Snape as Neville's teacher (was:Re: Snape as Noble teacher...)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 168391

Betsy Hp:
> Actually, in the WW herbology seems more connected to CoMC.  How did
Neville do in that?  I'd add that a lot of potions had animal bits as
their ingredients, so there's not as strong a Potions to Herbology 
connection as one might at first think.  (Plus, not all farmers make 
good cooks.  Just saying. <g>)
>
Carol responds:
 I think the idea some readers have that Potions and Herbology are
closely related classes is partly JKR's fault. She starts out in SS/PS
with separate textbooks for the two classes, "One Thousand Magical
Herbs and Fungi" is surely the Herbology text; no other book on the
first-years' book list could qualify. Similarly, "Magical Drafts and
Potions" is clearly the first-years' Potions book. The problem, as I
see it, is that Harry mistakenly thinks that Bezoars can be found in
"One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi," and from that point forward,
there's no mention of the book in which it actually would have been
found, the one on drafts and potions (presumably identifying Bezoars
as a common ingredient in antidotes and explaining what they are).
Instead, on the rare occasions before NEWT year when a book is
mentioned in relation to Potions (when HRH are writing an essay, for
example) the book is usually the book on plants which is surely the
Herbology text. (Neither Snape as Potions Master nor Sprout as
Herbology teacher seems to make much use of books in class.)

Regarding your farming/cooking analogy, I think that's close to the
mark, but maybe botany/chemistry would be even closer. Potions, as
Snape says, is both an art and a science. It deals with dangerous
substances; it requires exact measurements and careful attention to
timing and directions. (Gifted potion makers can experiment outside of
class, but in a lab class, students are expected to replicate, as
nearly as possible, a standard set of directions.) Herbology, in
contrast, seems to be mostly hands-on contact with living plants (much
as CoMC involves hands-on contact with living magical creatures. as
you point out). The characteristics and uses of the plants and animals
seem to be secondary to the plants and creatures themselves.

Now Neville may know the uses of a Mimbulus Mimbletonia, but he's
interested in the plant itself, its care and possibly its propagation,
rather than the plant as a potion ingredient. And, as you say, many
potion ingredients--Bezoars, leech juice, lacewing flies,
flobberworms, to name just a few, come from animals. At least one that
I can think of, moonstone (Snape assigns an essay on the uses of
moonstone in potion-making) is a mineral. I'm fairly sure that other
minerals are mentioned as well.

At any rate, a green thumb. or a simple love of plants, may translate
into an aptitude for Herbology. But if you can't light a fire under a
cauldron without melting it, or you put in the ingredients in the
wrong order or the wrong amount, that aptitude for Herbology won't
help you in Potions, any more than an ability to write excellent
essays in a literature class will help you in algebra.

Carol, wondering if Neville's gran was good at Potions and expected
him to follow in her footsteps (as she did with Transfiguration, while
dismissing Charms, which she was less skilled at, as a soft option)