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With just the little slice we’ve gotten about the man, there is a good bit to discern about Snape’s character. We’re only seeing one side of him currently, through the lens of a child, but it is still hard for me to look at him differently.
Yes exactly. We’re only seeing one side of him now, but the fact remains that he’s being terribly cruel to children. Draco is actually Snape’s exception, not his rule. His rule is to bully and belittle his students, not just Harry. With Harry, he clearly takes a special pleasure in belittling him but it’s an all around bully system from Snape.
I’m actually…disturbed that Dumbledore or McGonagall don’t call him on it. What about the parents? Do they hear about Snape’s treatment of their non-Slytherin children and voice concern?
Does Hogwarts have PTA meetings or the equivalent? If it’s dire enough, then they call (er…”call”) the parents, but when parents receive owls from their kids stating that Professor Snape is doing X, is there no parent that becomes concerned?
(Am I over thinking this? Yes, probably.)
It’s funny I never thought of it this way. I always wondered why Hogwarts students didn’t take more “normal” courses like math or literature, simply because no matter if you’re Muggle or Wizard, these things should come in handy: math, reading, science. But yes, potions taking the place of chemistry, wizard vs muggle history, etc makes sense from a basics perspective.
I recall an interview once with JKR where she said that schooling pre-Hogwarts in magical households was conducted by the family. So things like math and reading and spelling would be on the parent. Which means that by 11 you’re expected to know all the rudimentary things in order to start your magical learning.
As I got older though? Probably History of Magic. Because I’m a huge history lover/nerd and had a really boring teacher like Binns (who might have been a ghost too).
Yes absolutely. I love history as well–actually wish we had more of it in the books themselves, but alas.
The more secretive something is, the more tempted Harry is to find out about it. After all, this entire Wizarding World is a mystery to him. He’s been shielded from the truth for the past 10 years living with the Dursleys.
It’s temptation, you’re right. Temptation follow Harry throughout the series: horcruxes or deathly hallows, for instance.
This is one of the first big ones and it’s that illusive tree-of-knowledge sort of feelings. You have been told not to worry about a thing. So what do you do? You worry about the thing. Why? Because humans are curious by nature. When we are told that something is off limits, out of reach, or none of our concern it instantly becomes something we *have* to know about.
I’ve always wondered why hasn’t Harry or any student for that matter ever tried reporting Snape’s actions to Dumbledore
I see Matt and I are on the same page here.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Thanks for the analysis Jo! Nothing like a good ol’ slice of life chapter, eh? I’ll admit, this is one of the reasons I find it hard to go back and re-read the very earliest books. While I like really digging in and hunting for themes, symbols, motifs, or what have you, the first book can often feel like it’s moving slowly because JKR did have to build her world from scratch. She couldn’t just throw Harry (and us) into the cosmic side of things until we’ve explored the new magical world, which can often mean sitting through potions lectures.
However, there is something to JKR’s writing that is so…charming might be a good word here. Like Harry, we’re enchanted with Hogwarts and its moving staircases, suits of armor that can move, pictures that talk, and even Poltergeists that act like little menaces. World building can be painstaking at time–@Josephine and I both tend to agree that reading Tolkien can feel like a chore because of the amount of time he will spend describing one thing (world class mythologist, sometimes a little too concerned with details) but JKR makes you want to be in her world because of how well she crafted it. She doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time describing each and every little thing, but what she does hammer out are the ways in which this world (the Hogwarts world) is so totally different from ours. Like Ron trying to prod Dean Thomas’s poster into moving or a staircase that decides it wants to go left instead of right because they are apparently independent thinkers (speaking of, should we ponder the fact that wizards can create “life” with the ability to think and act?)
Once again, Rowling takes the time to parallel the experiences between the magical and the mundane. Hogwarts students might not have science, but they do study astronomy and potion making.
Yes good point. Also every student starts at point A. We don’t expect students to know Calculus on their first day of high school–we start with the “softer” math like algebra or geometry. Before you can walk you must crawl, and all that. The difference between what Harry’s experience in the mundane world vs in the magical is the type of things he’s learning, but the root of it–slowly, steadily, brick by brick–is there.
Harry is really no different than any other students, other than the fact that everyone knew his name.
And thank goodness. One of the most annoying tropes and cliches in literature is the boy wonder who is both hero and “the smartest of them all.” All the qualities you can put on a character, some authors will actually put on a character. So they’ll be smarter than your average bear, have some sort of heroes journey and all that, and be compassionate, brave, understanding and loyal. It’s unbelievably annoying. For example, while I adore Patrick Rothfuss’s “Kingkiller Chronicles” because the man is a first rate mythologist and storyteller, his main character Kvothe is “the best at all the things” and it gets rather hard to root for him about halfway through because you know–YOU KNOW–he’s going to figure a way out of whatever situation he’s in.
If Harry was all of the things, then you wouldn’t need the triumvirate of Ron and Hermione Harry.
We are introduced to a variety of teachers at Hogwarts but here we are finally introduced to the one Professor who is the most talked about, dissected, and criticized of the Harry Potter Universe. It started with roll call and went downhill from there:
Snape, for me, is one of JKR’s biggest trope breakers. He’s look exactly like how a villain should look. He’s greasy, smarmy, sly, mean spirited, cunning, hateful, and literally dressed in all black. He’s “black hat” through and through.
Except. Oh…except. The fact that most of the HP fandom really loves Snape and doesn’t hate him in spite of the fact that he really is all those negative things–greasy, smarmy, sly, mean spirited, cunning, hateful, and dressed in all black–shows the power of JKR’s writing and her ability to turn the tables on what you expect to happen.
1. Why is Harry is so interested in the box Hagrid removed from Gringotts?
I think it has a lot to do with just being a curious kid. He’s never been allowed to explore his old world, being mostly locked up and kept out of sight. This is a world where he is encouraged to grow and think, to question the unexplained.
2. Do you feel, from what we know so far, that Professor Snape is an effective teacher?
NO.
Okay, I love Snape. I really do. But he is a horrible teacher. HORRIBLE. There is favoritism and then there is Snape level of favoritism. A boy gets injured in his class in this chapter and Snape acts like it’s not his fault at all. Potions is dangerous, yes, but there should be measures in place by the professor to try and prevent them. In this chapter we see him bully a student. There is being strong willed and trying to get the best from your students (like McGonagall does) but Snape is just a bully to Harry in this chapter, and really to anyone not a Slytherin.
even when he lands his dream job at long last,he’s a bad teacher.
3. What would be your favorite subject at Hogwarts (in First Year)?
Charms, I think. I always thought I’d be a Charm sort of girl. No clue why….
@Matt nice find!
Speaking of some Victorian references, we meet Mrs Norris in this chapter, Filch’s cat. She’s named after the same character in Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. The cat and the lady share similar characteristics.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"’m wondering whether I should create a thread for this particular aspect of Once characters and which houses they would be in. It’s an interesting subject and one that could be discussed at great length but I don’t want to derail this particular thread.
Hunt around the General Discussion area. We had one like…a year ago? And thanks…Jo is going to be posting shortly, I do believe so new chapter coming up!
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Sir Morgan? Is that his real name because I can’t recall a Morgan (well, dude Morgan) from Arthurian mythos. So he’s an Original Character (as is his daughter) input for this exact story?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"POM, sorry I didn’t respond yesterday. I meant to. More or less agree on your placement except for Belle and Henry to certain degrees.
If it were straight up Disney Belle, then yeah I’d say Gryffindor was a much bigger possibility. But OUAT has taken Belle’s other big characteristic (smarts) and made it OUAT’s Belle defining (and only) characteristic by making her Google. I’d put her in Ravenclaw.
Henry: I get where you’re coming from but I don’t think his ability to be cunning and have guile is the first and biggest characteristic for the little lad because his cunning isn’t directed at getting himself ahead (he’s not really ambitious) it’s about righting past wrongs and family unity. I think he’s a Gryffindor or maybe Hufflepuff.
But again, that was rather the whole point of me asking everyone to place an OUAT character: it’s harder than it sounds and should be as equally hard to place Harry and the other students because humans are not static creatures with only one set of traits for their whole lives. We are creatures who react to stimuli based on traits, past history, and our own internal workings.
(ok, here endth my own personal problems with the Sorting Hat)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Maybe they need a symbol of love to defeat the DO Emma. Didn’t rump say that love can be held in objects or something when he was discussing the ribbons with Ingrid? So maybe, and hopefully to Hook’s dismay, the gang will have to seek out the dreamcatxher to use against her because despite what anyone says, it WAS TL. So maybe we wont need Nealfire.
And risk alienating the other ship? Not likely.
Thanks Keb, Heather, and Onyx 🙂
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Thanks Phee!
honestly, I have nothing to say about this new title. It’s not going to be directly SF and I agree with Jo, it’ll probably destroy the last leg of SF in service of CS with a big ol’ heaping side of SQ baiting.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
