CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chapter 15 (The Hogwarts High Inquisitor)

[Lionel English]

No: HPFGUIDX 94376

I agree with most of Andrew's responses, so rather than repeat them 
I'm going to selectively comment on his answers.

--- "Andrew" <ruminalus_ficus at y...> wrote:
> > 2. The Daily Prophet quotes Percy Wesley extensively.  How 
> > enthusiastic do you think his support really is?  Does he 
honestly 
> > believe what he says, is he doing it to get ahead of the 
Ministry, 
> > or does he really think he owes unquestioning obedience to his 
> > superiors?  How does the Percy we see here square with the Percy 
we 
> > saw in PS/SS who admired Dumbledore's brilliance?
> 
> I think Percy is a prime example of a person who, in spite of his 
> high intelligence, isn't wise enough or experienced enough to 
> recognize corruption or form his own opinions and loyalties.  His 
> take is that the actions of the Ministry are right because the 
> Ministry is the Ministry.  He doesn't seem to realize that the 
> government can be wrong.
> 
I think Percy's a person who has a lot of book smarts, but has 
failed to develop any critical faculties.  He has learned to pay 
attention to authority figures, and to emulate them, but has not 
studied, or learned, or thought about the ethical issues associated 
with authority:  *Why* should authority figures be respected?  When 
should they *not* be respected?  What is the difference between a 
position of authority, and a person *in* a position of authority?

The Percy we see here does not strike me as too different than the 
one in PS/SS, though I wouldn't have predicted it at the time.  In 
PS/SS, Percy's environment was Hogwarts, and Dumbledore was *the* 
authority figure.  In GoF (in retrospect an obvious foreshadowing of 
Percy's behavior), his envionrment was his Ministry department and 
his authority figure was Crouch.  Now he has a new environment, and 
a new authority figure.

I wonder what would happen if Percy were to become minister?  Who 
could his authority figure be?

> > 5. What did Umbridge hoped to achieve through the inspections?  
Has 
> > she targeted certain professors (we learn that Flitwick's 
was "no 
> > big deal")?  Does she have a hidden agenda beyond discrediting 
> > Dumbledore, and if so, what is it?  Is JKR using Umbridge to 
> > lampoon government interference in education?
> 
> It's possible that JKR had some intention to satirize government 
> interference in education, but I don't think that is very likely.  
> These are books meant for entertainment and the joy of reading, 
not 
> for political commentary.  It would be a disservice to the story 
to 
> try to infuse it with the author's political agenda.

I don't think she's pushing an agenda; but I wouldn't neccessarily 
rule out satire nor commentary.  One of the things that strikes me 
about the books is that as Harry gets older, he finds himself more 
and more exposed to and drawn into the world beyond school.  And one 
of the lessons Rowling seems intent on sharing is that the word is 
NOT divided up neatly into good guys and bad guys.  DD and LV 
represent the ultimate good guys and bad guys, but Harry's world is 
also filled with people like Snape, who is mean and nasty to Harry, 
but apparently on the side of good, and people like Fudge and Percy, 
who are initially nice and friendly, and seem like they're 
essentially good people, but who do things that are bad for Harry, 
his friends and allies, and the wizarding community in general.

Rowling has created a world that is ambiguous enough that characters 
who initially appear very similar, Percy and Hermione, can turn out 
to be quite different despite sharing essentially the same 
environment.  Hopefully by the end of the series Harry and friends 
will learn to make--in more than an instinctual way--the 
distinctions between people and their offices that Percy has failed 
to make.

> I think Umbridge was probably just trying to find out who was 
closest 
> to Dumbledore, and to find ways to replace those whom he was 
> responsible for hiring.  Umbridge wants complete control over the 
> school, and she knows that the other teachers don't particularly 
like 
> the changes she is instituting.

I don't recall any evidence from the book that suggests she was 
targetting certain instructors for inspection--I thought she'd done 
all of them; we simple didn't see them all.  I don't think there's 
evidence either way.  There's probably no evidence to support this 
either, but I was thinking that *everyone* who is currently at 
Hogwarts was probably hired by Dumbledore, except Binns (how long 
*has* Binns been teaching?).  I agree though that what Umbridge was 
up to was trying to access how loyal to Dumbledore people were; and 
actually looking for evidence of poor teaching, which would allow 
her to force people out and create opening for Minister friendly 
appointees.

--Lionel