I have read many indy!Harry fics where HP rants how Dumbledore/MoM watered down curriculum of Hogwarts like Blood magic/Dark magic/Wizarding customs or offensive spells are only in Restricted section etc.

Dumbledore in canon IMHO seems like he cares more about fun or enjoying of childhood than academic results but stunting of education seems a bit too far for him. (But MoM is okay with it - Umbridge and her "defensive theories")

Eh, I remembered that he removed some books about Horcruxes but was it said that he removed only them ?

What do you think about it ?

 

No such thing as blood magic in canon.

 

It wasn't a long post. You could have actually read it. Here it is in bigger letters.

I think he meant that reading that in those fics got him to wondering if Dumbledore actually removed anything.

In my opinion, I think that canon Dumbledore would have likely only removed any books that were dangerous and didn't need to be learned by children. If he removed any. I'm not exactly an expert on canon.

 

The reason why Blood Magic should exist is how funny it would be if the kids would cut themselfs for a weapon. Then people role playing would kill themselves.

 

^ Genius

I doubt Dumbledore would have complete control over curriculum. The Board of Governors/Ministry of Magic should, if you extrapolate from real life English schools, have the most control over what areas of magic is taught. The Umbridge situation doesn't suggest otherwise to me, before people mention it. Initially the MoM would have a curriculum and the school teaches it as it finds appropriate. With Umbridge she taught the same stuff only negated any practical learning.

 

I'd say if the curriculum was watered down, it had been before Dumbledore. Ron (and the other Weasleys) have such an innate aversion to dark magic that it has obviously been handed down for a while that only Dark Wizards (!!!) use dark magic, which means that Molly and Arthur's parents probably didn't learn any (or their kids wouldn't hate it so much), which means since at least their time it wasn't taught at Hogwarts.

 

I think it was watered down. In my head, it was watered down as people started to shelter their children more. In the past children weren't as sheltered as they were in recent generations. Also teaching dark magic to children isn't a good idea. Imagine children that learned dark magic getting into fights and using their newly learned spells.
This is what I think even though it sounds a little illogical in writing.

 

Albus Dumbledore began teaching in 1935, and became Headmaster(ctrl+f: career) around 1955. Arthur and Molly attended nearly a decade after this(look at his birthdate). Dumbledore certainly could have been involved in the deletion of all restricted material from the curiculum, given that time frame, and it could very well have started with their generation.

 

I was talking about Molly and Arthur's parents. But now that you say that, I guess it's possible that Dumbledore changed the curriculum when he came in, but you'd think it would take a few more years of brainwashing then that for a culture so ruled by purebloods to allow Hogwarts to take the Dark Arts out of their corriculum.

Then again, perhaps after Grindelwald and Voldemort (or just Grindelwald), the Government said fuck the Dark Arts, and that's when it was taken out of the curriculum.

Who knows.

 

I don't think it has been intentionally watered down, but I do think that the teaching Harry received was inferior to that his parents or Dumbledore received, due to a curse on the defence position and a Potions teacher of debatable quality.

 

Does anyone else find it slightly strange that there is so few teachers for a school of 400 students? The private middle school I went to way back when had around 300 students, and probably 30-40 teachers and other educators around.

 

Rowling didn't make a realistic world. It all works within the realm of Harry Potter's little life, but many things just don't fit together.

We can (and have) commented on plot hole after plot hole, and after a while you just shrug. We like her characters (or hate them, which is just as fun), and the universe has endless potential, but she fucked up far more often than you could ever find in a Tolkien novel, for damn sure.

 

l don't know if there is a specific 'blood magic' category, but blood is involved with some forms of magic in canon, as we see in HBP when Dumbledore comments on Voldemort's crude protections requiring someone to sacrifice a bit of their blood to pass onward.

Also there's that whole bit with Voldemort using Harry's blood in his resurrection ritual (gleam of triumph, etc), which presumably (not sure on this one) anchored Harry's soul to earth like a horcrux when he gets hit with the AK in DH. Or made Voldemort somehow susceptible to Harry's magic. Or something. I don't remember DH too well.

Anyway, it isn't that much of a stretch to say that blood is an essential ingredient in some spells or forms of magic, and that when it is used, it can have very powerful and unpredictable effects.

 

Lol, I don't remember either. I only read the damn book once. I think you're right though. Contrived deus-ex-machina.

 

Didn't Harry's blood just make him immune to the whole "burning touch" thing?

 

I think that the simplest "watered down" theory is that the school is hard up for cash, shinking its staff, just passing students along, no malice just a lack of funding and effort to find teachers that would work for pennies on the dollar.

 

LOL, the teachers of all the main lessons, (transfiguration, charms, potions,...) were shown as very capable. They could have just gotten a different job if they weren't paid enough. Besides how much funding does a magical school actually need? They can make most of what they need themselves, the students bring the rest.

 

When Dumbledore told Harry the prophecy he did say "I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all" , plus there is the fact that he can hire/fire teachers like when he stoped Tom from getting a job and he hired Remus though he is a wearwolf, so after 50 years with that sort of power he can change what is taught at Hogwarts.

 

Also, what is taught at Hogwarts can be influenced by the ministry.

For a hypothetical example, if they decide to restrict the use of the Obliviation and Portkey creation to ministry trained professionals, then obviously it would be against the law for NEWT students to be taught those in Charms class.

We can probably assume that, even though the wizarding world is a somewhat stagnant society, that the social norms do change, even if it takes much longer than the muggle world. So for example, if the ministry decides to go on an anti-dark magic campaign (say, after the Grindewald event, whatever it was), they (the armchair warriors of the wizengamot), can arbitrarily decide to restrict and ban certain magics, or really anything they think is dangerous.

Thus, if said magic was currently being taught at Hogwarts, they would be compelled under ministry law to change the curriculum to not include said spells/magic.

And we've seen what the ministry can do when it's on a witch hunt, where they utterly gutted the DADA class in OoTP and actively sabotaged the students' ability to learn. Now, you might just chalk it up to the paranoid administration of the time, but there were no apparent blocks on their powers, and I don't find it hard to believe that such abuses could have happened in the past; even multiple times. But that is getting into the muddled wizarding government and justice system, which is a whole 'nother subect.

It's clear that the ministry has some influence in what is being taught at Hogwarts. So I wouldn't really say that Hogwarts itself waters down its own curriculum. Rather, it's the changing social norms and the arbitrary whims of the Ministry and the Wizengamot that can negatively impact what is taught at Hogwarts.

Remember, not too long ago they hung students up by the ankles, if we are to take Filch's word as truth, and muggle hunting/baiting was apparently common even in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

 

fudge said he alowed dumbeldore to teach what he wanted which implies past minsters haven't also moody says that the minstry dont want the unforgivables taught until 6th year