Just wondering.
Snape has a history with the Dark Arts. Right now, nobody has objected
enough to Snape's being at Hogwarts to make Dumbledore send him away.
There were complaints about Lupin, and Lupin left so that Dumbledore
wouldn't have to fight for him. Dumbledore wants Snape there. Teaching
potions is a relatively safe position, and one that Snape has had for some
years. If he were suddenly to shift to the DADA position, no doubt it
would be in the news and the kind of people who make complaints would
notice. It couldn't be kept secret - if announced, it would be
official, and if not announced, it would get out by way of gossip and then
it would be a perfect tabloid opportunity as a "secret appointment".
Further speculation: Also, the frequent introduction of new teachers lets
Dumbledore bring in new incompetents, so the students have a chance to
learn that there are different ways to recognize incompetence. For
instance, Trelawney believes her own foolishness and manipulates with
generalizations. In the DADA job, Quirrel taught by the book but had no
practical advice to offer. Lockhart didn't actually teach anything
useful, but kept everyone distracted by talking about what he claimed to
know without ever actually giving any details of the spells. Lupin was
actually competent for once, but had a weakness. Hagrid knew his material
but lacked teaching skills - he misjudged his students and couldn't tell
what would be of interest to _them_. "Moody" was competent in ways that
were a bit darker than Dumbledore had planned.
Meanwhile, theoretically the students are reading their textbooks and
doing research for their papers in the library, so they are learning as
much as they can from books anyway, regardless of who's teaching the
class. That's as much as they would have learned from Quirrel before he
was taken over, so they're not missing anything that wasn't missed by
previous years of students.
=Tamar
Snape doesn't "clearly want the position." If so, then why was
Lockheart the only one who applied for the position in CoS?
Joe :-)>
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> I've been wondering why Dumbledore won't let Snape teach DADA?
Who says he doesn't?
> Snape clearly wants to,
It's not so clear as you say. That's just a rumor that has been thrown
about by students.
> and Dumbledore does seem to have difficulty filling
> the position. It's a fairly important course, and he was willing to
> let 2 complete incompetents (Quirrell and Lockhart) teach the course
> rather than let Snape do it. Snape clearly has the knowledge to do it.
> The end of GoF, when Dumbledore brought Snape to save Harry, made it
> clear to me that Dumbledore clearly trusts Snape a great deal. Snape
> may not be the greatest teacher, but he knows his stuff and Dumbledore
> lets him teach Potions. So why not let him teach DADA?
He "lets" Snape teach potions because Snape is the potions master. In
fact, Snape is somewhat protective of his position. When Lockhart
offered to brew the mandrake potion, Snape cut him off and asserted his
tenure as the school's potion master. We've never seen Snape make a
similar claim to the Dark Arts position.
Personally, I think Snape really does not want the job at all.
--
The Deadly Nightshade
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> Further speculation: Also, the frequent introduction of new teachers lets
> Dumbledore bring in new incompetents, so the students have a chance to
> learn that there are different ways to recognize incompetence.
The class that is supposed to teach the students the things they need to
know to stay alive is probably not the best class for such a policy. A
little like having a gun safety instructor who shows up to lessons drunk
off his ass.
Dave Doty
> He "lets" Snape teach potions because Snape is the potions master.
And he lets Snape be potions master. Do you really think a former Death
Eater would be able to hold a position at Hogwarts without the Headmaster's
backing?
Dave Doty
hi
boy! sounds like your teacher was a bit of a nightmare.
with regards to snape i think you guys are being a bit harsh. i mean in cos
malfoy is whining to his father about hermoine getting top marks in all
subjects, including snapes. so while we all think he is a jerk, he would at
least appear to mark fairly
as to which of the 2 (dada vs potions) is the more powerful and important
bit of magic to learn, clearly it is potions. potions can stopper death and
does not involve any silly wand wavving. voldy is back because of a potion.
bye
ashad majeed wrote:
>
(snip)
> with regards to snape i think you guys are being a bit harsh. i mean in cos
> malfoy is whining to his father about hermoine getting top marks in all
> subjects, including snapes. so while we all think he is a jerk, he would at
> least appear to mark fairly
> as to which of the 2 (dada vs potions) is the more powerful and important
> bit of magic to learn, clearly it is potions. potions can stopper death and
> does not involve any silly wand wavving. voldy is back because of a potion.
I don't know that I'd call it a potion, exactly. A Dark spell, I'd
say--not the kind of thing that would fall under any of the subjects
that Hogwarts teaches.
And Harry is alive because his "silly wand-waving" Summoned the
Portkey/Cup to him so he could get away. Does that make Charms a "more
powerful and important" subject since it saved Harry's life, and Potions
didn't? No. It just means that skill at Charms, like skill at Potions
or skill at DADA, can serve you well when the circumstances are right.
To fix some problems, you need a potion. To fix others, you need a
Charm. To fix still others, you need DADA skills, and so on. (And, for
some problems, you can use skills from one of several disciplines--for
instance, in the second task, Harry used Herbology resources, Fleur and
Cedric used Charms resources, and Krum used Transfiguration resources.
More than one way to skin a cat, and all that. [But only one way, that
we know of, to Summon a Portkey.])
Lisa H
hi
well naturally if you put it like that you are correct.
bye
Don't take a single sentence out of context like that; pay attention to
the entire paragraph. I did not say that Dumbledore did not back Snape,
now did I? I was merely responding to Leslie's musing about why Snape
was never given the DADA job.