Cute and relevant bit of Harry Potter media

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

While I was perusing Facebook, I found a link to a video which I thought was really cute and totally appropriate to this comm.

It's right here, if you want to watch:

I would say it's fairly on-target. The scene of the little kid with the fire extinguisher in particular.

Comments

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

Hmn. You are correct in that we only have Harry's opinion as to Umbridge's motives. And I would be *very* surprised to discover that politics *didn't* play a large part in her targeting scheme.
However, her described actions and expressions certainly give me the impression that she *likes* doing such things in the cruelest way possible. She *likes* having the power to be as cruel as her whim directs

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Yes, Umbridge obviously likes exercising power, but when she chooses someone as a target, does she do it for political considerations (“Who is supporting Dumbledore and defying Fudge?”), racial considerations (“Who has non-human blood?”), educational considerations (“Who is an ineffective teacher and/or is teaching the wrong things?”), or personal considerations (“Whom do I personally dislike?”)

It seems to me that the first three questions enter into it, but not so much the fourth. She opposes people for specific political and racial reasons and because they interfere with her power, but she dislikes them because she opposes them, rather than opposing them because she dislikes them.

This is an important distinction in the Potterverse because Harry, who is our guide to proper values, so often bases his support or opposition on whether or not he likes someone or someone likes him. A big part of Harry’s political opposition to Scrimgeour is over Stan Shunpike, about whom Harry knows nothing except that he once met him and liked him.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

You bring up a really good point, actually--is Rowling possibly trying to present standing by those you personally like as the morally righteous thing regardless of how good those people are? I guess that feeds into the schoolyard morality of the series.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

And yet Severus is morally deficient because he cares first about the girl he loves and only secondarily about the boy who bullied him and a baby he's never met.

Inconsistency, thy name is Rowling!

half-breed

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

One thing I find rather surprising is that we never hear of Umbridge attempting to fire Firenze. At least not that I remember. True, he isn't a half- centaur, but I would have expected her to dislike him anyways.

It's obvious during her run in with the centaurs in the forest, that she doesn't see them as human (but then, they also insist that they are not), so why do we not hear her complaining about an animal teaching in regards to Hagrid? Is it possible that she doesn't automatically disapprove of non-humans, but on;y the offspring of a mixed-mating? And why Hagrid, but not Flitwick? Isn't he supposed to be part goblin? Or is that not known by Dolores?

Of course, according to JKR on the Flitwick's Lexicon entry, she had not expected movieFlitwick to look so goblin/elf like - she saw him as more just a tiny old man - so presumably, his goblin heritage is pretty far back on the family tree.