Teachers WAS:Re: SPOILERS: School Books

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184263

"Steve" <bboyminn@> wrote:
> 
> I'll add one more point that occurred to me. WE'VE made this about
Kappas, but that is not what it is about to Snape. He could care less
were Kappas are more commonly found. This is about Lupin, and Snape's
determination to undermine Lupin in the eyes of the students. 
> 
> It has nothing, from Snape's point of view, to do with Kappas, it is
about discrediting and undermining Lupin. 
> 
> We can't even say that Snape's statement is indeed fact. He may have
just made it up, again, to undermine Lupin.
> 
> Steve/bluewizards.
>
Carol responds:
I don't think you can safely say that this is about Snape's desire to
undermine Lupin, considering that all he says is, "That is incorrect.
Kappas are more commonly found in Mongolia." He's responding to what
the student wrote, not necessarily to what Lupin taught (or to what
the textbook says). Since no one reacts, calling him on his mistake
(Hermione doesn't whisper in Harry's ear that Snape is wrong, for
example), it's just possible that the textbook, which is *not* FB,
says exactly what textbook-memorizing Snape says it does. (I can cite
evidence for him memorization of textbooks if you want it.)

Since no textbook is specified for third-year DADA Potions students in
the Leaky Cauldron chapter, I thought at first that the omission was
an oversight on JKR's part, but I now think that Lupin is using the
same textbook that Quirrell used, which is probably the standard DADA
text for students below the NEWT level, just as there's no new Potions
book till NEWT year, and "1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi" apparently
gives Professor Sprout more than enough teaching material for all
seven years. (Lockhart and Umbridge introduced their own
"improvements" to the curriculum, requiring different DADA textbooks
in those years, but they're deviating from the norm.)

At any rate, Lupin's DADA students do have a textbook, as we see from
scenes with both Lupin and Snape, but it can't be FB because it has
whole chapters on the creatures studied, including werewolves and, if
Lupin's essay is any indication, vampires (which aren't mentioned in
FB). Other than Vampires, Lupin seems to have assigned only minor
creatures suitable to third-years; he's not following the alphabetical
arrangement of FB, which doesn't even mention Boggarts, and includes
many creatures that he doesn't mention. FB doesn't have chapters; the
combined entries for Grindylows, Kappas, and Red Caps would take even
a slow reader like Crabbe or Goyle no more than five minutes to read.
And since Snape tells the students to turn to page 394 (PoA Am. ed.
171), the DADA textbook can't possibly be FB, which has only 42 pages.

The book that Quirrell assigned during Harry's first year, "The Dark
Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection," by Quentin Trimble, includes a
picture of a vampire, mentioned in SS/PS, so it must have a chapter on
vampires that Lupin's students could use as a basis for their Vampire
essays. If so, it most likely has a chapter on werewolves near the end
of the book as well. 

Sidenote: My impression of the DADA text, whether or not it's "Dark
Forces," is that the more dangerous creatures appear in the later
chapters, which deal with Darker magic, and which makes more sense
than an alphabetical arrangement like FB's if the same book is used by
first- through fifth-year students. (After all, Charms has a new
textbook for each year and Transfiguration has beginning,
intermediate, and advanced versions. A textbook used by both beginning
and intermediate students would need to be arranged either by year or
by levels.) By third year, the students should have reached the
XXX-XXXX creatures that Lupin teaches about in his class (if Lockhart
hadn't interrupted the sequence by substituting his own textbooks).
They would not, however, be reading about werewolves and vampires till
OWL year if it weren't for the Lupin/Snape interaction.

Another reason I think that Lupin is using the same book that Quirrell
used, "The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection," is that the
students take that book to Fake!Moody's class in Harry's fourth year
(GoF Am. ed. 210). Fake!Moody, however, tells them to put the books
away because they won't need them (perhaps because the book deals with
Dark creatures, not spells; perhaps because he prefers to teach hands
on, including hexing his own students and casting the Imperius Curse
on them; perhaps both). I wondered why he would assign that text if he
didn't plan to use it, or why the students would take that book to
class if he *didn't* assign it (and, again, there's no new DADA text
on the booklist for that year). Having a standard text for first
through fifth year (which Fake!Moody chooses not to use) answers those
questions. 

Anyway, Snape being Snape, I suspect that he's memorized "The Dark
Forces," which may well have been the standard DADA text when he was a
student. (His encyclopedic knowledge of the DADA text used at that
time is reflected in his detailed answers on the DADA OWL.) But if he
read FB when he was at Hogwarts, he's apparently forgotten it, perhaps
dismissing it as frivolous, incomplete, and out of date (the first
edition was published, according to the introduction, in 1927). Quite
possibly, he hasn't read it at all since (again according to the
introdudtion), it's a *COMC* textbook, not a DADA text, and he may
never have taken that class. (Maybe three-headed dogs aren't included
in Trimble's book, which would explain Snape's problems with Fluffy! I
can't find them in FB, either, FWIW.)

At any rate, my first point is that Snape is just being his snarky
self, not undermining Lupin, when he makes the remark about Kappas.
He's commenting on the students' homework, not on Lupin's teaching, as
he wanders through the class while they read the werewolf chapter. (He
doesn't have any Potions to look at and criticize, so he criticizes
their homework instead.) My second point is that FB, a COMC text that
hasn't even been assigned to the third-years yet despite it's being on
the list of books for first-years (Hagrid having pulled a Lockhart and
chosen an "amusing" textbook in place of the standard one), is *not*
the textbook for Lupin's DADA class, so what that book says about
Kappas has no bearing on the students' answers or Snape's comment.
It's quite possible that Trimble's book, which Snape, being Snape,
would know quite thoroughly, *does* state that Kappas are "more
commonly found in Mongolia" than wherever the student located them
(perhaps England or the Americas, for all we know). 

I still think that the original mistake, if it *is* a mistake, is
JKR's, and that she chose to "correct" it by having Harry catch Snape
in an apparent error that has no bearing whatever on the story but
which she, Harry, and some readers would find amusing. (If Snape's
statement were "wrong" in the sense that it contradicted the textbook
that the class was using, you can bet that Hermione, who would have
memorized the assigned chapters, would have either raised her hand and
asked him about it ("But, sir, the book says . . .") or mentioned it
to Ron and Harry after class if she was afraid of yet another rebuke.
That she did neither indicates to me that Snape's version of the
Kappas' habitat matches that in Trimble's "Dark Forces." That it
doesn't match FB's version is irrelevant, given that FB is not the
DADA textbook.

Carol, hoping that the time she spent researching and revising this
post is worth the trouble!