Teachers WAS:Re: SPOILERS: School Books

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 184248

---  "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> Alla:
> > 
> > Does it matter though for that reason he did not know?  
> > What I am trying to say is that you think that he did not
> > know because he was being too full of himself, right? ...
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> I'm not Potioncat, of course, but my understanding is that 
> Potioncat *doesn't* think that Snape was wrong. Her earlier
> post indicated that she thinks (as I do) that the mistake 
> was JKR's (she didn't realize when she wrote that bit of 
> dialogue that Kappas are a Japanese magical creature, not a 
> Mongolian one) and she covered up her own blunder by making
> it Snape's--pointlessly, because the mistake is never 
> revealed in the actual series. 
> 
> ...
> 
> Essentially, I think that the chief difference between 
> Potioncat's position and mine is that she finds JKR's 
> cover-up tactic amusing and I find it annoying. ...

bboyminn: 

I'm working from memory here (a very poor one at that) but I
believe Snape says something to the effect that Lupin is
wrong and that Kappas are /more commonly/ found in Japan.

First, we don't know what Lupin told the students. We only
know, according to Snape, that Kappas are LESS commonly 
found at Lupin's location. Further, we don't know that Snape
is giving us the MOST common location where Kappas are
found, only that it is more common than whatever Lupin said.

I suspect it is like the range of any animal, it is spread
across several countries, and exactly where the greatest
concentration is is debatable and changes with time. Exactly
where the country of origin is is debatable, and the current
greatest occurrence is not necessarily the country of origin.

So, in this sense, Snape doesn't have to be wrong in his 
statement, he only has to be, in his mind, more right that
Lupin.

And from that perspective, JKR (and by extension Snape) can be
both right and wrong. 

Steve/bluewizard