OOTP Chapter Twelve: "Professor Umbridge"
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deathtocapslock* “Does he think he’ll turn into a nutter if he stays in a room with me too long?” Given that you threatened to curse him yesterday, he probably thinks you’ve already turned into one.
* So having favoured Harry over Seamus, Ron’s now reluctant to keep his brothers in line. A prefect should really be more impartial.
* Nice to see Harry and Ron dismissing the prospect of uniting with the Slytherins out of hand like that. And to think that some people say Slytherins aren’t treated like proper members of the school!
* So Angelina’s only holding try-outs for Wood’s replacement, whereas Harry will make everybody try-out next year. Is this something that varies depending on who’s captain, or did JKR just make up the “everyone tries out” idea to add some Ron-related angst in Book 6?
* Note how Ron’s already decided that he won’t like Umbridge before having one lesson with her. As it is he’ll be proved right, but still, it’s not like they’re giving her much of a chance, is it?
* “‘Leave me out of it,’ said Ron hastily.” Nice to see him undermining the authority of his fellow-prefect like that, isn’t it?
* As if the prospect of taking exams which determine whether or not you stay at school isn’t stress enough, Fred and George go and give people boils. Charming.
* As an aside, how does the exam system in Hogwarts work? In some ways it seems like GCSEs/O-levels, but if this were the case we’d expect quite a few people to leave school after taking them and take up jobs, rather than study to NEWT level. Or is it more a case of them being necessary to progress to NEWT level, but otherwise not really affecting your final qualifications, a bit like some university exams?
* Poor Ron, wanting to be an Auror. He’s spent his entire school career being overshadowed by Harry, and now he’ll spend his entire professional career being overshadowed, too. What he really needs is some time working/travelling without Harry or Hermione, so that he can become more confident and discover that he can actually cope without them. I doubt JKR would give him that, though.
* Besides, Aurors are, like, the élite. You can’t be one of them unless you’re really good. Or unless you’re the Chosen One, in which case you are entitled to take up whatever job you want. And get your friends into the Aurors, too.
* Ugh, Hermione’s so easy to manipulate. “Oh, you’re so clever, please lend us your notes.” She really ought to stop helping them, or at least scale back her help to a level where she’s not practically doing their work for them.
* Although I am rather attracted to the idea that she’s subconsciously trying to make herself indispensible to the boys due to her deep-seated insecurity. Especially given what happened to her when she last seriously stood up to them, over the broom in POA.
* So Harry meets Cho, makes a complete faux pas and reminds her of her dead boyfriend. Ron quickly steers the conversation away onto something more happy, i.e., Quidditch, before Cho can get too upset. Nevertheless, Ron is apparently the insensitive jerk around here, not Harry.
* And Ron and Hermione keep bickering about it all the way to Potions class. I’ve heard of couples getting into friendly arguments, but really, this is just ridiculous.
* Snape has apparently come to expect a high pass level from his students, suggesting that he’s actually quite a good teacher, after all.
* No matter how “worthless” Harry’s potion is, Ron’s has to be even worse.
* For Divination, they work from The Dream Oracle, by Inigo Imago. Which makes me wonder: where do people get the time to research all this complicated magic stuff and write up books about it? Apart from teaching positions in Hogwarts, there don’t really seem to be any academic jobs in the WW, and there aren’t enough wizards to make writing books a viable way of making a living (which perhaps explains the lack of wizarding fiction – there just isn’t a big enough audience for such works to be profitable). But surely a regular day job wouldn’t leave much time for research, so perhaps there’s some form of Ministry grant to allow people to take time off work and research these topics, or the people who do so are all wealthy enough that they can afford not to work full-time.
* Keeping a dream diary doesn’t seem as onerous as Harry and Ron seem to make out. After all, it’s not like most people have many dreams, and I’d be surprised if they’d end up remembering more than one or two over that whole period.
* Professor Umbridge’s wand is “unusually short”. Freudian, anyone?
* Knowing the WW, those kids really need a Defence class involving some considerations of the ethics involved. Like Umbridge’s. Still, no wonder they don’t take to it. Ethics? Pah! What sort of cowardly thing is this?
* Picking a fight with a teacher like this seems a bit OOC for someone like Hermione. Maybe the real Hermione Granger’s been drugged and locked in a magical trunk with the real Ginny Weasley, and has now been taken over as JKR’s sock-puppet.
* At least Dean acknowledged that Moody “turned out to be a maniac”, but doesn’t seem to dwell on it too much because “we still learned loads”. Which seems… somewhat worrying, TBH. Sort of like a Muggle saying “Yes, well, I know Myra Hindley turned out to be a mass-murderer, but she taught me loads of great childcare tips.”
* So Professor Umbridge states that Voldemort’s return is a lie, which seems to be the Ministry line. But never does anybody suggest that Harry killed Cedric himself, despite him having the means, motive and opportunity, and despite the fact that Cedric’s body doesn’t seem to bear animal attack marks on it. Perhaps it’d just be too difficult for Harry to rebut, and hence would get in the way of JKR’s planned storyline.
* “Well, I’m glad you listen to Hermione Granger, at any rate,” says Professor McGonagall, somewhat ironically, given that Hermione’s the one who started the trouble.
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Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 07:49 pm (UTC)(Of course I don't mind reading fanfic, or just plain fiction, about situations that really would be creepy in real life if it does something interesting with the characters. There is a lot of fiction that is creepy one way or the other.)
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 10:05 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 11:22 am (UTC)So for me I can't say all would be off his radar - but if we're talking canon I have a feeling if he had a relationship at all he would have looked for someone who was not that familar with him.
I always saw him as a very private person and he wouldn't want to be dating someone who might be talking with 'the girls' about him. I just find him so tightly caged that he would have a difficult time connecting with someone. There would be that trust issue.
Hermione being close to Harry and Ron - I have a hard time believing he would ever feel comfortable sharing himself with her or ever fully opening up to her.
I've always thought an outsider or someone magical who might not have attended Hogwarts would be the better match for him. Someone who didn't know everyone he knew, etc.
Another thing for me that doesn't attract me to HH/SS stories is a lot of times it's putting Hermione's face on what is really a OC. Now, I prefer the OC's story but it's hard to keep reading Hermione when it doesn't feel like Hermione when I'm reading. So unless I wanna print the damn thing out and go in and alter the names it just doesn't work for me.
Another is, I don't know that Severus Snape would ever be attracted to Hermione. So for me it just doesn't feel right when I'm reading the story. Of course most fanfic is going to be the authors personal take on the characters, so I'm more to each his own and I get that some people like HH/SS, and thats fine for everyone else who can or wants to read it.
I personally just don't see Snape as the kind of man who would choose to date Hermione. I could see him 'maybe' dating some of the older students, people who would be closer to his age - but I just don't feel the connection I'm supposed to when it comes to paring up Hermione and Snape.
So since I can never get that 'connection' it makes it more difficult for me to read - if that makes sense.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 04:04 pm (UTC)Not that I see Snape having a romantic or even just sexual relationship with anyone, but if he did he has a whole population of nonmagikal people to choose from, plus magikal folk who are his same age who were never his students, magikal folk who are older than him (and hence never had him as a teacher), and magikal folk who never attended Hogwarts (homeschooled or foreigners).
Another thing for me that doesn't attract me to HH/SS stories is a lot of times it's putting Hermione's face on what is really a OC. Now, I prefer the OC's story but it's hard to keep reading Hermione when it doesn't feel like Hermione when I'm reading.
That's what I've been saying. The rabid Hermione fans, especially those who ship her with Snape, make so many excuses for her and end up making so many changes to her in fan fiction that she effectively becomes an OFC who just happens to share the same name as a major character in Rowling's books.
And I admit that many fans of Snape do the same thing to him, they choose to "reform" him so much that he is no longer Snape.
I love Snape as Snape, no excuses, no modifications...just, perhaps, a little more understanding of his motivations. But keep him snarky, sarcastic, and bitter! LOL
I personally just don't see Snape as the kind of man who would choose to date Hermione.
He'd only be attracted to someone whose intellect matched his own, someone he could hold long intellectual discussions with. Hermione might sit and listen to him all evening, enrapt in his theories, but she definitely would never be able to hold her own in sustained conversation with him.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 11:45 pm (UTC)Because a teacher-student relationship is equivlent to a doctor-patient relationship, or any relationship between an adult authority figure and an underaged child. Even when that child turns 18, it is still a violation of trust.
Plus it smacks of pedophelia, and I really can't understand why all the shippers who pair Snape with ANY student don't see that.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 12:15 am (UTC)As for the pedophilia question - once the child is past puberty it becomes ephebophilia, which is not about big moral absolutes but about where societies place the arbitrary line between adolescence and adulthood. Age of consent varies among societies. Not long ago there were plenty of teenaged parents who were married to each other. Or teenagers married to older adults.
(No, the age difference doesn't bother me either. I know of successful relationships with all sorts of age differences.)
Anyway, part of the attraction of reading about Severus is to saddle him with morally iffy situations because he can handle them well. That's part of the attraction of 'Hermione is Severus' prisoner' scenarios and 'Albus/The Ministry/someone else force Severus and Hermione to marry' scenarios. Put Severus in impossible or otherwise guilt-inducing situations and see him survive them and put everyone else to shame.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 01:11 am (UTC)Sure there is; just because one party turns 18 doesn't change the dynamics of the relationship.
(No, the age difference doesn't bother me either. I know of successful relationships with all sorts of age differences.)
It has nothing to do with age difference, but in the dynamics of the original relationship, which doesn't change just because one party obtained the age of majority.
That's part of the attraction of 'Hermione is Severus' prisoner' scenarios and 'Albus/The Ministry/someone else force Severus and Hermione to marry' scenarios. Put Severus in impossible or otherwise guilt-inducing situations and see him survive them and put everyone else to shame.
Such scenarios are asinine. If Hermione was "forced" onto Severus in some manner, the most he would do is have her do research, and the potions equivalent of sous chef work for him. He'd never have sex with her or anyone else, definitely not an ex-student. The torch that burns for Lily is still too bright and hot.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 01:37 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure that Oryx wasn't talking about when a student reaches a certain age but when a student finishes school, receives hir degree, gets a job, etc. The relationship dynamic automatically does change at that point because one party no longer has authority over the other.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 02:54 pm (UTC)The 'ex' part of 'ex-student' is the reason the nature of the relationship changes, not the age (which for a wizard is 17, not 18, BTW). Perhaps it is prudent to have a 'cooling off' period, but I'm not sure it is absolutely essential.
The torch that burns for Lily is still too bright and hot.
While this is one (common) reading of Severus it isn't the only one. And it would preclude *all* Severus pairings, no matter with whom.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 04:27 pm (UTC)Nope. I don't care if a student graduates and then returns 10 years later, the relationship is still student-teacher even tho the student is now an ex-student.
Sorry, but you will never convince me that such pairing are wrong, wrong, wrong, totally immorally wrong.
While this is one (common) reading of Severus it isn't the only one. And it would preclude *all* Severus pairings, no matter with whom
Yes it would, which is why I've continually stated that I just don't see Snape having a relationship with anyone.
What you deem "one (common) reading of Severus" is actually what Jo Rowling has given us; everything else is just fan imagination and wishful thinking.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 03:44 pm (UTC)If nothing I'll say will convince you we'll just have to agree to disagree, as I find your position as preposterous as you find mine. We must have a very different perception of human psychology.
What you deem "one (common) reading of Severus" is actually what Jo Rowling has given us; everything else is just fan imagination and wishful thinking.
No. JKR gave us nothing whatsoever about Severus' emotional state with regarding to romance post SWM. Even having the doe as a Patronus and accepting that it stands for Lily does not mean the nature of her place in his internal world was romantic in any way by the time we see him as a teacher in the 1990s.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 06:17 pm (UTC)Well my viewpoint is not all that unusual, if last night's episode of "The Killing" is any example; the detectives discovered that a teacher is married to an ex-student, the ex-student stressed that they only got together after she'd graduated, but the detectives -- and hence, the show itself -- presented the relationship as morally and ethically corrupt nonetheless.
I don't know if you and I have a "very different percepion of human psychology", but we obviously have very different interpretations of what is moral and what is ethical.
No. JKR gave us nothing whatsoever about Severus' emotional state with regarding to romance post SWM. Even having the doe as a Patronus and accepting that it stands for Lily does not mean the nature of her place in his internal world was romantic in any way by the time we see him as a teacher in the 1990s.
If you can't see that Rowling, both in the books and in interviews, has stressed that Snape was in love with Lily and continued to be in love with her until the moment he died, then nothing more can be said on the matter. Rowling has explained that one's patronus reflects one's happiest memory, she then demonstrated that Snape's happiest memory continued to be of Lily. There is no reason to believe that Snape's feelings for Lily underwent any other change except to deepen over the years.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 06:56 pm (UTC)She may have done, but canon is a bit inconsistent on that matter (quelle surprise). If a Patronus reflects one's happiest memory, then it's unclear why (for example) Harry's Patronus is a stag (it's meant to represent his father, but as far as we know Harry didn't know that his dad was a stag Animagus until after he cast the Patronus, so it can't have been linked to a memory for him).
"Rowling, both in the books and in interviews, has stressed that Snape was in love with Lily and continued to be in love with her until the moment he died,"
I don't think that there can be any doubt that Snape was in love with Lily, but it's not as certain IMHO that this love was romantic, at least by the time the series ends. It could well be more akin to courtly love, with Lily as the Beatrice to Severus's Dante.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 07:34 pm (UTC)Perhaps. Whatever the exact nature of his love for Lily, the point I've been trying to make is that IMO Snape's feelings for her were too strong to allow any other emotional/romantic attachments, or even lustful ones.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 01:31 am (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 12:07 pm (UTC)One thing with the HP series is we're calling these teachers professors. When I think Professor I think older people are being taught (college level).
I don't generally think the word Professor when I think of a high school teacher. Here in the USA Hogwarts students would be high school students.
Many people are going to frown on a High School teacher who ends up dating a student or former students. In fact we have quite a few cases here in American where people get put in jail for such things because they're fooling around with their students.
The teacher is in a position of power and it is seen as morally wrong. It's similar to a boss taking advantage of a employee. One person has the power and the other being in the weaker position...but the bad thing with teacher/student is one is an adult and some of those morally corrupt adults take advantage of young impessionable children. So that is probably part of the reason some people find Hermione/Snape uncomfortable to read.
The other aspect is, Hermione lives at Hogwarts and so does Severus, as all the Head of house do - they become more like parental figures to these kids because of how the school is set up. This isn't just a kid spending 6 or 7 hours a day with the teacher, where the relationship is more at a distance.
As you explain you don't remember some of your teachers from High School, thats probably because you didn't live with them and they didn't fill a parental roll for you. And in high school we don't spend the whole school day with one teacher. We might not see them after that hour class till the next day. The situation with Hermione and Snape isn't exactly the same as the normal high school experience.
The children at Hogwarts live there and I doubt if Hermione in 10 years is going to forget any of her professors names. To put it simply they are all living in the same house like a giant family. Granted the house is a large castle but to me it's a lot different than just a teacher and a student spending a few hours a day together.
Hogwarts professors become the parent, the relationship becomes more personal, they adults at Hogwarts assume the responsibilities of child care and while I know Snape is not Hermione's head of house it's still a different level of teacher/student going on than what we get here in American High School.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 03:27 pm (UTC)Same here, but that was probably more due to the fact that most of them were middleaged and older, and married to boot, except for the music teacher, who was middleaged and gay. LOL
The only young, good-looking male teachers we ever got were the occasional student teachers; but while the girls would gush about how nice the new student teacher looked, I don't know anyone who ever considered trying to get a date with one.
And they may have been good loooking, but the ones I remember either had zero personalities, or thought very highly of themselves! :-o
The teacher is in a position of power and it is seen as morally wrong.
Thank you, Karen. I was beginning to wonder if it's a generational thing, but I know you're 20 years younger than me.
The teacher is still an authority figure, even after the student graduates. I know that when I ran into former teachers 10 or more years after I graduated, I still referred to them as "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Miss" Whatever; some of them would insist that I now call them by their first name and I'd comply to be polite, but it just didn't feel right.
Hogwarts professors become the parent, the relationship becomes more personal
Here! Here! :-)
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-29 04:55 am (UTC)Well, we transitioned from calling our teachers 'Teacher' (with no name) to 'Mr/Ms lastname' (Hebrew doesn't have the equivalent of the Mrs/Miss difference) to first names over the course of our secondary school years. The timing of the transitions varied with individual students and teachers. And by the time we were in 11th or 12th grade (varied with teacher) teachers stopped expecting us to stand until given permission to sit down at the beginning of class.
But what really matters is that once you graduate the teacher can't control your grades, make you repeat a year, give school punishments etc - they lose the power to do so in all senses.
I don't know if any of the boys thought of female teachers as date-material though one (married, mother of a small child) is described in a yearbook as the friend-teacher. Of the make teachers at least 2 come to mind as having a bit of a Lockhart-like following (though each of them had real brains, unlike Gilderoy).
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-29 02:55 pm (UTC)We would never, ever have referred to a teacher by their first name, at least not in class and definitely not to their face. Some teachers who were not respected by students were referred to by their first names when students talked about them behind their backs; referring to a teacher by their first name was universally understood to be a sign of disrespect.
But I graduated from high school back in the Dark Ages (1971), I wouldn't be surprised if students in American schools openly use teachers' first names now...
And by the time we were in 11th or 12th grade (varied with teacher) teachers stopped expecting us to stand until given permission to sit down at the beginning of class.
Standing at attention before class isn't common practice in American public schools.
What we did have in my day was standing at attention at the beginning of the school day when the National Anthem was played over the school PA system. We then continued to stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, and then finished with the Lord's Prayer. But we were expected to be seated, and remain seated, at all other times.
The prayer thing stopped when I was in 5th grade (10 years old) when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to be required to say a prayer in a public school.
In high school we had "home room" at the beginning of the school day, that was where the home room teacher would take attendence and handle any general school administrative tasks. We were expected to come in and sit in our assigned seats; if we weren't sitting when the final bell rang, even if we were standing a few feet away, we would be marked as being late.
But like in elementary school, as soon as the National Anthem started playing over the PA we were expected to stand, and then remain standing as we recited the pledge.
The first day of high school our new home room teacher actually started saying the Lord's Prayer after the pledge, and looked at us in surprise when we didn't follow suit -- it had been illegal for at least 4 years at that point. We probably looked as surprised as he did. After a harangue about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket, he announced that there would be a "moment of silence" every day after the pledge for those who wanted to pray...we all had to remain standing for this period of silence.
I think the teacher was the only one who prayed, because it didn't look like any of the students bothered.
And this was during the height of the Vietnam War...by the end of sophomore year almost none of us were bothering to say the pledge to the flag, altho we did all relunctantly and sloppily still stand up when the anthem started playing.
But one day in junior year one girl announced before the teacher came in that she was no longer going to stand for the anthem or the pledge; she was actually one of the last people I would have expected to do that, but it turned out that her brother was serving in Vietnam, and his letters home convinced her that the war was wrong.
So Diana didn't stand up when the music started; even her friends stood up, because they were afraid of getting punished. But I continued to sit, because I too didn't support the war, and I figured that it would make more of a statement if more than one person didn't stand...and it would be easier for the teacher to punish just one student, but more than one would be more difficult.
When her friends saw what I was doing (or more accurately, not doing), they shame-facedly sat back down. Then a couple of other kids sat down. I thought the teacher was going to have a stroke, but I could also see the gears going in his mind...and he didn't say anything. Didn't make an issue of it.
Next day, no one stood up for the anthem or the pledge except the teacher; and that is how things remained for the next year and a half, until we graduated. And word spread, soon almost no students in the whole school stood up for the anthem and/or pledge.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-29 06:15 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-29 11:43 pm (UTC)I work as a substitute teacher on the extremely conservative Florida Gulf Coast. My sister is a teacher in extremely liberal southern California. Students in both places are still expected to address teachers by their titles and last names. If two such different places still pursue that custom, it's probably the same all over the U. S.
I graduated in 1977, and in fifth grade, I stopped saying the Pledge as a protest against the Vietnam War, also. That was in New Jersey, not Florida.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 05:48 pm (UTC)I'm just objecting to the moral absolute that teachers should never ever date former students, no matter the circumstances, and the insinuation that someone is somehow lacking in morality or ethics if s/he disagrees.
The reality is that life is complicated and circumstances vary and people grow and change over time.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 06:29 am (UTC)The reason we see different things as moral has at least something to do with a difference in how much impact we think certain circumstances or interactions would have on people in that situation (which is a case of having a different perception of human psychology). IMO once the teacher no longer controls the other person's future the teacher's impact is no different than that of any other the person knows well.
Then another difference between us is probably cultural. I'm convinced that the people among whom I grew up would consider the relationship gossip-worthy but not bad in any way. I have no idea how British wizards would see such relationships.
If you can't see that Rowling, both in the books and in interviews, has stressed that Snape was in love with Lily and continued to be in love with her until the moment he died,
Yes, I realize this is what Rowling wants her readers to think, but it is not necessarily what arises from the fiction she wrote. Her opinions as expressed in interviews may reflect her intent but intent isn't the same as execution and outcome.
Rowling has explained that one's patronus reflects one's happiest memory, she then demonstrated that Snape's happiest memory continued to be of Lily.
Wouldn't his *saddest* memories be of Lily? I don't know, never having experienced real heart-break but wouldn't whatever happy memories he once had be forever imbued with sorrow?
No, Lily wasn't a happy memory. She was a 'complicated' memory. What the doe Patronus signifies is that an idealized view of Lily became something very central to Severus. What this central thing is cannot be discerned from canon. I take the view that the idealized-Lily became an internal representation of Severus' conscience. Which is why he can't be aware how his years as teacher and Head of House got him well beyond the stated goal of keeping Harry alive in remembrance of Lily. Such a role would leave Severus romantically available. Not that I think he would actively seek romantic involvement, but that's something that can catch people unawares.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 03:09 pm (UTC)Well I am American, and I don't know any wizards, British or otherwise, so I too cannot say how their community would view such a relationship, other than Rowling didn't present any May-December relationships, or a relationship between a teacher/mentor and an ex-student/apprentice.
I don't know, never having experienced real heart-break
I have.
but wouldn't whatever happy memories he once had be forever imbued with sorrow?
Yes, but the sad memories do not negate the happy ones.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-05-02 10:29 pm (UTC)Interesting. I found almost the opposite: yes, I do have happy memories, but they're inextricably linked with the sad ones, almost certainly too much to produce a Patronus from them, if such a thing were possible in RL. I suppose it varies from person to person.