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

[oryx_leucoryx]

If my memory is correct, I thought Quirrell decided to read up on the Dark Arts on his own, and then approached Dumbles who told him to get some practical experience in the field, and then he'd give him the job.

IOW, it was Quirrell who first approached Dumbles, not the other way around.

I think canon can be read either way. All Hagrid says is that he was OK when he was learning from books, but then went off to get practical experience. It isn't clear whose idea it was. Anyway, the part about the twitching being the result of an unpleasant experience with a hag isn't true, it isn't clear if the rest is.

If it was Dumble initiating it, what did he have against Quirrell?


I think the number of willing candidates was already getting thin on the ground. And the position needed to be filled. It is a required subject after all.

Quirrell is described as young. OTOH he seemed to have been aware of the Severus vs James backstory (or did this come from Voldemort who heard of it from Severus himself?)

I think under normal conditions (no political/war-related constraints) it was customary to wait until a teaching candidate was at least 6 years out of school before employing hir so s/he wouldn't teach people who knew hir as a student. To allow for Quirrell to have at least one year as Muggle Studies (or whatever, if you don't take this nugget as canon) teacher and one year for travel before Harry's first year then he is at least 8 years out of school but probably still younger than Severus, who at this point was 13 years out of school. (One can make him a little bit older if one argues Severus aged faster than normal because of his war-time experiences and his mourning of Lily. So Quirrell may only look younger than Severus when he may be the same age or even slightly older. Some people remain baby-faced into their 30s.)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Quirrell is described as young. OTOH he seemed to have been aware of the Severus vs James backstory (or did this come from Voldemort who heard of it from Severus himself?)

Well Snape himself is only 31 at the beginning of PS; Quirrell could have been a First Year when Snape was a Fifth or Sixth year, which would make Quirrell 26 or 27 in the book, which could be considered "young" in the wizarding world, especially for a Hogwarts teacher. Even if we go by your "wait for 6 years" rule, Quirrell could have been hired as the Muggle Studies professor when he was 24 and done it for a year before going off for his year of "practical DA experience"...


I think under normal conditions (no political/war-related constraints) it was customary to wait until a teaching candidate was at least 6 years out of school before employing hir so s/he wouldn't teach people who knew hir as a student.

I can't remember reading about this rule anywhere; even if it exists, Dumbles ignored it in taking Snape on as a professor when Severus was only 21 or so. There definitely had to be students in Snape's first couple of years of teaching who were First thru Third Years when he was a Seventh Year student and would remember him.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I can't remember reading about this rule anywhere; even if it exists, Dumbles ignored it in taking Snape on as a professor when Severus was only 21 or so.

I agree it is never stated. It's how I'd expect a school like Hogwarts (ie the only school of a society) to be run. And I did qualify that even if it existed it only held when there were no political constraints. Handling a double agent is a political constraint. :)

Of course so many things go on at Hogwarts that I'd expect to be otherwise, that I'm not sure why my expectations matter.

(BTW as Jodel pointed out in one of her essays, Slughorn mentions taking Felix Felices at the age of 24. To enhance his success on his job interview?)

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I don't think JKR set up any rules on how the school was run. At least not administrative rules. I don't think she ever went into that much research, time or energy. I don't really think she ever developed the school as a real functioning school.

You can take canon info, because Harry does think about other people every once and a while. He might think about the twins and that they're in Transfigurations on a tuesday. Or he might know that 3rd year hufflepuff are having double potions with Slytherin on a wen morning. I think you get what I'm saying, besides Harry's own schedule there are times he will inform the reader of when something else is going on outside of his classes.

If you take all that info from all the books, and add in Harry's it's very difficult to produce a school schedule for all professors, classes, years, etc.

Now, I know people can produce them for fanfics not using canon. But using actual canon info, it doesn't work.

But I'm talking about going to the lexicon and the books and using ever bit of actual real scheduel info you can find. It's fine for creating harry a scheduel yes.

But if you try to do it for all the professors or lets just say the school itself, using all the canon info. It is near to impossible.

So i don't think JKR ever really developed her school as a working school. It's sort of just there as a background character.

Everything in the stories revolves around Harry Potter - Hogwarts/Snape/McGonagall/Flitwich/Etc/Etc

Everyone in the story revolves around Harry and his scheduel and where he's got to be.

If you try to go outside of that, then the magical world and Hogwarts becomes a disorganized mess.

[sunnyskywalker]

If it were a real school, you would expect the teachers of core subjects like Transfiguration and Charms to have junior assistants to teach the lower years (maybe even TAs drawn from their NEWT classes who would get extra credit for taking every third lecture for years 1 & 2 or something). Otherwise they really ought to have time-turners to manage their schedules - not just for the teaching itself, but for grading 500 essays some weekends (assuming, if there's 600-ish students at Hogwarts and thus an average of around 85 students per year, that if the majority of students drop the subject after OWLs, they'll have around 500 students per subject total, plus or minus a dozen or two). If Hogwarts really had 1000 students like she said originally... ack. Maybe it's closer to 300 or 400, which seems more likely if Harry's year is average-sized, though for all we know it isn't because half the parents of that year's class died in VoldWar I.

I sure hope Dumbledore pays them well!

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I sure hope Dumbledore pays them well!

Slughorn commented on the pay of a potions professor in HBP at Aaragog's funeral, he said:

Slughorn seemed to be talking more to himself than Harry now. "...seems an awful waste not to collect it...might get a hundred galleons a pint...To be frank, my salary is not large..."

Severus would have still be Head of House and Slughorn would have only been Potions Master - but, it sort of sounds like Hogwarts pay isn't all that much really for the average professor, I can't imagine a head of house gets a huge amount more. I'm sure they get more but still I don't know that it would be a huge amount.

Or else JKR was just showing that Slughorn was greedy or something, but it does seem to suggest that pay for the average Hogwarts professors isn't anything to write home about.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

And I hit send before I ment to,

On the teaching assistants. We never really got to see a real and true 7th year in action.

During Harry's 7th year, he wasn't even at school and the school was somewhat different due to the Carrows being their upsetting the order of what was normal.

I've kind of wondered if in 7th year, there may be something there as far as teachers gaining high level students as assistants.

We know that 6th and 7th are considered above average classes. As with Snape's class he doesn't except anyone below a certain level of potion knowledge.

So, to me a normal thing would be 7th year, the people who actually make it through 6th year - those students who are able to say, make it into Severus' 7th year. Some would be chosen as assistants and such.

At least that is what would make sense to me, but we really don't see any evidence of that happening.

We dont' see Harry commenting in any of the books about McGonagall's 7th year assistants or thinking how much he dislikes so-and-so because they're a 7th year favorite Potions assistant to Snape.

So, we don't really get that JKR developed the idea in any way.

It's just basicly the world revolves around Harry - I guess if he doesn't notice it doesn't exist (LOL!)

[sunnyskywalker]

Hard to say with Slughorn, because we also know he likes to live comfortably. Without knowing more about the wizarding economy (how much do fancy nightclothes cost? is the food for the parties he throws free because it's on Hogwarts grounds, or does he have to pay for private events, and how much does food cost?), we're pretty much in the dark. Since they also get room and board 10 months of the year, plus free medical care (I would guess - from Pomfrey unless it's something extremely serious), they have low expenses, too, which would complicate the calculations.

I would expect the NEWT-level assistance to assist with the youngest classes if they existed, leaving the professors more time to work with the advanced students. Even Harry ought to notice that his classes from first through third years have assistants present, especially if they're Slytherin! Imagine the dramatic potential... Because there aren't any wizarding universities, and Hogwarts was founded and existed concurrently for centuries at a time when Muggle universities accepted students at around ages 14 or 15, NEWT classes seem to be the rough equivalent of college, not that wizarding education maps exactly onto ours (even if they do use the same academic calendar). Students who have passed their OWLs would presumably be qualified to teach the basics, at least as far as subject knowledge goes, but wouldn't be able to do much assisting for the upper levels since they haven't learned that stuff yet themselves.

But since as you point out we never see Harry complain about Snape's 7th-year assistant deducting points from them during class or anything, I think they probably don't exist - unless they don't actively assist in class but just help behind the scenes grading essays. Maybe that's why Harry doesn't recognize Snape's handwriting in the HBP book - the writing on his essays all along hasn't been Snape's, even if Snape reviewed it and agreed with the assistant's grade, and the writing on the board is magic word processor writing (we see him use his wand for it instead of chalk) in the magical equivalent of Times New Roman font :D