The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a thread for Potterheads)

Very true. Especially because they run into McGonagall on the way to find Dumbledore in the first book and she's all: No, not possible. You're mistaken.

The third book doesn't really have any adults they can go ask for help, because they sort of fall into the events at the end.

The fourth book is filled with Adult sanctioned scary stuff that they're not supposed to ask for help for, so that's no use.

In the fifth book he goes to ask for Sirius' help, and would have gone for McGonagall's help if she was around. He doesn't think to ask for Snape's help because Snape is absolutely horrid to him. Would you ask for help from someone who despises you?

Book six doesn't really need him asking for help, and in book seven he is the help.

 

I mean, a big part of why people, me included, headcanon him as queer is because the werewolfism is stated by JK Rowling to have been a metaphor for HIV/AIDs. and since the queer community was disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDs, well....
sorry, I saw this and I just. wanted to mention that. although I honestly have extremely mixed feelings on "werewolfism = AIDs/HIV but Lupin is definitely Not Queer but hey you know who might be queer, that's right, it's Fenrir Greyback, the creeper for whom cannibalism and sexuality appear to be very linked! also the stigma around HIV/AIDs is purely from it being a blood-borne disease and nothing to do with queer people" which is basically what JK Rowling did

ANYWAY
I'm here because I have a question
am I the only one who doesn't think Umbridge is especially....Slytherin-y? like....she's not cunning. she relies on the Minister's political power being in her court to avoid getting into trouble. she doesn't seem very resourceful. she's certainly not remotely loyal to anyone but herself, and Slytherin and Hufflepuff, interestingly, are the 'loyal to people' Houses more often than not, it seems, while Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tend to be 'loyal to their ideals' like Umbridge was.....I certainly don't think she's brave in any sense of the word, nor is she especially daring or chivalrous, but she certainly must have some intelligence if she managed to scheme her way up into the Ministry so that she could enact her ideals, and she's certainly clique-y and arrogant, two negative traits associated with Ravenclaw.....
what I'm saying is I think the villain I hate most should've been in the House that I belong to oh gods why

 

Honestly, I always saw her as an evil Hufflepuff? Substituting valuing obedience for valuing loyalty. Canon never really elaborates on the bad traits of Hufflepuffs (because it doesn't elaborate on anything Hufflepuff), but I could see a common failure state for valuing loyalty and community being "demanding obedience and conformity."

(She could have asked to be in Slytherin as an ideological statement, though- my headcanon is that at least half the membership of Slytherin House would be different if the Sorting Hat was doing a strict personality test with Slytherin as "ambitious and cunning" without factoring in their wishes or the bloodline thing.)

 

I mean, agreed re: that last part
but the thing is, Hufflepuffs have loyalty as a main trait. it's just that it's a loyalty to people over ideals more often than not. obedience isn't really one of their traits at all, also, they're not known for that, and so for her to substitute obedience for loyalty and still be a Hufflepuff is kinda "?" to me. not to mention that Hufflepuff has been explicitly stated by JK Rowling as having one of their main traits be 'accepting of everyone'. and Umbridge and 'accepting of everyone' do not go together. additionally, Hufflepuffs are known for being humble. Umbridge? humble? don't make me laugh. like....JK didn't show this stuff in her books, but she's certainly stated these things to be true, and honestly, I agree with it according to what little we saw of Hufflepuffs in the books. she seems pretty far from Hufflepuff traits to me, and Gryffindor traits, and she's a little Slytherin....but mostly she pings me as Ravenclaw.
but I can totally see her asking for Slytherin as an ideological statement, yeah.

 

counterargument: ernie macmillan

 

(wait he's the one that is extremely pompous during early DA meetings right? i'm not misremembering?)

 

yeah, he was always described as 'somewhat self-important', but he's also described as honest, loyal, and accepting....basically, still a Hufflepuff, just sans one major trait. Umbridge lacks basically all their major traits.

 

She doesn't ping me as Ravenclaw at all, because to me the defining characteristic of Ravenclaws is that they're focused on either gaining or being seen as having knowledge. Umbridge likes being in control, and making and enforcing rules, but doesn't really care much about learning and doesn't care whether she's obeyed because people actually agree with her or because they're too terrified to disobey. Asshole Ravenclaws are more likely to be people who demand respect based on expertise (even if it's unearned- e.g. Lockhart), but Umbridge demands it based on the fact that she's in charge. She doesn't pull credentials, she pulls authority. I feel like a Ravenclaw in her position would be more likely to be focused on trying to make everyone think they're right, the authoritarianism all wrapped up in cultish brainwashing rather than straight brutality. It wouldn't be "I must not tell lies," it would be keeping Harry for hours and hours into the night, forcing him to write essays about how wrong he is and what a liar he is and how he made everything up, and every time he doesn't do what she wants she makes him do it again and doesn't let him leave or eat or sleep until she likes what he produces.

 

like, Ernie did value his ideals pretty highly for a Hufflepuff--that's why he disliked Harry when he thought Harry was the Heir of Slytherin (because in his experience, Slytherins were probably pretty obsessed with blood purity, the Heir of Slytherin appeared to be completely about getting rid of Muggleborns, and Ernie didn't like prejudice based on blood status), and he was very loyal to his House and proud of it, and that's why he got upset over Harry participating in the Triwizard Tournament--he felt Harry must have done it on purpose to steal their glory, and he didn't really know Harry very well, so I can kind of get why he'd assume the worst. but overall, he's described as accepting, not interested in blood status prejudice, loyal to his friends above all else, honest, and hard-working--Hufflepuff to the core.

....yeah, fair point--but she really does not strike me as a Slytherin. like, she's not cunning, she's direct, she's not particularly astute in my opinion, she relies on luck and the Minister's power to get her way. she's not exactly a 'strong leader'; she's a strong dictator, but a dictator isn't the same as a leader, imo. and even if we do give her 'strong leadership' and 'ambition', she still lacks resourcefulness, cunning, shrewdness--and resourcefulness and cunning are literally two of the House's three main traits.
maybe she just doesn't really 'fit' in any of the Houses and the closest fit was Slytherin, especially considering her ideals.

 

wonder if she was a bit of a Hatstall, then. I waver b/t Slytherin and Hufflepuff myself, with all the arguments listed here, but ... i don't know.

 

Yeah, I'd buy that. (It's not like humanity being neatly divided into "brave, smart, nice, and sneaky/evil" isn't something about HP that's been mocked to hell and back. :::PPP )

And agreed on her not really fitting into Slytherin- hell, she seems happy to carve out a little fiefdom and park in it and crush all dissent and never aspire for anything but absolute control of her corner of the world, so it's not even like she's off the charts in the "ambition" department. She's a bully with the blunt instrument of legal authority, and she's not really interested in doing anything but hitting people with it.

 

I'd still go between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, but yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if she came close to being an official Hatstall.
of course, I think part of the problem here is that I'm sure Umbridge had some kind of personality beyond 'wants control' and 'is super into blood purity', but....that's never shown in the books, at all. literally her whole character is based around hatred, her loyalty to her hatred, and the fact that she wants a position of power. that's really not a lot to go on, in the end....and as much as I hate her for being that character, because I've known people who abused her power like she did to hurt people they didn't like, I also kind of hate that she was so very, very flat. like, even the people I knew who did things like that had reasons for it, however wrong they were, and other qualities to their personality.

 

She may not have resourcefulness, cunning, shrewdness, etc, but she certainly seems to think she does. I mean, her whole presence at Hogwarts was part of a scheme to depose Dumbledore and put her in charge. It wasn't a particularly subtle scheme, to be sure, but it was definitely a plot to aggrandize herself and her cronies. When the Minister was deposed, she pretty much instantly inserted herself into the new regime.
She's more smug snake than magnificent bastard, but I remind you Crabbe and Goyle are also Slytherins. (And Umbridge is way more Slytherin-y than those two, who can barely even execute a simple plan.)

 

yeah, but I think that's another case of "Slytherins because ideology" more than anything--it's admitted somewhere that quite a few Slytherins end up there because ideology, not at all because their traits match Slytherin traits. plus, the Sorting is supposed to place you based on the traits you actually possess, not the ones you think you have--and the Hat seems to have some way of determining what traits you have vs what you think you have, since it insisted on placing Neville in Gryffindor even though he didn't believe he had Gryffindor traits at all.

 

Well, the placement seems to be more aspirational than anything else, it places you in the house whose traits you aspire to, even if (e.g. Neville) you don't have them at the time. Some people aren't quite as successful at developing those traits as Neville was, however.

I can also kinda see Hufflepuff, too. Sure, the ideal is radical acceptance and all, but I can easily see 'Accept everyone, so long as they're Nice like you', and 'Protect The Group at all costs' as common failure states.

 

i havent caught up all the way but i also saw Umbridge as an evil huffelpuff

she's loyal to people, she just... doesnt consider muggle borns to be people. she doesn't consider magical creatures worth any loyalty either. like she doesn't just dislike muggleborns, she views them as inhuman. she's fair in her mind to the people she views as human, she just has a very bigoted view.

for similar reasons i think Bellatrix is also an evil huffelpuff

 

I've always seen Bellatrix as a misplaced-due-to-ideology Gryffindor, personally. She has a cause! She has an ideal! She's going to fight for that cause and that ideal and the man she thinks embodies it, and she's going to be a champion and a warrior and his best lieutenant! She'll drag herself through Azkaban with her will intact for over a decade because she's holding on so damn hard to her cause, and she'll do whatever she thinks needs done in service to it. But, of course, her cause is blood purity, so there's no way she'd accept anything but Slytherin; Slytherin is what she is and what her family is and always has been.

 

(catching up more)

also i agree that she doesn't seem to be particularly ambitious, she's perfectly happy grinding away in court condeming muggleborns. so in that respect she fits the "hard worker" aspect of being a hufflepuff.

with regards to her being sorted into slytherin i think that's a mix of "Slytherin Means Evil", blood purity, and the culture of following in your family's footsteps housewise. (the wesleys are all gryffindor, the malfoys are slytherin, etc)

eta: and even her reign at hogwarts was kinda that of a lackey, she manipulated fudge sure but she worked with the system she didnt try to override it. imo she wanted to be in charge because things weren't going her blood puritan way and not because she had any real desire to be headmistress.

though...hmm. that's ideal driven, which could indicate some Gryffindor? or it could fall back into the dehuminazation huffelpuff.

 

ooooh, I could really see this.
AND YES SAME GIMME THE BACKGROUNDS AND THE PASTS AND EVERYTHING I NEED IT, DAMMIT AND DON'T HALF-ASS IT, NONE OF THIS "EVIL FROM THE MOMENT THEY WERE BORN" STUFF

 

Honestly, I could see her being Hufflepuff? Because from what we're told and shown, she is loyal to an individual at least at the start - she's loyal to Fudge. Now, does that loyalty warp on itself and does she start abusing the faith he places in her? Yes, absolutely, and that's probably one of the dangers of a Hufflepuff follower who thinks they're smarter than you are: they'll hide things you "don't need to worry about", and focus more on keeping things as they are than checking to see if the status quo is actually good for the majority of people (or if there's improvements needed anywhere).
Certainly, that's the path Umbridge seems to take: she absolutely wants to keep the status quo as it is - none of this "rights for magical creatures" nonsense for her! and none of these uppity Muggleborns either! - and she wants a world where she's got someone who she's officially supposed to defer to while functionally she's in charge. I don't doubt that her loyalty to Fudge was absolutely genuine, at least at the start of the book, and I suspect that her behaviour started out as "well, he's so busy, I really don't need to bother him with this right now, I'll just take care of it and inform him later" and she then began seeing it as practically her duty to ensure he wasn't bothered with unnecessary information or visitors.

And then mission creep happened, and oh look, she's practically in charge of things anyways. And Fudge is already looking suspiciously at Dumbledore - why not use that to pry Dumbledore out of the Headmaster position, and make it a Ministry-appointed role now? It's not like Dumbledore's really doing a good job in the position anyways - look at how lackluster the last few crops of Ministry candidates have been! Certainly there's some good ones, but it's getting really hard to make sure the positions are filled properly. No, better to finally fold Hogwarts into the Ministry proper and make sure that the children are taught properly so that they don't go spouting nonsense.