We've not read the potions textbook - I'm working on the assumption that the information he asked about was reasonable to expect someone who had read the first few chapters of their textbook to know. You're assuming he was asking Harry questions on...what? OWL/NEWT material? My assumption is based on his demonstrated habit of being a dick who sticks to the bounds of the rules. There's no reasonable way he gets away with punishing first years for not knowing advanced material, but its reasonable to expect your students to turn up having read the first few pages of their text book.

Thats narrator bias as was mentioned earlier in the thread. We only see things that impact Harry.

 

Why do you believe Gryffindors did not excel academecially, or work hard?

Dumbledore's 170 points alone did not win Gryffindor the house cup.

 

In that moment, at the end of the competition, those points did win Gryffindor the house cup.

 

So what? It still doesn't make sense. In book 1 Dumbledore gave Gryffindor the clinching points. Had he not done so somebody else would have handed the winning points to Slytherin. Why should the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs be disappointed by this but not that?

Anyway, the whole points system is dumb.

 

But even limited to things that impact Harry being narrated, plenty of those incidents are places where you can justify taking points from Harry and co...but Slytherin should also lose points, and don't.


It's selective enforcement, which is very much his hallmark. "I see no difference."

 

The point system is a manifestation of peer pressure, designed to help ensure that the kids follow the rules and do as they're told. Largely it seems to be successful - its a way of making them self police, which is likely necessary when you have such a small number of adults looking after so many kids in a reasonably high risk situation (accounting for the dangers inherent in misused magic).

If you can't see the difference between a teacher giving out points in class and Dumbledore rocking up at the end, announcing the result, and then changing it...then I'm not sure how the difference can be explained to you in terms other whats already been said in this thread.

My reasoning for believing that Snape is arguably still acting within policy here, to the extent that his actions would not be challenged by other staff, would be that he didn't directly witness the Slytherins actions. Now, whether that would be the truth or not is another matter - but in each case that I can think of he only seems to turn up or notice wrong doing when Harry is going to get into trouble. I'd say that could just as easily be put down to Harry's bias against Snape altering his perception of events, as it is that Snape is spending his life lurking round corners and in doorways waiting for a chance to take house points away from a child.

Basically this comes down to whether you think Snape is the petulant and cruel manchild that fanon often makes him out to be, or the vindictive but still usually professional adult who occasionally goes too far in his use of legitimate discipline within the school - as he's shown to be in canon.

 

They are entirely relevant. Dumbledore's trolling of Slytherin does not negate my argument.

The nature of rewarding or deducting marks is inconsistent and arbitrary. Using such a system for the sake of competition is quite dumb.

You are letting Dumbledore's actions colour your understanding. It doesn't matter when the points were given and by who, as long as they were fairly given.
Sucks to be Slytherin but Gryffindor earned those points.

 

I think the problem with these is that he does not take points from Slytherin when Pansy has the magazine before handing it to HHR, but does when Hermione has it. In their first lesson, as usual, Hermione is the only one who makes any sign that she would like to answer the questions, and Snape ignores her and keeps asking Harry. It is absolutely ambiguous enough that Snape can explain that it was deserved etc, and that's a clever way of writing it on JKR's part in my opinion. It makes us sympathise a lot more with Harry and co, because it's so obviously unair, and yet it'd be difficult to prove that Snape's being biased.

This is fair enough (we do get Malfoy and co laughing while Harry is failing to answer the questions so I get the impression reading that they do know the answers), however we also get Harry's view on this which I'll type out "He had looked through the books at the Dursleys', but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Funghi?"

As for the Hermione growing teeth to her chest after Malfoy hexes her; Harry simultaneously hexes Goyle (or maybe Crabbe idr) and Snape looks at him, says he needs the hospital wing, then looks at Hermione and says that he sees no difference to how she normally looks, cue crying Hermione runs away from the altercation. That's a very clear bias, and one of the most clear-cut ones we get. He was also unhappy about Trevor the toad surviving the shrinking solution, I don't see how else you can read that passage, and I believe Neville gets a detention from Snape at some point that was to dismember pickled toads or something similar, again, quite nasty considering what Neville's pet is.

Whether or not this bias is against all Gryffindors or just Harry, Hermione and Neville I'm not as certain about.

Edit because I checked Goblet of Fire and Pansy hands them the magazine outside of the potions classroom, so that's one I'm incorrect about and your point is valid here @Mordecai My bad!

 

I'm letting Dumbledore's actions colour my understanding of...his actions? What?

 

How points work. Dumbledore's decision to give Gryffindor the points was both valid and justified. Slytherin lost, but so what?

 

It wasn't justified at all. Defeating Voldemort is worthy of praise and recognition, maybe even some medal. Giving school points or anything school related for that is just silly.

 

I'd always interpreted the Pansy thing as he only turned round after it was handed over - he never struck me as someone who would be ok with anyone messing around in his classroom, Pansy reading a magazine would get shut down as quickly as anyone else.

As for ignoring Hermione and focusing on Harry, its pretty common for teachers to not call on the know it all teachers pet when they're the only person volunteering to answer the question.

The difference, from my perspective, is that an 11 year old "glancing through a book" is not the same as a strict instructors expectations that his pupils will turn up for class having prepared for it by reading the assigned text. Which is why, from Snape's perspective, Harry warranted punishment. He turned up to class unprepared, and in a potentially dangerous way - potions can explode, so its very reasonable that you'd expect your pupils to have read the assigned text before they get let loose on actually brewing anything. My personal headcannon for Harry not being told explicitly he should read his textbooks is that Hagrid should have done it - magical parents already know this, and muggle parents get informed by the person who visits them to explain everything.

Right but the entire point of the discussion here, which seems to have passed you by, is that the timing of the points award was inappropriate, and was effectively Dumbledore bullying the whole of Slytherin House by doing something they had no recourse against but which humiliated them all publicly.

 

I know the timing was inappropriate, the points should have been handed over before the feast. Nonetheless, Gryffindor was going to get enough points to beat Slytherin.

Meh, no house has recourse against the whims of the professors.

Perhaps, but from what we know those points were considered valid. I assumed there was no rule forbidding such an award.

 

There is nothing professional about "I see no difference." It can't be justified, and it immediately marks him as a petulant and cruel manchild.

Such things may even be standard - Harry and Ron got points along with their awards at the end of second year.

 

I wasn't assuming it was advanced stuff, maybe Boyle's Law is a bad example - I've not set foot in a science classroom in nearly 20 years, and I wasn't great at it then, I just picked the first thing I can think of. My point was simply that punishing a first year, in literally their first class on the subject, for not being able to call to mind facts that they hadn't known in advance they were going to be quizzed on, is kind of a dick move. Asking the questions, sure, but taking points?

 

Fair point normally, but we are talking about their first lesson with Snape and the first two questions he asks a new group of first years. I'd also point out that according to Harry in the, admittedly very short, passage I quoted from PS (p 147 in 2014 paperback Bloomsbury ed, chapter is The Potions Master if anyone else needs it) says that he did look through the book in question before his lesson, so as readers we are, I think, meant to get the impression that these questions are either very hard or of a very detaily nit-picky kind. It also says "Ron looked as stumped as he was", so I think we can be sure he didn't know the answers either.

 

I'm glad to know you agree with my entire point. Whether Gryffindor was always going to win, Dumbledore's actions were needlessly cruel and entirely unprofessional.

As I said..."usually professional"

And generally I'd be hesitant to use Ron as a barometer for what people should actually know.

As I said in another post in this thread, I think its reasonable to require pre-reading before potions because of the dangers inherent in the class, and that likely Hagrid is responsible for Harry not studying up before hand. And thus presenting Snape with a distinct impression that Harry is a lazy slacker who thinks he can get away with not following the rules, from the very first moment.

 

You’re arguing his actions are ambiguous enough to have a certain degree of justification, which is fine, I agree that’s why his ass is ultimately covered. But that doesn’t make him professional.

5 points for talking or whatever may be justified. Calling your student an insufferable know-it-all isn’t. It’s the very opposite of professional, a thirty something year old man slinging personal insults at a pre-teen/teenage girl is him being an obnoxious manchild.