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| maryh |
 Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 12:17 am |
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Joined: 22 Apr 2006
Posts: 60
Location: Wisconsin, USA
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OK, I'm confused. In the movies, the students all wear their robes over their regular clothes. In Snape's Worst Memory, Snape obviously doesn't.
So, are the movies wrong? Or do some students wear clothes under their robes and some not?
If there is no conclusive evidence in canon, is there info about British boarding schools that could shed some light on the matter? |
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| liquidscissors |
| Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:27 am |
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Joined: 27 Dec 2004
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In the books the children wear robes over their regular day clothes. That's the contemporary students, though. Slightly older people may have been more receptive to wearing a more traditional type of draped robe underneath their school clothes.
In the films, the students wear a traditional Muggle public school uniform. The choice to make them wear it was a deliberate one, as it was thought that the stereotypical British uniforms would make it more apparent to American audiences that the films were set in the UK. That and it looks good on film. *shrug*
I went to a very British boarding school, albeit in the Antipodes, and we wore uniforms all the time. We could wear free dress in the evenings and on Saturdays and that was it. School uniform, dinner uniform, church dress, formal uniform. Terrible uniform too, I don't know who thought that long socks, ankle-length skirts and tunic tops were an appropriate outfit to wear in an Australian summer. |
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| azazello |
| Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 6:31 am |
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Joined: 29 Nov 2004
Posts: 183
Location: Northern UK
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The text is a bit inconsistent - or rather the inconsistencies just haven't been covered.
Ignore movie, it has nothing to do with canon.
Plain black robes, not unlike those worn by monks are the uniform - there's no house badges, no house scarves (except when supporting your Quidditch team).
Most of the Harry generation wear ordinary street clothes under robes. The inconsistency is that Snape didn't when he was turned upside down when 16. Why? Was that common? Or was that Snape?
Before he was outed as a half-blood many fans ascribed the lack of trousers as a pointer to his coming from an old-fashioned pureblood family. The last book blew that idea sky-high.
I have theory, but a theory is all it is:
He deliberately does not wear trousers under his robes when at school. He wants to be "more wizard than thou" at that point and sees it as an unwanted part of his heritage - the Muggle connection and at that point Snape is rejecting all the Muggle side of his background. As he saw it, real wizards wear robes.
*shrugs* like I said, a theory and largely unproven. I doubt we'll get it proved or disproved, because I imagine it's not of central importance to the canon.
The *real* reason Snape is not wearing trousers under his robes in that scene is for the purposes of the scene being humiliating. In short because the author wants it that way. I bet JKR never imagined the mechanics of it being picked over by fans.
I bet she knows better now! |
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| Owlbait |
| Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 6:21 pm |
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Joined: 01 Jul 2005
Posts: 92
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azazello wrote:
Most of the Harry generation wear ordinary street clothes under robes. The inconsistency is that Snape didn't when he was turned upside down when 16. Why? Was that common? Or was that Snape?
...
I have theory, but a theory is all it is:
He deliberately does not wear trousers under his robes when at school. He wants to be "more wizard than thou" at that point and sees it as an unwanted part of his heritage - the Muggle connection and at that point Snape is rejecting all the Muggle side of his background. As he saw it, real wizards wear robes.
We do have evidence for the lack of *anything* under robes for at least some wizards. We have the very old wizard wearing the flowery nightgown at the Quidditch World Cup who refused to wear Muggle trousers: "I'm not putting them on", said old Archie in indignation. "I like a healthy breeze 'round my privates, thanks."
It's certainly plausible that Snape was deliberately emulating the more traditional crowd. It's also possible it was simple practicality - O.W.L. exams are in June, and it's hot wearing robes over long trousers. A third and even more humiliating possible reason was his apparent poverty. He may have needed to save his clothes from unnecessary wear.
-Liz |
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| maryh |
| Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 6:55 pm |
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Joined: 22 Apr 2006
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Location: Wisconsin, USA
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After I posted this question, Owlbait, my daughter immediately remembered Archie from the World Cup. She also said that she didn't think adult witches and wizards wore street clothes under their robes, which seems right to me. She also said that if she were a witch she wouldn't wear street clothes under a robe -- it would be uncomfortable.
So based on my daughter and Owlbait, the "uncomfortable" makes sense to me. Unfortunately, now I have trouble understanding why anyone wears street clothes under their robes. The Muggle-born wizards I can understand -- wearing robes only would seem too much like wearing a dress -- but they're definitely a minority.
Owlbait's idea of poverty is one that I was starting to develop as well. After all, if money is limited, and you don't have to wear clothes under your robes, wouldn't Snape rather spend the money on books than trousers?
azazello's theory makes sense too, although right now I'm picturing Snape as not being embarrassed about his Muggle side at all. That's just my theory though.
But after all this, I still have a quandary. In HBP, "A Frosty Christmas", Lupin tells Harry, "There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn't move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle." And we know the OWLs are at the end of the fifth year. So under those circumstances, you'd think that Snape definitely would be wearing shorts or trousers or something. I don't think he was that poor.
Of course Lupin could have been lying. |
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| poemomm |
| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 7:33 pm |
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Joined: 30 Dec 2005
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Or it could have been that the stunt became possible AFTER the Snape Incident by the lake.
I lean toward the abject poverty angle as well... always have. Especially considering Lily's taunt for him to wash his pants.
Unless pants is a brit referral to underpants... *shrugs at her own american lack of knowledge*, in which case, I'd expect her to say "next time wear trousers," not "next time wash your pants..etc." --
Unless you want to believe that she knwe him enough to know he had only one pair of trousers... but then her comment really makes no sense, since his wearing no trousers would imply that they WERE in the wash.
from the scene, I gather that it was pretty common to go about in underpants. Just not soiled ones...  |
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| MaddyRiddle |
| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:58 pm |
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Joined: 16 Apr 2005
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Location: Argentina
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maryh wrote: But after all this, I still have a quandary. In HBP, "A Frosty Christmas", Lupin tells Harry, "There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn't move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle." And we know the OWLs are at the end of the fifth year. So under those circumstances, you'd think that Snape definitely would be wearing shorts or trousers or something. I don't think he was that poor.
Of course Lupin could have been lying.
Remus could be refering to a common ocurrence between Gryffindors inside their common room/dorms. Something other house students weren't subjected that much to. |
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| Pennfana |
| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:50 am |
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Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 216
Location: Ontario, Canada
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liquidscissors wrote: In the films, the students wear a traditional Muggle public school uniform. The choice to make them wear it was a deliberate one, as it was thought that the stereotypical British uniforms would make it more apparent to American audiences that the films were set in the UK. That and it looks good on film. *shrug*
As if the books' setting, the place names, the steering wheels on the cars, the side of the road that the cars are driven on and the characters' accents wouldn't have tipped people off.  *despairs of the opinion of the general public apparently held by certain film-makers*
I like azazello's theory about Snape attempting to distance himself from his half-Muggle lineage, though, especially considering his little nickname for himself and the fact that he ends up as a Death Eater. We've seen in canon that Snape can be extremely petty; deliberately avoiding Muggle clothing if he can help it seems pretty in-character to me. Of course, if this is so and if Lupin wasn't lying about the Levicorpus fad, then Snape made a monumental error in judgement in continuing to avoid wearing trousers under his robes (if, of course, he had the option of wearing them).
Just a thought: this spell was one that Harry found in the Potions book, right? Perhaps one of the reasons why it was Snape's worst memory was that it was a spell that he had either found somewhere or created himself, and it was being used against him. That would probably have added to the humiliation of the moment. Like I said, this was just a thought. |
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| froggiebecky |
| Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:50 am |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2006
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What about this: uniform requirements could have changed in the intervening 20 years? Maybe in the 1970s the uniform code read something like "thou shalt wear proper robes and nothing else" (of course there would be those trying to find ways to sneak around this one) and in the 1990s it was more like "we don't care what you wear as long as your school robe is worn during class and meals"
Just a thought. |
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| Orl |
| Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 5:37 pm |
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Joined: 21 Nov 2006
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Quote: Remus could be refering to a common ocurrence between Gryffindors inside their common room/dorms. Something other house students weren't subjected that much to.
Hmm, can't imagine that, since it seems in HBP that Snape invented that spell.
I tend to think, that it used to be normal to wear no trousers underneath. That makes that spell more fun if you want to be mean, doesn't it?  The most humiliating thing for Snape was that his underpants where a bit shabby and on the dirty side. But now writing this I'm not sure if that is fannon or cannon. Have to go and check that again...  |
Last edited by Orl on Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| Vesera Paens |
| Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:29 pm |
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Joined: 05 Dec 2006
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poemomm wrote: Or it could have been that the stunt became possible AFTER the Snape Incident by the lake.
I lean toward the abject poverty angle as well... always have. Especially considering Lily's taunt for him to wash his pants.
Unless pants is a brit referral to underpants... *shrugs at her own american lack of knowledge*, in which case, I'd expect her to say "next time wear trousers," not "next time wash your pants..etc." --
Unless you want to believe that she knwe him enough to know he had only one pair of trousers... but then her comment really makes no sense, since his wearing no trousers would imply that they WERE in the wash.
from the scene, I gather that it was pretty common to go about in underpants. Just not soiled ones...
pants is underpants...
I was in Russia with a group of English students, and accidentally said I didn't have any brown pants. They all had a great laugh. |
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| MithLuin |
| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:49 pm |
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Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Posts: 16
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Snape did invent the spell, though apparently Lupin didn't know that. We know it was Snape's invention because there were some alternatives scribbled in the book - he was still working on it (if I'm remembering correctly). If it was a fad for a few months, that means that the fad had to predate OWLs (which are at the end of the year).
So, I'd say that Snape was well aware of the danger of being hoisted up by his ankle, but for whatever reason, didn't wear trousers anyway. He did know the countercurse, and you'd have to suspect that he was generally faster on the draw than most people. Other than James and Sirius, I imagine most people wouldn't have picked on him.
I don't think we're given any more details about what the students were wearing in Snape's Worst Memory to suggest whether Snape's attire was normal or unusual, though I have to agree that Lily's comment suggests that it wasn't surprising. |
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