Harry Potter Dark Arts Teachers
Nov. 12th, 2009 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThere was a theory after book IV that the Harry Potter books dark arts teachers went in a cycle: evil, incompetant, good, evil, incompetant, good.
It holds for the first four: Quirrel is hiding voldemort. Lockhart is _staggeringly_ incompetent at almost everything. Lupin is great. Barty Crouch is _also_ secretly working for Voldemort.
But it falls down rather for book five. Umbridge is evil. You could look for the incompetence in her, as she's not THAT competent, but it's not really her defining feature. And after that you get Snape.
But this gives too little much credit to both Umbridge and Lockhart. Umbridge did some evil things, even if she'd not evil to the core. But so did If you relax your prior assumptions look from a slightly different angle, it does work. Try:
I. Death Eater. Quirrel. (We don't know if he was officially inducted as a Death Eater, but he was definitely working directly for Voldemort.)
II. Evil selfish git. Lockhart. (He was very scummy before that, but in the end, he was going to abandon Ginny and alter Harry and Ron's memories, and leave the basilisk wandering the school.)
III. Member of order of the phoenix. Lupin.
IV. Death Eater. Barty Crouch.
V. Evil selfish git. Umbridge.
VI. Member of the order of the phoenix. Harry, also during book V.
VII. In book VI, Snape, who is a deatheater AND a member of the order of the phoenix AND an evil selfish git. (I tried to claim those came in chronological order, but it didn't really work.)
You might also rank the teachers according to who they tried to PRETEND to be at the start of term, and then you get: evil-as-incompetent, incompetent-as-competent, good, evil-as-good, evil-as-incompetent, and then however you want to count Snape. But there's no clear pattern.
It holds for the first four: Quirrel is hiding voldemort. Lockhart is _staggeringly_ incompetent at almost everything. Lupin is great. Barty Crouch is _also_ secretly working for Voldemort.
But it falls down rather for book five. Umbridge is evil. You could look for the incompetence in her, as she's not THAT competent, but it's not really her defining feature. And after that you get Snape.
But this gives too little much credit to both Umbridge and Lockhart. Umbridge did some evil things, even if she'd not evil to the core. But so did If you relax your prior assumptions look from a slightly different angle, it does work. Try:
I. Death Eater. Quirrel. (We don't know if he was officially inducted as a Death Eater, but he was definitely working directly for Voldemort.)
II. Evil selfish git. Lockhart. (He was very scummy before that, but in the end, he was going to abandon Ginny and alter Harry and Ron's memories, and leave the basilisk wandering the school.)
III. Member of order of the phoenix. Lupin.
IV. Death Eater. Barty Crouch.
V. Evil selfish git. Umbridge.
VI. Member of the order of the phoenix. Harry, also during book V.
VII. In book VI, Snape, who is a deatheater AND a member of the order of the phoenix AND an evil selfish git. (I tried to claim those came in chronological order, but it didn't really work.)
You might also rank the teachers according to who they tried to PRETEND to be at the start of term, and then you get: evil-as-incompetent, incompetent-as-competent, good, evil-as-good, evil-as-incompetent, and then however you want to count Snape. But there's no clear pattern.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-12 04:11 pm (UTC)For some reason I wanted this to end "... survived" :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-12 04:24 pm (UTC)Come to think of it, there may be some life in the comparison, since all the DA teachers did have to leave. Died. Lost memory. Chased out by scandal. Kissed. Discredited. Attacked by centaurs. Or maybe not.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-12 06:23 pm (UTC)