Some thoughts regarding Umbridge...

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So, as I've been preparing Abridged chapters of OotP I've obviously been doing quite a lot with Umbridge, and there will be more still to come. The more I think about the way she's presented in the books, the more disturbing and inappropriate it seems.

I first read the fifth Harry Potter book when I was around eleven or twelve years old, and I distinctly remember not being particularly troubled by Umbridge at that time, although I understood that she was a villain. I even found a lot of the things the students and professors did to try and outwit her funny, to the point she almost seemed to be a joke character (particularly because she's introduced as someone we're supposed to hate because, horror of horrors, she makes the students read their books and doesn't let them use magic).

Now, apparently that wasn't the intent. Apparently we really were supposed to see her as a bad guy played completely straight, and as someone worse than Voldemort--but the trouble is, her abuse of Harry is handled about the same as the Dursleys' abuse of him: yes, it's horrible, and in the real world it would be grounds for him to be taken away from her forever; but like the Dursleys she's presented mostly as something to mock (or at least that's how she came across to me). Think about it: if Umbridge is really a villain who's supposed to be played seriously and invoke nothing but fear and loathing, then how come the series basically has the students wage war against her through pulling pranks? It's an extra layer of silliness that's detrimental to our understanding of her as a sadistic monster, as, in a way, is having the first thing we see her do in class be to make the students read instead of doing magic--in a series that was anti-intellectual to begin with! The more I look over this book, the more it seems like Rowling just couldn't decide whether she wanted Umbridge to be a children's book stereotype like the principal from Matilda or whether she wanted her to be a seriously credible threat as a villain, and as a result her portrayal's a mess. Sure Umbridge is a sadistic psychopath who mutilates fifteen-year-olds, but how are we supposed to take her seriously when she's stumped by students setting off fireworks in her classes or eating candy that makes them sick enough to miss them?

And needless to say, the idea that Umbridge could be a bad guy in her own right without being a Death Eater went out the window by Book 7, where she's towing Voldemort's party line anyway.

Sorry--this is a lump of undigested thoughts. But I just think there's something very wrong with the way Umbridge is portrayed, you know?