.
Very interesting to me that Ron and Ginny feel comfortable saying the word in outrage, whereas James straight up cannot bring himself to say it. Thinking thoughts. Not fully formed yet.
Okay thoughts have Marinated!
Ron and Ginny grew up in peacetime. They know that 'Mudblood' is a bad word. They would never, ever call anyone that. But they don't see the harm in using it when calling out anyone from Malfoy to Kreacher. After all, they're not using it to hurt anyone.
James however, did not grow up in peacetime. Voldemort's rise was timed beautifully with his time at Hogwarts and beyond. He has a much more vivid picture of the kind of violence hate speech breeds. He knows that word brings harm and pain and death. And he's disgusted by it. So much so, he can't even bring himself to say the word.
@james-effing-potter bestie why did you leave this in the tags???
#perfect take is perfect#i feel like there's not enough focus in the fandom on the fucking tension during the years the marauders were growing up#like yes they weren't actively fighting in the war and they were at school#but i can tell you from experience growing up in a red state and going to junior high and high school during trump's first presidency#and all of the bullshit since#that the adults' hate bleeds down into their kids#and the kids aren't quiet about it#the same would be true of not just the death eaters but of all the prejudiced people who agreed with voldemort#even if they weren't actively fighting on his side#there would have been shit going DOWN inside of hogwarts#kids would have been taking sides#and they would've been hurting each other over it#both verbally and physically#tensions were HIGH guys#but we never talk about that enough#it was not peacetime for the marauders as kids#there was a war going on outside and it was bloody and it was gruesome#and no matter what you do that's still going to affect all of those kids at school whether you like it or not#james understood what the real effects of that kind of hate were#of course he couldn't bring himself to say it#ok done ranting in the tags now sorry#hp#james potter#ron weasley#ginny weasley
@void-inked-pen sure is. so is harry wearing a dragon jumper (also in book 4) and ginny (falsely) claiming he has a dragon tattoo on his chest (in book 6). not to mention him escaping on a white dragon that turns against its masters in book 7. the level of accidental drarry symbolism is so high.
Snape: *finds better ways to make potions than the textbook at 16*
Snape: *decides not to teach students except what’s in the book*
Actually, there is not a single time that we see Snape tell students to open their books and follow the recipe. What he does do, is put a Potion recipe on the board himself. With these recipes, Hermione makes perfect potions for five years. Suddenly, in Year 6 she has Slughorn, a teacher who *does* make the students use the books. And just as suddenly, she can’t make perfect Potions anymore. No one can except Harry, who is using Snape’s old text.
The explanation that fits these facts is that Snape does share his improvements.
potter-n-potions
Hagrid
I love Hagrid he is a good character a nice man, however I hate that everyone thinks of him is a cuddly giant, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.He was an incompetent fool who should never have been given responsibility of students. And couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.
If we are going up with the list of Professor Snape’s sins and calling out bad teacher behavior, then we can for others. This is just Hagrid (and a side of McGonagall.)
⪼ Hagrid is someone who assaulted an innocent Muggle minor, Dudley, just dared to be the son of Vernon, the man who dared to insult Dumbledore. Hagrid, in his latent anti-Muggle and fat-phobic mania, in his wish to retaliate against the father, has harmed his son (like a Greyback), trying to Transfigure Dudley into a pig (like a Moody), sending him howling in pain, and when his wand failed him, he blamed it on Dudley being too much of a pig. He had that child so traumatized he couldn’t stand being in the same room as Harry for the following month, and would panic each time Harry would utter a strange word.
⪼ Because of Hagrid ~ McGonagall punished Harry, Hermione and Neville so badly that the whole school started to insult them, Hermione didn’t dare participate in class anymore, Neville sobbed the whole night.
From being one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on him
McGonagall sent 4 first-years in the Forbidden Forest as a punishment, in the hands of someone she was the first one to call unable to take responsibilities. For a single night of infraction, she has sent 11 yo’s in death’ arms. Mortal endangerment of minors. Harry nearly died. Harry had nightmares of what he saw in his detention for the rest of the year, that only worsened as the year went on.
⪼ Hagrid has shouted at Malfoy that writing lines wasn’t a good punishment and decided to not only bring the students in the Forest, but to make them search a creature so evil it could drink unicorn’s blood, even though he had Neville shaking and on the point of breaking into tears. Then, curiously, he managed to split the group of first-years so he could keep his favourite students near him
All right, Harry, Hermione?’
‘I shouldn’t be too friendly to them, Hagrid,’ said Filch coldly, ‘they’re here to be punished, after all.’
and send Draco (whom he hated)
‘I’m not going in that Forest,’ he said, […]
‘Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts,’ said Hagrid fiercely. ‘Yeh’ve done wrong an’ now yeh’ve got ter pay fer it.’
and Neville (for whom he didn’t care)
- Hagrid didnt even acknowledge Neville'spresence 🤷♂️
so far away (with a dog who Hagrid was the first to admit he was a coward so basically useless) it’d take minutes to come to their help. Mortal endangerment of minors. Neville was scared shitless.
⪼ Hagrid sent 2 second-years deep into the Forbidden Forest To look for Acromantula, which would have resulted in their deaths, and Ron was so traumatized he threw up. Even he knew that what Hagrid did was mental.
⪼ He threatened Draco with what Moody did to him. Draco already traumatised by that experience.
‘Yeh’ll do wha’ yer told,’ he growled, ‘or I’ll be takin’ a leaf outta Professor Moody’s book … I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy.’ The Gryffindors roared with laughter. Malfoy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody’s punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop him retorting. - just imagine if that were Snape who said that? ‘You will do what you are told,’ Snape spat, ‘or I will be taking a leaf out of Professor Moody’s book … I hear you made a good ferret, Potter.’ The Slytherins roared with laughter. Potter flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Potter’s punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop him retorting.
⪼ Hagrid asked three students to look after a 16ft aggressive giant. Hermione, terrified, on the verge of tears, shaking and whimpering. Hagrid saying Grwap wasn’t violent just didn’t know his own strength 🙄
⪼ Hagrid had a violent temper.
In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff’s furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree. ‘Apologise!’ Hagrid snarled, as Karkaroff gasped for breath, Hagrid’s massive fist at his throat, his feet dangling in mid-air.
Hagrid removed the hand pinning Karkaroff to the tree, and Karkaroff slid all the way down the trunk and slumped in a huddle at its roots; a few twigs and leaves showered down upon his head.
⪼ In the war he ran off to save the bloody spiders who were about to attack students, calling after not to hurt the spiders! Making him get caught by DE! We know where his priorities hold.
more of the gigantic spiders forced their way into the Entrance Hall. Screams of terror rent the air: the fighters scattered, Death Eaters and Hogwartians alike, and red and green jets of light flew into the midst of the oncoming monsters, which shuddered and reared, more terrifying than ever. […] Hagrid had come thundering down the stairs, brandishing his flowery pink umbrella. ‘Don’t hurt ’em, don’t hurt ’em!’ he yelled.
Snape may have been an arsehole of a teacher. He may have a sharp tongue. But never once did he put a students life in danger. What he did compared to other teachers was nothing.
But because Harry likes Hagrid, people either, don’t see the awful things Hagrid did or void it on the basis that Harry likes him so ahhh well, it’s all good 👍 👌
Oh, and of course, the usuall, Hagrid didnt mean too. He meant no harm, garbage. Which I agree with, but that doesn’t make what he did ok.
A lot of text credit goes to @ottogatto : Made for @snapeingturtle
Hagrid was also frequently prone to getting drunk in front of minors at the school. On at least one or two occasions Harry, Hermione, and Ron were responsible for acting as his care-givers and helping him sober up. He was also in company with Trelawney who went through so many cooking sherry bottles she had taken to hiding the empties in the Room of Requirement. She was openly drunk on school grounds more than once.
Hogwarts is not your modern Muggle high-school. I work in academia and I am an educator. With the exception of a few teachers who barely get focus in the canon I will tell you here and now that a large majority of Hogwarts staff would have been fired for their conduct. Then again, a school with vanishing stairs and multiple other dangers (one where the ghost of a child who died there haunts a bathroom and is treated like a nuisance) would also have been closed down if we really started analyzing Hogwarts from a modern Muggle lens.
Of the teachers at Hogwarts, Snape didn’t even scratch top ten in terms of inappropriate or downright negligent conduct in fact. Largely because he was never responsible for gross endangerment of any of the students at Hogwarts. He was a verbally offensive and acerbic teacher who reflected the zeitgeist of a particular era and, in a very odd way, he came closest to seeming most like the sort of teacher a student in the U.K. in Rowling’s years on into the early 90s might have occasionally encountered. Snape’s shortcomings and faults as a teacher are basically more realistic and less extreme than professors like Hagrid (who endangers students) or even McGonagall (who is also responsible for such blatant favoritism she bent rules for first years and bought a student in her house a top of the line broom, endangers students, and can be as cutting and acerbic as Snape in criticizing students). Ultimately, before educational standards evolved it wasn’t uncommon to have a teacher who insulted you and got away with it solely because everyone accepted it as normal conduct for a teacher. Today our standards for education and educators has improved enough that a teacher could not just publically berate, dress down, or use correction through humiliation tactics to “motivate” a student without facing some backlash.
When analyzing Harry Potter, one needs to remain conscious of the timeline the books were written (i.e. 90s), the trends (i.e. social, cultural, political, etc.) that may have influenced writers and their fiction (e.g. the Dahlesque style is one such example) during that era, the unusual conditions of Hogwarts as a fictionalized school, and the professional culture (or lack thereof) at Hogwarts among the staff. Notably, there are no mentions in canon of the other teachers confronting Snape or reporting his conduct to Dumbledore because they found something particularly unusual, inappropriate, or concerning. As a point of contrast, we do see Hogwarts teachers in canon strongly object to the actions of teachers like Lockhart, Umbridge, Fake-Eye Moody, etc. who either prove themselves to be incompetent to teach (i.e. Lockhart and often Hagrid, let’s be honest) or too volatile to be trusted Arguably Snape could be viewed as a byproduct of a much more complicated system of institutional failures. In short, Snape was not the worst teacher at Hogwarts –but he was in some very good (or “not-so-good”) company.
This is very true, not just about school culture in the wizarding world but child abuse and endangerment in general are just not seen as something abhorrent the way we see it. Everyone just kinda accepts it.
Like, Ron mentioned Molly chased Fred and George with a broom, Neville’s uncle threw him out a window to force his magic out, and both aren’t treated like a problem in the Wizarding World. Humiliating your children as punishment by sending them howlers and airing their misdeeds is also seen as perfectly acceptable parenting.
Something I think adds to that is that wizards (even children) are much more durable and harder to hurt than muggle ones, causing this general lack of care toward endangering them. Additionally, with magical healing, most injuries aren’t really seen as anything glaring or harmful since most of them could be fixed overnight. Both these factors probably exasperate the brashness regarding child and student safety in the wizarding world.
hp hogwarts thank uuuu I've been saying for forever that snape wasn't that bad a teacher and hagrid was a horrible one and i said that as someone who loved animals and monsters more than people and who didn't forgive snape for the mental wounds he left but it was Normal Unforgiveness hagrid in positions of authority was horrifying hagrid ALSO! remember than snape is canonically far YOUNGER than most if not all of the other profs and staff he went through this school system himself a decade and change prior
