= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Desrtopa comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 8 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (653)
Dumbledore says that there are only three wizards in Hogwarts powerful enough to pull off what happened in chapter 74, and names Snape among them, but my impression from the original novels wasn't that Snape was exceptionally powerful among the professors of Hogwarts. He was definitely extremely formidable compared to the average wizard (one thing that I thought added verisimilitude to the books was that it was frequently shown that ordinary adult wizards frequently aren't very competent at magic aside from the few things they use regularly; think how many adults in real life don't understand or know how to apply much of the material that you're supposed to have to learn in order to get through high school,) but it seemed that many of the professors of Hogwarts were on the same level. He and McGonagall duelled in the last book, and it seemed like McGonagall had the upper hand. Plus, Flitwick was a former duelling champion, so I imagine he's pretty powerful as well. Snape is the most knowledgeable person in Hogwarts about the dark arts after Quirrelmort (who he probably learned at least a bit from,) but if I had to guess the most powerful professor after Quirrel, it would have been one of those two.
On a side note, I have to wonder if Quirrelmort has any idea about Snape's betrayal of him? What he's doing might just be messing around and showing up one of his former servants, or it might be part of a protracted vengeace.
Let's not forget that Cannon!Snape was writing instructions for sectumsempra in the margins of his potions textbook when he was a child - a textbook he incidentally rewrote while he was taking the class. Since then he has been rubbing shoulders with Voldemort and Dumbledore. That said he is more powerful than McGonagall then something has changed rather drastically. That girl is badass.
I have to agree that 'only three' is surprising. Dumbledore himself and Quirrel leave only one extra spot...
Cannon!Snape is definitely badass, but I always figured that given Hogwarts' eminent reputation and the size of their faculty, their standards for anyone holding a professorship are probably extremely high, barring positions people don't want to fill (Defense Against the Dark Arts and possibly Care of Magical Creatures) and pity jobs like Trelawney.
In a setting where the academic and practical are so closely intertwined, I imagine holding professorship at Hogwarts as being something like being a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Green Beret combined, probably topped off with an Eagle Scout.
It is a damn high bar and I think you mentioned the big players. Dumbledore -> McGonagall is easy. Then it is Snape vs Flittwick for No.3. It wouldn't seem unreasonable to place Snape higher than the gnome illusionist given that Snape is the one with dark secrets that no doubt include all sorts of badass juice. The problem with the '3' figure in MoR is that Quirrel comes in as a wild card and you would be reckless place him anywhere below second. And as you say, Snape > McGonagall doesn't seem right!
This. I feel like Quirrell would never fight completely fairly against anyone and so he basically can only lose against the unbeatable power of the elder wand. In a fair fight Snape and McGonagall together might be able to take Quirrell but doesn't fight fair.
I don't know -- even in canon, Snape didn't want to win that fight.
But this does leave me slightly confused about his apparent stunning just now.
Right. In canon, Snape didn't want to win that fight. Also in canon, Snape is the only wizard besides Voldemort who can fly without a broomstick, although the movie subverts this. One also notes that a half-blood was accepted into the Death Eaters and presumably not for his wealth or family connections. More to the point, in MoR there's a sharper distinction between powerful wizards and non-powerful ones; powerful wizards have taken an interest in ancient riddles, they have delved into secrets, they have found sources of lore that cannot be learned from books. Professor McGonagall knows a hell of a lot about Transfiguration, but she hasn't gone down that road.
Even so, the gap between a "powerful wizard" like Snape and, say, Dumbledore, is rather large. Dumbledore strolls through Amelia Bones's wards like they were water, and Bones, in this fic, is an ancient and experienced witch. Forty-four simultaneous strikes from upper-year Hogwarts students will definitely bring down Madam Bones, maybe even if she does have time to reinforce and strengthen her shields. Dumbledore would wave the Elder Wand, once.
typo
Is Snape as powerful as Dumbledore was at his age?
Almost definitely not. Dumbledore is, in canon (and I presume in MoR), probably the most powerful wizard in centuries. He defeated the holder of the Elder Wand in a duel (which was believed to be impossible) at 64. While Snape is in his early thirties, it seems unlikely the extra three decades would make all that much of a difference.
Keep in mind, in HPMoR, it's heavily implied that AD's artificially aged because he's been overusing time-turners, possibly since his Hogwarts days.
Assuming he's been using the full 6 hours since age 18, that would only give him an extra decade on Snape.
We're not comparing Dumbledore in his thirties to Snape in his thirties, but Snape in his thirties to AD at "64". If we assume that he's been using his time turner since age 11, like HP (though based on his backstory, it seems he got a large intelligence boost at 10, so that might be where he started), he's effectively over 77 when he fought Grindelwald, giving Snape upwards of 4 decades (longer than he has lived thus far) to reach Grindelwald-defeating levels of power. In addition, we know that Snape has good reasons to hide how powerful he is (especially in MoR) and has a substantial amount of muggle knowledge. These all indicate that he's in the same league as Dumbledore, but benefits from not broadcasting the fact. This would also explain the way he was described in MoR.
Right; by 'extra decade' I meant another decade above the three Dumbledore was already older than Snape.
It seems unlikely to me that what made Dumbledore able to defeat Grindelwald at ~78 was that he was 78, rather than that he was Dumbledore. From EY several comments above:
We do know now that Dumbledore had a phoenix to help him out in the duel with Grindelwald, and so we might suppose that the equipment advantage was balanced between the two instead of heavily favoring Grindelwald. (My impression is that the Elder Wand is better to have than a phoenix in a duel, but that's just an impression.)
But I don't know what Dumbledore looked like in his early thirties. We see him at 18 and then at 64, and perhaps he passed through where Snape is now at about thirty. My guess is not.