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

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

The history class is clearly meant to be just a long-running gag, IMHO. And JKR is clueless about why history is taught and what happens to a culture when the teaching of its history becomes a joke.

Not to mention, having a poor idea of your world's history aside from jokes makes for some spectacularly bad worldbuilding.

[sunnyskywalker]

Her presentation of history class pissed me off even when I was 12 and much less critical. I wanted to hear those lectures! And while Binns might have a boring presentation style, and the textbook they're using in PoA looks pretty bad, we don't know that the content of his lectures is bad or in any way aligned with the book. 17th century goblin rebellions don't sound like fluffy, Wendolyn the Weird history to me, and actually pretty interesting and relevant. *shakes JKR*

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

I agree that the history class was meant to be a joke. In the first few books, it worked well, but when the series got progressively more serious, then it started to look bad.

I mean, Harry and Ron get this alternate view of Godric Gryffindor and the Goblin rebellions from Griphook, but it doesn't mean anything in the end because they're too worried about their quest and because they never really learned anything about history. For goodness' sake, *Voldemort* had much more interest in history than anybody else, even if a large part of it was for his own ends.

Students learn about the Chamber of Secrets and about Slytherin's departure from the school, but that's only because it's a major part of current events. If the whole business with Tom Riddle's diary had never happened, would Harry and the others have ever learned about the Chamber?

I know that plenty of people here have suggested that Slytherin was likely not the Muggle-born hater that he is labeled as in the text, but what if that were actually the case in canon? What if the myth that he had desired a pure race of wizards had been erroneously passed down from generation to generation, and that was why there was such a divide between Muggles and wizards and why Voldemort bought into the pureblood supremacy agenda, believing that it was his ancestors' legacy?

Then the teaching of history would have been really important and the mishandling of it in the wizarding world could have shown just why those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. Instead, the only history that seems to matter in DH is the personal history of Dumbledore.

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh yes. There are so many parts of recent wizarding history where separating the truth from the spin and assumptions turns out to be important - Sirius didn't really betray the Potters, Peter isn't dead, Sirius tried to kill Snape and James rescued Snape, Lily used to be Snape's friend, Crouch Jr. didn't really die, Tom Riddle and some valuable artifacts disappeared shortly after Hepzibah Smith died... She had it all set up to show how learning what really happened and not jumping to conclusions is important, actually gave us an alternate interpretation with Godric Gryffindor, shows how ancient events are still things modern wizards use to explain their world and justify their actions... and then expects us to believe that whatever they tell 11 year olds about what happened 1000 years ago is the whole truth and/or it doesn't matter anyway? Really?

Even Dumbledore's history turned out not to matter much. Sure Harry found out he might have made some huge mistakes and maybe wasn't entirely trustworthy, but did that change anything?