Thanks for reminding me of that essay! I miss Snapedom. :( It's true that a classroom is almost the ideal venue for someone who wants to act the big, bad, scary DE without doing anyone any actual harm, and Snape has powerful motivation for doing just that.
Good point about JKR's use of the mystery structure. I was thinking that it'd be awesome to have had a reveal that Draco was indeed stringing Harry and Ron along all the time. That's what's so annoying. There's no payoff like the one we get with Quirrell or Fake!Moody. Absent such a reveal we can never be sure about those ambiguous scenes.
As to Draco and Buckbeak, while I very much fear that you're right about what JKR intended, I'd love to believe that both readings are valid. After all, 'Draco is a little snob who should have paid attention in class' is perfectly congruent with 'Hagrid made poorly prepared schoolchildren interact with dangerous wild animals, which led to a student getting injured'. It just seems so obvious. One of those tragedies that follow inevitably from the characters of the people involved. Hagrid wrongly assumed his students would enjoy vicious clawed beasts as much as he does. His class is going badly and he's losing his nerve, so fails to tell the kids everything they need to hear. His friend Harry helps him out by facing Buckbeak, which is nice of him but puts the spotlight on Famous Harry Potter yet again. He even gets a ride on the beast. Of course Draco's annoyed on top of being scared. Of course he vents by insulting the scary creature once he thinks he's safe (after it bowed to him). Should he have paid more attention to his teacher? Yes, but as you said, it wouldn't have helped since Hagrid forgot to explain that hippogriffs understand English.
Draco would naturally make the most of his injury, but it shouldn't matter whether he was as badly hurt as he says he was. The damning fact is that he was injured at all. In Hagrid's setup, it'd have been a miracle if all the students escaped unscathed. If JKR wants me to think Draco was 100% to blame she and I will have to agree to disagree.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-02-10 09:34 pm (UTC)Good point about JKR's use of the mystery structure. I was thinking that it'd be awesome to have had a reveal that Draco was indeed stringing Harry and Ron along all the time. That's what's so annoying. There's no payoff like the one we get with Quirrell or Fake!Moody. Absent such a reveal we can never be sure about those ambiguous scenes.
As to Draco and Buckbeak, while I very much fear that you're right about what JKR intended, I'd love to believe that both readings are valid. After all, 'Draco is a little snob who should have paid attention in class' is perfectly congruent with 'Hagrid made poorly prepared schoolchildren interact with dangerous wild animals, which led to a student getting injured'. It just seems so obvious. One of those tragedies that follow inevitably from the characters of the people involved. Hagrid wrongly assumed his students would enjoy vicious clawed beasts as much as he does. His class is going badly and he's losing his nerve, so fails to tell the kids everything they need to hear. His friend Harry helps him out by facing Buckbeak, which is nice of him but puts the spotlight on Famous Harry Potter yet again. He even gets a ride on the beast. Of course Draco's annoyed on top of being scared. Of course he vents by insulting the scary creature once he thinks he's safe (after it bowed to him). Should he have paid more attention to his teacher? Yes, but as you said, it wouldn't have helped since Hagrid forgot to explain that hippogriffs understand English.
Draco would naturally make the most of his injury, but it shouldn't matter whether he was as badly hurt as he says he was. The damning fact is that he was injured at all. In Hagrid's setup, it'd have been a miracle if all the students escaped unscathed. If JKR wants me to think Draco was 100% to blame she and I will have to agree to disagree.