whenever a teacher asks him a question. Snape 
seems to be forcing them through DADA again in sixth year so that they can 
re-take the OWL they failed. So yes, they do seem to be poor students. I 
believe the first day Harry says that Snape doesn't like anybody's work 
except Malfoy's (not except the Slytherins), which he says is done 
perfectly. I've never gotten the impression that Snape is nice about C&G's 
performance, but more that he just goes around and criticizes them just as 
harshly as everyone else so there's no reason to notice it. (I remember 
noticing that when Harry throws the firecracker in either Goyle or Crabbe's 
swelling Potion it makes everyone swell..)

But Neville still seems to unfortunately draws attention to himself on the 
first day by making a mistake with violent results. That's a problem Neville 
has, is that his mistakes are often that type, probably because of his 
nervousness. He throws Flitwick across the room, for instance, and explodes 
things. I'd guess Crabbe & Goyle's mistakes are more mundane--and that they 
have a much thicker skin when it comes to being called an idiot. It probably 
wouldn't make them more nervous.

Ironically, I think Snape tells one of them to lighten up on Neville in OotP 
when he's being strangled. He does it sarcastically, but the message is 
still to note that Neville can't breathe so don't hold him so tight.

Goodasitgets:
> I think this, (Harry sizing up Ron and Draco, and knowing the one > 
> trustworthy as a friend), was one of the first times we see how
> important the choices a person makes are to who that person becomes.
> Depending upon a person's priorities one may have chosen Draco as
> friend to be...but Harry seems not to give Draco even the possibility
> of friendship. Draco shows his true colors, and I think his
> insecurities too easily. What Draco is offering doesn't interest
> Harry. For some people it might have been tempting, or even the easy
> choice, to pair up as buddies with the rich one who seemed to possess
> some power.

Magpie:
I think Draco's insecurities are at the heart of the matter here. Draco, 
especially in PS/SS, represents to Harry both his own fears of rejection and 
his repulsion at those fears. Draco tries to hard to prove that he's 
accepted, and hits all of Harry's own buttons, both reminding him of Dudley 
(by bragging--dishonestly--that he's adored and doted on by his parents) and 
making Harry worry about his own inadequacy. Draco continues to mirror this 
in Harry--when Harry feels insecure, it's Draco's face that rises before 
him, laughing. When Harry feels secure, Draco is repulsive and pathetic. Ron 
presents these kinds of fears in a way that's comforting to Harry.

Facing his Sorting Harry is afraid most not of being put in Slytherin but of 
not being accepted anywhere. He connects this first to never being picked 
for teams at school, but reminds himself that back then his rejection never 
reflected badly on himself--it was only Dudley's threatening the other kids 
that made him an outsider. Now, though, he worries he might be truly 
rejected. (And Draco's own Sorting looks disgustingly easy to him, even 
though he himself has already rejected Draco twice.)

He's been told Slytherin is the bad house and as has already become his 
pattern, whenever he associates something with something negative he 
assumes, glumly, that he'll be that. When he says "not Slytherin" (not 
wanting the house that would prove him unworthy, like Malfoy and Voldemort 
both were, or stick him with Malfoy) the Hat, refreshingly, says he'd do 
well there too--though it never says, as Harry fears, that he *belongs* in 
Slytherin, as if he's never truly "worthy" of Gryffindor. The Hat, to me, is 
urging Harry to face the school in a more integrated way and not be afraid 
of Slytherin.

I see Betsy's point in thinking Harry and Draco were going to be friends, I 
think because Draco seems to her so obviously insecure and actually sharing 
a lot of the fears Harry himself has. And I still don't think Betsy's 
completely off there. Harry and Draco aren't becoming best friends, 
obviously, but I do think Draco is a Shadow Harry needs to stop completely 
repressing and instead see as more human, as a way of accepting those parts 
of himself. Just as I think Harry's Sorting puts off his day of reckoning 
with Slytherin while still setting it up as the part of his personality he 
needs to accept, something he seriously starts to do especially in HBP.

Neri:
When we find that Levicorpus was used by everyone on
everyone and was actually started by Snape himself, the interpretation of 
James using it changes a great deal.

Magpie:
It does? It didn't to me, and I didn't think it did to Harry. Harry's 
problems with James' dangling Snape by the ankle don't have to do with his 
disliking that particular spell but the way it's being used. True it would 
have made a difference to me, I think, if Snape really was being presented 
as the innocent rabbit you feel he's being made out to be, but I just don't 
think Snape's ever been shown that way. Harry's seen Snape as a bully for 
years before the Pensieve scene. Soon after the scene he even thinks it 
would be fine if it were the Twins doing it to Malfoy. I think the "truth" 
of the Pensieve scene that Harry hasn't quite grasped isn't that Snape 
wasn't really the guy he assumed he was, but that MWPP were bullies in the 
scene regardless. The only reason he isn't as okay with them doing what they 
did to him as he would have been if the Twins did it to Malfoy was because 
he was able to step outside the situation in ways he can't in his own life. 
MWPP, presumably, just didn't realize the lines they were crossing. Harry, 
having just dropped into the situation that day, saw it more from that pov, 
seeing that it wasn't always just about defending themselves from the 
oddball who deserved it. When he's not angry at Snape himself (as he wasn't 
in this scene, because this was a "new Snape") he couldn't get behind the 
hexing.

-m