OOP: Umbridge

[jenny_ravenclaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 62356


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Jennifer speculated: 
> I find myself torn between Umbridge as a pompous, slightly sadistic, 
but non-evil beaurocrat and Umbridge as Death Eater.>

and Joe responded:
>On top of all this, we have Umbridge's near use of the Cruciatus 
Curse (pg 746-747, OotP, American Text). Granted, in the First War the 
use of Unforgiveables was authorized by Barty Crouch, but Fudge had 
authorized nothing of the sort - why would he, when he didn't think 
there was a Death Eater threat in the first place? Now granted, she 
did put on a show of being slightly hesitant about using the curse, 
but what got me was "What Cornelius doesn't know won't hurt him.">

Here's my turn:
I find Umbridge incredibly disturbing because she is *not* a DE.  I 
know it is easier for all us to be able to label clearly what is evil 
and what is good, but unfortunately, too many people are in grey 
areas, Umbridge included.  She may not have specifically allied 
herself with Voldemort, but she disgusts me nonetheless.  To put it 
simply, she is the epitome of a bureaucrat, attempted Cruciatius Curse 
included.

I work in the NYC public school system and I have literally 
experienced some of the things Umbridge did in OoP with administrators 
I worked for.  Umbridge is very typical of someone who gains a bit of 
power and runs away with it.  A few years ago I had an assistant 
principal who loved to conduct surprise observations and give out 
unsatisfactory ratings so she could have an excuse to force individual 
teachers to meet with her.  She used these meetings as a way to tell 
us how to teach and always to tell us what we were doing wrong.  I 
didn't go as far as a meltdown like Trelawney did, but I came awfully 
close.  

I realized that, like Umbridge, this woman wanted ultimate control 
over her staff, and she tried to achieve it by humiliating us and 
forcing us to question our own abilities.  It was probably the only 
way she could boost herself.  She even had the same awful, fake smile 
painted on her face all the time like Umbridge displays.

Umbridge is particularly despicable because she has the appearance of 
someone who respects rules yet is willing to break them if it does her 
good.  My former administrator blatantly violated our union contract 
because it suited her to do so, just as Umbridge comes up with a 
reason to justify torturing students, whether it is through detention 
or curses.  Umbridge has lost her grip on her actual role in Hogwarts 
and believed she had more power than she really did.  When one starts 
playing with others' careers, sanity or pain threshold, that person, 
IMO, has crossed over into the evil category, DE or not.  Umbridge was 
most definitely evil, as was my administrator.  She didn't need to be 
DE to be that way.

--jenny from ravenclaw, who filed a grievance against the 
administrator, won and got the hell out of that school anyway 
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