Teachers WAS:Re: SPOILERS: School Books

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184239

Carol:
> Surely, if JKR had intended for Snape to be wrong in the first
place,she would have had the characters find out about it in PoA. 

Pippin:
That seems a rather fusty aesthetic for a popular entertainment in the
multi-media age. People expect to find tie-ins, "Easter Eggs" and
"extras" on websites and DVD's, why not in books? 

JKR said she'd always had a desire to write "Fantastic Beasts", even
before she was asked to create something for Comic Relief, so I could
believe that she started saving some information for it as early as
PoA. She had become a best-selling author by then, and could pretty
much assure herself that anything she wrote as a Harry Potter tie-in
would be published.  

But as for whether it's in character for Snape to make such a blunder,
surely you've noticed he has a tendency to be overconfident where
Lupin is concerned? It wouldn't be the first time, or the last, that
he got in over his head. 

 Having felt no need  to refresh his memory of the third year DADA
syllabus, especially since he intended to discuss werewolves in any
case, perhaps he hadn't spared a thought for Kappas since he finished
revising for his NEWTS, some twenty years previous. It's not like
Voldemort is likely to be importing them. 

 I admit, overconfidence as an explanation of Snape's blunder works
equally well for JKR. But AFAWK, Snape has no reason to make mention
of Mongolia particularly, and JKR does -- it's a funny name, like St
Mungo's. In any case, it's a bit silly to contend that JKR wouldn't
know where Kappas are actually said to live, since she went to the
trouble of researching them in the first place. 

She could have invented an explanation that would make Snape look
good, simply by using FB to establish that in her world, there *are*
Kappas in Mongolia. (BTW, the Kappa legend could have orginated in
mainland Asia. So maybe Snape was right! 
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kappa.shtml))

 But having scorched Harry for being unprepared on *his* first day of
class, and having further twitted Lupin for his lack of organization,
it was inevitable that Snape would reveal some similar inadequacy of
his own. That's JKR's style all over.

Pippin