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

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

How would Scrimgeour even get punished, the guy dies in the last book. That's why we even had the puppet-minister Thicknesse.
Did JKR just forget what she wrote again or is she implying that dying was his punishment for not dealing with Umbridge?

Not to mention in book six when Harry actually had his little conversation with Scrimgeour, he (and we, the readers) had no idea what had become of Umbridge. So his refusal to work with Scrimgeour had nothing to do with her.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

We are all of us masochists for caring about such things. :P

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

I think it's that dying was his ~*Ultimate Punishment*~, although iirc, she mentioned he died not telling the Death Eaters where Harry was, so thankfully his death could revolve around Harry, like his every decision in life should have.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Harry being such a self-centered character wouldn't have been so bad . . . if the books weren't centered on his PoV and his thoughts. That's what really drives me crazy.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I think it's that dying was his ~*Ultimate Punishment*~, although iirc, she mentioned he died not telling the Death Eaters where Harry was, so thankfully his death could revolve around Harry, like his every decision in life should have.

Oh, thank you for that! I laughed so hard at that.

In fairness to JKR, I think that was her odd way of showing that, in spite of his and Harry's mutual hostility, Scrimgeour was a good guy after all. Y'know, like Snape's proof of being a good guy was that he was hung up on Harry's mother his whole life. Because it's Harry's world; everybody else just lives in it.

[arcanetrivia]

Duh, you're right. I must be slipping. That makes remarks like this from JKR even odder.

i can't even...

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Deserves to die =/= his death is his karma

Also: his death wasn't directly linked to keeping D.U. In the minestry, i.e. it wasn't like Dolly told the DEs to go kill him, it's just that she gladly went with the flow after he was killed and a Petain-puppet was installed.