Skip to main content

harry potter - Why did Snape want the Dark Arts job?


There's a lot of talk about why Snape was denied the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching job, but why did Snape want it in the first place?


He is shown to be very skilled at two branches of magic: Occlumency (enough to resist Voldemort himself) and Potions (as a student he figuratively and literally wrote the book on the subject) - and his attitude in the notation in the Potions textbook implies he took great pride and enjoyment in his Potion skills in particular.


True, he had an interest in the Dark Arts as a student, but surely he realized he would never be able to do "Dark Arts research" just by holding the teaching post (also, per JK Rowling Why did Snape love dark Magic so much?, Snape was interested in group membership more than the Dark Arts themselves). Furthermore, it was subtly implied that he lost his interest in the Dark Arts after he lost Lily because of them. Finally, Harry's favorite subject was Defense Against the Dark Arts, and as petty as it is, Snape maintained the sort of pride that would not enjoy pining for the teaching position that was Harry's favorite.


So why would he want the job at all?




Answer




'The Dark Arts,' said Snape, 'are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.'
Harry stared at Snape. It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them, as Snape was doing ith a loving caress in his voice?
'Your defences,' said Snape, a little louder, 'must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo. ...'
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter Nine - The Half-Blood Prince



It seems pretty clear from that quote that Snape both loves the Dark Arts themselves - hardly news to anybody, I imagine, especially considering he (to quote Sirius, I think it was) came to Hogwarts knowing more Dark curses than most seventh years - but also the unique combination of skills required to combat them. He also seems to place a premium on branches of magic that require more than memorisation of incantations and wand movements (Charms, Transfiguration) or even seemingly very little actual magical ability (Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic).


He expresses a similar view about his previous subject, Potions:




'You have no subtlety, Potter,' said Snape, his dark eyes glittering. 'You do not understand fine distinctions. It is one of the shortcomings that makes you such a lamentable potion-maker.'
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Twenty-Four - Occlumency



Since being successful at Defence Against the Dark Arts requires that you be "varied and ever-changing", I can easily see him viewing the subject as the pinnacle of magical ability (there's a reason that Aurors are considered "the elite" and very few Hogwarts students are accepted into the training), and thus gaining a huge amount of satisfaction from being the one in charge of teaching it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more