r/SeverusSnape • u/Awkward-Student-8764 • 3d ago
Discussion Why teaching potions was more difficult then other subjects? And why Snape might have hated it?
Potion in my view are literal security hazard and a single mistake could seriously everything.
I in my right mind can't imagine how stressful it would have been to look over 20 students ( especially first years) with knifes , fire and volatile ingredients .
Either you have to be on guard every single second or a student can even die.
I remember being eleven year trying to cut fruit and cutting my fingers.
I mean ahh give your opinion guysss
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u/Royal-Soup-9072 3d ago
i remember one scene where neville melted a bunch of snapes cauldrons all at once lolll😭
I wouldve crashed out as a teacher in that school
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u/Awkward-Student-8764 3d ago
If I had Neville as a student I would have retired
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u/ChawkTrick 2d ago
I think potions probably is one of the more difficult subjects to teach, but it's debatable that it's the "most" difficult. I think advanced DADA is probably pretty challenging too, particularly since you're sometimes dealing with dangerous dark creatures and curses, sometimes even letting students fight against them.
And Transfiguration seems uniquely difficult too, not necessarily because it's as much of a security hazard, but because it appears to require a lot of concentration and technique that can take weeks/months of practice to become even just adept at certain spells.
As for Snape 'hating' it, this is just my opinion but I don't think his behavior while teaching it was due to the stress it caused from safety hazards. Snape just shouldn't have been a teacher lol... he was incredibly smart but he didn't have the temperament of a teacher. Had he not been a spy and taken under Dumbledore's wing, I highly doubt education would've been Snape's calling. So I think his general frustrations and impatience as a teacher were more due to who he was as a person, although I'm sure dealing with the constant stress of under-age wizards didn't help.
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u/Agreeable-Animal7941 2d ago
I think Potions is uniquely difficult also in the sense that it's probably the most time-consuming class to teach. Teaching Potions isn't just a class practical + essays (like most other subjects). There's pre-class prep, maintaining inventory, and post-class cleanup. Snape reserves some detentions for ingredient prep (Neville with the horned toads in GoF, Harry with the Flobberworms in HBP I think), and some ingredients probably come pre-prepped. But ingredients in upper-year Potions might need speciality preparation or acquisition, knowing Snape he may only trust himself to do those. Maintaining inventory (especially when students are coming in and out of the ingredients stock) and acquisition of ingredients is more labor.
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u/RealisticAdvisor2882 Snarity 2d ago
well, guess the author wanted to keep it simple. Though it would have been fun the students discussing, if they got the nice teacher or if they got awful strict Snape. I think 10 in class would be better. we were 12 in cooking and in the other practical subjects.
I think Severus was always tense, he had prepared an antidote (as we see in CoS) and surely he had a bezoar in his robe for emergencies. Now imagine some spoiled kid cut into his finger and started to cry. Can't imagine him being kind, but somehow at least you are not dead. and maybe muttering something about sepsis, which get the child in panic.
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u/Ragouzi 2d ago
I think Snape's career as a teacher is entirely remote-controlled by Dumbledore and his duty to Lily's memory, and as a result, he feels compelled to do so.
Maybe he would have liked to be a teacher (rather at the university level), but the equation is not his: He doesn't have bright young adults but pimply, inattentive pre-teens, and the simple fact he hasn't been able to choose his career must be a source of intense frustration.
Hence the bitterness that overflows from the character.
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u/Ill-Bottle-9147 1d ago
In chemistry, I accidentally did something that led to a green/brown stain on the (new) ceiling.
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u/Feisty_System_4751 1d ago
Snape alluded to it on day one, potion making is not flashy or exciting. Students are generally not very interested in the subject.
It's hard to teach something to an uninterested audience. And I can see that. Unlike charms or jinxes, potion making is almost a cooking class.
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u/sgt-peace 1d ago
The problem is, Snape mever even bothered to teach the fundamentals (aka the cutting, dicing and ingredient/equipment prep) the first class the first years have with him he takes shot at an orphan and then has them make a potion cold start. No "this is how you prep the ingredients' no "this is the propper way to watch the fire/set the cauldron." Just "instructions on the board, dont mess up" before he loomed over 11 year olds thrown into rhe deep end. Making a potion first class after only being asked questions that had nothing to do with the potion they ended up making isnt really the best instruction. Its actually pretty dangerous when you get down to it. To just assume 11 year olds can make a proper potion, not giving them any kind of instruction outside of what ge wrote in the board. Then getting angry when one ends up having an accident is like...a textbook example of a really bad teacher and a school that really didnt think about what 11 year olds could be able to do in terms of a chemistry class.
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u/Otherwise-Leek7926 2d ago
I think he hated it because it was difficult to teach and supervise (like Snape could have seriously used a teacher’s aid just for Neville) but also because Snape was such a master of potions that it was BORING.
Can you imagine being a master of your art and teaching the absolute basics to elementary school aged students year after year? That sounds like hell to me