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

Re: Harry's opinion

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

We never do get an opinion of Harry's re: Ministry. Was it "Ooo, the Ministry runs the magical world so nicely, I'm gonna trust them to do their job" or "Power corrupts! We can't trust such an unchecked body of rulers" or anything? Harry's head is really empty when it comes to Weltanschauung formation. If one doesn't start to do that in their teens, he's in big trouble for the rest of their life.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but Harry wasn't supposed to survive, so if all had gone according to plan--i.e., no life-saving, deus ex machina, authorial intervention--that wouldn't have mattered. He would have been remembered as "that sweet, heroic boy who was too good for this world." In fact, if Harry had started to mature in that way, it would have worked against his mission because he wouldn't have been willing to mindlessly go along with Scummywhore's plans. We see inklings of that in DH, but unfortunately they never pan out.

That's a good point, though. It explains why, in the crapilogue, Harry seems to have matured not at all in almost two decades. One would think the experience of war alone would have profoundly changed him, as it does real people, but apparently, despite his "death," he was immune to that as well. It reminds me of an old commercial that ran every winter. I think it was for Cream of Wheat. It showed a kid eating the cereal for breakfast, then floating through hir day in a bubble, immune to colds, flu, frostbite, etc, because of the protective properties of hir breakfast. Harry seems to have floated through the war in the same kind of bubble. It also accords with my contention that he stalled in stages 2 and 3 of spiritual development.