Umbridge, brooms and DEs

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 87005

Geoff:
> > This reminds me of something that has really annoyed me whenever 
I 
> > read it.
> > 
> > Umbridge told Harry and Co that they were banned from playing 
> > Quidditch ever again. That, of course, could only apply to 
Hogwarts. 
> > Presumably what she meant was ever again at the school.
> > 
> > But my main irritation is the woman's arrogance in confiscating 
the 
> > brooms. Harry's broom is a valuable possession and is his own 
> > personal property; she has no right to remove it. 

Shaun:
> I don't know.. I had my own personal valuable property confiscated 
while I was at 
> school, on a couple of occasions. 

<snip>

As far as I was concerned, the teacher had absolutely every 
> right to confiscate it, and I don't find it at all surprising that 
Harry would have a 
> similar attitude.
> 
> This is contingent on the understanding that you would *eventually* 
> get it back - 

<snip>

Geoff:
Yes. Precisely. And I don't believe that that is Umbridge's 
intention, since she appears to be in a "Get Potter and Dumbledore" 
mood.

I can remember occasions when I was in my grammar school when things 
would get taken away.  However, it was usually when the object had 
been the cause of the confrontation. If a boy (I went to a single sex 
grammar school) was caught with a catapult, reading "Lady 
Chatterley's Lover" behind the Science block or something similar, 
then that object might be taken away. If need be, the parents would 
be informed. Often the offending item would be returned after a few 
days. I did the same when I was teaching and removed items from 
pupils. I would usually give them back at the end of the day with an 
admonition "If I see it again, it goes away until the end of term".

Umbridge is way over the top.  She has already sanctioned Harry by 
baning him from Quidditch. This is just to twist the knife. The 
Firebolt was noting to do with the fight. Suppose a professional 
football player is banned for a couple of months for bad play of some 
sort. He doesn't have to hand over any footballs he owns; he isn't 
told he can't kick a ball around in his garden. Harry owns a 
valuable, rare Firebolt. He has every right to use it to fly around 
on for fun and relaxation; he's not going to get to play Quidditch 
anyway because he's banned.

While on the subject of DJU, I consider JKR's portrayal of her gives 
us a picture of evil woman who, in literary terms, is equally to be 
loathed as Dickens' Wackford Squeers. There has been speculation in 
the past as to whether the dear lady is actually a closet Death 
Eater. My thoughts move along the lines that when you get 
diametrically polarised ultra-extremists, you in fact get an almost 
identical result. If you look at the way in which Hitler's Germany 
and Stalin's Russia functioned, although they were political 
opposites, the methods - secret police, executions, suppression of 
opposition, disregard of legal trials etc. appeared to be virtually 
identical. Apply the same to the Wizarding Worlda and you see on one 
hand the Death Eaters and on the other fanatics like Umbridge and 
Crouch Senior and the end result appears to be that they are clones 
of each other. Dolores Umbridge is a scheming bully who likes to be 
cock of the walk in her little world. Let's hope that she doesn't 
claw her way back up in the next book or so...

Geoff