OOTP Chapter Twelve: "Professor Umbridge"
Apr. 22nd, 2011 06:46 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock* “Does he think he’ll turn into a nutter if he stays in a room with me too long?” Given that you threatened to curse him yesterday, he probably thinks you’ve already turned into one.
* So having favoured Harry over Seamus, Ron’s now reluctant to keep his brothers in line. A prefect should really be more impartial.
* Nice to see Harry and Ron dismissing the prospect of uniting with the Slytherins out of hand like that. And to think that some people say Slytherins aren’t treated like proper members of the school!
* So Angelina’s only holding try-outs for Wood’s replacement, whereas Harry will make everybody try-out next year. Is this something that varies depending on who’s captain, or did JKR just make up the “everyone tries out” idea to add some Ron-related angst in Book 6?
* Note how Ron’s already decided that he won’t like Umbridge before having one lesson with her. As it is he’ll be proved right, but still, it’s not like they’re giving her much of a chance, is it?
* “‘Leave me out of it,’ said Ron hastily.” Nice to see him undermining the authority of his fellow-prefect like that, isn’t it?
* As if the prospect of taking exams which determine whether or not you stay at school isn’t stress enough, Fred and George go and give people boils. Charming.
* As an aside, how does the exam system in Hogwarts work? In some ways it seems like GCSEs/O-levels, but if this were the case we’d expect quite a few people to leave school after taking them and take up jobs, rather than study to NEWT level. Or is it more a case of them being necessary to progress to NEWT level, but otherwise not really affecting your final qualifications, a bit like some university exams?
* Poor Ron, wanting to be an Auror. He’s spent his entire school career being overshadowed by Harry, and now he’ll spend his entire professional career being overshadowed, too. What he really needs is some time working/travelling without Harry or Hermione, so that he can become more confident and discover that he can actually cope without them. I doubt JKR would give him that, though.
* Besides, Aurors are, like, the élite. You can’t be one of them unless you’re really good. Or unless you’re the Chosen One, in which case you are entitled to take up whatever job you want. And get your friends into the Aurors, too.
* Ugh, Hermione’s so easy to manipulate. “Oh, you’re so clever, please lend us your notes.” She really ought to stop helping them, or at least scale back her help to a level where she’s not practically doing their work for them.
* Although I am rather attracted to the idea that she’s subconsciously trying to make herself indispensible to the boys due to her deep-seated insecurity. Especially given what happened to her when she last seriously stood up to them, over the broom in POA.
* So Harry meets Cho, makes a complete faux pas and reminds her of her dead boyfriend. Ron quickly steers the conversation away onto something more happy, i.e., Quidditch, before Cho can get too upset. Nevertheless, Ron is apparently the insensitive jerk around here, not Harry.
* And Ron and Hermione keep bickering about it all the way to Potions class. I’ve heard of couples getting into friendly arguments, but really, this is just ridiculous.
* Snape has apparently come to expect a high pass level from his students, suggesting that he’s actually quite a good teacher, after all.
* No matter how “worthless” Harry’s potion is, Ron’s has to be even worse.
* For Divination, they work from The Dream Oracle, by Inigo Imago. Which makes me wonder: where do people get the time to research all this complicated magic stuff and write up books about it? Apart from teaching positions in Hogwarts, there don’t really seem to be any academic jobs in the WW, and there aren’t enough wizards to make writing books a viable way of making a living (which perhaps explains the lack of wizarding fiction – there just isn’t a big enough audience for such works to be profitable). But surely a regular day job wouldn’t leave much time for research, so perhaps there’s some form of Ministry grant to allow people to take time off work and research these topics, or the people who do so are all wealthy enough that they can afford not to work full-time.
* Keeping a dream diary doesn’t seem as onerous as Harry and Ron seem to make out. After all, it’s not like most people have many dreams, and I’d be surprised if they’d end up remembering more than one or two over that whole period.
* Professor Umbridge’s wand is “unusually short”. Freudian, anyone?
* Knowing the WW, those kids really need a Defence class involving some considerations of the ethics involved. Like Umbridge’s. Still, no wonder they don’t take to it. Ethics? Pah! What sort of cowardly thing is this?
* Picking a fight with a teacher like this seems a bit OOC for someone like Hermione. Maybe the real Hermione Granger’s been drugged and locked in a magical trunk with the real Ginny Weasley, and has now been taken over as JKR’s sock-puppet.
* At least Dean acknowledged that Moody “turned out to be a maniac”, but doesn’t seem to dwell on it too much because “we still learned loads”. Which seems… somewhat worrying, TBH. Sort of like a Muggle saying “Yes, well, I know Myra Hindley turned out to be a mass-murderer, but she taught me loads of great childcare tips.”
* So Professor Umbridge states that Voldemort’s return is a lie, which seems to be the Ministry line. But never does anybody suggest that Harry killed Cedric himself, despite him having the means, motive and opportunity, and despite the fact that Cedric’s body doesn’t seem to bear animal attack marks on it. Perhaps it’d just be too difficult for Harry to rebut, and hence would get in the way of JKR’s planned storyline.
* “Well, I’m glad you listen to Hermione Granger, at any rate,” says Professor McGonagall, somewhat ironically, given that Hermione’s the one who started the trouble.
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Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 06:05 pm (UTC)I just don't see Sev being particularly nice to any of the trio if he had of lived, in fact I think he'd be nastier than usual. So I could see him giving the trio a hard time on their life saving skills.
I could even see him giving Minerva a hard time with all that dagger throwing she did at him when he got tag teamed by all the heads of house - I feel like he'd totally rub it in that she tried to kill him.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 11:19 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 11:30 am (UTC)I see next to nothing really shown where Snape is actually giving favoritism to Slytherins. We only get that word of mouth right? What did Severus actually do in reguards to showing favoritism. Ignoring certain things his students might do?
Okay fine, I can take that. But seriously, McGonagall and Dumbledore bend rules for Harry and sometimes even OMG, break them. HOW the hell is Severus worse?
And with McGongall the first thing is Quidditch where she breaks school rules - an anyone imagine that because of Quidditch McGonagall might have ignored James bullying. And lets not forget the twins who were also Quidditch players.
So if Severus is playing favorites with his students, one can see who he might have learned that from. Lets not forget that McGonagall was Severus' teacher as well - so is there any question that he had already read the book on how to work the system by the time he became a teacher and head of house.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 01:01 pm (UTC)The point thing aside I think they operate in similar ways as heads of house, but Snape is a quintessentially Slytherin variant on McGonagall.
I don't envy either of them their jobs. Specifically with Professor McGonagall, can you imagine being in charge of a group of teenagers who believe that taking outrageous risks and stunts is not only a virtue but a mandatory requirement?
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 06:35 pm (UTC)That's a good point I'd never considered. I'd always figured there was bribery involved. Both James and Sirius came from rich families who could have made "contributions" to the school when their sons acted up. Even after Sirius got kicked out by his parents, he still had money from his uncle. We have no direct evidence that occurred, but the wizarding world is very corrupt, and doing favors for your friends does happen in other contexts. *coughArthurWeasleycough* Such things also commonly happen in RL. For those reasons, I think payoffs make a lot of sense.
The Potters and Weasleys were also Dumbledore's supporters, so I'm sure he was inclined to cut them a break just for that reason. "You support me; I let your kids off the hook when they misbehave."
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 05:39 pm (UTC)You know, I've always wondered how Slytherin managed to originally win the House Cup by the end of first year after Draco had lost so many points. *Did* McGonagall give Draco back his points after he'd had detention? Or did his Housemates try as best as they could to make up for Draco's loss? Or did Slytherin House already have a huge amount of points for some reason and Draco's punishment did nothing to hurt them in the long run?
/Punishing Neville for 'being so abysmally stupid to lose his cribnote with the passwords'? Totally unfair./
I agree, poor Neville didn't deserve her wrath. Why was it such a crime for him to make a list of the passwords so that he wouldn't forget them? It's not his fault that Sir Cadogan was so difficult. Sure, it was careless of him to leave the list lying around, but he probably thought that the worst case scenario would be that a student from another House would find it, not an escaped convict. Instead of blaming Neville for Sirius Black breaking into Gryffindor Tower, Minerva should have wondered how Sirius Black broke into *Hogwarts.* Shouldn't *that* be the primary concern?
/She *doesn't* come down like a ton of bricks on the Marauders for being such obnoxious bullies./
What's worse is that she remembers them fondly despite the fact that Snape, one of her coworkers, was repeatedly bullied by them. Where exactly was Minerva when James was hexing everybody for kicks? Where was she when James was humiliating Severus? Did Minerva know about the Prank or Dumbledore tell her the same lie that Lily echoed to Snape?
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 06:40 pm (UTC)Not only that. Just how stupid was the Fat Lady's portrait? Surely she realized this haggard-looking grown man wasn't a student and didn't belong in the Tower. Why did she let him in? Even if she'd recognized him as an alumnus, he still didn't belong there in 1993-94. There's no point in having "sentient" portraits guarding the student housing if they're just going to let anybody in anyway.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 03:06 am (UTC)I agree, poor Neville didn't deserve her wrath. Why was it such a crime for him to make a list of the passwords so that he wouldn't forget them?
Too true, especially as that list of passwords was stolen from *inside* the Gryffindor tower - Neville certainly hadn't left it in an unsecured area. If he tried to bring this up with her, though, I'm sure she wouldn't have believed him. As has been discussed before, McGonagall is just as unjustly harsh towards Neville as Snape is.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 04:29 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 06:47 pm (UTC)That's what they get for not having TV or mystery novels. Anybody who's seen or read a few police procedurals would know to do that. Yet another way in which magical society is inferior to non-magical society. ;-)
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-26 10:43 pm (UTC)Every time I look closer at this world, the worse it becomes. It's like some sort of terrible thought-weapon unleashed by Darkseid to soften us up for the Anti-Life Equation.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-30 12:03 am (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-30 02:13 pm (UTC)For a better understanding of the existential horror that is Darkseid, read this Chick tract parody (and quail as you realise how few changes needed to be made to the message) http://cissie-king.livejournal.com/13838.html
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-05-01 02:08 am (UTC)Darkseid: looks live an evil cosmic overlord: hulking, gray skin, slitty eyes, huge lower jaw, hooded cape
EvilHag: looks like a sweet old lady: white hair, pink skin, big blue eyes, plump, housedress
Darkseid: makes his intentions to rule the universe and enslave everyone obvious
EvilHag: conceals her intentions to rule the family and enslave everyone behind appearance of a "saint" who "loves everyone"
Darkseid: takes credit for his evil acts
EvilHag: pretends to be enslaved to her husband/my grandfather, who is overtly nasty, hateful, and controlling
Darkseid: is killed by heroes who recognize his evilness and band together to defeat him
EvilHag: dies of natural causes without her evilness ever being recognized
Darkseid: victims are glad he's gone (an assumption on my part, but probably valid)
EvilHag: victims were devastated by her death; more than 30 years later, they still want her back
What they have in common is that both unleashed the Anti-Life (depression, emotional deadness) on their domain, dragging the universe (extended family) into the Forever Pit (permanent misery, abuse, and despair because the minions refuse to admit the family has serious systemic problems, preferring to pretend everything that's wrong is just the problems of individuals and is no reflection on the health and sanity of the family as a whole).
All hail the existential horror that is EVILHAG!
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-05-01 12:01 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-05-02 07:31 pm (UTC)Thank you for pointing me to that. It suggests to me that other people had evil grandparents, too. Grandparents have such good PR, those of us who had bad ones often feel alone and crazy.
Now I'm mulling over the idea of a series of fantasy novels about an adult who goes back in time to prevent her "saintly" evil grandmother from ruining her life. That would never have occurred to me if not for you. Thanks a lot. : D
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 02:54 am (UTC)She wasn't punishing Draco for lying, she was punishing him for being out of bed after curfew. I don't see why she should necessarily believe Draco for a far-fetched story about first-years smuggling illegal dragons, either.
Although, did Draco mention Hagrid at all in that scene? If he merely said that Harry, Hermione and Ron had got their hands on a dragon, then McGonagall would have good cause to think he was lying.
But if he mentioned Hagrid then things would be different. McGonagall probably went to school at the same time as Hagrid and was in the same House as him, so she would have known about his monster-related hobbies. In this case she should have followed up any mention of dragons with a proper investigation.