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ygert comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 21, chapters 91 & 92 - Less Wrong
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It is impossible to hire good Defense Professors. Full Stop. The position is heavily cursed, and anyone who takes it leaves within the year. Practically no one will take the post in the position. Under these circumstances, if someone is willing to be the defense professor, well, that means Hogwarts has a defense professor this year. Again, this is a job no one wants after all these years of mishaps befalling the defense professors, like clockwork, every year.
I know it would defuse the whole dramatic potential of the thing, but has the wizarding world really not heard of one-year contracts? After all, there seems to be no rule that the professor has to leave due to harm coming to him or her, and many appear to leave due to circumstances set in motion before their arrival (like pre-existing incompetence).
Lupin, Umbridge, and Snape all survive their terms as Defence professor essentially intact. One is drummed out by PR pressure, and two get promotions. Out of six total, that's not an awful record.
...what?
Lupin was publicly outed as the wizarding version of a leper, if every leper was considered a serial killer, and this information that will not become secret again later. If he was having trouble keeping himself employed before...
Umbridge was freaking gang-raped by centaurs, traumatizing her. I mean, she got better and did get a nice position later, but...jeez.
Snape did survive a whole extra year, that's true, but then he died. By the hand of the same person who implemented the curse, by the by. It could be a coincidence...but maybe not.
Lupin seems to have done okay. Yeah, being outed is unpleasant, but it doesn't seem to have really affected him.
Umbridge...well, I have difficulty believing that even Voldemort would include bestial gang-rape as part of a curse. And while it is again something I wouldn't want to have happen(to put it lightly), she doesn't seem the worse for wear - she's not any crazier after than before.
The Snape angle is interesting, though - I never thought of it that way.
I assumed he kept working for Dumbledore, via the Order of the Phoenix. At the very least, after Voldemort did rise again. He certainly was being kept busy enough by them from the 5th year on.
I don't really have this difficulty, but alright. I doubt he specified anything in the casting--it could be as simple as "they leave the position before the end of the year in a manner that makes them feel regret." Snape would certainly regret having to kill Dumbledore.
I know, the levels of Umbridge's trauma at the end of 5th year is inconsistent with how she was seen later. I thought that mental magics were involved, but I admit it's speculative.
Moody did have a one-year contract--when he introduces himself to the classroom, he says he'll only be there for the year. And yet he didn't exactly get off free and easy, either.
Ah, but that was the fake Moody - nothing he says can be trusted.
CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
An open lie, which could easily get back to the headmaster ("why can't the cool Auror guy stay for more than one year?") would be an exceedingly foolish way to start the year. Amusing nevertheless.
I've seen a fanfic where they started using that loophole.
Why doesn't Dumbledore just diffuse the responsibility? Have battles like the current ones run by different teachers throughout the year, and also have each teacher, in their own lessons, teach a bit more practically about their spells?
Or is a tradition thing, like the snitch? Will people not let Dumbledore get rid of Defence Against the Dark Arts, even though it means their children won't learn anything?
A risky plan. What if dividing the subject among 20 profs made all 20 of them subject to the curse and lost the entire faculty? In the wizarding world, messing with things you don't understand extremely well can be dangerous.
That's a very good point I hadn't considered.
I wonder if Dumbledore has actually done any experimenting over the last 50 years, like the one-year contracts I suggest downthread, or having two staff members rotate responsibility each year (and teach something innocuous like Muggle Studies in the meantime).
A also wonder what kind of curse would have such an incredibly powerful effect, and whether Voldemort could have used a scaled-down version of it to, say, get Dumbledore out of the headmaster position. Bearing in mind the original curse was cast before Voldemort had even achieved his full power.
In canon, we have some reason to believe Voldemort cast a literal curse on the position long ago.
In MOR, we have little reason to believe Voldemort ever lost his original body, and almost no reason to think that he's been a powerless ghost.
It would be very hard to implement. Hogwarts only seems to have one teacher per subject, and many of those have given no sign of usefulness outside their own subject area (Hooch, Sprout, Sinistra) or indeed within it (Binns, Trelawney). They would struggle to take on the content of the DADA curriculum even collectively.
We do know that some past defense professors have been effective even during just one year - Tonks is considered Auror material, for example, and she didn't pick all of that up from Quirrell. So abolishing the subject would be a step too far, not to mention that it would lead Hogwarts into conflict with the Ministry for failing to follow the national curriculum.
I thought that was because Tonks trained under Moody?
"Sign up for the Auror preparation program in your sixth year," said Susan. "It's the next best thing. Oh, and if a famous Auror (assumed it was referring to Moody?) offers to oversee your summer internship, just ignore anyone who warns you that he's a terrible influence or that you're almost certainly going to die."
Yes, but one assumes that Moody doesn't offer to oversee someone's summer internship unless they've really impressed him.
She is a born shapeshifter. Of the line of Black. Moody offered to oversee that internship to learn who she was, because it would be fracking stupid not to. Finding out that Tonks is astonishingly decent people must have been the best news Moody got in decades.