J. K. Rowling presents Umbrigde's backstory

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

In time for Halloween JKR gave us another short story (more background info to be honest, it's not like it has a plot). You can read it at Pottermore (if you have an account and can actually remember your user name and password) or you can read it here: J.K. Rowling writes Harry Potter Halloween tale profiling 'malicious' Dolores Umbridge

My personal take on this little story is that it's wholly pointless. It just repeats that Umbridge was always a nasty person with no depth to her and she's worse than blood purists. Nothing really new or insightful is revealed, nor do I believe did anybody care to know this sort of stuff about Umbridge. I also found it very unbelievable that anybody would buy her claims of being a pureblood, considering how small the wizarding community is. And of course she was a Slytherin, because where else could an evil person in HP have come from.

Comments

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

Dolores Jane Umbridge was the eldest child and only daughter of Orford Umbridge, a wizard, and Ellen Cracknell, a Muggle, who also had a Squib son.
The son doesn't even get a name.
But it's not like somebody (Jo) thinks that non magical children are worthless and unimportant. Not at all.

Also, knowing everything we've seen about love potions and the way wizards act toward Muggles, I can't help but worry about just how Dolores's parent got together.

btw, I wonder is "Orford married a Muggle" also part of class discrimination on display here. Are we supposed to see it as "nobody from WW would want to be with a lowly janitor".
Really, now when I think of it more; the only other worker in Department of Magical Maintenance at the Ministry of Magic is married to a Muggleborn.
So, is that (working as a magical janitor) very much looked down on in WW?
Is that a case of "know your place / only Muggleborn or Muggles are not above you"?

Dolores has what amounts to a phobia of beings that are not quite, or wholly, human. Her distaste for the half-giant Hagrid, and her terror of centaurs, reveal a terror of the unknown and the wild.
After what happened in the forest I very much doubt her fear of centaurs can be just waved off as "terror of the unknown and the wild".

Dolores's time at Hogwarts ended disastrously, because she overreached the remit Fudge had given her, stepping outside the bounds of her own authority, carried away with a fanatical sense of self-purpose
Stepping outside the main Hogwarts grounds and being carried away by centaurs.
I see why you choose the words you did here, JKR. And I don't think it's either funny or clever.

Scrimgeour was later punished for this oversight, because the fact that the Ministry had never punished Dolores for her many abuses of power seemed to Harry Potter to reveal both its complacency and its carelessness.
But it's only Dolores and Bellatrix who enjoy seeing people punished!
Harry is not like that at all!

which was in effect a kangaroo court
... so just like any other WW court then?

came into contact with a teacher or instructor whom I disliked intensely on sight.

The woman in question returned my antipathy with interest.
Hm, I don't know. Maybe she disliked you back because you showed your irrational dislike and disgust of her openly?

What sticks in my mind is her pronounced taste for twee accessories. I particularly recall a tiny little plastic bow slide, pale lemon in colour that she wore in her short curly hair. I used to stare at that little slide, which would have been appropriate to a girl of three, as though it was some kind of repellent physical growth. She was quite a stocky woman, and not in the first flush of youth, and her tendency to wear frills where (I felt) frills had no business to be, and to carry undersized handbags, again as though they had been borrowed from a child's dressing-up box, jarred, I felt, with a personality that I found the reverse of sweet, innocent and ingenuous.
I have to wonder is JKR aware of just how much this shows of the way she see people.

Her wizards from DD to Luna can be adorably quirky and weird. But a middle aged, "stocky" women?
Oh, the horror. How dare she not conform to JKR's expectations.
Never mind that this "inappropriate way to dress" spiel would make Petunia proud. Wonder if JKR is aware of how much in common she have with a character she loves to hate.

I have noticed more than once in life that a taste for the ineffably twee can go hand-in-hand with a distinctly uncharitable outlook on the world.
Yup, trumpet that some more.
It's not like you and your books taught kids enough harmful and terrible views. No, lets make sure they hate girls and women who like cute things too.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/So, is that (working as a magical janitor) very much looked down on in WW?/

Maybe this is another case of JKR adapting real-world attitudes in her books, like she did with Filch. Except, as it’s been pointed out in this community, there’s no point for a Squib to be a janitor when a witch or wizard could just wave their wand and clean everything. A similar disconnect happens with Quidditch (when the majority of Slytherin’s players are big and bulky, despite riding a broomstick, which would seem to indicate smaller and lighter players), Crabbe and Goyle being Draco’s bodyguards despite not being very intelligent or skilled at magic, and Harry’s comments to Krum about Ginny having a “big bruiser” for a boyfriend.

/After what happened in the forest I very much doubt her fear of centaurs can be just waved off as "terror of the unknown and the wild"./

Yeah, if Umbridge was afraid of the centaurs before, that experience only served to justify her fear.

/Never mind that this "inappropriate way to dress" spiel would make Petunia proud./

Yes, I don’t understand why a plastic little bow was so repellent to her. I mean, I can see where somebody would think that an adult wearing a plastic bow and frills and a tiny handbag were weird, but repellent? I guess that JKR’s never been to ComicCon or a similar cosplay convention.

Plastic bow, frills, little handbag

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Well, and when was this? It's out of fashion now, but.... If this woman had been the instructor in a class Jo was taking, this could be any time from the late 60's on. (Though it sounds like Jo was older.) This sounds like an older woman who'd been told, "You need to try and look more feminine, dear" and was desperately following suit.

Re: Plastic bow, frills, little handbag

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

It's not like JK has much time for the converse of overly femme dressing - looking butch. Look at how she scorns Millicent Bulstrode, or the 'mannish' Rita Skeeter.

Re: Plastic bow, frills, little handbag

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, there is a precisely correct level of femininity in Rowling-world. Too much or not enough are evil. Everyone should strive for the Goldilocks sweet-spot.

Re: Plastic bow, frills, little handbag

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

But what's weird is that it's also OK for a girl to be obnoxious, aggressive, and overbearing, as long as Rowling approves of that character. Ginny's the best example of this, and Hermione sometimes is.

I'm now imagining all the females in the Potterverse walking a tightrope high above a yawning chasm filled with thousands of stereotypical butch girls, ultra-feminine girls, and whatever other examples of femininity Rowling thinks are inappropriate. The female characters carry one of those long poles and glance down anxiously as they struggle not to fall into the abyss and become one of those "bad" girls of which their creator doesn't approve.

Re: Plastic bow, frills, little handbag

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Damning a woman for dressing in and liking womanly stuff. Now that's something I haven't heard of.

Re: The Prince's Tale

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Did the site eat your post, or did you find something worth editing further and pulled it down?

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Neither one. It posted the entire, 10-page chapter on the main page instead of hiding most of it behind a cut, so I took it down to try reposting later.

Re: Plastic bow, frills, little handbag

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

It isn't even that JKR had to have taken the class in the '60s. In fact, the teacher's little bow would not have stood out so much in that time period. It really sounds more like a woman who developed her style in the '60s and then never changed with the times. Keeping to the styles of her youth.

One thing I find funny is remembering the styles of early some early new wave female singers - the floppy hair bows, crinolines and the frilly ankle socks with heels. Now imagine Dolores as THIS version of the 'little girl' look!