Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic Dolores Jane Umbridge

Spoiler Warning for the Harry Potter Books and Movies

    So, for this series on this blog, I would like to point out my obsession (because it is simply no longer a healthy admiration of this series) with the Harry Potter series. I have decided to put forth my effort to the Harry Potter fans, besides the copious amounts of fanfiction I write when I should be doing school work, and share my opinions (or ‘onions’ as my brother would say) and knowledge on the Harry Potter universe. More particularly, my favourite people of the universe: the villains (besides Hermione and Luna, of course). Now, as most of the fandom, I dislike Dolores Umbridge as much as the next Potterhead. In fact, I hate her very much.

    I think that we should start with identifying her ‘alignment’ in relation to the story. If you play any sort of Tabletop RPG, then you will know what an alignment is, if you don’t play any games like that, then let me explain briefly. An alignment is a chart used to help describe a character’s personality and moral attitude; it’s useful since there are a variety of different personality types for each alignment and it by no means pigeonholes a character by restricting their options. Dolores Umbridge is Lawful Evil. Now, going over the basic traits of this alignment:

1. People of LE (Lawful Evil) Alignment are sticklers of authority and have strong morals, however they tend to be skewed to their own opinions and misunderstandings making them inaccurate and ‘evil’.
2. LE characters often believe that the weak need to be eliminated for a greater authority/power. That they may do immoral things for a ‘greater good’ or larger goal that goes beyond their wrongdoings as it helps in the larger scheme of themes.

    In philosophical terms, the LE character is an egoist, an ethical egoist. While ethical egoists can be broken into three categories when defined by normative/perspective ethics, I would say they are closest to the Individual Ethical Egoist who by definition believes that all persons should serve their self-interest. Undersecretary Umbridge’s interest is in the Ministry of Magic, in which she holds a great deal of power and control. Umbridge is appointed High Inquisitor and eventually Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the 1995-1996 school year, or the fifth year of the Harry Potter series. While she dislikes our protagonist, Harry Potter, and favours another ‘villain’/antagonist, Draco Malfoy, she upholds the school to a standard in which she sees fit. This diverges from the LE similarities due to her eventual separation from the MInistry and more so from the current Minister, Cornelius Fudge, when she falls prey to Voldemort’s charm and takes up the position as the Head of the Muggle Born Registration Commision. There, she holds a place in the Ministry under the Minster for Magic Yaxley Corbin, a Death Eater, who takes over the mantle as Minister when Voldemort takes over the wizarding government.

    Let’s stray away from history and look at Dolores as a character. She is seemingly harmless. Who would suspect a short-statured woman dressed in pink frills with an undying love for animated kitten China of the heinous acts of violence against eleven through seventeen year old children? She had them write with a Black Quill (yes, this is the official term, it is not called a ‘Blood Quill’ like everyone assumes) and scar her hateful punishments into their skin for life. She likes lots of brown, raw, cane sugar in her tea, but she is definitely using that to make her own medicine go down, if you catch my drift.

    While she shows favoritism towards the Slytherin, much like anti-hero Severus Snape, she does so mostly for her dislike of the Golden Trio (Harry, Ron and Hermione) and especially Harry. Again, while this is like Snape, her dislike of Harry is due to his claims that the Dark Lord had risen during the previous year while Severus dislikes the boy due to his father’s actions to him during his school years. Her reasons are far more political in nature than Snape’s personal detestment of Potter.

    She claimed that she had been sent to the school on account of the Ministry, and while this seems possible, as she along with Lucius Malfoy had the Minister, an incompetent and bigoted fool, wrapped around their pinkie fingers, it may also be something specifically put in the Minister’s ear by someone like Lucius Malfoy in an attempt to sabotage the morale of the Gryffindors and Harry Potter especially for the upcoming confrontation as well as ruin Dumbledore’s reputation as a headmaster.

    If we can assume that Dolores Umbridge had once attended Hogwarts, and could have possibly been like Percy Weasley in her attempts to join and work for the MInister of Magic as she clearly has much respect for such a position of power, she may have even been a Slytherin. This may sound odd, but here’s a picture with her wearing a pink snake scarf. I know that she fancies the colour pink, but she seems very Slytherin to me despite her lack of silver and green house pride. The ability to manipulate the Ministry (even if she had help from Voldemort and Lucius, she still did quite a job on the school with her Educational Decrees and her manipulation of Argus Filch despite her distaste for his kind.) was quite brilliant and her rise to power after such a detrimental fall and blow from Hermione Granger is also something to be commended.

    If you take a closer look at the photo above, then you will notice a chain around her neck. While I previously stated that she could be showing house pride in her choice of collar/scarf (as it is a snake) we must remember that she had stolen Slytherin’s Locket and was being taken over by the evil of the horcrux that it contained during this piece of the story, she was being corrupted by Tom Riddle’s soul, who was a Slytherin (a Slytherin to the soul I would say).

    Now, I haven’t read much on Senior Undersecretary Umbridge because I, like many others, have a strong dislike for the woman. However, as a fellow Slytherin (if I do say my Pottermore results were accurate despite the questions being nonsensical), if we allow ourselves to believe that Umbridge was a Slytherin, I say that Umbridge did a very good job at being evil. Not saying that all Slytherins are evil, but there is a tendency for witches and wizards of Slytherin house to be some form of evil. I can also commend her attempt at gaining control, and using those around her to create a name for herself. Did you know she is a halfblood? Maybe you didn’t know this because she isn’t interesting to you, or perhaps you didn’t know because she claimed to be a pureblood, completely disregarding her squib brother and her muggle mother. In fact, she claimed to be one of the descendants of the House of Selwyn, a pureblood house related to the Gaunts (and therefore Slytherin blooded line) who had a hate that could rival the Malfoys and Blacks in their dislike of muggles and mudbloods. She even disliked half bloods. I have a theory that her dislike for half bloods is along the same lines that Voldemort chose to target Harry Potter over Neville Longbottom. That reason being the connection and horror of similarity that they tried to cover up by exterminating the others that reminded them of their faults. If there were no muggles, no muggleborns and segregated half bloods, then there would be no threat to Dolores’ claim of purity nor would there be anyone to claim her a liar.

    Going into this post, I stated (at the beginning) that I disliked Umbridge, and I still do, but I dislike her less and respect her a little bit more for her hard work and attempts at control. I, myself, am a ‘control freak’ and when I lose control I know how devastating it can seem. So, when she lost her imaginary war between herself, as the Ministry, and Harry Potter, as the opposition, she lost a lot of that control she had previously held so tightly. I’m sure her resentment for Albus Dumbledore was clear, and when he defied her orders, I’m sure she was furious, in fact, her red, swollen, and violent eyes told us how furious she was when her demand and commands were not seen through. Or when someone defied the authority she had so carefully and thoughtfully articulated and put herself in charge of. Truly, she’s admirable as a villain, and if I were to be a character, I think I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to be similar to Dolores, but for the love of Merlin don’t make me dress in such hideous clothes!