Oh, TV Tropes...!

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, the Harry Potter stuff on that site has gotten to the point where I can't read it because just about everything is fawning over how great and super-special-awesome the series is, oh, and how Snape is an evil douchebag who wanted to get Harry and James killed so he could keep Lily. But this... this makes me want to scream:

"Hermione... [is] one of the smartest and more pro-active females in the whole Harry Potter canon and English literature in general"

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

How could they make such a claim?! Hermione is a better heroine than, say, Tiffany Aching?! How about Eliza Doolittle?! And I'm sure you could come up with other examples.

No, no, in Harry Potter it seems fairly obvious that the most powerful women in the series are antagonists. Sure, Hermione's perfectly independent and capable, but in the last several books it's like she becomes Harry's servant because he's too lazy to do anything himself!

God damn it, Harry Potter wouldn't bother me so much if everyone didn't insist it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

The Occlumency lessons puzzled me. Is "clear your mind" actually the best, most practical instruction you can get? In that case, the effort was pretty much doomed no matter what, wasn't it? But even then Snape did give Harry a backhanded compliment or two, iirc - something like "it wasn't as bad as it could have been for a first attempt." So it seems like initially it was kinda sorta almost working, if unpleasant. Some of the comments Snape makes during the lessons are hard to interpret (like, "who did the dog belong to?" was not described as a taunt, iirc, and for all I know might have been a glimmer of sympathy from Snape, or at least not antagonistic). But it's hard to say, overall, how the lessons were on the balance, especially since we have no basis for comparison on what the usual teaching methods are or how Harry's doing (it isn't like we ever see McGonagall or Lupin trying to teach Occlumency, or Bellatrix teaching Draco).

Kicking Harry out after Harry started prying in Snape's memories in the Pensive, though, I can understand. It isn't just about emotion (although I'm sure that's a factor too): depending on what else Snape put in there, Harry might stumble on something that reveals Snape's true loyalties, which would endanger Snape's life, since Voldemort is peeking into Harry's mind. If Harry can't be trusted, then what are they supposed to do - sacrifice the only agent in Voldemort's circle for lessons which are only partly successful at best, to no other purpose? It's a tough spot they're in.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

"Clear your mind" and "it's similar to resisting Imperius" are better than "I'll cast Imperius on you until you get it right" and Harry learned pretty well there.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Considering that Harry had a Voldievision right there, in his first lesson, I doubt Severus could have afforded to do anything more overt.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

It's also worth noting that we don't actually know how effective such advice is because Harry *doesn't regularly practice it.* He tries once, IIRC, and then gives up. He doesn't seek out more detailed advice - from Snape, from Dumbledore, or from the library - he just gives up.

I, however, am personally of the same opinion as Jodel RE the lessons as a whole: to wit, that there was something else going on that year (Watsonian view - Doyalist is clearly that JKR's a hack who didn't think it through). Because the way it's set up, the very un-Slytherin emphasis on the contents of the Pensieve (Snape couldn't do it ahead of time and hide the blasted thing?), the *impossibility* of Snape being seen to have *effectively* taught Harry (recall that Voldemort knows he's teaching the boy, and would expect him to make only minimal effort)... none of it adds up right for me.