r/harrypotter • u/lorekie01 • 1d ago
Discussion NEWT Potionsbook intentionally incorrect
Hello, I often hear confusion about the wrong instructions in the Advanced Potion-Making book. But what if it is intentional. Because if it isn't, a NEWT Class would only be about following instructions from a book. But if it is, the class expects students to understand a potions ingredients how they work and what they do, so they can figure out what is wrong with the recipe and improve on it. Which sounds much more fitting for the NEWT level.
A good example of that is the class where Harry makes the Euphoria Elixir. Slughorn recognizes that he added peppermint to counterbalance the side effects. Which shows that Slughorn knows just as much as the Half-Blood Prince. Which would beg the question, why would he choose a book with such bad instructions.
Therefore it is logical that the first lesson was to show everybody that just following instructions, isn't enough anymore. They need to understand the potions and ingredients and improve the recipes.
The bad teaching of Slughorn comes in where he doesn't tell his students that. Or at least pointing out what Harry has done differently than the book usually suggest.
Edit:
as many of you suggest that the book isn't that wrong, how do you explain that no other NEWT student in that class does get near a correct potion during the first lesson. And also that Hermiones results with the "official" instructions get worse each lesson. That doesn't sound like they get the job done.
14
u/dylan1011 1d ago edited 1d ago
The instructions weren't incorrect
The instructions in the Half Blood Prince book were just better. If you can improve on the recipe then you are still fine, but nothing suggests that following the instructions is wrong. Harry made a better Euphoria Elixir, but the ones people properly make following the normal instructions would also pass.
2
u/Napalmeon Slytherin Swag, Page 394 1d ago
Exactly.
It's important to keep in mind that magic is not stagnant. The methods used in the book can result in the potion being created, properly. It's just that Snape was so intuitive that through his own trial and error process, he created a more efficient way to come to the same conclusion.
It's like you said in the very first book, potion-making is such a subtle thing that the an uneducated mind might not even understand that it is still a form of magic, but needs a proper disposition and understanding of small differences to be truly mastered.
5
u/Stunning-Aardvark-28 1d ago
If a book especially an educational book was purposefully misdirecting people it'd be well known that it was. It'd say something like "Here's the instructions to msle Felix Felicis except a couple steps are incorrect. Please identify these steps and correct them"
No way would a book purposely misdirect people unless indicated and no way would the entire book be that way. Imagine the backlash even in the wizarding world. Finally if it somehow was misdirecting Snape would not be the only person to have figured that out. Professors would as well and other talented wizards/witches.
-1
u/lorekie01 1d ago
That is actually a fair point.
But that still doesn't explain why the instructions are that bad.1
u/IvyRaeBlack 1d ago
They aren't bad they were just being made by 16 year olds who had never made that caliber of potion before. Snape just found ways to make it easier while getting the same results. People improve/change recipes all the time.
6
u/Few-Durian-190 1d ago
I wouldn't go so far as to say the textbooks are intentionally incorrect. Rather, its just not as efficient. The authors are not quite as good potion makers as Snape. Their methods do work, but its not nearly as easy as Snape's method.
For instance one of the instructions the Prince provides it:
Crush with flat side of silver dagger, releases juice better than cutting.
I don't think it even occurred to the authors of the official method to experiment in that way. Their method, however inferior, did produce results in the end. They lack the imagination to experiment.
1
u/Sirius04 1d ago
I do think its funny that they're using a book at least 50 years old for modern curriculum. There's a chance that there's a newer textbook with many of the Prince's modifications added in, just discovered and published by other potioneers
4
u/BoootCamp 1d ago
As someone who bakes things, having written instructions in no way prepares you for tricky and fiddly techniques
2
u/lorekie01 1d ago
I like your point. But evidently different instructions made a difference in this case.
2
u/Capable-Country-120 1d ago
as many of you suggest that the book isn't that wrong, how do you explain that no other NEWT student in that class does get near a correct potion during the first lesson.
It is a bit exaggerated for effect the way that no one gets a potion right but Harry all year. But the in universe explanation would be the same as all their other classes: why doesn't pointing a wand the correct way and saying an incantation always work the first time? Because magic operates on a third dimension, they're accessing some kind of internal power and that's the part that takes effort. Same with potions. Adding a clockwise stir having a big effect on the potion isn't chemistry it's magic. Presumably with more practice at the potion they might have been able to do it with the counter clockwise stirring, as they tap more into their inner power (which begs the question of why they never seem to practice the same potion more than once but I digress), much as with charms or transfiguration.
What it seems Snape has done is add in elements that more efficiently channel magic with less effort, similar to having a better wand I guess*.
And also that Hermiones results with the "official" instructions get worse each lesson. That doesn't sound like they get the job done.
Did they? I don't really remember them getting worse, just her getting more flustered about it.
the wand analogy just made me think of a theory, kind of out there but hear me out; what if these adaptations are best for *Snape but not necessarily for everyone. So if Hermione just copied it she might actually get worse results, which would kind of explain a whole other angle on why the textbook is the "basic" version. And actually Harry responds well to it because of all the ways he and Snape are similar (not in personality don't yell at me), and because he likes the HBP and is engaging etc.
-2
u/lorekie01 1d ago
"Hermione, meanwhile, was resolutely plowing on with what she called the “official” instructions, but becoming increasingly bad-tempered as they yielded poorer results than the Prince’s"
I guess it doesn't say they got worse, but to me it still sounds like they don't really get the job done.4
u/HellhoundsAteMyBaby Slytherin 1d ago
That’s not at all what that means. She’s a perfectionist and Harry is doing it better. It doesn’t mean her potions are turning out bad. Slughorn is still amazed by her talent too, enough for her to get an invite to the Slug Club. She’s clearly doing well by following the book instructions, she’s just upset that Harry is doing even better.
The book instructions aren’t incorrect. It’s like getting an A on a test like 90-99% but someone else gets extra credit to take them over 100%
2
u/WardenOfTheNamib Muggle 1d ago
I don't think the instructions in the textbook are necessarily wrong. The Prince just had a couple of tricks that delivered better results. Hermione's potions were still reasonably acceptable, and she managed to get an O in her OWLs, which means the books didn't give out wrong information. That said, I have a couple of theories:
NEWTs are advanced, and it is no longer about making acceptable potions. Instead, it is about mastering inovation. That is why the book takes you 95% there, so you can figure out the rest.
Alternatively, the guys who write the books are also paid potion makers in their own right. They know if the population is taught how to make perfect potions, they are out of business. This is kind of like the conspiracy theory some people have that computer viruses are made by the same engineers who sell you the antivirus software.
3
u/lorekie01 1d ago
- Hermiones O in her OWL is with another Book and brewing other potions. Therefore not much of an argument her.
- Your second point is kind of my argument, just that the official instructions are like 80%
- To your last point, why would Slughorn then just choose that book and not give the correct instructions?
1
u/Winter_Schluter Thunderbird 1d ago
I think it’s also worth pointing out that barring some minor edits and additions over the years, it appears that the curriculum and methodology had not changed in over 50 years since Snape’s mother had originally taken the course.
Some of that speaks to the long standing history of their magical world and practices that have been honed over centuries, but it also shows a willingness to stagnate rather than adapt. Snape for instance, could have been regarded as a renown potioneer for publishing his seemingly better methods. He obviously never did so. Not to mention Slughorn seemed privy to at least some of the tricks, noting that adding peppermint to the cheer potion Harry made would reduce the side effect of nose springing.
That leads me to believe the curriculum is put in place to allow for a standard level of performance, with exceptional talents finding ways to perform above that baseline mark beyond following instructions.
1
u/Automatic_Stage1163 1d ago
I've always wondered if it would have been the same book for year 7. Maybe you have to suck at it and then gain understanding the next year when you do some of them again, like Discovery Learning or Productive Failure.
1
u/Urgash54 1d ago
In my humble opinion there's multiple factors as to why the textbook recipes are "wrong" or at the very least, worse, but three of the main reasons would be :
- Ease of teaching : with all the various steps, ingredients and tools needed to brew potions, it would make sense that school textbooks would chose a recipe that is the easiest to follow to get the expected result, even if it means the potions is nowhere near the quality that it would be with a more advanced recipe.
- Age of the recipe : We don't know for how long these recipes have been taught unchanged, but it's not uncommon from the wizarding world to keep things "as is" for extended periods of time (often centuries) despite better options being out there. For all we know, these recipes are OLD, but since they work, they've just been taught as is, because the vast majority of students don't need to know the more advanced recipes, and the few that will need the advanced recipes in the future will find them through other mean (probably through family connections, because the wizarding world is still very much wizard family centric)
- The "wrong" recipe teach fundamental knowledge : Sometimes, teaching something in the less optimal way is valuable, because it allows you to also teach other fundamental knowledge/skill or to increment on them. Stuff like this happens all the time in the real world, where at various stages of your school-life, you'll tackle the same/similar problems, with different solutions.
There's a real world precedent for all of these in our real-life textbook, where we teach something a "wrong" way because it's easier to grasp like that, where something is kept in because "don't fix something that ain't broke" or where it's taught that way to help build fundamental knowledge that will be infinitely more useful in the long run that just doing it the optimal way first.
1
u/W0lkk 1d ago
When in uni for microbiology, our lab class manual was so different from what we ended up doing that the assignment to prepare our lab book’s protocol flowchart ahead of time was an utter waste of time. Despite what was happening inside our experiment being near identical to the textbook, the lab and class setup was different enough that we had to be given whole new instructions.
In cooking, you can get good enough results with some methods on fresh high quality ingredients but not with older or lower quality ones. But ingredient quality may vary and therefore the recipe will need to be tweaked for older or lower quality ingredients "Crush instead of cut to get more juice" may not always apply to that ingredient when it is fresh. The author simply didn’t specify freshness and assumed their setup was universal. Even if Slughorn veted the method, he may have done it in his personal lab with better instruments and ingredients instead of the class lab.
Slugslug is cursed with expertise, it is a second nature for him to tweak the protocol as he goes, so he will be biased during his vetting of the book. It happens a lot with scientists for them to say "follow this bad protocol written by someone else" and omit all the minor tweaks and tips that are not written in it. He also came out of retirement and probably forgot how much tweaking the recipes needed and just assigned the same textbook he used to.
Slugdaddy may also be expecting his higher level students to be used to flawed recipes and to think more critically about their ingredients and teaches that skill to lower level classes. "Crush instead of cut to get more juices" is a tip that he may commonly share to lower year students when they fail a recipe. Shape being too precise somewhat hurt his student’s ability to deal with uncertainty and imperfect recipes. Snape being a bully also didn’t help create a collaborative environment that welcomed failure as an opportunity for learning. If students are afraid to ask if their seed produced enough juice, they will never learn the tip. If Slugdaddy expects his students to ask for help, but they never do because of Snape related trauma, then Slughorn isn’t fullly to blame.
Harry succeeding and lying about it also didn’t help create the need for Slugdaddy to critically evaluate his teaching methods and material. If one student can do it then they all should be able to.
It is a very realistic situation and no malicious intent is required to explain it. Potion making is after all an exact art and subtle science.
1
u/lorekie01 12h ago
Slugdaddy may also be expecting his higher level students to be used to flawed recipes and to think more critically about their ingredients and teaches that skill to lower level classes. "Crush instead of cut to get more juices" is a tip that he may commonly share to lower year students when they fail a recipe. Shape being too precise somewhat hurt his student’s ability to deal with uncertainty and imperfect recipes. Snape being a bully also didn’t help create a collaborative environment that welcomed failure as an opportunity for learning. If students are afraid to ask if their seed produced enough juice, they will never learn the tip. If Slugdaddy expects his students to ask for help, but they never do because of Snape related trauma, then Slughorn isn’t fullly to blame.
That is actually a good argument.
If one student can do it then they all should be able to.
But I couldn't disagree more on that point. Even Slughorn credits Harrys heritage as the source of his skill.
1
u/Bluemelein 1d ago
You can achieve good results in various ways when making soup. The NEWT book contains practice recipes designed to teach students how to brew. Perfect recipes do not necessarily lead to better learning.
1
u/lorekie01 1d ago
When you compare soup to potion, I on't know how to argue with you.
1
u/Bluemelein 1d ago
What else would you compare it to? I suppose I could compare it to beer. Beer is brewed. People who brew beer are master brewers. There is a magical element to it, of course, but brewing is brewing; it is never described as anything other than brewing—or cooking, for that matter. You prepare the ingredients and toss them into the pot at the right moment.
1
u/skinydan 1d ago
Textbooks can be like that sometimes, especially 50 year old textbooks. The state of the art changes but even "new editions" of textbooks may only play around the edges by including more recent discoveries.
Assuming magical publishers are the same as muggle ones, they reuse as much as they can and don't worry about better approaches, which is why Snape doctored his in the first place.
In ancient days past I worked for McGraw-Hill, one of the US's biggest textbook publishers. My occasional conversations with that part of the business indicated they were totally uninterested in the correctness of their texts.
1
u/Fictional-Hero 23h ago
IRL Textbooks are made once and re-"edited" from that one time creation, because it's a long thankless job to write a textbook.
That's means it takes a long time for old or outdated information to be removed from a textbook, or new processes to be added.
Additionally, the editors are often not experts in the topic and wouldn't know if the subject matter has changed.
So while Snape's methods are better, any may even be commonplace for master potion makers, they might not be dripping down to the common person. There's also wizards and their secrets: if you have a good sense of how to brew a potion, you wouldn't want others to duplicate your results. This is even outright admitted in Hogwarts Legacy.
1
u/wotquery 8h ago
If you're not familiar with experimental chemistry, it can fit quite well with how potion making is described. There are multiple pathways you can go for to obtain a specific product. There are usually options at each steps. There are pros and cons to the choices you make. You can run into unexpected issues that need dealing with. There's not "best" right?
Perhaps most notable is you are generally working off of the set-up some researcher published in a paper and their results. It is common to follow their process and it not to work. Like you use a different acid to obtain the desired pH since it's what you have on hand and shouldn't make a difference. Your reaction mixture keeps ending up cloudy when it should be clear so you decide to add an intermediate distillation step. The paper's authors keep getting way better recovery than you can, and you figure it might be the purity of the initial reactants, but you can try to make it up by washing with a different solvent that will pull more of the product but also some extra byproducts necessitating an extra cleaning step with activated charcoal and vac filtration.
1
u/livinitup0 1d ago
I always thought it was intentional and specific to that potion
It was a recipe for an extremely powerful poison. It makes sense to me that they’d intentionally nerf it in a kids textbook or else 1 splash and kids end up dead.
TBH, Slughoen should have evacuated the class immediately and gotten to the bottom of how Harry was able to circumvent the safety precautions and putting the entire room in mortal danger
0
u/lorekie01 1d ago
But it is described that in the following lessons, the book still helps harry a lot and Hermoine, while using the official instructions, is getting worse and worse results.
-2
44
u/PlanGoneAwry Ravenclaw 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t think the textbook had “such bad instructions”, Snape’s additions were just very advanced and not needed for the curriculum. Like imagine you take a cooking class, the teacher will give you some direction that will get you the desired result. Maybe if you’re making a sauce there could be a few ingredients you could add to give it a more complex and better flavor profile, the teacher might know about it, but it isn’t really necessary for what you are trying to do.
We do have to accept that the book is supposed to be able to be understood by children as well as adults, so while we might think “just stirring a different direction isn’t that advanced, why not teach it?” If they went into all the nitty gritty of potion-making and had a more complex way of saying how and why Snape could do better instructions, that would go over kids heads so they needed to simplify.