Umbridge / Blaise's mother / evil author / Snape

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/3424>:

<< Actually my posts (I think there were two of them) postulated a
connection between Dostoevky's doubly fiction Grand Inquisitor and
Umbridge as High Inquisitor. No one responded. No doubt they thought I
was insane for suggesting it--or, alternatively, had not read "The
Brothers Karamzzov." the idea, briefly, is that both considered their
tyranny to be for the good of those they ruled (Umbridge's view of the
students as helpless children who need her friendship and guidance to
see what she postulates as truth). When sweetness and feigned concern
fail, apply the blood-letting quill--for the students's own good. (Or
authorize whips and chains.) >>

Of course I have often encounteried people speaking of Dostoevsky's
Grand Inquisitor, altho' I haven't read The Brothers Karamazov myself.
Rowling is a much more literary person than I am and surely has read
it. There probably was a connection between GRAND Inquisitor and HIGH
Inquisitor in the back of her mind, but I guess your question is
whether there was a connection in the front of her mind. I'm not
qualified to discuss whether the Grand Inquisitor was sincere, but I
feel quite sure that Umbridge was NOT sincere about having the best
intentions for the Hogwarts students. She did NOT think they were
'helpless children' or she wouldn't have been afraid of their army. If
she hadn't been afraid of their army, she wouldn't have worked so hard
to prevent them from learning hands-on magic.

I suppose if she had really believed that Voldemort had returned, she
wouldn't have tried prevent everyone from resisting him ... unless she
was secretly negotiating with him (perhaps through Lucius, who hadn't
been captured at the Dept of Mysteries yet) and had been promised a
reward for being the inside mole!

Assuming that she wasn't working for Voldemort, I don't actually know
for whom she was working. Could she have possibly believed that
keeping Fudge in power while doing down Dumbledore was for the good of
the wizarding nation? Easier to think that she cared for what was good
for Fudge rather than for what was good for the community -- devoting
herself to furthering Fudge's career, in a sublimation of romantic &
erotic love much like Bellatrix's for Voldemort. Or did she merely use
Fudge to get herself the power to sic Dementors on people and use
Cruciatis on people?

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34246>:

<< wondering why Blaise's mother's reputation would cause Slughorn
to want to "collect" her son >>

She's wealthy and famously beautiful and a celebrity. She probably
hangs out with other wealthy celebrities being reported on the Society
page as well as the gossip column. Probably all the British wizarding
folk who don't hang out with her share your and my belief that she
murdered all those husbands (and probably Confunded the ones after the
first two or three, or else they were stupidly trusting). I gather
they get much pleasure from mentioning it to each other in hints and
euphemisms.

By the way, this goes along with my over-used old opinion that the
wizarding folk view good and evil as matters for each wizard's private
conscience; each wizard can choose which he prefers. I usually say
that when asserting that most wizards would consider Arthur's
objections to Lucius's Dark Magic to be a bit fanatic and intolerant,
but now I'm saying that most wizards view a few murders as a private
conflict between the murderer on one hand and the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement and the victim's bereaved ones on the other.
Like A can be friends with both B and C even tho' B and C currently
hate each other, because the B and C conflict is a private conflict
that no one else has to take sides in. It's easier to view murder that
way when she only kills her husbands -- her bridge partners and tennis
opponents need not fear for their own lives.

Mike wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34295>:

<< anybody that makes the argument that JKR is evil, I'm going to
dismiss as giving themselves too much credit in the ability to read
minds. >>

Well, look, I surely don't think she's evil, but suppose someone said
that her writing deliberately spreads the message that people should
use their own judgment about what is good and what is evil instead of
just believing whatever an authority tells them about what is good and
what is evil, and deliberately spreads the message that people should
do what they believe is good and avoid doing what they believe is
evil, even if that means disobeying an authority, and that is an evil
message, and therefore she is evil for spreading an evil message. 

I don't think it takes mind reading to see that message about
'choosing to do what is right' while dissing Professors and Ministers
of Magic. I don't think it takes mind reading to see that that message
was put there on purpose. I don't think mind reading has anything to
do with the opinion that people who deliberately spread evil messages
are evil people regardless of how polite or whatever they are in person.

That's not the same thing that Carol was complaining about, because
this hypothetical person didn't say they didn't enjoy reading and
re-reading the books just because the author is proselytizing an evil
belief.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34317>:

<< Actually, he would have taken Slughorn's spot since Snape had
swiched to DADA in HBP and headmaster in DH. I can't see Snape
returning to teaching Potions if he had survived and been publicly
vindicated. >>

If he'd survived and been publically vindicated, he would have been
offered to keep the Headmaster position as long as he wanted.