Some more OOTP Questions

[Miikka R.]

No: HPFGUIDX 126406


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Richard Jones"
<jones.r.h.j at w...> wrote:
> 
> I am continuing my rereading OOTP and I have some more questions
that 
> I hope you can all help me with.  (I tried to do some searches but 
> didn't get anything.)
> 
> (1) Is Umbridge part troll?  Does anyone else think that Umbridge
is 
> part human and part something else?  Troll?  Also there are lots of 
> references to toads in how she looks to Harry.  Is why she 
> hates "half-breeds" so much because she is one?

There's little evidence either way, but I'd guess against it, as the
trolls appear to be a race with a tendency towards evil (or general
nastiness, at the least) and it'd conflict with JKR's themes of
choice. Umbridge needs to be vile entirely because of her own
volition.

> (2) How did LV know what was in the Department of Mysteries?  In
the 
> thoughts that Harry shares with him, LV has a pretty good knowledge 
> of the DoM.  He even knows to go to row number 97.  How could he
know 
> this?  Some of the Ministry employees may be DE's but wouldn't only 
> the "Unspeakables" know what exactly is in there?  So is an 
> Unspeakable a DE?

A good point, and it's been stated that LV will have plants in the
MoM. It seems like a safe assumption that there's some knowledge of
what's going on in the Department going around, as Dumbledore was
keenly aware of quite a few things. Then again, he and it might share
some history.

> (5) Did Snape really expect Harry to see his "worst memory"?  He
was 
> furious afterwards, but did he really mean it?  He got to show
Harry 
> that his father was an arrogant jerk and he got an excuse to stop 
> giving Harry Occulmency lessons.  If he is really working for LV,
the 
> latter is the result he wants.

Snape's clean, says I, but he was also clearly a) bashful and b)
neurotic about his worst memory. While knocking Harry's perception of
James off its pedestal would've been a pleasant side-effect, the fury
of an extreme invasion of privacy is of a different order of magnitude
altogether.

Come to think of it, what does using a Pensieve look like from the
outside?

> (7) In DD's exit scene, I noticed that DD didn't have a
particularly 
> high regard for the truth or the law.  No real question — just
an 
> observation.  He lied about organizing the DA and about it having
its 
> first meeting that evening and about plotting against the Ministry.
 
> He used violence to resist arrest.  He didn't mind Marietta
Edgecombe 
> being put under a curse to modify her memory.

DD is clearly on the sixth grade of whatever that thing is that my
high school psychology book featured. He doesn't think that laws and
regulations are intrisically valuable, but what value they may have
comes from their effects. As such, an unjust law is no law at all.
This requires considerable knowledge of what's going on and the
intelligence to interpret it to work properly; luckily, DD ranks high
on both.

Kizor