Umbridge and the Centaurs

[a_reader2003]

No: HPFGUIDX 78317

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tamee Livingston" 
<tamliv at w...> wrote:
> Abigail wrote:
> 
> >>>[I'm mercilessly snipping this excellent post]I think the fact 
that so
> many people jumped the conclusion of rape in Umbridge's case - 
despite very
> little hard evidence in the matter - is emblematic of the same kind 
of
> perception.  Umbridge needs to be taken down a peg, and how do we 
do that?
> By raping her. [Snip] I'm not pleased by the way JKR wrote Umbridge.
> [Snipping description of the positive female character development] 
But then
> there's Umbridge, and the readers who delight in the assumption 
that she was
> raped, because the stuck-up bitch deserved it.  I don't like that 
at all.
> <<<<
> 
> Now me (Tamee):
> 
> I really appreciated Abigail's post since it described perfectly 
what
> squicks me out about the thought that Umbridge is raped by centaurs 
(even
> more than trying to figure out the physical logistics of such an 
act).  And
> I personally don't believe that the centaurs did any such thing, 
mainly
> because I believe they would consider such a thing degrading to 
themselves.
> 
> However, I believe that what sent Umbridge into such a catatonic 
state is
> that SHE believed they would do that and worse.  After all, she 
calls them
> "filthy half-breeds" as well as "uncontrolled animals", and as 
she's being
> hauled off she's wandless and without defense, and knowing that in 
her
> position she'd be indulging in her own brand of cruelty, she 
expects them to
> behave in whatever bestial way she can imagine.  For myself, I 
believe that
> she got carted off and dropped into a pit or placed in some kind of 
dank and
> unpleasant place of confinement while the centaurs fought with 
Grawp and
> each other trying to decide what to do, and that her own 
imagination reduced
> her to the state of shock.
> 
> Tamee

Comment from CW:

Tamee, I thought this was a very insightful reading of what might 
have happened, as I too was struggling with the idea of the centaurs 
anger taking the form of rape. Despite the mythological antecedents, 
it didn't seem to accord with the way JKR has chosen to write the 
species so far.

Your post powerfully reminded me of the themes of EM 
Forster's 'Passage to India'. Umbridge could quite easily be seen an 
ageing Miss Quested, a bitter, repressed virgin, who has never had 
any success attracting men (I wonder why..), and whose deepest fears 
include bestial assault. The centaurs' cultural point of view would 
be quite as opaque to her as Aziz's was to the British Raj.

It makes me think she might reappear and agitate for some sort of 
court case, perhaps about 'false imprisonment of a wizard by a half-
breed under decree no XXX', to try and recover her self-esteem. 
Although we would all love to think she was totally discredited, I 
can quite imagine an ongoing sub-plot where certain factions in the 
MoM support her in this (for example, the appalling Percy, other 
wizards with non-PC/pure-blood 'racist' beliefs), their actions 
fomented by DEs wherever possible. It would all be part of a very 
believable chaos as the fight against Voldie gets going, with people 
lining up and having to choose which side they are on. 

In Forster's book there was a very ambiguous ending, and the 
misunderstanding between British and Indian cultures was not 
resolved, although the criminal charge was withdrawn. A court case 
against the Centaurs might take a similar course, and have the effect 
of alienating them for ever as allies.