Character Development

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179168

Potioncat wrote:
> Although Selwyn doesn't interest me, he is a good example of what JKR 
> does well. She introduces him rather smoothly during LV's pursuit of 
> Harry. I think he may appear once more. But his name's main role is 
> for us to understand what Umbridge is doing when she says her locket 
> shows her connection to the Selwyns. We know what kind of people the 
> Selwyns are; we know know the locket does no such thing; and we 
> probably doubt she has such connections. <snip>

Carol responds:

I'm only interested in Selwyn as a plot device, not a character, but I
did notice that he was one the two DEs who raided Xeno Lovegood's
house. (The other is the suaver and apparenlty more intelligent
Travers, whom we see again in the Gringotts chapter.) They're
apparently Ministry employees, and it may well have been Umbridge who
sent them.

I *do* think that Umbridge has a connection to the Selwyns. If she's a
Half-Blood, as I suspect, she'd seize on her connection with a
pure-blood family, and not just any pure-blood family that starts with
"S" (she could have said "Smith"--given Hepzibah, Zacharias, and
Zach's haughty father, glimpsed in HBP, I'm pretty sure they're
pure-bloods) but one that's actually connected with her. And how else
could she have obtained Mad-eye's magical eye unless a DE gave it to her?

Carol, laying odds that Umbridge *is* related to Selwyn (and we see
what kind of person *he* is in "The Tale of the Three Brothers" chapter
>