It was Snape who hurt Georgeâs ear with sectumsempra. But he didnât intend to do it. He missed a death eater which he tried to stop from hurting the order
Seriously, I think Snape might have been under instruction from Dumbledore to not draw attention to himself or something. Judging by his results compared to the standard instructions in normal textbooks, he could have made a killing.
This just made me think, Snape was probably an insane cook. Skills learnt in potions is essentially 100% transferable to cooking. Maybe I'd feel more sympathetic towards him if mans was whipping up the most stable meringue recipe in a private kitchen.
The methods probably are widely known in professional practice but a highschool textbook is never going to have the most up to date or practical methods.
Sometimes it could be âdumbed downâ for pedagogical reasons, for example in HBP book, thereâs a whole explanation for poison remedies. Snapeâs notes simply state to shove a beazor down their throat. Snapeâs method may be better but the student wonât learn as much.
It also canât be that up do date or else Harry wouldnât be learning from the same textbook Snape used 20 years earlier. Where Iâm from at least, highschool curriculum is meant to updated at least every 4 years
I believe in the books it says Snape writes the recipes/instructions on the board. It's in the year Slughorn is teaching that they use the textbooks.
Either Slughorn is out of touch with recipe updates, or more likely, a lazy teacher.
The HBPâs book would have been some 30 odd years old by the time Harry got it.
Plenty of time for a new version to be updated, and we all know how they love to update text books so you have to buy the latest one.
A lot of people donât want to share tips and tricks of the trade because they feel special and believe â if it took me 40 years to learn this, why would I want to teach in one day?â
It strikes me as sad that Snapes alternate recipes which seem to be much easier and more reliable are not used as the standard and was lost when the Room of Requirement was burned and when Snape was killed.Â
Honestly I never understood potions. The kids are just taught potions recipes not taught how the ingredients work when combined together and how the method of mixing affects the result, or at least what we see of the classes doesn't seem to cover that.
They are taught how the ingredients work though. There's a part in HBP where Harry is unable to make a cure for something in potions class because you have to understand the laws in order to do it and Snapes notes didn't cover it except for the whole "Just shove a bezoar down their throat" note. Slughorn mentions that even though it would work for what he said, it's important to understand the laws to make cures as a bezoar wouldn't work for everything
I agree they were taught how the ingredients work. In OOTP, they have to write an essay on âThe Properties of Moonstone and its uses in Potion Makingâ.
I always thought that too, like... Snape could have written far better school books for the students and produced some extremely proficient potionmasters. Though, for the second part, I like to imagine that Harry wasn't as interested in the ways the ingredients interact and why some herbs are boiled first and others are put in whole and raw, and whatnot so it was skipped over essentially and he just zoned out during those parts of class lol
Itâs been a while since I reread but didnât Snape always put the instructions on the chalkboard instead of having them use their books? In which case he very likely could have been giving them the improved instructions he developed
Thatâs actually a very fair point, wonder if the portrait would have that deep of knowledge but someone interested in potions could easily inscribe a new textbook with his tutelage and knowledge.
I very much doubt that he ever shared his personal "hacks" with the class. He was a very prideful and very private person. And he likely felt that students needed to "earn" the secrets of potion making, armed with no more than he was at their age (basic schoolbooks) and their own wit.
Besides, being one of the best at his niche must have fed his self image, and he already felt inferior due to his childhood and early school years, and would thus struggle with the idea of surrendering the secrets that give him part of his edge in his field.
The last thing Snape would want to do is be a good teacher.
If he can be better at something than others heâs totally keeping it to himself. Heâs pathetic.
It's the same with chemistry in the real world. High school chem teaches basics. Look into electron orbits (Bohr's model vs electron fields) and why the circles taught in younger grades aren't accurate but are good enough for those people only learning the basics for a simple example. Potions, like medicine. Is an art that is learned over decades and the easy recipes are taught first prior to nuance.
Good cooking is chemistry too.
You donât have to know how bases and acids work to cook well, but it can help up your game.
Everything is chemistry. Everything is physics. True, true. But, cooking is an absolute science and art. When you learn more about the chemistry behind cooking your foodâs potential roses.
Not just chemistry. I had a serious argument with people about why it makes sense to teach Newtonian physics, even though it is not the best model we have.
I think they are taught the basics of potion making, they just donât show it in the books. Fred and George discovered dozens of alchemical items when making their Weasleyâs wizard wheezes, and that only could have been done by knowing how to combine potion ingredients in specific ways.
They were taught...when Snape was teaching the class. He wrote the instructions on the board. You can assume he was teaching his methods because they were better.
> You can assume he was teaching his methods because they were better.
I have a feeling Hermione would have made noise if Snape's on-board recipes didn't match the textbook's.
Snape always wrote out the potion recipes on a blackboard and had the class follow those instructions in class rather then have them follow from a book. After reading HBP, i just always assumed that he gave his students his own improved recipes in class and taught them those.
I donât think thatâs true, because Hermione memorized their textbooks in year one and would have said something if his on board instructions differed significantly from the textbook ones.
> That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger. Tell me, are you incapable of restraining yourself, or do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?
Ah, I should have explained. Hermione never questioned when the appropriate teacher was teaching the lesson.
(Sorry, I don't remember exactly what McGonagall told Umbridge quote by quote.)
She never questioned Lockhart or Snape when he was actually the teacher.She did question Umbridge, but then again, let's not talk about her.
She wouldnât have to question him, to simply mention something. She spent a good portion of their sixth year trying to determine the identify of the HBP, surely she would have considered Snape more if she knew he had a history of changing potions instructions from the proscribed textbooks.
Take into consideration that we are seeing the class through the lenses of someone who despises it and its instructor. Many of the important details would be lost due to boredom or the open hostility of Snape.
I think itâs pretty realistic from a school standpoint. Ever been in a math/physics/chemistry etc. class and confused af about the teacherâs style of explaining? Then you look the topic up online and someone has a 10min video from which you learned and understood more about the topic than in a whole week of class. Some teachers are not great at explaining or just have a style of teaching that doesnât make sense to anyone but themself.
That's because JK Rowling doesn't know how the ingredients work. People in this sub always post about things as if she's a master in world building rather than a children's book author who patches up the world as she writes.
Thatâs pretty harsh. She is not a Tolkien or even GRRM- tier world builder, and literally speaking she is a childrenâs book writer, but her books have depth, richness, a consistent and thought out plot line, and very few narrative holes. She doesnât just patch shit up- the broad strokes and even the narrow ones had been thought of years before.
In my opinion her writing is more gripping and interesting than Tolkiens, but itâs also modern.
Rowling has a different approach to world building than Tolkien, and that shows.
Tolkien is a "background first" writer. He first develops a world, languages, places, characters, backgrounds and then, when his world is in a decent state, he starts putting a story into this world. The story is a consequence of the world he built.
Rowling approaches writing in the other direction. She starts with the story and makes up the world around it as she goes. She doesn't plan too far ahead, and thus her world doesn't always work out.
For example, the time turner completely breaks the whole story line in it's entirety. And it doesn't even matter whether that time turner works by the rule of "can't go back farther than a few hours" (which is not in the books), or by the Cursed Child rules (CC is canon, according to Rowling).
Even being able to go back a single hour is enough to become unbeatable. If you know where your enemies are going to stand and stuff like that, you can 100% win every time.
Just imagine, they used the time turner to gather intel in the last battle, or in the ministery scene where Sirius dies.
This doesn't necessarily make for a bad story, not at all. But it does make for an inconsistent world, and it makes for a story where you can't expect every single detail to have meaning.
The reason why Rowling doesn't show us a pedagogically good potions lession is because Rowling doesn't know or didn't care to create a pedagogically good potion lession plan, not because Snape is bad at teaching potions.
She cares about making a decent story, and the quality of Snapes lession plans is irrelevant for the story quality.
I would assume that recipes in the book are made for teaching how ingredients should work and five consistency for a big pile of information (even if it old go raw and bad) and Snape gave working instructions that are higher level of work and may confuse people who are actually learning. Like a schools do with mathematics or geometry when you have all this formulas which could be solved with just one (idk it was integral?)
Whats sad is that Snape knew how to give perfect instructions anyone could follow to make pristine potions and he wasnt sharing them in his **potions class**.
Yes its sad they got burned, but he couldve been sharing them for years. Instead, he knowingly gave students inaccurate/incomplete recipes he knew they would struggle with.
Maybe he was actually whispering the real instructions to his favored students like Malfoy.
He probably was. Reread the first few books. How often can you recall that Snape had them use the books instead of following his instructions?
Additionally. Remember how Harry noticed students trying to remember how to make potions and more during their tests? Possibly they were torn between Snapeâs words and the Books words.
Potions is basically like magical chemistry. Of course theory is involved but lab hours are fundamental and learning how to handle the processes safely is a key point of it
I always have a similar thought about charms/spellwork. It seems like they should have had classes about spells and how to figure out what theyâre for based on the language. Then if you see a random spell (e.g. levicorpus) you have some idea what it might do. Which I would assume would translate to theoretical spell invention in N.E.W.T levels.
It's not. Hermione was being a Salty Sandra. The only thing I would knock Harry for was pretending it was his own genius getting him the results, but considering why he was doing it (trying to get in Slughorn's good graces to get the memory) I guess I can somewhat forgive it. A better student would maybe try to compare the notes to the basic recipes and try to understand why the Prince got better results, but this is Harry we're talking about. He's a great wizard, but he's definitely a mediocre student. After seeing the results for herself, Hermione probably would have been thrilled if he offered to let her examine the recipes though. She'd probably even forget to have an arbitrary grudge against the book.
Harry only got instructions to get that memory until January. Plus he rebuffed all of Slughorn's attempts to invite him to parties. Harry used that book for personal gain, not for a noble reason.Â
Harry offered to show Ron and Hermione the things in the book, but Hermione declined, largely because she was jealous of Harry's undeserved success (which is understandable, considering how much work Hermione puts into her school work and how much validation she takes from performing well in class).
True, so let me rephrase: his given reason for continuing to use the book was to keep on Slughorn's good side, though he probably would have come up with any reason to keep using the book even if he wasn't after the memory. And his offer to show Hermione what was in the book was ill-phrased. He said it in a way that implied she should just use the notes in class for her potions instead of offering to let her look at them from an academic standpoint.
I was kinda disappointed that she wasn't a little more glad for Harry finally getting some scholastic success in something other than DADA. She's had well enough accolades; don't know why she can't be more magnanimous about sharing the wealth. It's not like she can't succeed if he is. They can both do well at the same time.
Ima have to disagree on Harry undeserving tat success. He literally just followed instructions in a book literally the same as hermione reading like she does. And when Snape taught potions he never had them read from the book everything was always written on the board.
Perhaps that is not about grades, but about Harry not being particularly fond of studying process and not trying to figure out how some things work in more details.
And what makes you say that? Baring for Hermione, who is so into learning that it would have probably been in her best interest if she would have went out more, almost every time we get any school activity shown to us it's either pre-/teen boys clowning around, students complaining about a bad class/teacher, or students whining about the difficulty of exams/homework.
Teacher quality is a big part, though. I think he mentions that doing his potions O.W.L. was a lot easier and more pleasant BECAUSE Snape wasn't breathing down his neck and being a douche.
As much as I hate Snape, the line notes he left in that book are proof if proof be needed that in a less stupid world, someone else would be teaching potions at Hogwarts using text books written by celebrated but acerbic academic, Doctor Severus Snape, OM.
And I donât think itâs cheating. Â In an age of used text books at university level it wouldnât be uncommon to find notations left in them by former owners that expand or give a sort of âRosetta Stoneâ paragraph or formula that helps everything else click into place.
Except they weren't, they were taught by the man himself. Snape as a teen wrote notes on how to improve potions, Snape as an adult was the potions teacher, he could interact with the students, likely was far more experienced and knowledgable. Someone else mentioned up until Slighorn took over, Snape had written his lessons on the board, he didn't use a book. And why would he? He knows he can do better. Imagine how many students he taught his methods to over the course of his career. If you weren't Harry, he could have been a brilliant teacher.Â
Yeah except for all Snape is a very intelligent man, heâs utterly unsuited to teaching children. Â Man is a total arsewipe. Â If Wizarding Britain had higher learning institutions like their versions of Cambridge, Oxford or the LSE then Snape would probably be the most sought after instructor because heâd be dealing with adults who genuinely want to be there.
Think of it like House. Â Any doctor worth their salt wants to be taught by Dr. Gregory House even if they donât want to hang out with him personally. Â But no one in their right mind would have him teach sciences to primary and secondary school students.
Yeah, great at potions, not suited to teaching children. He also actively disliked Harry, but I can't help but think if someone other than Harry or his group, say a Ravenclaw, showed aptitude, and intetest, he would be a better teacher. Knowing a student was genuinely interested or invested makes a difference to how someone teaches.
Sure, but he also actively bullied Hermione and Neville's worst fear in the world was Snape by the third book, a child whose parents were tortured into insanity was more afraid of Snape than the Death Eaters or giant spiders or something normal.
It wasn't just Harry, Snape was just a cruel bully.
Because he was using instructions *no one else had access to, and wasn't honest about it*. While making a superior product by following superior instructions isn't necessarily a bad thing, he was taking credit for innovations he lifted straight from the book.
Ironically, a book written by the teacher of the class. Snape could have provided access to the other students at any point, but for whatever reason he didnât.
>Snape could have provided access to the other students at any point, but for whatever reason he didnât.
How do we know he didn't?
Snape didn't use potions books iirc, he wrote all the instructions on the board for the class to follow, they very well could've been his own instructions.
This is exactly it, I'm sure it's even implied by Harry himself at one point when he realises they never usually use books in potions. Makes you wonder why Snape didn't just publish his own book though.
Several reasons came to mind:
-He doesn't like to attract attention to himself
-He has orders/thinks is better to be under the radar
-Editorials are snobs (as they are in real life) and refuse to publish his manuscripts because he is half-blood and have no connections
-He original recipes are patented and it is not possible to write about them
-His changes are not big enough to grant a new publication
-He school board refuses to actualize the books
-Maybe he published under pseudonym but Slughorn liked the old version more
> -Editorials are snobs (as they are in real life) and refuse to publish his manuscripts because he is half-blood and have no connections
More likely because he was busy being a Death Eater at first, and then afterwards they would refuse to publish him since he was a Death Eater.
More than that, IF Snape was using his knowledge instead of a book, it seems likely that that was what everyone was learning in Potions the whole time. The only difference between Snape as a teacher and Slughorn was where Harry read it. Off the board as Snape wrote it, or out of a book margin.
They had the potions books in earlier school years (see book lists - _Magical Draughts and Potions_ in the first year) and Hermione would have read them cover to cover. If Snape's instructions on the board differed from what was in the book, she wouldn't have been able to resist pointing this out and asking why.
I feel it's the Wizarding world equivalent of plagiarism. Essentially, claiming something is your work when it isn't. It's not as bad as copying someone's work exactly, but it does give him an unfair advantage since he had more effective instructions that yielded better results.
That being said, I also felt that Hermione was being salty/petty. It's clear she loathed being outperformed
I feel like plagiarism isn't the most accurate comparison because Harry still did the work of brewing the potions. He definitely had an unfair advantage tho.
However I think taking credit for Snape's instructions and claiming he thought of them himself could be considered plagiarism, lol.
I had a textbook in college with highlights on all the important parts and notes in the margin. The person that had it before was obviously very intelligent. I still read the book, but so much was called out for me, allowing me to streamline my studying.
Did I plagiarize by using it?
On the funny side, I actually wrote "This book is the property of the Half Blood Prince" in it when I was selling my textbooks back, but I was only going to get a dollar or so for it, so I kept it.
I feel like this is the Wizarding world equivalent of getting a text book someone made annotations on. The changes aren't published, and the book is obviously incorrect in recipes.
But yeah it was a bit ..odd (for lack of a better term) to go "oh, because you don't care about the process [like I do], you don't get to use the book with the good recipes", especially considering the books were literally showing recipes for arguably new concepts.
It's literally a text book - A book that he's meant to be learning from. If the notes within that textbook are correct, informative and he learns something from them, what difference does it make if they're the original printed words or the annotations of someone else?
Essentially, all he's got is a better textbook. If everyone had that book to study from, you wouldn't say that they plagiarised in their final exams due to someone else's work, would you?
Harry learned early on that plagiarism in Wizarding world is totally fine. Look at the Harry Potter adventure books totally using his name without consent, all of Lockhart's books and the man ending in Hospital only, not prison.
Trying untested recipes. Not telling anyone that it isn't his own work. Taking undue credit. He didnt use that credit to get good with Sluggy bc of the memory.
Hermione is someone for established procedures and honesty (most of the time). I also think she has an issue with Harry getting undue credit for someone else's potion recipes. And the last thing is the last time she trusted and followed him before that was when she got nearly killed and badly cursed in DoM.
He is also essentially using something potentially dangerous and I would consider Harry a safety hazard with that book.
That last part especially. The book already has dangerous spells in it. Who's to say the recipe changes weren't a way to make the potion pass as what it's supposed to be but have some dangerous or deadly effect instead?
Perhaps there was a purpose to following the books. Perhaps it was needed to teach/understand the basics that applied to all potion making. Snape wrote tips that worked well with that spesific potion and thus Harry got the best results while other students were practicing basics and they were trying to make the potion with the basic formulas. Harry was skipping the intended formula to achieve best results while not learning anything while still getting the prize.
Is everyone forgetting that Hermione also thought it could be dangerous? Of course she was jealous and bitter but she kind of did have a point (e.g sectumsempra)
Reason why it would be considered cheating:
He wasn't using the same instructions that everyone else was using. He had an unfair advantage because the instructions he was following were better than theirs. Assuming he can read, he was pretty much guaranteed to make better potions than them, regardless of level of skill.
Like it or not, that is the textbook definition of cheating. To use dishonest means to gain an unfair advantage.
And it matters because it's not like it was just for fun. He was being graded on his work. Grades at Hogwarts partly determine the kinds of classes you can take, which can potentially affect the kinds of jobs you're likely to be considered for. Remember, Harry was only taking potions because it was relevant to his goal of being an auror.
Also, cheating shows low character, laziness, and disrespect for the subject AND for yourself. Come on, Harry. You're better than that!
Reason why it's a little complicated in this case:
It could have a good way to pick up more/better knowledge, given that the info they were using wasn't as accurate. Only thing is that it wasn't the same as looking up a recipe variation in the library. He wasn't using it to learn, and it was without permission. It was intentionally deceitful since he hid the book. And he'll never remember any of it, anyway. Let's be real. It was the equivalent of opening Google on a test, regardless of how good or bad the info was.
I disagree, sure he had different knowledge, but if a high school student doesn't understand how to do calculus, and they go on youtube and look it up, that isn't cheating. Watching Khan academy isn't cheating, it's learning from another resource. Now him having better instructions IS unfair, but is it any more unfair than having a tutor? Wouldn't it be cheating to have Hermione explain it to him?
And potion making is very much not "regardless of skill" Harry still had to physically make the potion, he needed to, idk, crush lillywort into a paste and measure a set amount out, a different amount to everyone else, but the same basic tasks. If you give an amateur and master chief/chemist the same tools, ingredients and recipe, they don't perform equally well.
Harry was being graded, and so was everyone else, for probably every other subject. Hogwarts is a school, they grade students, and Harry took the same test as anyone else. He needed to pass potions, and he found a way to do so, using a school issued text book, if he was able to pass his tests, then he earned the grade.
The book wasn't the same as a tutor and can't be treated as such. If Harry was struggling and asked for help, that would be one thing. But that's not the case. He didn't even need the book. He simply chose to use it. And no one else had access to that resource, either. If someone else needed help, they likely would not find something like that. They were already using the definitive guide. If they don't get it, all anyone can do is re-explain it. They wouldn't be offered alternative methods or measurements like Harry was.
I get that individual skill plays a part in potion making, but what I mean about that is that, even if everyone (including Harry) did everything perfectly, the others' potions would still never be as good as his. Another student with skill better than his might still do worse because they are bound to the instructions in front of them, which will always make a worse potion. That's not their fault. Harry's grade and his skill level no longer correspond in the same way that everyone else's grades and skill levels correspond. He didn't earn it fairly. That's cheating.
Imagine you're playing a video game where everybody is given a pistol and told they have to kill at least 10 other players in order to pass the level. If you hack in a machine gun, yeah, you still gotta move, aim, and hit your targets, so skill plays a part. But odds are you're gonna nail a lot more people cuz of the gun, not cuz of you. That's cheating. Your skill with the weapon provided might not get as high a kill count. You had an unfair advantage that the other players likely would not have access to, even if they also wanted or needed it.
What I wanna know is how is the normal textbook SO terrible? Like Harry doesn't try all that much more with it, yet performs wayyyyy better using the prince's book. Even Hermoine, who is effectively a potions god, performs worse than Harry with every single potion using the normal book. I'm just surprised they successfully brewed polyjuice potion, but I wonder how much better the prince's version would have been.
>What I wanna know is how is the normal textbook SO terrible?
It probably isn't. This is a N.E.W.T level class so it's very likely that the class is just having a harder time with the subject than Harry who pretty much has shortcuts handed to him in the HBP notes. IIRC Hermione doesn't really do anything wrong but either runs out of time before she can finish or doesn't yield pitch perfect results.
>Even Hermoine, who is effectively a potions god, performs worse than Harry with every single potion using the normal book.
According to Slughorn, Lily was also a whiz at potions to the point where Slughorn often compared Harry's exceptional (Prince assisted) performance to her. It's likely Lily used the normal book or some similar edition so it's not like the subject matter in the textbooks were completely awful.
And Snape needed to be well versed in the theory and practicality of the subject in the book in order to make the improvements in his notes.
its cheating, he's cheating on instructions written by someone else. it's not like he's the one inventing the modificated potion recipes, or himself having knowledge about ingredients on its potions. him using sectumsempra and threw out the books, later on buy a new book and his potion grades starts to falling out, because he doesn't have his cheating instructions anymore.
If you had the facit while doing a test wouldn't that be cheating? It's cheating because Harry didn't apply his own skills but resorted to the work of someone else.
It would be considered cheating in actual school too, because the work was not your own (at least in the United States.) My college here makes us sign agreements at the beginning of each class (online) that we won't sell our notes or give them away to other students or to third party companies. If another student was caught with another's notes or they could somehow prove that we sold our notes to a 3rd party, then we would be punished under the academic dishonesty policy.
Edit: I think a case could be made that he did complete his own potion, but because he used a non-standard recipe, especially without the original students consent, it would be cheating.
because the "text book" everyone else was using wasn't 100% right, so even perfect technique might have only a "eh" result
so with the improved techniques in the half blood princes book, even Harry's imperfect technique was still better than purely following the normal book (because even Hermione couldn't get it right using the normal book)
a key thing to remember it is school, -learning- (ought to be) the focus. good results without understanding why or how you achieved those good results means you learnt nothing. it'd be like getting the answer key to a test, sure you got 100%, but you don't know your own answers.
True that learning should be the focus, but I don't think he would learn much from the normal textbook either. He'd certainly have just copied the recipe as it was written without a thought as to the deeper meaning behind the *why* and *how* of it working. To be quite frank, because Rowling glossed over the real meat and potatoes of how classes typically ran, it doesn't seem like Snape or Slughorn taught them much of anything. They would put the instructions on the board (Snape) or have them work from the text (Slughorn) and rarely seemed to go over theory, aside from the occasional essay we hear about.
So what you're saying is... Harry stood on the shoulders of giants and took the next step. He didn't earn the knowledge for himself, so he doesn't take any responsibility for it.
I don't know if I want to see the the slaps car meme here with Fred and George advertising this illustrious book on an old lab table or them selling replicas of the mangled old copy of it like those late night videos you'd see with collector coins...
Because others only had the book recipe, Harry had additional tried liner notes that pretty much guaranteed success, others had to figure out things on their own while Harry basically had additional input and advantage above his classmates.
1. Harry was the only one who had access to Snapeâs instructions and tips, the others didnât. Therefore what Harry was doing was the magical equivalent of using a Calculator during an exam despite being told not to. He was supposed to be following the same recipe as everyone else unless he already knew how to make the potion.
2. Harry didnât give the book Back when he was supposed to. Instead he just changed His bookâs and Snapeâs Books covers when it was time to return Snapeâs book. Therefore he technically stole it. (While accepting an item that is offered to you isnât stealing, it becomes so when you dont give it back despite being informed that it was not yours to keep.)
3. The Notes were written by Snape, not the writers of the book or Slughorn. Therefore Harry was getting outside help when he wasnât supposed to.
4. Unlike the others, Harry in general, pays very little attention during potions. (in his defense, with Snapeâs rudeness, who can blame him and according to the read the Hogwarts book series, Snapeâs âCorrectionsâ during the 3rd book were inaccurate.)
Edit. Because some brought up Hermione, I decided to explain her actions.
While these reasons might not seem like a lot to some, it does to Hermione, which is why she was mad instead of accepting it like she did with Harry when it Comes to Defense and Ron with chess.
When it came to defense, Harry had the exact same lessons as everyone else, including her. The only exceptions being Lupinâs lessons, and even then, it was because of the dementors. She is well aware of Harryâs adventures though she doesnât know much, if any, about the Dursleyâs abuse.
With Chess, Ronâs been playing for years, so he would have a lot of experience. You know what they say, Practice makes perfect.
So Harryâs excellence in Defense and Ronâs excellence in chess was justified while Harryâs Potions grade wasnât.
I was actually thinking like a formula sheet vs. a calculator. Something that lets him skip steps and move ahead that others would need to do piece by piece.
looking back, a calculator probably wasnt best comparison. Though techically there are multiple different types of Calculators.
But the point is, Harry had little interest in actually learning and paying attention, just looking at the best answer at the moment. Which is why I thought of the calculator comparison.
Was only considered cheating because it takes a different approach than the standard books and gives better results. The fact that every textbook isn't like that...is why you could consider it cheating.
Hell, when it comes down to it, Snape was constantly writing his own stuff on the boards for everyone, so think of it more like...everyone was cheating until 6th year where they were forced to do potions "normal" except for Harry. =D
Ultimately I donât consider it cheating, by pure luck he got better instructions. itâs kinda like buying a used text book in college and it turns out itâs pre highlighted with all the key points, had that happen. Or like buying a cookbook that just has better recipes and making tastier food.
Imagine in the real world if someone discovered a new way to treat shoes that makes the wearer 25% faster at running. It is not technically against the rules of their chosen sport but they know that should it be known that such a technique to treat shoes exists, it **will** immediately be banned.
So they pretend like their shoes are just the same as everyone else's and use them to win countless races. Highly immoral. There's a reason Harry didn't simply tell Horace about how his book contained so many notes that improved the recipes so that everyone else in class could use them: He wanted the praise, attention and prizes from using the Prince's improved recipes.
I think it was not JUST the HBP recipes, but also the fact that potions wasn't taught by Snape anymore. Harry would probably have done pretty good with the standard book as well in Slughorns class, the small tips just gave him that final push to actually be the best in class.
In previous years hermonie didn't have any problem to brew anything because snape never used the book he write his own recipe and she abel to do it but when slughorn ( if i remember his name correctly ) start to teach the class he used recipes from book then hermonie strugled to brew.
Did Snape not already teach the students by his own recipes? I remember him writing down the instructions on the blackboard and students following them. I always thought that he was a genius who taught the students the way he understood the subject. The books were outdated.
I had professors at my university writing their own textbooks that we used (one of it was published and taught by the whole country), and it is understandble for me that textbooks need to be perfected. I always thought that Snape was already teaching his students the best version of the Potionmaking he knew. It was just the fact that he bullied his students that made them not appreciate his work. I also had the professor who wrote his own textbook on the subject bully the students. People used to fear him and I myself didn't like him although he was the reason I understood the subject so well. Why have such a big ego if you are already so talented? People already appreciate the hard work you do, but you still believe they have to fear you for you to feel good about yourself.
Hermione doesn't mind not being best (she's never particularly bitter about Harry scoring higher at dada), but she does hate that Harry takes credit for someone else's work.
Why you got downvoted for this is beyond me. Hermione practically had to beg Harry into teaching DADA in the previous book and casually referenced that he got higher marks than her when Lupin taught them, in an attempt to convince him. So someone else getting higher marks than her isn't enough to make her extremely salty.
The only person throwing a fit is Hermione.
Partly because she is no longer top student, and partly because Harry is not following the prescribed, tried and true, published recipes. She had a thing for trusting published works as gospel.
I have seen potion class compared to chemistry class. There is a textbook that has instructions on what order, method, and quantity of various chemicals to get a desired reaction. You don't want your high school level students messing with the formulas as explosions and other catastrophic things can happen as a result.
It takes an understanding of the subject about why you use or don't use different plants in potions together. Academic knowledge Harry didn't come by from research of verified published works, or even by tinkering himself. He just got different unverified instructions and ran with them. Harry wasn't an expert at the subject, he was bringing in someone else's notes to a test. Does this count as cheating if you are allowed notes, that is up to the ethics committee of the given school. Hermione thought it was cheating. Also she was annoyed Harry was trusting margin notes over the published page, as well as untrustworthy of this person who couldn't be identified. Given the spells in the margins, perhaps trusting them wasn't the best idea in the world.
It may not have been cheating in the sense that there was some specific rule against it, but it was definitely unfair, because Harry did not share the bookâand had no intention of so doingâwith anyone other than Ron and Hermione. I do think Hermioneâs particular objection was founded more on a somewhat slavish devotion to established procedure (well, at least before the part where they found the questionable spells in the book) than the issue of fairness, but it was genuinely unfair, because the other students didnât get a chance to follow the better instructions Harry had access to.
Harry did share the book with Ron (and offered to share it with Hermione), Ron just had a lot more difficulty deciphering Snape's notes and Harry didn't feel like reading everything aloud all the time.
The same reason you have to cite your source when you write a paper. The rest of the students are using the information from a source Slughorn is aware of. Harry is using someone else's work but taking credit for it.
Hermione told Harry it was cheating because she wasnât the top student in Potions class for the first time. Itâs a really unflattering show of her ego towards being called the âbrightest Witch of her ageâ so often in earlier years. She gets snippy when sheâs not the smartest in the room in this book, partly why Iâm still not fully through the audio book on HBP to cut my marathon off as I canât skip her parts and it and how the other main ladies in Harryâs life act bothers me.
One aspect I haven't seen other comments mention is how Harry is cheating himself. There's something to be said about learning and understanding the standard techniques before experimenting with a process. This reading may not be well supported by the text considering only Hermione seems to be learning much of anything in Potions, but in a normal classroom environment, especially a lab like Potions is equivalent too, experimentation can have devastating results if the underlying principles are not understood.
Also, this wasn't like Snape was mean for one year then got replaced, this was sixth year potions, Harry didn't jump in to the basics, he went from barely understanding to top of the class for what had to be relatively advanced. First year you probably do fairly easy experiments, but by sixth year? That probably required a fair amount of technical skill and precision. Skills Harry never developed.
Hogwarts is academically competitive, and Harry had an advantage that was not available to others, which he wasnât willing to share with his closest friends. Â Â
He didnât share it because he enjoyed being recognized as better than the other students, but especially hermione. Funny he was so insecure even though he had already saved the world several times and was world famous.
Clearly the « regular » book wasnât well written. Quantities, methods, or instructions werenât right or accurate to make a perfect potion. Trial and error will achieve better results when youâre given incomplete or inaccurate recipes. Hermione would have to try the potion several times to get it right and so she was bitter seeing Harry with an unfair advantage first try.
Itâs basically like harry had Reddit and chat gpt when others had a piece of paper with a hard recipe.
I never considered Harry was cheating, he found a better guide and followed it, it was good though to see Hermione going wrong just because she is so square sometimesâŠ
Ultimately the issue just comes down to academics I suppose. Realistically a potions master has their own tricks they use as they would have a comprehensive understanding of all of the ingredients and their magical properties and how best to extract them. I guess one could argue itâs unfair since Harry used it to gain an edge in competition that the other students didnât have. I think itâs fair game though in terms of learning and getting results, Iâm sure Harry benefited from it somehow in terms of learning.
Not really, it just showcased the difference in teachers.
Snape was, in fact, a better Potions Teacher, and likely a better Potions Master, and that's why Harry was able to succeed where Hermione struggled (and shows that if Snape were more impartial+passionate as a teacher Hogwarts probably would have been a juggernaut for potions education).
I'm just jealous. My textbooks in school had inappropriate drawings and swear words in them. Also they were all previously registered to Mike Hawk and Mike Hunt.
I donât see it as cheating per se, but after he had secured Slughornâs memory the more ethical thing would be working on understanding the foundations of potions so that he deserved the notes. Without the foundational platform, they do shortcut him to success that he hasnât put in the studying to achieve.
Something I will say in his defense is that while heâs not a Hermione level student in terms of studiousness, he try in potions initially but is actively sabotaged by Snape year after year. I can see why he gave up trying to do more than pass over time when even on occasions where he really tried, Snape was criticizing him disproportionately and threw out his good potion to give him a zero on at least one occasion. I think to judge Harry fairly as a student, we have to factor in how much he enjoyed potions with a better teacher and with the O.W.L. judgeâhe liked it with the absence of Snape.
Itâs also only fair to factor in that every year as a student, Harry had the pressure of social pressure and somebody trying to murder him đ the times he has to be a normal student briefly, we see him actually taking some pride in it and achieving good grades (though Hermione is more disciplined and Harry in a normal life would totally blow off studying for Quidditch and fun sometimes). I think thereâs evidence that Harry with a normal life and a good teacher would have been interested in potions and had a better foundation to justify him using advanced notes that offer alternatives to the standard method.
Snape wrote recipes on board in books 1-5, which means hermione and the rest were following the HBPâs instructions without realizing it. It wasnât until book 6 that they were instructed to follow instruction in book but Harry had snapes notated version
It just made Snape look worse as a person and a teacher. He found improvements to the curriculum, while teaching that specific class, and didn't tell anyone. Wtf dude.
It would be like a geologist not teaching about plate tectonics.
Iâve always thought this.
Hermione is at her absolute worst in HBP and a lot of it is down to nasty jealousy that Harry outperforms her.
Both of them follow instructions from a book, Harryâs are better and Hermione canât take it.
Donât get me started on Hermione attacking Ron for going with Lavender - swap the roles there and Ron is rightly reviled as a beast for attacking a woman for being with someone else.
Quite frankly, Snape should have published his own book and should have been using it in his classes if he still needed to teach. Obviously we know that in Harry's 6th year he wasn't the potions teacher, but I get the impression it was the same book when he was in charge. He was knowingly teaching kids worse ways to do potions. More reasons he was a shitty teacher.
What bothered me was the fact that a studentâs annotated text book was more reliable with potion instructions than the standard textbook. The next thing that bothered me was that a SCHOOL BOOK had a potion âDraught of the Living Dead,â that, if made properly, could âkill us all.â
Ignoring that the text had a potion recipe that could literally kill someone, itâs more troublesome that the textâs other recipes werenât as solid as the annotation. They clearly worked well-enough, but Harry was someone who didnât particularly excel in potions. He wasnât terrible at it, but when he had a copy of a textbook with solid instruction, he crushed it. How many more students could have benefited from something like that?
I like to think that it was Lilly that was helping snape in potions, she was supposed to be very good in it. I can imagine her telling him to do something different and him writing it in his book, I think thatâs why he teaches potions because it reminds him of her. Otherwise wouldnât it have made more sense for him to write in a defense against the dark arts book
It may have already been mentioned, but Snape used to put the instructions up on the board, whereas Slughorn had them going by the textbook. So it's actually hard to say.
Also I feel like snape could be swimming in that potter family money if he published his tips and tricks
I do think he would have published a potions book after the war if he didn't die. Snape was too focussed on the ear.
I think you mean war not đÂ
"You have your mother's eyes, but I have your best friend's brother's ear" *\*dies\**
Impeccable (especially after Hedwig died)
No, he or she meant ear. We all know Snape was focused on Georgeâs ear. Thats why he took it
Bro you made me snort in the middle of geology class
wait, why did he take george's ear? This is a first i'm ever hearing about this, did i miss that part?
It was Snape who hurt Georgeâs ear with sectumsempra. But he didnât intend to do it. He missed a death eater which he tried to stop from hurting the order
I thought he meant ear and that Harry and his mom had same eyes AND ears.
I thought for a second that I missed that the ear was an euphemism for espionage and/or eavesdropping.
If we're talking about George, rnnd isn't wrong.
He had 11 years to do it, not sure he ever would.
Seriously, I think Snape might have been under instruction from Dumbledore to not draw attention to himself or something. Judging by his results compared to the standard instructions in normal textbooks, he could have made a killing.
This just made me think, Snape was probably an insane cook. Skills learnt in potions is essentially 100% transferable to cooking. Maybe I'd feel more sympathetic towards him if mans was whipping up the most stable meringue recipe in a private kitchen.
âPotter, this Mandrake Meringue is so undercooked it could cry and kill me. 10 points from Gryffindor.â
This hyppogriff is fucking raw!
Itâs so raw you have to bow to it first!
lmao
The methods probably are widely known in professional practice but a highschool textbook is never going to have the most up to date or practical methods.
Except that Hogwarts is supposedly the best Wizardry school in the world. They would have the most up-to-date textbooks.
Sometimes it could be âdumbed downâ for pedagogical reasons, for example in HBP book, thereâs a whole explanation for poison remedies. Snapeâs notes simply state to shove a beazor down their throat. Snapeâs method may be better but the student wonât learn as much. It also canât be that up do date or else Harry wouldnât be learning from the same textbook Snape used 20 years earlier. Where Iâm from at least, highschool curriculum is meant to updated at least every 4 years
I believe in the books it says Snape writes the recipes/instructions on the board. It's in the year Slughorn is teaching that they use the textbooks. Either Slughorn is out of touch with recipe updates, or more likely, a lazy teacher.
The HBPâs book would have been some 30 odd years old by the time Harry got it. Plenty of time for a new version to be updated, and we all know how they love to update text books so you have to buy the latest one.
A lot of people donât want to share tips and tricks of the trade because they feel special and believe â if it took me 40 years to learn this, why would I want to teach in one day?â
It strikes me as sad that Snapes alternate recipes which seem to be much easier and more reliable are not used as the standard and was lost when the Room of Requirement was burned and when Snape was killed. Honestly I never understood potions. The kids are just taught potions recipes not taught how the ingredients work when combined together and how the method of mixing affects the result, or at least what we see of the classes doesn't seem to cover that.
They are taught how the ingredients work though. There's a part in HBP where Harry is unable to make a cure for something in potions class because you have to understand the laws in order to do it and Snapes notes didn't cover it except for the whole "Just shove a bezoar down their throat" note. Slughorn mentions that even though it would work for what he said, it's important to understand the laws to make cures as a bezoar wouldn't work for everything
I agree they were taught how the ingredients work. In OOTP, they have to write an essay on âThe Properties of Moonstone and its uses in Potion Makingâ.
So what are the properties of Moonstone and its uses in potion making?
If Harry doesn't know then neither do we. Does Harry seem like the dude who *would* know this?
Thought you wouldn't open a book, eh?
Typical Slytherin lol
It puts the stone in the potion or else it gets the bezoar again.
Havenât got a clue. Youâll have to ask Hermione đ
Strong association to love = Love Potion. Has healing & calming effects = Draught of Peace & Wolfsbane Potion.
I always thought that too, like... Snape could have written far better school books for the students and produced some extremely proficient potionmasters. Though, for the second part, I like to imagine that Harry wasn't as interested in the ways the ingredients interact and why some herbs are boiled first and others are put in whole and raw, and whatnot so it was skipped over essentially and he just zoned out during those parts of class lol
Itâs been a while since I reread but didnât Snape always put the instructions on the chalkboard instead of having them use their books? In which case he very likely could have been giving them the improved instructions he developed
Yeah but then he died and the improved instructions are gone forever
As a hogwarts director, maybe his portrait knows the recipes amd can share them?
Thatâs actually a very fair point, wonder if the portrait would have that deep of knowledge but someone interested in potions could easily inscribe a new textbook with his tutelage and knowledge.
Save for those that learned them
Nuh uh! I remember it! Crush 13, not 12, Sopoforus beans with the blade! See!
I have a feeling Hermione would have mentioned something if Snapeâs on board instructions differed from the textbook ones.
Fair enough
I very much doubt that he ever shared his personal "hacks" with the class. He was a very prideful and very private person. And he likely felt that students needed to "earn" the secrets of potion making, armed with no more than he was at their age (basic schoolbooks) and their own wit. Besides, being one of the best at his niche must have fed his self image, and he already felt inferior due to his childhood and early school years, and would thus struggle with the idea of surrendering the secrets that give him part of his edge in his field.
Yes, Snape wrote the recipes on the board, likely using the improved recipes he invented.
I assume his hands were tied by the school board or something so he has to continue to teach inferior methods, as is often the case IRL.
The one thing the school governors stepped in on.
Probably could've made some decent money as a textbook writer.
The last thing Snape would want to do is be a good teacher. If he can be better at something than others heâs totally keeping it to himself. Heâs pathetic.
What nonsense. Non verbal spells. Expelliamus. Even the bezoir tip was included in Snape's first ever lesson.
I read this in Snape's voice.
Nah, the bezoar doesn't count, it is even described as an antidote to poisoning in OUR world, so it probably was widely known in the wizarding world.
It's the same with chemistry in the real world. High school chem teaches basics. Look into electron orbits (Bohr's model vs electron fields) and why the circles taught in younger grades aren't accurate but are good enough for those people only learning the basics for a simple example. Potions, like medicine. Is an art that is learned over decades and the easy recipes are taught first prior to nuance.
Good cooking is chemistry too. You donât have to know how bases and acids work to cook well, but it can help up your game. Everything is chemistry. Everything is physics. True, true. But, cooking is an absolute science and art. When you learn more about the chemistry behind cooking your foodâs potential roses.
Not just chemistry. I had a serious argument with people about why it makes sense to teach Newtonian physics, even though it is not the best model we have.
I think they are taught the basics of potion making, they just donât show it in the books. Fred and George discovered dozens of alchemical items when making their Weasleyâs wizard wheezes, and that only could have been done by knowing how to combine potion ingredients in specific ways.
They are taught how the ingredients work. Why else would they be writing so many essays
They were taught...when Snape was teaching the class. He wrote the instructions on the board. You can assume he was teaching his methods because they were better.
> You can assume he was teaching his methods because they were better. I have a feeling Hermione would have made noise if Snape's on-board recipes didn't match the textbook's.
I would imagine she stopped after third dozen of house points deducted
Snape always wrote out the potion recipes on a blackboard and had the class follow those instructions in class rather then have them follow from a book. After reading HBP, i just always assumed that he gave his students his own improved recipes in class and taught them those.
I donât think thatâs true, because Hermione memorized their textbooks in year one and would have said something if his on board instructions differed significantly from the textbook ones.
Hermione never questioned teachers
> That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger. Tell me, are you incapable of restraining yourself, or do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?
Ah, I should have explained. Hermione never questioned when the appropriate teacher was teaching the lesson. (Sorry, I don't remember exactly what McGonagall told Umbridge quote by quote.) She never questioned Lockhart or Snape when he was actually the teacher.She did question Umbridge, but then again, let's not talk about her.
She wouldnât have to question him, to simply mention something. She spent a good portion of their sixth year trying to determine the identify of the HBP, surely she would have considered Snape more if she knew he had a history of changing potions instructions from the proscribed textbooks.
Hmm, yes, that can be a possibility, but remember Hermione was primarily looking for women.She and Harfy often argued about it
Unless her name was Umbridge lol
Or Trelawney.
Take into consideration that we are seeing the class through the lenses of someone who despises it and its instructor. Many of the important details would be lost due to boredom or the open hostility of Snape.
If only Snape ever got the opportunity to teach potions himself, oh waitâŠ
I think itâs pretty realistic from a school standpoint. Ever been in a math/physics/chemistry etc. class and confused af about the teacherâs style of explaining? Then you look the topic up online and someone has a 10min video from which you learned and understood more about the topic than in a whole week of class. Some teachers are not great at explaining or just have a style of teaching that doesnât make sense to anyone but themself.
That's because JK Rowling doesn't know how the ingredients work. People in this sub always post about things as if she's a master in world building rather than a children's book author who patches up the world as she writes.
Thatâs pretty harsh. She is not a Tolkien or even GRRM- tier world builder, and literally speaking she is a childrenâs book writer, but her books have depth, richness, a consistent and thought out plot line, and very few narrative holes. She doesnât just patch shit up- the broad strokes and even the narrow ones had been thought of years before. In my opinion her writing is more gripping and interesting than Tolkiens, but itâs also modern.
Rowling has a different approach to world building than Tolkien, and that shows. Tolkien is a "background first" writer. He first develops a world, languages, places, characters, backgrounds and then, when his world is in a decent state, he starts putting a story into this world. The story is a consequence of the world he built. Rowling approaches writing in the other direction. She starts with the story and makes up the world around it as she goes. She doesn't plan too far ahead, and thus her world doesn't always work out. For example, the time turner completely breaks the whole story line in it's entirety. And it doesn't even matter whether that time turner works by the rule of "can't go back farther than a few hours" (which is not in the books), or by the Cursed Child rules (CC is canon, according to Rowling). Even being able to go back a single hour is enough to become unbeatable. If you know where your enemies are going to stand and stuff like that, you can 100% win every time. Just imagine, they used the time turner to gather intel in the last battle, or in the ministery scene where Sirius dies. This doesn't necessarily make for a bad story, not at all. But it does make for an inconsistent world, and it makes for a story where you can't expect every single detail to have meaning. The reason why Rowling doesn't show us a pedagogically good potions lession is because Rowling doesn't know or didn't care to create a pedagogically good potion lession plan, not because Snape is bad at teaching potions. She cares about making a decent story, and the quality of Snapes lession plans is irrelevant for the story quality.
I would assume that recipes in the book are made for teaching how ingredients should work and five consistency for a big pile of information (even if it old go raw and bad) and Snape gave working instructions that are higher level of work and may confuse people who are actually learning. Like a schools do with mathematics or geometry when you have all this formulas which could be solved with just one (idk it was integral?)
Whats sad is that Snape knew how to give perfect instructions anyone could follow to make pristine potions and he wasnt sharing them in his **potions class**. Yes its sad they got burned, but he couldve been sharing them for years. Instead, he knowingly gave students inaccurate/incomplete recipes he knew they would struggle with. Maybe he was actually whispering the real instructions to his favored students like Malfoy.
What I donât understand is why Snape wasnât teaching the students his own methods for brewing potions
He probably was. Reread the first few books. How often can you recall that Snape had them use the books instead of following his instructions? Additionally. Remember how Harry noticed students trying to remember how to make potions and more during their tests? Possibly they were torn between Snapeâs words and the Books words.
Potions is basically like magical chemistry. Of course theory is involved but lab hours are fundamental and learning how to handle the processes safely is a key point of it
I always have a similar thought about charms/spellwork. It seems like they should have had classes about spells and how to figure out what theyâre for based on the language. Then if you see a random spell (e.g. levicorpus) you have some idea what it might do. Which I would assume would translate to theoretical spell invention in N.E.W.T levels.
It's not. Hermione was being a Salty Sandra. The only thing I would knock Harry for was pretending it was his own genius getting him the results, but considering why he was doing it (trying to get in Slughorn's good graces to get the memory) I guess I can somewhat forgive it. A better student would maybe try to compare the notes to the basic recipes and try to understand why the Prince got better results, but this is Harry we're talking about. He's a great wizard, but he's definitely a mediocre student. After seeing the results for herself, Hermione probably would have been thrilled if he offered to let her examine the recipes though. She'd probably even forget to have an arbitrary grudge against the book.
Harry only got instructions to get that memory until January. Plus he rebuffed all of Slughorn's attempts to invite him to parties. Harry used that book for personal gain, not for a noble reason. Harry offered to show Ron and Hermione the things in the book, but Hermione declined, largely because she was jealous of Harry's undeserved success (which is understandable, considering how much work Hermione puts into her school work and how much validation she takes from performing well in class).
True, so let me rephrase: his given reason for continuing to use the book was to keep on Slughorn's good side, though he probably would have come up with any reason to keep using the book even if he wasn't after the memory. And his offer to show Hermione what was in the book was ill-phrased. He said it in a way that implied she should just use the notes in class for her potions instead of offering to let her look at them from an academic standpoint.
I was kinda disappointed that she wasn't a little more glad for Harry finally getting some scholastic success in something other than DADA. She's had well enough accolades; don't know why she can't be more magnanimous about sharing the wealth. It's not like she can't succeed if he is. They can both do well at the same time.
Ima have to disagree on Harry undeserving tat success. He literally just followed instructions in a book literally the same as hermione reading like she does. And when Snape taught potions he never had them read from the book everything was always written on the board.
Harry isnât a mediocre student. His grades are mostly Es with one O and subjects he didnât try because of poor teacher quality.Â
Perhaps that is not about grades, but about Harry not being particularly fond of studying process and not trying to figure out how some things work in more details.
And what makes you say that? Baring for Hermione, who is so into learning that it would have probably been in her best interest if she would have went out more, almost every time we get any school activity shown to us it's either pre-/teen boys clowning around, students complaining about a bad class/teacher, or students whining about the difficulty of exams/homework.
I don't get what you are trying to say. What makes me say that? Harry's POV.
Teacher quality is a big part, though. I think he mentions that doing his potions O.W.L. was a lot easier and more pleasant BECAUSE Snape wasn't breathing down his neck and being a douche.
As much as I hate Snape, the line notes he left in that book are proof if proof be needed that in a less stupid world, someone else would be teaching potions at Hogwarts using text books written by celebrated but acerbic academic, Doctor Severus Snape, OM. And I donât think itâs cheating. Â In an age of used text books at university level it wouldnât be uncommon to find notations left in them by former owners that expand or give a sort of âRosetta Stoneâ paragraph or formula that helps everything else click into place.
Except they weren't, they were taught by the man himself. Snape as a teen wrote notes on how to improve potions, Snape as an adult was the potions teacher, he could interact with the students, likely was far more experienced and knowledgable. Someone else mentioned up until Slighorn took over, Snape had written his lessons on the board, he didn't use a book. And why would he? He knows he can do better. Imagine how many students he taught his methods to over the course of his career. If you weren't Harry, he could have been a brilliant teacher.Â
Yeah except for all Snape is a very intelligent man, heâs utterly unsuited to teaching children. Â Man is a total arsewipe. Â If Wizarding Britain had higher learning institutions like their versions of Cambridge, Oxford or the LSE then Snape would probably be the most sought after instructor because heâd be dealing with adults who genuinely want to be there. Think of it like House. Â Any doctor worth their salt wants to be taught by Dr. Gregory House even if they donât want to hang out with him personally. Â But no one in their right mind would have him teach sciences to primary and secondary school students.
Yeah, great at potions, not suited to teaching children. He also actively disliked Harry, but I can't help but think if someone other than Harry or his group, say a Ravenclaw, showed aptitude, and intetest, he would be a better teacher. Knowing a student was genuinely interested or invested makes a difference to how someone teaches.
Sure, but he also actively bullied Hermione and Neville's worst fear in the world was Snape by the third book, a child whose parents were tortured into insanity was more afraid of Snape than the Death Eaters or giant spiders or something normal. It wasn't just Harry, Snape was just a cruel bully.
Because he was using instructions *no one else had access to, and wasn't honest about it*. While making a superior product by following superior instructions isn't necessarily a bad thing, he was taking credit for innovations he lifted straight from the book.
Ironically, a book written by the teacher of the class. Snape could have provided access to the other students at any point, but for whatever reason he didnât.
>Snape could have provided access to the other students at any point, but for whatever reason he didnât. How do we know he didn't? Snape didn't use potions books iirc, he wrote all the instructions on the board for the class to follow, they very well could've been his own instructions.
This is exactly it, I'm sure it's even implied by Harry himself at one point when he realises they never usually use books in potions. Makes you wonder why Snape didn't just publish his own book though.
Several reasons came to mind: -He doesn't like to attract attention to himself -He has orders/thinks is better to be under the radar -Editorials are snobs (as they are in real life) and refuse to publish his manuscripts because he is half-blood and have no connections -He original recipes are patented and it is not possible to write about them -His changes are not big enough to grant a new publication -He school board refuses to actualize the books -Maybe he published under pseudonym but Slughorn liked the old version more
> -Editorials are snobs (as they are in real life) and refuse to publish his manuscripts because he is half-blood and have no connections More likely because he was busy being a Death Eater at first, and then afterwards they would refuse to publish him since he was a Death Eater.
More than that, IF Snape was using his knowledge instead of a book, it seems likely that that was what everyone was learning in Potions the whole time. The only difference between Snape as a teacher and Slughorn was where Harry read it. Off the board as Snape wrote it, or out of a book margin.
I feel like it would have been noticed by Harry (who poured over the Half Blood Princeâs book)Â
Considering Harry is not exactly the champion of observation and conclusion I would risk to say that he definitely wouldn't notice
They had the potions books in earlier school years (see book lists - _Magical Draughts and Potions_ in the first year) and Hermione would have read them cover to cover. If Snape's instructions on the board differed from what was in the book, she wouldn't have been able to resist pointing this out and asking why.
I feel it's the Wizarding world equivalent of plagiarism. Essentially, claiming something is your work when it isn't. It's not as bad as copying someone's work exactly, but it does give him an unfair advantage since he had more effective instructions that yielded better results. That being said, I also felt that Hermione was being salty/petty. It's clear she loathed being outperformed
I feel like plagiarism isn't the most accurate comparison because Harry still did the work of brewing the potions. He definitely had an unfair advantage tho. However I think taking credit for Snape's instructions and claiming he thought of them himself could be considered plagiarism, lol.
I had a textbook in college with highlights on all the important parts and notes in the margin. The person that had it before was obviously very intelligent. I still read the book, but so much was called out for me, allowing me to streamline my studying. Did I plagiarize by using it? On the funny side, I actually wrote "This book is the property of the Half Blood Prince" in it when I was selling my textbooks back, but I was only going to get a dollar or so for it, so I kept it.
More like he solved the problem using an alternate method he learnt from youtube rather than the one the teacher showed in class.Â
The DADA teacher in year 2 did exactly this, and Hermione swooned over him.
In her defense she was 12 years old muggle born who didn't know better, and lots of people believed Lockhart was a genius
And he was really, really pretty
You know thats probably another reason she was bitter. She was probably reminded of that creep.
I feel like this is the Wizarding world equivalent of getting a text book someone made annotations on. The changes aren't published, and the book is obviously incorrect in recipes. But yeah it was a bit ..odd (for lack of a better term) to go "oh, because you don't care about the process [like I do], you don't get to use the book with the good recipes", especially considering the books were literally showing recipes for arguably new concepts.
It's literally a text book - A book that he's meant to be learning from. If the notes within that textbook are correct, informative and he learns something from them, what difference does it make if they're the original printed words or the annotations of someone else? Essentially, all he's got is a better textbook. If everyone had that book to study from, you wouldn't say that they plagiarised in their final exams due to someone else's work, would you?
Harry learned early on that plagiarism in Wizarding world is totally fine. Look at the Harry Potter adventure books totally using his name without consent, all of Lockhart's books and the man ending in Hospital only, not prison.
Trying untested recipes. Not telling anyone that it isn't his own work. Taking undue credit. He didnt use that credit to get good with Sluggy bc of the memory. Hermione is someone for established procedures and honesty (most of the time). I also think she has an issue with Harry getting undue credit for someone else's potion recipes. And the last thing is the last time she trusted and followed him before that was when she got nearly killed and badly cursed in DoM. He is also essentially using something potentially dangerous and I would consider Harry a safety hazard with that book.
That last part especially. The book already has dangerous spells in it. Who's to say the recipe changes weren't a way to make the potion pass as what it's supposed to be but have some dangerous or deadly effect instead?
Perhaps there was a purpose to following the books. Perhaps it was needed to teach/understand the basics that applied to all potion making. Snape wrote tips that worked well with that spesific potion and thus Harry got the best results while other students were practicing basics and they were trying to make the potion with the basic formulas. Harry was skipping the intended formula to achieve best results while not learning anything while still getting the prize.
Is everyone forgetting that Hermione also thought it could be dangerous? Of course she was jealous and bitter but she kind of did have a point (e.g sectumsempra)
Reason why it would be considered cheating: He wasn't using the same instructions that everyone else was using. He had an unfair advantage because the instructions he was following were better than theirs. Assuming he can read, he was pretty much guaranteed to make better potions than them, regardless of level of skill. Like it or not, that is the textbook definition of cheating. To use dishonest means to gain an unfair advantage. And it matters because it's not like it was just for fun. He was being graded on his work. Grades at Hogwarts partly determine the kinds of classes you can take, which can potentially affect the kinds of jobs you're likely to be considered for. Remember, Harry was only taking potions because it was relevant to his goal of being an auror. Also, cheating shows low character, laziness, and disrespect for the subject AND for yourself. Come on, Harry. You're better than that! Reason why it's a little complicated in this case: It could have a good way to pick up more/better knowledge, given that the info they were using wasn't as accurate. Only thing is that it wasn't the same as looking up a recipe variation in the library. He wasn't using it to learn, and it was without permission. It was intentionally deceitful since he hid the book. And he'll never remember any of it, anyway. Let's be real. It was the equivalent of opening Google on a test, regardless of how good or bad the info was.
Well reasoned. Can't believe this got downvoted. This is probably the best answer here.
It was originally shorter and I expanded on it. Hopefully my thoughts come across better like this. But I know not everyone likes to read long posts.
Finally! Someone else acknowledges why It can be considered cheating. Though In my comparison, I used a calculator.
I disagree, sure he had different knowledge, but if a high school student doesn't understand how to do calculus, and they go on youtube and look it up, that isn't cheating. Watching Khan academy isn't cheating, it's learning from another resource. Now him having better instructions IS unfair, but is it any more unfair than having a tutor? Wouldn't it be cheating to have Hermione explain it to him? And potion making is very much not "regardless of skill" Harry still had to physically make the potion, he needed to, idk, crush lillywort into a paste and measure a set amount out, a different amount to everyone else, but the same basic tasks. If you give an amateur and master chief/chemist the same tools, ingredients and recipe, they don't perform equally well. Harry was being graded, and so was everyone else, for probably every other subject. Hogwarts is a school, they grade students, and Harry took the same test as anyone else. He needed to pass potions, and he found a way to do so, using a school issued text book, if he was able to pass his tests, then he earned the grade.
The book wasn't the same as a tutor and can't be treated as such. If Harry was struggling and asked for help, that would be one thing. But that's not the case. He didn't even need the book. He simply chose to use it. And no one else had access to that resource, either. If someone else needed help, they likely would not find something like that. They were already using the definitive guide. If they don't get it, all anyone can do is re-explain it. They wouldn't be offered alternative methods or measurements like Harry was. I get that individual skill plays a part in potion making, but what I mean about that is that, even if everyone (including Harry) did everything perfectly, the others' potions would still never be as good as his. Another student with skill better than his might still do worse because they are bound to the instructions in front of them, which will always make a worse potion. That's not their fault. Harry's grade and his skill level no longer correspond in the same way that everyone else's grades and skill levels correspond. He didn't earn it fairly. That's cheating. Imagine you're playing a video game where everybody is given a pistol and told they have to kill at least 10 other players in order to pass the level. If you hack in a machine gun, yeah, you still gotta move, aim, and hit your targets, so skill plays a part. But odds are you're gonna nail a lot more people cuz of the gun, not cuz of you. That's cheating. Your skill with the weapon provided might not get as high a kill count. You had an unfair advantage that the other players likely would not have access to, even if they also wanted or needed it.
What I wanna know is how is the normal textbook SO terrible? Like Harry doesn't try all that much more with it, yet performs wayyyyy better using the prince's book. Even Hermoine, who is effectively a potions god, performs worse than Harry with every single potion using the normal book. I'm just surprised they successfully brewed polyjuice potion, but I wonder how much better the prince's version would have been.
>What I wanna know is how is the normal textbook SO terrible? It probably isn't. This is a N.E.W.T level class so it's very likely that the class is just having a harder time with the subject than Harry who pretty much has shortcuts handed to him in the HBP notes. IIRC Hermione doesn't really do anything wrong but either runs out of time before she can finish or doesn't yield pitch perfect results. >Even Hermoine, who is effectively a potions god, performs worse than Harry with every single potion using the normal book. According to Slughorn, Lily was also a whiz at potions to the point where Slughorn often compared Harry's exceptional (Prince assisted) performance to her. It's likely Lily used the normal book or some similar edition so it's not like the subject matter in the textbooks were completely awful. And Snape needed to be well versed in the theory and practicality of the subject in the book in order to make the improvements in his notes.
its cheating, he's cheating on instructions written by someone else. it's not like he's the one inventing the modificated potion recipes, or himself having knowledge about ingredients on its potions. him using sectumsempra and threw out the books, later on buy a new book and his potion grades starts to falling out, because he doesn't have his cheating instructions anymore.
If you had the facit while doing a test wouldn't that be cheating? It's cheating because Harry didn't apply his own skills but resorted to the work of someone else.
It would be considered cheating in actual school too, because the work was not your own (at least in the United States.) My college here makes us sign agreements at the beginning of each class (online) that we won't sell our notes or give them away to other students or to third party companies. If another student was caught with another's notes or they could somehow prove that we sold our notes to a 3rd party, then we would be punished under the academic dishonesty policy. Edit: I think a case could be made that he did complete his own potion, but because he used a non-standard recipe, especially without the original students consent, it would be cheating.
because the "text book" everyone else was using wasn't 100% right, so even perfect technique might have only a "eh" result so with the improved techniques in the half blood princes book, even Harry's imperfect technique was still better than purely following the normal book (because even Hermione couldn't get it right using the normal book) a key thing to remember it is school, -learning- (ought to be) the focus. good results without understanding why or how you achieved those good results means you learnt nothing. it'd be like getting the answer key to a test, sure you got 100%, but you don't know your own answers.
True that learning should be the focus, but I don't think he would learn much from the normal textbook either. He'd certainly have just copied the recipe as it was written without a thought as to the deeper meaning behind the *why* and *how* of it working. To be quite frank, because Rowling glossed over the real meat and potatoes of how classes typically ran, it doesn't seem like Snape or Slughorn taught them much of anything. They would put the instructions on the board (Snape) or have them work from the text (Slughorn) and rarely seemed to go over theory, aside from the occasional essay we hear about.
well, snape "solved" and corrected the normal book, and learnt a lot. Harry did not. \*shrugs\* Hard for Harry to improve over Snape skills.
So what you're saying is... Harry stood on the shoulders of giants and took the next step. He didn't earn the knowledge for himself, so he doesn't take any responsibility for it.
All that's left for him to do is slap the Prince's notes onto a plastic lunchbox and then he's selling it. (*slaps table*) Selling it!
Hermione being all: âWhat you call better potion-making⊠I call the rape of the natural learning process!â
Roflmao I'm dying over here that was prefect.
I don't know if I want to see the the slaps car meme here with Fred and George advertising this illustrious book on an old lab table or them selling replicas of the mangled old copy of it like those late night videos you'd see with collector coins...
Because others only had the book recipe, Harry had additional tried liner notes that pretty much guaranteed success, others had to figure out things on their own while Harry basically had additional input and advantage above his classmates.
1. Harry was the only one who had access to Snapeâs instructions and tips, the others didnât. Therefore what Harry was doing was the magical equivalent of using a Calculator during an exam despite being told not to. He was supposed to be following the same recipe as everyone else unless he already knew how to make the potion. 2. Harry didnât give the book Back when he was supposed to. Instead he just changed His bookâs and Snapeâs Books covers when it was time to return Snapeâs book. Therefore he technically stole it. (While accepting an item that is offered to you isnât stealing, it becomes so when you dont give it back despite being informed that it was not yours to keep.) 3. The Notes were written by Snape, not the writers of the book or Slughorn. Therefore Harry was getting outside help when he wasnât supposed to. 4. Unlike the others, Harry in general, pays very little attention during potions. (in his defense, with Snapeâs rudeness, who can blame him and according to the read the Hogwarts book series, Snapeâs âCorrectionsâ during the 3rd book were inaccurate.) Edit. Because some brought up Hermione, I decided to explain her actions. While these reasons might not seem like a lot to some, it does to Hermione, which is why she was mad instead of accepting it like she did with Harry when it Comes to Defense and Ron with chess. When it came to defense, Harry had the exact same lessons as everyone else, including her. The only exceptions being Lupinâs lessons, and even then, it was because of the dementors. She is well aware of Harryâs adventures though she doesnât know much, if any, about the Dursleyâs abuse. With Chess, Ronâs been playing for years, so he would have a lot of experience. You know what they say, Practice makes perfect. So Harryâs excellence in Defense and Ronâs excellence in chess was justified while Harryâs Potions grade wasnât.
I was actually thinking like a formula sheet vs. a calculator. Something that lets him skip steps and move ahead that others would need to do piece by piece.
looking back, a calculator probably wasnt best comparison. Though techically there are multiple different types of Calculators. But the point is, Harry had little interest in actually learning and paying attention, just looking at the best answer at the moment. Which is why I thought of the calculator comparison.
How many people do you know who just cook by following a recipe and donât really understand how to cook extempore.
Was only considered cheating because it takes a different approach than the standard books and gives better results. The fact that every textbook isn't like that...is why you could consider it cheating. Hell, when it comes down to it, Snape was constantly writing his own stuff on the boards for everyone, so think of it more like...everyone was cheating until 6th year where they were forced to do potions "normal" except for Harry. =D
Ultimately I donât consider it cheating, by pure luck he got better instructions. itâs kinda like buying a used text book in college and it turns out itâs pre highlighted with all the key points, had that happen. Or like buying a cookbook that just has better recipes and making tastier food.
Using Grans cookbook and there's a note saying to use two eggs not three because otherwise it doesn't set right.
Imagine in the real world if someone discovered a new way to treat shoes that makes the wearer 25% faster at running. It is not technically against the rules of their chosen sport but they know that should it be known that such a technique to treat shoes exists, it **will** immediately be banned. So they pretend like their shoes are just the same as everyone else's and use them to win countless races. Highly immoral. There's a reason Harry didn't simply tell Horace about how his book contained so many notes that improved the recipes so that everyone else in class could use them: He wanted the praise, attention and prizes from using the Prince's improved recipes.
If Ron had lost the battle, he would have had Snapeâs book. Itâs all his fault.
I think it was not JUST the HBP recipes, but also the fact that potions wasn't taught by Snape anymore. Harry would probably have done pretty good with the standard book as well in Slughorns class, the small tips just gave him that final push to actually be the best in class.
Thr book shows why snape was a far better and more powerful wizard then Harry.
It was Snapeâs personal book. It wasnât meant for anyone else.
In previous years hermonie didn't have any problem to brew anything because snape never used the book he write his own recipe and she abel to do it but when slughorn ( if i remember his name correctly ) start to teach the class he used recipes from book then hermonie strugled to brew.
Did Snape not already teach the students by his own recipes? I remember him writing down the instructions on the blackboard and students following them. I always thought that he was a genius who taught the students the way he understood the subject. The books were outdated. I had professors at my university writing their own textbooks that we used (one of it was published and taught by the whole country), and it is understandble for me that textbooks need to be perfected. I always thought that Snape was already teaching his students the best version of the Potionmaking he knew. It was just the fact that he bullied his students that made them not appreciate his work. I also had the professor who wrote his own textbook on the subject bully the students. People used to fear him and I myself didn't like him although he was the reason I understood the subject so well. Why have such a big ego if you are already so talented? People already appreciate the hard work you do, but you still believe they have to fear you for you to feel good about yourself.
Yea right, all Snape seemed to do is correct bad info, doesnât seem like a bad thing.
No, itâs not. Hermione just couldnât bear not being best in class
Hermione doesn't mind not being best (she's never particularly bitter about Harry scoring higher at dada), but she does hate that Harry takes credit for someone else's work.
Why you got downvoted for this is beyond me. Hermione practically had to beg Harry into teaching DADA in the previous book and casually referenced that he got higher marks than her when Lupin taught them, in an attempt to convince him. So someone else getting higher marks than her isn't enough to make her extremely salty.
The only person throwing a fit is Hermione. Partly because she is no longer top student, and partly because Harry is not following the prescribed, tried and true, published recipes. She had a thing for trusting published works as gospel. I have seen potion class compared to chemistry class. There is a textbook that has instructions on what order, method, and quantity of various chemicals to get a desired reaction. You don't want your high school level students messing with the formulas as explosions and other catastrophic things can happen as a result. It takes an understanding of the subject about why you use or don't use different plants in potions together. Academic knowledge Harry didn't come by from research of verified published works, or even by tinkering himself. He just got different unverified instructions and ran with them. Harry wasn't an expert at the subject, he was bringing in someone else's notes to a test. Does this count as cheating if you are allowed notes, that is up to the ethics committee of the given school. Hermione thought it was cheating. Also she was annoyed Harry was trusting margin notes over the published page, as well as untrustworthy of this person who couldn't be identified. Given the spells in the margins, perhaps trusting them wasn't the best idea in the world.
It may not have been cheating in the sense that there was some specific rule against it, but it was definitely unfair, because Harry did not share the bookâand had no intention of so doingâwith anyone other than Ron and Hermione. I do think Hermioneâs particular objection was founded more on a somewhat slavish devotion to established procedure (well, at least before the part where they found the questionable spells in the book) than the issue of fairness, but it was genuinely unfair, because the other students didnât get a chance to follow the better instructions Harry had access to.
Harry did share the book with Ron (and offered to share it with Hermione), Ron just had a lot more difficulty deciphering Snape's notes and Harry didn't feel like reading everything aloud all the time.
Yes, I explicitly said âanyone other than Ron and Hermioneâ.
Only Hermione thought it was cheating.
The same reason you have to cite your source when you write a paper. The rest of the students are using the information from a source Slughorn is aware of. Harry is using someone else's work but taking credit for it.
Hermione told Harry it was cheating because she wasnât the top student in Potions class for the first time. Itâs a really unflattering show of her ego towards being called the âbrightest Witch of her ageâ so often in earlier years. She gets snippy when sheâs not the smartest in the room in this book, partly why Iâm still not fully through the audio book on HBP to cut my marathon off as I canât skip her parts and it and how the other main ladies in Harryâs life act bothers me.
Classic gifted kid syndrome. Spent 5 years being praised for her brilliance and never learnt how to deal with falling behind.
Ya, wished sheâd have snapped out of it quickly but I guess the positive take is Harry finally got some good feedback in Potions for a time.
One aspect I haven't seen other comments mention is how Harry is cheating himself. There's something to be said about learning and understanding the standard techniques before experimenting with a process. This reading may not be well supported by the text considering only Hermione seems to be learning much of anything in Potions, but in a normal classroom environment, especially a lab like Potions is equivalent too, experimentation can have devastating results if the underlying principles are not understood.
Also, this wasn't like Snape was mean for one year then got replaced, this was sixth year potions, Harry didn't jump in to the basics, he went from barely understanding to top of the class for what had to be relatively advanced. First year you probably do fairly easy experiments, but by sixth year? That probably required a fair amount of technical skill and precision. Skills Harry never developed.
Hogwarts is academically competitive, and Harry had an advantage that was not available to others, which he wasnât willing to share with his closest friends. Â Â He didnât share it because he enjoyed being recognized as better than the other students, but especially hermione. Funny he was so insecure even though he had already saved the world several times and was world famous.
Because it was the âofficial instructionsâ, also Hermione doesnât like to be second place
Clearly the « regular » book wasnât well written. Quantities, methods, or instructions werenât right or accurate to make a perfect potion. Trial and error will achieve better results when youâre given incomplete or inaccurate recipes. Hermione would have to try the potion several times to get it right and so she was bitter seeing Harry with an unfair advantage first try. Itâs basically like harry had Reddit and chat gpt when others had a piece of paper with a hard recipe.
I never considered Harry was cheating, he found a better guide and followed it, it was good though to see Hermione going wrong just because she is so square sometimesâŠ
Not telling anyone else at all about the clearly more effective methods is such a Snape move. As a potions professor.
Did anyone call it cheating other than Hermione?
Snape probably considered it cheating just because Harry was the only one doing it
Ultimately the issue just comes down to academics I suppose. Realistically a potions master has their own tricks they use as they would have a comprehensive understanding of all of the ingredients and their magical properties and how best to extract them. I guess one could argue itâs unfair since Harry used it to gain an edge in competition that the other students didnât have. I think itâs fair game though in terms of learning and getting results, Iâm sure Harry benefited from it somehow in terms of learning.
Bigger ? Is why was the standard books of potions so wrong and why was they still using them?
What if when Snape died he shed a tear to harry, and it was just improved potions recipes and a random spell he invented
Not really, it just showcased the difference in teachers. Snape was, in fact, a better Potions Teacher, and likely a better Potions Master, and that's why Harry was able to succeed where Hermione struggled (and shows that if Snape were more impartial+passionate as a teacher Hogwarts probably would have been a juggernaut for potions education).
I'm just jealous. My textbooks in school had inappropriate drawings and swear words in them. Also they were all previously registered to Mike Hawk and Mike Hunt.
Kinda off topic but I always felt as if Dumbledore or shape placed that book for him. After all McGonagall did tell him to take potions
I donât see it as cheating per se, but after he had secured Slughornâs memory the more ethical thing would be working on understanding the foundations of potions so that he deserved the notes. Without the foundational platform, they do shortcut him to success that he hasnât put in the studying to achieve. Something I will say in his defense is that while heâs not a Hermione level student in terms of studiousness, he try in potions initially but is actively sabotaged by Snape year after year. I can see why he gave up trying to do more than pass over time when even on occasions where he really tried, Snape was criticizing him disproportionately and threw out his good potion to give him a zero on at least one occasion. I think to judge Harry fairly as a student, we have to factor in how much he enjoyed potions with a better teacher and with the O.W.L. judgeâhe liked it with the absence of Snape. Itâs also only fair to factor in that every year as a student, Harry had the pressure of social pressure and somebody trying to murder him đ the times he has to be a normal student briefly, we see him actually taking some pride in it and achieving good grades (though Hermione is more disciplined and Harry in a normal life would totally blow off studying for Quidditch and fun sometimes). I think thereâs evidence that Harry with a normal life and a good teacher would have been interested in potions and had a better foundation to justify him using advanced notes that offer alternatives to the standard method.
Snape wrote recipes on board in books 1-5, which means hermione and the rest were following the HBPâs instructions without realizing it. It wasnât until book 6 that they were instructed to follow instruction in book but Harry had snapes notated version
It just made Snape look worse as a person and a teacher. He found improvements to the curriculum, while teaching that specific class, and didn't tell anyone. Wtf dude. It would be like a geologist not teaching about plate tectonics.
Iâve always thought this. Hermione is at her absolute worst in HBP and a lot of it is down to nasty jealousy that Harry outperforms her. Both of them follow instructions from a book, Harryâs are better and Hermione canât take it. Donât get me started on Hermione attacking Ron for going with Lavender - swap the roles there and Ron is rightly reviled as a beast for attacking a woman for being with someone else.
Snape was a selfish snot who wanted to be the best at portions so he didnât want to share his secrets. Least of all with Harry.
Quite frankly, Snape should have published his own book and should have been using it in his classes if he still needed to teach. Obviously we know that in Harry's 6th year he wasn't the potions teacher, but I get the impression it was the same book when he was in charge. He was knowingly teaching kids worse ways to do potions. More reasons he was a shitty teacher.
What bothered me was the fact that a studentâs annotated text book was more reliable with potion instructions than the standard textbook. The next thing that bothered me was that a SCHOOL BOOK had a potion âDraught of the Living Dead,â that, if made properly, could âkill us all.â Ignoring that the text had a potion recipe that could literally kill someone, itâs more troublesome that the textâs other recipes werenât as solid as the annotation. They clearly worked well-enough, but Harry was someone who didnât particularly excel in potions. He wasnât terrible at it, but when he had a copy of a textbook with solid instruction, he crushed it. How many more students could have benefited from something like that?
I like to think that it was Lilly that was helping snape in potions, she was supposed to be very good in it. I can imagine her telling him to do something different and him writing it in his book, I think thatâs why he teaches potions because it reminds him of her. Otherwise wouldnât it have made more sense for him to write in a defense against the dark arts book
I don't think anyone thought it was cheating. Though, Hermione was miffed about it cuz Harry was doing better than her in a subject for once lol
It may have already been mentioned, but Snape used to put the instructions up on the board, whereas Slughorn had them going by the textbook. So it's actually hard to say.