(no subject)

[wellpresseddaisy]

Many HP fans would like to blame all of Neville’s Potions woes on Snape.

But we never see Neville ask anyone for help. He never approaches Hermione outside class hours to ask a question (because she’s much more approachable, honestly) or to ask for her help understanding the material. He never mentions having a tutor over the summer. We never see him doing any outside reading on anything Potions related to try to improve.

While Snape’s teaching style isn’t great for a sensitive child, that child also has to take some kind of responsibility for his educational success, especially in the 1990s.

I was in school at similar times to Harry Potter. If I didn’t ask for help, my teachers wouldn’t necessarily clock to my struggles. Even at a youngish age, we were expected to speak up to our teachers or ask friends or parents for help understanding things if we were struggling with the material.

Now, we could say that it isn’t important to the narrative so we don’t see it, but if Snape was supposed to be some monster of a teacher, wouldn’t this be better pointed out by even one scene of a child struggling but trying to improve and still failing (due to having an awful teacher)?

Or is Snape a teacher frustrated by a child who will not ask for help from anyone despite repeated failures? As presented in canon, he feels more like the latter.

He even seems to give Neville more latitude than other students—it took 6 melted cauldrons before Snape gave him a single detention. The one in first year rated a scolding, yes, but no other action (other than an unfair point taken from Harry).