COS Chapter Nine: "The Writing on the Wall"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Ooh, we’re half-way through the book! :)

 

* Lockhart’s looking “excited and important”, which is the sort of description usually reserved for Percy. Is this foreshadowing for Percy’s evilness in OOTP?

* I like the idea of Picture!Lockharts curling their hair so much that I won’t bother asking where they got the rollers from or why they needed them.

* I wonder why Snape’s trying not to smile. He doesn’t seem to have any particular grudge against Filch – in fact, he’d probably sympathise with him as a fellow outcast – so maybe it’s Lockhart’s behaviour he finds amusing?

* Harry feels sorry for Filch, but “not nearly as sorry as he felt for himself”, continuing the long tradition of self-pity in these books.

* Love Lockhart’s backtracking here, BTW. “Ah! I thought so!”

* Filch seems to be ashamed of the fact that he’s a Squib, whereas Hermione’s never been ashamed of her Mudblood status (and nor, as far as we know, have any Muggleborns), suggesting that Squibs have lower status than Muggleborns. Insulting people for being Squibs is still worse than insulting them for being Muggleborns, though.

* Harry’s sure that nothing Snape has to say will do him any good. Even though Snape’s spent most of last year saving Harry’s life.

* Snape’s logic may be leading him to the wrong conclusion, but at least he’s using logic, which is more than we can say for most characters in the books.

* Contrary to what Professor McGonagall says, there is evidence that Harry’s done something wrong. It may be circumstantial evidence, but it’s evidence nonetheless.

* So is Dumbledore reading Harry’s mind here? Because I have to say that the idea of the epitome of goodness going around violating people’s privacy like that seems a bit disturbing.

* “Hearing voices no-one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.” Erm, how do you know, Ron? This is, after all, a world with time travel, teleportation and transfiguration. For all you know, there might be some obscure bit of magic that only allows certain people to hear a sound.

* Ron’s laughing at Filch being a Squib, thereby teaching readers the value of tolerance.

* Ron seems happy that Filch is a Squib because Filch is such a bitter jerk. Apparently it doesn’t occur to him that Filch is such a bitter jerk because he’s a Squib, and that, if he were a normal wizard, he might be quite a nice person.

* No, Harry, Snape hasn’t tried to frame you for anything; he’s merely made a reasonable (if incorrect) deduction from the evidence available to him.

* I hope that at least one of the teachers tried to “Sourgify” the writing away before setting Filch on it with the mess remover.

* Aww, Filch’s portrayal here is so sad. :’(

* Ron doesn’t think Ginny should worry about Mrs. Norris being petrified, because she’s not very nice. Remember, kids, it’s OK for someone to be attacked if they annoy you in some way!

* As per usual, Ron’s is a few inches shorter than everyone else’s.

* Someone should tell Hermione that writing far more than you’re meant to is not a sign of intelligence. Learning to write briefly/choose only the most important points to include is a valuable skill to learn. If I’d handed in an essay that was ¼ over the word limit, my teachers would not have been happy.

* Hey, Hermione’s refusing to help Ron cheat with his homework. Maybe she should do this more often; he might actually learn something then.

* I don’t know what subject it was that JKR used to teach, but I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t History.

* So why is Dumbledore letting Binns teach? Hogwarts is, after all, the only wizard school in Britain; for DD to hire a bad teacher is, therefore, even worse than for a normal headmaster to hire one. He could well be putting literally every single wizarding child off studying history for life.

* Or maybe it’s just a cunning plan to stop them from investigating his own rather… interesting childhood.

* It seems that mediaeval wizarding society was so advanced, they all had surnames several centuries before they were introduced into Muggle society.

* I can’t help but wonder how Gryffindor and Slytherin managed to work together for so long; who to admit is, after all, a pretty fundamental disagreement. Perhaps Slytherin was initially OK with the idea of accepting Muggleborns, but them something happened (maybe one of them tried to betray the school?) that changed his mind.

* No, Ron, no-one’s said anything about Slytherin starting all this Pureblood stuff, simply that he agreed with it. There’s no evidence that this was a particularly rare view back in the tenth century.

* Also, in his haste to condemn Salazar as a “twisted old loony”, Ron seems not to have considered what it would say about Godric Gryffindor if he’d decided to start a school with such a man.

* Plus, of course, wishing to exclude Muggleborns is quite reasonable in an age when Muggles will literally kill you if they ever find out you’re a wizard.

* Maybe that explains all the Pureblood supremacy stuff: back in the old days, when Muggles were out to get magical people, wizards with Muggle relatives could well have divided loyalties, and so would naturally be seen as potential fifth columnists. The most trustworthy wizards would, therefore, be the ones with no Muggle relatives, and who would consequently be loyal only to the wizarding world. By the time Muggles stopped persecuting wizards and the danger of betrayal went away, the whole “Pureblood = best” thing was so heavily ingrained in wizarding culture that it is still present today.

* Considering Ron’s condescending attitude towards Muggles, I’d be a bit more cautious about getting on my high horse if I were him. He’s really a bit like a BNP member criticising a Nazi for being a racist.

* Am I the only one for whom “I wouldn’t be in his House if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I’d’ve got the train straight back home…” brought flashbacks to “Imagine being in Hufflepuff. I think I’d leave, don’t you?”

* The sad thing is, all this “You could have been great in Slytherin” stuff could have been an excellent opportunity to show that “Slytherin” and “evil” are not synonymous. As it is, though, it comes across as a moral test that Harry has passed. The sign of true goodness = hating Slytherin House.

* Hermione’s really got a high opinion of old Dumbles, hasn’t he? Dumbledore couldn’t cure Mrs. Norris, ergo Mrs. Norris’ attacker can’t be human. What was it I said about elementary logic and the Hogwarts curriculum?

* Nice to see that Fred was already showing strong bullying tendencies by the age of five. And a remarkable control of magic, too, if he was able to turn a teddy bear into a spider without any training or a wand. Remind you of anyone?

* Hermione’s laughing at Ron’s obvious trauma, which, given what we now know about JKR’s views on love, is probably meant to be A Clue for their eventual marriage.

* So Hogwarts can buy golden plates for all its pupils, but not keep its toilets in good order. Clearly, Dumbledore’s been diverting funds from the sanitation department into the crockery-buying department.

* Percy’s noticed how upset Ginny is, whereas neither Ron, Harry nor Hermione have. Remember this when she tells everybody about Percy’s girlfriend.

* “You don’t care about Ginny,” says Ron, even though all the evidence in the books points to him being the only one of his family who actually cares about her.

* Given the rudeness of Ron’s remark, five points from Gryffindor is quite a mild punishment.

* Gosh, the Percy-hate’s really coming strong here, isn’t it? Now the trio are reluctant to even sit near him in the common room.

* “‘Let’s think,’ said Ron in mock puzzlement. ‘Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?’” The correct answer is “No-one, because JKR can’t write a convincing racist.”

* It’s a bit like if, when Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, instead of being a poor labourer, was a respected teacher or something like that. And instead of framing him for rape, Bob Ewell had called him a “nigger”. And instead of doing this pretty much every time he met him, Bob had used this insult maybe one or two times a year. And instead of doing this to every black person he met, Bob only insulted Tom. And if instead of being motivated by blind prejudice, Bob had a perfectly understandable reason for disliking him. And instead of agreeing with Bob’s insults, everyone just ignored him. And instead of being poor and oppressed, Maycomb’s black population were well-integrated and treated as equals with the town’s white people. And instead of being a common insult, “nigger” was rare enough that Tom had to ask one of his friends what it meant. And then the audience are expected to react as if Bob’s an evil bigot making Tom’s life hell, instead of just a minor irritant which any reasonably well-balanced person would ignore.

* Even if we accept for argument’s sake that Draco is a racist, that still isn’t very good evidence for him being Slytherin’s heir. There are, after all, lots of racists in the world; and besides, there’s always the possibility that Slytherin Jnr. would be hiding his racism so as not to draw suspicion on himself.

* Oh, wait, silly me, that’s not the only evidence Ron has. Draco’s also ugly. Because ugliness is a sure sign of badness, obviously.

* Oh, and his father’s “evil” (bear in mind that, so far, about the worst he’s done is insult Mr. Weasley, which is unpleasant, certainly, but not evil). Because Slytherin was so evil, all his descendants would be, too.

* Not that blood’s important in any way, or anything like that.

* And upon this foundation of spurious conjecture, Ron goes on to build a whole edifice of even more spurious conjecture, suggesting that the Malfoys have been handing the key down, father to son, throughout the centuries.

* Yeah Ron, try presenting that evidence in court, and see how far it gets you.

* And by “court”, I mean a proper Muggle one with juries and presumptions of innocence and all the various other safeguards designed to prevent wrongful imprisonment, not one of the kangaroo courts that pass for justice in the wizarding world.

* It is, as Hermione says, “possible”. But, in the absence of any other evidence, it’s no more possible than any of the other thousands of possibilities. (Hey, perhaps it’s Lockhart, and that idiot façade is just a way to throw suspicion. Or perhaps it’s one of the other rich, Pureblood children whose ancestors have all been in Slytherin. Or perhaps the whole thing’s just a practical joke by Fred and George…)

* Ron and Hermione seem to be getting irritated at each other remarkably quickly. Cue Can You Feel the Love in the background.

* “But that’s impossible,” says Harry, apparently forgetting that he’s a wizard in a school of magic in a society that has magic for just about everything, so asking Draco questions without them realising who they are shouldn’t be impossible.

* A lot of people think that Malfoy would be unable to keep his mouth shut if he was the heir, but I disagree. He doesn’t tell anyone about Norbert in PS, after all, and in OOTP he doesn’t seem to blab about Harry’s “remedial Potions” lessons. He’s quite capable of keeping secrets when the plot requires it he wants to.

* “‘Oh come on, no teacher’s going to fall for that,’ said Ron. ‘They’d have to be really thick…’” Can you guess who it is yet? :)

 

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/This is what bothers me. Hogwarts is a really crappy school. Not only are kids put in danger due to the political agenda of their rarely seen, aloof Headmaster (who is unavailable to the Muggle parents, kept in the dark about their child's welfare), but he doesn't even bother enforcing reasonable teaching standards! We have a drop-out with no experience and little concern for safety, a drunk seer who only ever made two prophecies in her life and the stuff she teaches is completely useless, a ghost who drones on unbearably and puts his students to sleep...yeah, teaching standards are high at this school!/

Not to mention a teacher with a dangerous condition (I do sympathize with Remus' circumstances, I really do, and I know that it isn't his fault, but in terms of his students' safety, he really is a risk to have around), a teacher who mutilates her students during detention (yes, I know that Albus didn't appoint her, but he should have done *something* to stop it while he was still in school), and a charlatan whose lessons are also useless. And what's worse is that the teachers don't receive any punishment from the administration for their behavior. They can hurt students or fail to teach them anything, and it won't matter.

I could understand if the teaching standards were low for the DADA position because it was cursed (although it still wouldn't be justification for Dumbledore never trying to get rid of the hex in the first place). But yes, maybe the wizarding world is just short on prospective teachers and that's why Dumbledore will accept anybody that he can get. That still doesn't say much about his experience as headmaster.

Not to mention that the students don't learn half of the subjects that Muggle children do: there's no mention of any foreign language classes (apparently Crouch Sr. and Dumbledore became polyglots all by themselves), there aren't even English literature/writing classes where students learn how to write and analyze novels and texts, there's no mention of any regular science classes (Potions and Astronomy were probably supposed to be the stand-ins for science, but what about natural sciences like anatomy and biology?), the only math class that we hear of is Arithmancy (which isn't even a requirement, given that we never see Harry and Ron taking it), and there are no physical education classes (no, I would not count a one-time flying lesson in first year as a gym class). Sure, the kids learn about the history of magic, but does that include the general history of England as a whole? Does that include World History? Or is the "Muggle side" of history specifically excluded to Muggle Studies? The whole time that I was reading the series, I was wondering if maybe pureblood wizarding children are home-schooled before Hogwarts and that's how they learn how to read and write, as well as other basic educational skills.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

there aren't even English literature/writing classes where students learn how to write and analyze novels and texts

Heck, what about classes in basic English Grammar? Like learning basic vocabulary words, proper sentence structure, proper punctuation.

Sorry, that is a particular sore point with me because I'm a product of a school system where I went thru 12 years of public school and never was taught basic grammar! What passed for "English Class" was getting vocabulary words back in primary grades, and then in junior and senior high school getting one book to read after another, on which we were tested for reading comprehension.

But how to properly compose a sentence! Phfffft!


but what about natural sciences like anatomy and biology?

Or physics?

And all of the fine arts -- theater, poetry, painting (how does one learn to make oil paintings that move?), sculpture, music, dance -- seem to be blatantly missing from Rowling's wizarding world.

And what about Vo-Tech subjects? Just who is designing, and then constructing, all the buildings that wizards and witches live and work in?

Hogwarts has toilets -- where do magikal children learn to become plumbers? Stone masons? Glaziers? Who manufactures all that parchment, quills, and ink that they use, and where did they learn those skills?

How does one learn how to make a magikal cauldron? One would have to at least have a basic understanding of metalurgy...

[koi-no-soshan.livejournal.com]

I've seen fan theories in which the students don't receive full educations from Hogwarts- after their seventh year, students all take up apprenticeships for their particular intended careers. While I prefer it for fanfic, certainly, it doesn't seem to match up to canon.

If the students are really only receiving education in the magical basics, seven years at boarding school seems a great deal of time for what they learn, which is...not very much. They don't seem to learn anything behind the theory of magic- how do these spells work, in what other ways can magic be applied, what are the costs of performing magic (and damn it, there should be a cost- with a very few exceptions, Rowling's spells require nothing more than memorization, and given how Godmoding they can be...these wizards would be sickeningly overpowered if not for their incompetence). I don't accept 'the Harry filter' as an excuse- that's just bad writing. All I can assume is that the magic system has no logic behind it, which doesn't particularly surprise me, given that Rowling doesn't appear to have any familiarity with the fantasy genre. One doesn't need to be familiar with the genre to write fantasy, not necessarily, but if one wants to present a world with complex magical rules and convince us that so-and-so magical rule allowed the hero to scrape through in this plotline or that... Then an understanding of how magical worlds are typically arranged would be very helpful.

The few magical laws Rowling takes a stab at scarcely make sense, and are never in enough detail for us to actually have an idea of how they tie into the magic system.

It's awful enough that they're not receiving broader educations, but on top of that, they aren't even receiving good narrow educations in magic.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

They don't seem to learn anything behind the theory of magic- how do these spells work, in what other ways can magic be applied

Indeed. Snape is the only one we see actually capable of creating brand new spells and potions, we don't see anyone else doing that...altho I guess in some manner the Weasley twins did show some creativity.

But one would think that when students advanced to NEWT levels, that they all would have had to at least learned the basics of how to create a new spell/potions because, as you point out, they should have had more instruction in magikal theory.

I mean, Hogwarts shouldn't necessarily be churning out wand and magikal cauldron makers -- but its graduates should at least know what the necessary processes are to create such objects. Someone shouldn't be arriving at some wandmaker's doorstep to be an apprentice, and have absolutely no knowledge of the basic theory behind making such wands.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Someone shouldn't be arriving at some wandmaker's doorstep to be an apprentice, and have absolutely no knowledge of the basic theory behind making such wands.

I'm starting to suspect that no one knows the basic theory behind wands, and wandmakers just come up with Star Trekian (or worse, Doctor Who-ish) technobabble whenever anyone asks them.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Exactly, this is what annoys me- JKR has absolutely zero magical theory. All the kids do is point their wand and say some nonsense Latin words and there you go. No effort, no strain (they can cast endlessly without any physical toll, it seems), and yet when JKR needs to inject tension, she has Harry arbitrarily having trouble with a spell- it was okay with the patronus, 'coz he's facing a Dementor (boggart!Dementor, which...okay, let's just go with that) but when he struggles with 'accio' for like, ten chapters, it's infuriating!

Because it doesn't make sense! How can anyone have trouble with spells? It's not a problem of drawing on or channeling their magic, because that's what wands are for, it's not to do with concentrating on visualizing what they want and being precise in the detail, because no, none of that, just the word is all that's required- okay, so maybe there's some initial difficulty in the PRONUNCIATION of the world (wingardium levi-OH-sa, not levio-SAH), but then after that, what's the difficulty?

And yeah, apprenticeships are usually the answer in fanfic (quick question- what's the usual length of time for an apprenticeship? I'm trying to work out details for a fanfic and I'm not sure how long it should be. Also, fics often have the apprentice teaching classes, how soon do you think that would take place?) but I have a hard time seeing how anything they learned in school would be of any help in any career.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Look up "guilds" as well as "apprenticeship" for details. I did once, got some really good, eye-opening stuff. That was from a while back so what I'm going to add here may be wishful thinking as much as memory.

There are at least two levels of apprentice-ship. One is an apprentice, one is a journeyman. Apprenticeships can last from as little as three years to over seven. The apprentice lives in the master's home or shop and is treated like one of the family. Again IIRC, the guild the master belongs to has some say in the length of training by setting standards for the apprentice and journeyman to meet. An apprentice (or was it journeyman who was higher?) doesn't automatically get into the guild just because he's completed the proscribed amount of training, he must pass according to the standards of the guild.

In modern colleges and universities, graduate students may teach classes in their specialty. That would be what most people nowadays are familiar with. That would be a minimum of four years undergraduate; I would think the graduate student would need a little more grounding in the discipline than just a bachelor's degree so add another year. While the grad student is teaching, he or she is also taking graduate level classes. Graduates are expected to do some sort of internship as part of their program but it doesn't need to be teaching.

I agree, what we see taught in Hogwarts would most likely train people to be ministry drones doing their best to get by the various knots of laws or life-long apprentices of people who had a better education. In my personal canon those people with better training were Hogwarts students pre-Headmaster Dumbledore.

[koi-no-soshan.livejournal.com]

And the Patronus does at least require some effort on its own, a happy memory and all. At least there's some sort of requirement beyond waving a wand and saying some words. Harry's difficulty with 'accio' really was ridiculous! This is why magic systems are useful, Rowling- without them, your magical plots are built on quicksand.

Plus, without clearer divisions on what can and can't be done with magic...well, with a system as open as HP's, with so many spells available, one can almost always ask "Well, shouldn't there be a spell for this?"

The food situation in the camping trip of doom was so aggravating. There were plenty of options for them (even just with spells laid out in canon) to get food, and that's if they were truly in the middle of nowhere and couldn't possibly get food from Muggle establishments. Instead, they scrounge around for mushrooms, even though many mushrooms are poisonous. Even people experienced in picking wild mushrooms need to have them examined properly, since many poisonous mushrooms are almost identical to edible ones. The only way none of the trio being poisoned makes sense is if Hermione used 'accio' and the binomial names of whatever mushrooms she wanted.

How in the world does magic become attached to language like that, anyway? I've seen a magical world where magic in an area tends to follow the patterns of those who use it, so for instance a wizard used to Latin in magic will naturally gravitate towards developing more Latin spells, but... In HP, it just seems like Rowling forgot what this might say for the rest of the magical world. Also, the whole world before Latin's existence.

Honestly, the wizarding world seems almost like it can't decide which time it most wants to resemble. We have a (poor) modern education system, but students are so woefully prepared for future careers/training that they might as well just start with magical training with apprenticeships rather than Hogwarts.

Again there's that despised 'Harry filter', but it doesn't even seem that Hogwarts students are taught practical things like household or healing spells... It's not giving them an education geared towards going into specialized apprenticeships or university course afterward, and it's not even giving them coverage in practical spells... Well, in the end, I suppose it comes down to Rowling deciding on subjects which sounded fun for a magical school. Which works for children's books, but stopped working when she started expecting HP and it's world to be taken seriously.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

quick question- what's the usual length of time for an apprenticeship? I'm trying to work out details for a fanfic and I'm not sure how long it should be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship


According to Wikipedia, it depends on the country. In those countries with state-sponsored apprenticeships (basically a type of public vo-tech education), it ranges from 2 to 4 years.

We don't have government-sponsored apprenticeships here in the U.S., apprenticeships are sponsored by specific labor groups; IOW, if you want to become an electrician, you get an apprenticeship thru the IBEW and the national electrical contractors association:

Apprentice electricians work 37 to 40 hours per week at the trade under the supervision of a journeyman electrician and receive pay and benefits. They spend an additional 6 hours per week in classroom training. At the conclusion of training (five years for commercial and industrial construction, less for residential construction), apprentices become journeymen (and women). All of this is offered at no charge, except for the cost of books (which is approximately $200 per year). Persons completing this program are considered highly skilled by employers and command high pay and benefits. Other unions such as the Ironworkers, Sheet Metal Workers, Plasterers, Bricklayers and others offer similar programs.

So the bottom line is, it seems that most western countries have incorporated apprenticeships into their existing educational systems as their version of vo-tech training, and such apprenticeships last from 2 to 4 years depending on the area of study. It seems unlikely that such students/apprentices would teach any classes.

In the U.S. the only requirement seems to be that the person applying for apprenticeship be at least 18 years old; no educational requirement is specified, so I'm not sure if school dropouts would be accepted.

But since the apprentice is required to be at least 18 y.o., it would seem in theory that such apprenticeships are considered a secondary education beyond highschool.

And they are taught by people who are at least journeymen, and it takes some years as an apprentice to reach the journeyman stage, so again I don't see any classes being taught by apprentices.

length of apprenticeship

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

The medieval norm came to be seven years, but it usually started when the prentice was 10-15. Modern ones, usually just a couple but they start with an adult who's partly trained already. So I think your fic can make up what you like.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

but what about natural sciences like anatomy and biology?

Or physics?

I'd imagine Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and their textbooks on magical theory (do they have classes on that or are they just given a textbook and only get taught whatever comes up in the other classes?) are meant to count as sciences - and only one of them is known to be competently taught.

There's also whatever training Healers go through, so I suppose that's something.

(how does one learn to make oil paintings that move?)

Magic. Your silly Muggle mind can't comprehend how much more intrinsic worth that gives the paintings. Why, they have to memorise some words in badly-understood fake Latin!

And what about Vo-Tech subjects? Just who is designing, and then constructing, all the buildings that wizards and witches live and work in?

Hogwarts has toilets -- where do magikal children learn to become plumbers? Stone masons? Glaziers? Who manufactures all that parchment, quills, and ink that they use, and where did they learn those skills?

How does one learn how to make a magikal cauldron? One would have to at least have a basic understanding of metalurgy...

Magic and/or elves, and probably goblins for anything metallurgy-related. And the non-goblin-made stuff is almost certainly based on Muggle techniques. Frelling parasites.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I guess the only possible answer to your questions is- IT'S ALL MAGIC. They have charms for everything! Even when it doesn't seem practical or efficient or logical, it's all done by magic! Or house-elves!

Actually, maybe that's why they were enslaved. Wizards didn't want to have to deal with gross stuff like toilets and whatnot, enter house-elf slaves.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Actually, maybe that's why they were enslaved. Wizards didn't want to have to deal with gross stuff like toilets and whatnot, enter house-elf slaves.

The elves clean the toilets, but they're hardly master plumbers designing and installing complete plumbing systems.

And if the MoM has to come up with regulations regarding the correct manufacture of magikal cauldrons, then that implies something more than a wave of a wand and a wiggle of the nose in their creation....

[oryx_leucoryx]

We know that several of Albus' appointments were 'political' - ie served his other agenda rather than his role as head of the country's sole school: Sybil, Severus, Hagrid, Remus, Alastor and Horace, at the very least. IMO so is Binns (in that he is an excuse to not hire Bathilda Bagshot), maybe some of the others as well. Which means he will find a way to keep them there for the expected time regardless of suitability.

Even if the children receive some kind of general education before Hogwarts, 11 is too young to stop it.

Dumbledore's appointments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Like your idea on Binns!

We don't know a "political" reason behind Quirrell and Lockhart, but they certainly weren't chosen for competence in their field or teaching ability.... Of, course, DADA was hard to fill.

Other staff DD was apparently responsible for choosing: Filch as Pringle's replacement and Hagrid as Ogg's as groundskeeper.

Whereas the other older staff we see in canon(Flitwick, Sprout, McGonagall, Hooch, Slughorn, Pince, and Pomfrey) may all have been appointed by one of Dumbledore's predecessors in office. All are competent; all but one deal well with children.

Which is to say we have no canon evidence that Dumbles ever, even once, considered competence in a subject or ability to work with childen when making a hiring decision.

Although he may, of course: we know of nothing to the discredit of Sinistra, Burbage, or Vector.

Oh, sorry, we do know of one exception: Hagrid's substitute, Grubbly-Plank, was a teacher of ordinary competence. And Dumbles picked Hagrid over her for the CMC position.

Re: Dumbledore's appointments

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

We don't know a "political" reason behind Quirrell and Lockhart, but they certainly weren't chosen for competence in their field or teaching ability.... Of, course, DADA was hard to fill.

My theory on Lockhart is that Snape, Moody, and Dumbledore's other anti-Dark-specialist friends had been complaining about him for some time, and Dumbledore decided to give him an entertaining comeuppance. I never had the impression Quirrel was incompetent - his lessons weren't as exciting as the first-year Gryffindors had hoped but that says nothing, and he was good enough to break into Gringotts on his own.

Re: Dumbledore's appointments

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Do you think he knew Quirrel was possessed from the start? Because I read a convincing theory about how the maze thing was meant to be a trap for Voldy (which would've worked just fine without Harry's interference, damn it)so perhaps Dumbles only hired him because he knew the spirit of Voldy was riding around in his body. I mean, the timing of the Philosopher's stone being moved to Hogwarts, something that Voldy would not be able to pass up and would be obsessed with obtaining, it's pretty suss...

And yes, I'm really pissed off- Dumbles' nepotism is so evident. Grubbly-Plank was a competent teacher but got passed over for the guy who can't teach properly, who creates his own species and gets the kids to care for them even though it doesn't teach them anything and WOULDN'T BE ON EXAMS and takes glee in creatures that burn/sting/bite them. ASSHAT. *hates him forever*

Re: Dumbledore's appointments

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Do you think he knew Quirrel was possessed from the start?

In the Prince's tale there is a scene when Severus is complaining about Harry during the first year - that scene seems like it would have been occuring in the first week of Harry's first year at Hogwarts if not the first day.

Also in that scene once Dumbledore replies to Severus complain, DD says Harry nature is more like Lily, Dumbledore also tells Severus to keep an eye on Quirrell.

I don't think that little snippet of a scene happened later in the year, it just looks like it's happening the first week, so if my theory is true and that happened right at the beginning of Harry's first year then Dumbledore is already suspitious of Quirrell at the very beginning.

Quirrell and Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Quirrell? Jodel postulated Dumbles had set the whole PS-at-Hogwarts thing up as a Voldie-trap--apparently it didn't occur to Dumbles that he was putting KIDS in the line of fire if he did. Of course, Jodel wrote her theories back in the days it was still possible to believe that one of Dumble's motives might have been the hope of rescuing his hapless, overpowered-by-Voldemort staff member.

As to Hagrid...

Yes, I was just rereading GoF and it's clear that Hagrid's Skrewts classes had almost all of the kids regularly hurt--singed, battered, dragged across the grounds--while Hagrid sighed sentimentally about how much he thought the Skrewts were enjoying their little walksies with the kids they were injuring.

Re: Dumbledore's appointments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Like your idea on Binns!

For a more crack-AU, Binns teaches his subject because as a ghost he doesn't need to be paid. This leaves more money to support Twinkly's sweets habit.

Whereas the other older staff we see in canon(Flitwick, Sprout, McGonagall, Hooch, Slughorn, Pince, and Pomfrey) may all have been appointed by one of Dumbledore's predecessors in office. All are competent; all but one deal well with children.

If Minerva was hired to fill the spot left when Twinkles was made headmaster (assuming he went directly from Transfiguration teacher to headmaster) then wouldn't she have been among his first hiring decisions?

Re: Dumbledore's appointments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Yes, if one assumes DD was appointed head in 1956. I like Whitehound's take on it better, though, that he was appointed in the mid 1960's:

http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_whitehound/Fanfic/Albus_appointed.htm

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

served his other agenda rather than his role as head of the country's sole school

Jeez, what a role call! It makes me angry when people claim Dumbles was the best headmaster ever because he never once thought about the best interests of the school, it was always about his political agenda.

And I can't get over needing a PASSWORD to get to his office. Every headmaster I've ever had kept an open-door policy, every kid was entitled to go see them if they had trouble, but Dumbles is too ~speshul~ to be bothered with mundanes.

And yeah, seems like they learn crap-all in seven years, certainly not enough to qualify them for any sort of real job.

[oryx_leucoryx]

In comparison, open door policies never made it to any of the schools I attended. In my high school you could write a letter to the principal. But you could access any of your class teachers. Typically personal problems got addressed to your homeroom teacher, the head teacher of your year or the guidance counselor.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Oh. Well, then, I guess my complaint wasn't justified then, I didn't realize schools worked like that. Wow. Write a LETTER to the principal? Gosh. Not that I ever really bothered to see him (except when I was selling lollies to raise funds for the school production and hit him up for cash, lol) but I was on good terms with the assistant principals. Hogwarts doesn't have that- well, I suppose Minerva kind of fits that role, but she's still a regular teacher and Gryffindor Head, so yeah.

Damn it, you've removed one thing from my list of things I hate about Dumbledore! Now I gotta find something else to replace it... *ponders*

[oryx_leucoryx]

a drunk seer who only ever made two prophecies in her life and the stuff she teaches is completely useless,/i>

She actually made more predictions - her card reading in HBP is spot on, but she doesn't realize it. Her problem is lack of confidence combined with a need to prove herself. And of course, the general problem with prophecies - even in a magical world where one can have insight into the future, without knowing what a prophecy means it is next to useless.

Not to mention a teacher with a dangerous condition (I do sympathize with Remus' circumstances, I really do, and I know that it isn't his fault, but in terms of his students' safety, he really is a risk to have around),

Especially when he isn't completely cooperative in managing his condition.