Why write the *Defense* job as the cursed one?

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Why did JKR make it be the Defense job that was cursed?  Having a cursed class did allow her to regularly introduce new professors, and I can understand wanting to do that, particularly since the action was mostly confined to the school.  But why the Defense job?

I can think of some unflattering reasons, such as not wanting to write a hero who can really *do* stuff, or not wanting to have to work out what kind of stuff such a hero would *do*. Or maybe she just wanted to ensure that readers would be interested in the class that happened to be cursed, and Defense would naturally get readers interested, particularly young readers.

Are there any really good reasons?  

We never saw Quirrell teach anything, and the book gives the impression that he wasn't teaching well. Lockhart didn't teach the actual subject at all. Lupin focused on Dark creatures, not Dark Arts; he could've been a replacement Care of Magical Creatures professor, instead of Hagrid. He still could've helped tutor Harry to fight dementors. Crouch and Umbridge's classes do work better as Defense classes, but Snape just needed to moved aside for Slughorn to take over Potions.

Frankly, JKR could've made the *History* class be the cursed one. It wouldn't've affected Quirrell, and Lockhart could still have plausibly talked about himself (as an important figure in *recent* history, of course!).

Lupin's only relevant Defense thing was tutoring Harry to fight dementors, which he could have done as a family friend even if it weren't relevant to his subject. It *was* out of class, after all. The boggart scene does contribute to the characterization, but it could've been included by, say, having Lupin premptively substitute for the Defense teacher, who would later substitute for him during the full moon.

Crouch!Moody could have focused the history class on the recent war with Voldemort, and made his class unusually interesting by demonstrating some of the spells used. (Assuming that the actual Defense class couldn't fill in that bit of background info.) He has the right personality for adding a bit of Defense to another class, and Dumbledore would still take advantage of the cursed position to have an Auror around to keep an eye on things.

Umbridge would probably still need to take over Defense, but things could shift at that point. The previous Defense teacher they'd had could have been forced to resign by the Ministry, and Binns could take over History if there was nothing else to do with that job.

And don't tell me that Voldemort wouldn't've been creepy wanting to teach history. Written by a good author, that could be as creepy as anything.

(If Voldemort actually wanted to teach, that is. The books don't make it sound like Voldemort had a very sincere interest in teaching Defense, although I do find that possibility intriguing.)

Not that it has to be History in particular, although that class would have had potential. It's amazing how little JKR did with the Defense class concept, though. It was practically only there to indicate that fighting is a part of the WW, and to excuse Harry from the need to spend time *outside* class training to fight Voldemort.

Comments

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I can think of some unflattering reasons, such as not wanting to write a hero who can really *do* stuff, or not wanting to have to work out what kind of stuff such a hero would *do*.

But she could have gotten around that by making the instructor extremely elderly and/or infirm in some way, someone who, for whatever reason, was not physically able to take on a "hero" role, but who nevertheless is extremely knowledgeable and talented in the subject.

Are there any really good reasons?

Well, if there wasn't the yearly turnover, you'd then have two options:

1) a tenured professor who was a mediocre or perhaps even horrible teacher of the subject, like Trelawney and Binns were in theirs.

2) a brilliant professor of the subject, in which case Rowling would have had a problem of not only the current group of students at Hogwarts being almost equivalent to Aurors in the knowledge of the Dark Arts and how to defend against it, but also alumni who'd had the same brilliant professor when they attended. You'd have 99 percent of the wizarding world knowing how to effectively counteract Voldemort and his DEs.

Rowling seems to have not wanted students to learn to much about the Dark Arts, either the history of dark magik, or how to counter it.

We never saw Quirrell teach anything, and the book gives the impression that he wasn't teaching well.

Considering that he was semi-possessed by Voldie, there may have been an ulterior motive for not teaching it well.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

2) a brilliant professor of the subject, in which case Rowling would have had a problem of not only the current group of students at Hogwarts being almost equivalent to Aurors in the knowledge of the Dark Arts and how to defend against it, but also alumni who'd had the same brilliant professor when they attended. You'd have 99 percent of the wizarding world knowing how to effectively counteract Voldemort and his DEs.

Not necessarily. You wouldn't expect students to be as good as Aurors, because the Aurors receive additional training on top of the Defense class at Hogwarts. Likewise, the DE's would have learned to fight well, above and beyond what they learned in school.

I think that the DE's would've looked scarier in comparison, actually, because they'd be fighting successfully against competent adults, and well-taught children.

Considering that he was semi-possessed by Voldie, there may have been an ulterior motive for not teaching it well.

Sure. And we don't *know* that he wasn't teaching it well, only that Harry wasn't impressed. We learn in PoA that they hadn't used their wands *once* before Lupin's first class, and I can't imagine that Harry would be impressed with any class in Hogwarts that just involved book-learning. That doesn't necessarily mean that the class was bad. If I were designing the Defense curriculum, I'd stick mostly to having them learn from books, rather than having eleven-year-olds magically attack each other, or deal with what are essentially magical wild animals (Dark creatures). If I included spells, I think they'd be first-aid spells, or something similar. Stuff that's *safe*, even for eleven-year-olds.

My point, though, was that Quirrell's being the Defense teacher is completely unnecessary for the plot of the first book. Even the fact that Quirrell had gone abroad. It isn't hard to come up with equally job-specific reasons for a history teacher, or for that matter an herbology or potions teacher, to go abroad, even without resorting to personal reasons that might necessitate something like character development.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. You wouldn't expect students to be as good as Aurors, because the Aurors receive additional training on top of the Defense class at Hogwarts.

And considering just how bad the DADA professors have been -- at least, from what we've been shown over the course of 6 years -- the "additonal" training may in fact have been the training they should have gotten at Hogwarts had there been an at least competent teacher who remained in the position year after year.

I think that the DE's would've looked scarier in comparison, actually, because they'd be fighting successfully against competent adults, and well-taught children.

Yes, if there had been at least a competent professor in the position year-after-year, ALL students' level of expertise would have risen, even those who eventually became DEs...

As it is, Rowling established a society where the "evil" wizards and witches went on to study Dark Arts on their own for nefarious purposes, while the majority of that society remained woefully untaught, untrained, and unprepared.

Sure. And we don't *know* that he wasn't teaching it well, only that Harry wasn't impressed.

Considering that Harry wasn't impressed with Snape's teaching, either, that doesn't inform us one way or the other regarding Quirrell's abilities... ;-)

I think that Rowling wanted to have a reason to have the majority of the wizarding world basically clueless when it came to dark magik; and also an excuse for why Snape wasn't the teacher all along.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Also, had some other position been cursed by Tom, that other position would have been the one Severus applied to year after year. I think it would have altered his characterization. Imagine a book by the Half-Blood Prince with comments about how the teaching of history at Hogwarts was distorted by biases instead of his own invented spells.

[sunnyskywalker]

I would totally read his commentary on how the history textbook is biased! But yes, historical revisionist Snape would be a bit different from experimental darkish magic Snape, and Voldemort destroying two generations' abilities to defend themselves is a pretty good evil plot (not that destroying their long-term memories wouldn't be dastardly as well). Too bad we couldn't get both somehow.

[sunnyskywalker]

ETA: Actually, that might have been Voldemort's most effective evil plot, come to think of it. If you want to take over the country or even just have free reign to terrorize it, what better way to start than totally wrecking everyone's defense from the ground up? Damn it, why couldn't he be that smart all the time?

[oryx_leucoryx]

It's not just the knowledge of Defense that he ruined. He also participated in blurring the definition of what is and what isn't Dark Arts, though I think for this Albus may have made a larger contribution.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Free reign to terrorize: yes, good plan. For taking over the country, though, I'd definitely go for the knowledge angle. More subtle and long-ranging, and less likely to get the spotlight put on you (something that tends to hinder any serious taking-over strategy).

For the record, I totally imagine that canon!Sev is a bit of a historical revisionist as well...they aren't mutually exclusive. ;)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

For the record, I totally imagine that canon!Sev is a bit of a historical revisionist as well...they aren't mutually exclusive. ;)

If his mother had held on to her schoolbooks, and perhaps if she had additional books, I can definitely see little Severus reading up on anything to do with the history of the magikal world in the years before attending Hogwarts, and in so doing he probably was much better informed on the history of that society than even most adults.

[sunnyskywalker]

Let's see... There's at least two other teachers he's indirectly responsible for, though I don't think he could have planned it. Dumbledore keeps Trelawney on to protect her after she made the prophecy, and Voldemort has his own reasons for wanting to snatch her should she ever be vulnerable. So if there's any possible way to teach Divination effectively, the kids aren't getting it. He's the one who got Hagrid expelled; maybe he didn't know Dumbledore would make Hagrid Ogg's assistant (though if he knew Dumbledore, it wasn't entirely unpredictable), but that definitely left Hagrid in line for the gamekeeper position and possibly CoMC someday after both Ogg and Kettleburn retired. Hagrid's very knowledgeable, but not an especially effective teacher that we see.

He did want Snape at Hogwarts, though that was probably expected to be for a limited time until Dumbledore was dead. Voldemort supposedly knows how to charm people, which probably means he can at least guess that an abrasive, uncharming teacher won't inspire everyone to learn even if the material he presents is good. (And we can't really say much, except that Snape seems to be trying to get them to learn their ingredients and preparations well, and that since he puts the recipes up on the board he might be using his own improved versions.) Voldemort probably thought that would be a nice bonus regardless of which subject Snape taught.

It seems like Binns can be halfway interesting once he's prompted by questions from students. Is it possible that Voldemort cast Lecturus Monotonous on Binns (dead or alive) while he was in school? XD

[quaternionworld.livejournal.com]

Given that Voldemort's first act as Dark Lord is making school mandatory and replacing the Muggle Studies teacher, I sort of wonder whether he wouldn't have been a better headmaster than Dumbledore (and Dumbledore a better Dark Lord). He seems to be decently capable when it comes to understanding the importance of education.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

there is the minor fact that he tortured and killed the muggle studies prof before he replaced her

[quaternionworld.livejournal.com]

I suppose the replacement by snake might not be to everyone's taste ;) but it's par for the course when your new boss is The Moste Evil That Eviled In A Century. Makes one wonder why he didn't bother doing that to the whole staff, though, or at least the obviously good-aligned ones like Minerva or Flitwick. Or it's just that he didn't have anyone who could teach Transfiguration.

[sunnyskywalker]

Dictators usually do appreciate the powers of education.

...Maybe Dumbledore is sabotaging the education of several generations on purpose. At best he doesn't care much and is clueless what to do, but it could be more sinister.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining his commentary, and thinking how much better a lead-in for DH it would have been than anything we got.

True, it would've changed Severus's characterization if he'd been presented as interested in history rather than the Dark Arts...

“Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?” he asked Percy.

“Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he’s looking so bored, that’s Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn’t want to – everyone knows he’s after Quirrell’s job. Knows an awful lot about history, Snape.”

:D

Still, that could be worked around. "Snape's really into the Dark Arts. Sure, he keeps applying for the History job, but that's just his cover." Frankly, that's no sillier than some of the stuff we hear the Trio saying about him... although I would hope for something better than what we see in the books as they are. Hmm.

[sunnyskywalker]

There could be a constant dance with Snape trying to teach as much History of the Dark Arts as he can and Dumbledore trying to restrict him, sort of like how he tried so hard to teach them about werewolves at just the relevant time :D

"Kids, there is this thing that the darkest wizards sometimes did to make themselves more or less unkillable which I can't explain fully, but if you destroy the cursed object... HINT HINT."

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

This subject makes me think that Binns could have been DADA instructor with another position cursed. With Binns being a ghost and, presumably, only able to regurgitate what he knew in life, any new innovations in the field would be beyond the scope of any of his classes, making them effectively worthless in fighting off the latest threat for which those innovations were devised. Plus, given his dry-as-dust delivery, the subject could have been too boring for active kids to stay awake in his classes, kids like Our Hero.

This would still give us competent DEs and competent Aurors if Binns didn't die and get behind in his field until around the early to mid-1970s and the actual effects of his inability to teach current material wouldn't really surface as an obvious issue until after the Ministry and whoever else is in charge of creating official new spells had done so in the effort to bring Voldemort down.

I liked the suggestion developed below, that the curse didn't kick in until Quirrell brought Voldy-pate back to Hogwarts, if a curse was even necessary at all. I do like a curse, it adds atmosphere (or, it would, given competent execution.)