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| VelvetMouse |
 Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 6:42 pm |
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Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 69
Location: NYC
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I took a look around and didn't see this topic covered elsewhere - if there's already a thread on it, please point me there!
This is something that has been bugging me and I've yet to see a good discussion of it -
Why, oh why, did Harry & Co not recognize Snape's handwriting in all those notes/corrections in the potions textbook?
This is a man whose handwriting they have seen, probably on a nearly-daily basis, for the last 5 years. Now, I suppose you could argue that he wrote it 20-some years ago, but from my own experience, people's handwritings don't change that much. Especially as they were seeing the handwriting withing the context of potions! I could understand how they might not recognize it if it was, say, a literary criticism - Snape is probably the last person they'd expect to see writing something like that - but there is a firm association in their minds between Snape and potions.
So how did they miss that?
Am I missing something obvious here? If I am please point it out to me... I admit that I haven't had a chance to go back over HBP with a fine tooth comb before posting this (all my books are packed because we're moving next weekend. UGH!!). |
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| azazello |
| Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 8:31 pm |
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Joined: 29 Nov 2004
Posts: 183
Location: Northern UK
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The book handwriting and the handwriting of teenage Snape (the boy doing the DADA OWL exam) match.
My handwriting at aged 51 has been fixed and firm in style since I was 22. It changed a lot of times before that.
Finally, Snape's handwriting on Harry's essays is usually annoyed. It's a slashed "D" or such (I read this as slantingly italic). |
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| LadyWhitehart |
| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 8:08 pm |
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 193
Location: New Jersey, USA
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One thing that is possible is that people can force their handwriting to change. It takes a lot of work to retrain the brain and hand, but it can be done. If it is in fact true that Snape was originally a working-class Yorkshire boy, he obviously changed his voice/accent which is easier. (I have picked up the local accents from the various places I have lived.) So why not change his hand-writing, especially if he wanted to disassociate himself from his background?
Another thing is that not all of it may have been Snape's hand-writing. Some of it could have been his mother's, or whoever else had happened to own the book. |
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| Pennfana |
| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 3:36 pm |
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Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 216
Location: Ontario, Canada
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It's entirely possible that Snape's handwriting could've changed in subtle but important ways since he wrote those notes in the textbook. I've been keeping a journal since I was about eleven, and I've noticed that my handwriting now (I'm twenty-three) is slightly different from my handwriting when I was seventeen and eighteen.
Furthermore, it's amazing how much by way of details that people will miss when they don't know what to look for. As far as I can remember (though admittedly it's been a few months since I last read HBP), nobody really suspected that Snape was the Half-Blood Prince until he shouted it out at the end. If they hadn't put him on a list of possible candidates, then it's entirely possible that they wouldn't recognize the writing as his, even if it is extremely similar to what they're used to from him.
By the way, LadyWhitehart, the thought that not all of the handwriting was Snape's is an interesting one. It would certainly explain why someone (was it Hermione?) thought that the writing in the book was a girl's. |
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| LadyWhitehart |
| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:25 pm |
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 193
Location: New Jersey, USA
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Here's another thought about the Potions book/Snape's handwritng. 
In the first five books, Snape ALWAYS wrote the instructions on the board. Why did no one in the Trio *cough*Hermione*cough* ever notice the differences between the book instructions and the instructions written on the board? Surely they would need to review the potions for exams--especially their OWLs. I just thought I was odd that no one ever caught on. |
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| Pennfana |
| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 3:34 am |
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Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 216
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Perhaps there wasn't any difference. After all, Snape may have annotated his own Potions book as a student, but as a teacher he may have decided not to give his students the improved potion recipes—probably either because he thought his recipes were too complex for the students to understand or he simply didn't want to give away the results of his own hard work and study to students who he likely believed didn't deserve it.
Furthermore, it could be that the only changes he ever actually made were to the potions studied in the sixth and seventh year. By then he'd probably have enough background knowledge of potions and their ingredients to start tweaking the potion recipes. Since we don't get to see him teaching sixth-year Potions, we don't know if he would've given the upper-year students his improved recipes.
Then, of course, there's the thought that perhaps he's just too sneaky to give himself away like that.  |
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| LadyWhitehart |
| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 6:57 pm |
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 193
Location: New Jersey, USA
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What I'm trying to get at is why would he bother to waste the time to write the instructions on the board in the first place? Sure there is more than likely a spell or something that does it for you, but why not just say 'turn to page whatever' and have them use the book? The examples of improvements we saw were simple things, like crushing a dried bean instead of cutting it and adding a counterclockwise stir. The changes reduced the time for the brewing.
It just seemed odd to me that none of the students--especially Hermione, whom we know is a very conscientious student and had probably studied the directions more than once--never took notice. Was he really worried that anyone would be able to make the connection 20 years after he learned to make those changes?  |
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| MaddyRiddle |
| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:49 am |
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Joined: 16 Apr 2005
Posts: 222
Location: Argentina
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I think I missed the point of the discussion, but I was thinking that Snape writes the instructions in the blackboard so the students don't have to keep their books open on their tables. It could be understandable than given the toxicity of some ingredients it would be safe not to spill them on the book you needed later for studying.
Then again, who said that Snape taught the modify instructions? He may have thought that the students weren't worthy of that knowledge... |
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| Overhill |
| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 5:21 am |
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Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 263
Location: Central Oregon, near a wyer, but the dragons are downstairs....
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One: I think that some of handwriting at some point was Lily Evans, as Hermione thought it looked like a girl's.
Two: I am amazed at how similar some people of a certain age handwriting is. (People write hundreds of checks at my job, and I see how good - or bad - they do.) Handwriting was a craft taught in schools, and students were expected to meet certain standards.
Three: Snape (who I suspect had decided to become an Auror before he came to Hogwarts - I have a plot bunny sneaking around my house about that) might have modified his handwriting to make it look like Lily's, and he was writing later in the book (hence when the writing and the spells got "darker")
Four: Snape could have injured his hand, when it healed, the handwriting changed.
Five: When he wrote on the board, he used his wand, not his hand, and it had to be readable in the back row. Perhaps magic has a hand-writing of its own?
Six: When writing on students essay's, neatness doesn't count like it would in making notes in a book, or writing an essay for the O.W.L.s.
Just my thoughts...
And about the textbook -
Snape never used a textbook for the Potions class, and had on the book list only one reference book in particular, (and maybe others later). He already knew that the book(s) he used as a student were flawed. |
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| maryh |
| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:53 pm |
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Joined: 22 Apr 2006
Posts: 60
Location: Wisconsin, USA
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I'm pretty sure HBP says all the notes were in the same handwriting.
Some interesting things about handwriting changing. It didn't occur to me that it might need an explanation until I started reading some of the comments about it. I'm 49 and my handwriting has changed several times over the years. As soon as I got past where they judge you on penmanship, sometime in grade school, I got a lot sloppier. Then it changed again when I spent some time in Germany -- there are some differences in the way Germans write. Finally, when PC's starting coming in, I started doing most of my "writing" on the computer, and my handwriting turned into a strange combination of mostly printing with some cursive. Which is what it is now.
About the book itself. Although Snape is the Half-Blood Prince, I don't think that particular book or the handwriting in it is Snape's. I think that Lily and Snape were Potions partners during sixth and maybe seventh year. Snape copied notes from Lily's book, mostly in Potions, and Lily copied notes from Snape's book, mostly about spells.
I think it was dangerous for them to be seen together outside Potions, where they had to be together as Potions partners, and they communicated via the book. That's why there are notes on spells in a Potion's book, which is really strange, when you come to think about it. I have a feeling there is more hidden writing than the inscription revealed by Hermione's spell.
Then, at some point, maybe after NEWTS, they traded books. And Lily inscribed it "Property of the Half-Blood Prince"; possibly a personal joke between the two. No one would have seen it in the normal course of events -- remember, Hermione had to do a spell to reveal the inscription.
The reason Slughorn compares Harry to Lily instead of Snape is because he was following Potions improvements that were mostly his mother's. |
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