Hey guys,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter
Theory. In today’s video, we’re going
to be once again discussing everyone’s favourite
lady in pink- Dolores Umbridge. Dolores Umbridge
was a cruel, twisted woman who took pleasure
in the administration of law and order. In
her mind, the ministry of magic, an institution
to which she had devoted most of her life,
could do no wrong, and their final word ran
supreme. There were no ifs ands or buts when
it came to questioning the word of the ministry
- after all, they upheld wizarding law and
they knew best. Umbridge first comes to prominence
in the Order of the Phoenix, when her and
Fudge spearheaded a campaign with the goal
of having Dumbledore removed as headmaster
of Hogwarts.
And by the time the 1995-1996 school year
came around, the ministry of magic put out
a statement expressing that they were ‘unimpressed
with the slipping standards’ of Hogwarts.
This statement was the result of a fearful
minister of magic, fudge, lashing out. He
was blinded by fear, and in utter denial that
the dark lord Voldemort had returned. Fudge
was punishing Dumbledore, who was so strongly
trying to convince him of the truth, and despite
Dumbledore’s continuous attempts to convince
Fudge of this truth, he was still eventually
stripped of his title as headmaster of Hogwarts.
In place of Dumbledore, the ministry of magic
of course appointed Dolores Umbridge, who,
in that same school year, worked as the Defence
against the dark arts professor, as well as
the Hogwarts high inquisitor. During her time
at Hogwarts, she had enormous power over the
students, teachers, curriculum, and grounds.
She made everyone’s lives miserable.
However, fortunately for everyone at Hogwarts,
Umbridge’s placement there was short-lived,
as it was later shown that Voldemort had in
fact returned. Fudge just needed to see it
for himself. After the events of the Order
of the Phoenix Umbridge returned to the ministry
of magic, conducting business as usual and
picking up where she left off. However, by
the time the Deathly Hallows came around,
Dolores’s character had a few more developments.
First of all, she was now in possession of
Salazar Slytherin’s locket. She received
the locket as a bribe from Mundungus Fletcher-
and though she had a particular affinity for
it, had no idea of its magical properties.
She didn’t know that it once belonged to
Salazar Slytherin himself, or that it was
one of Voldemort’s horcruxes, and she was
especially unaware of the fact that it influenced
her actions and affected her mind. The physical
presence of the locket however, was still
stunning, which is what drew Umbridge to it
in the first place:
"He looked at the serpentine S, inlaid with
glittering, green stones: It was easy to visualise
it as a minuscule snake... concentrating on
the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the
contents of the locket rattled like a trapped
cockroach. It would have been easy to pity
it, except that the cut around Harry's neck
still burned... The golden doors of the locket
swung wide with a little click. Behind both
of the glass windows within blinked a living
eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle's eyes
had been before he turned them scarlet and
slit-pupiled."
The soul shard within the locket exerted a
negative energy force on anyone in its proximity,
you see, which is why Harry Potter, Hermione
Granger, and Ron Weasley all became irritable
when it hung around their necks. Umbridge,
however, embraced the locket fully as she
was already quite a malicious character to
begin with. Umbridge, who was already quite
sinister, became increasingly more cutthroat
with the Locket hanging around her neck, which
led to her eventual placement in the Deathly
Hallows as Head of the Muggle-Born Registration
Commission. The function of this commission
was absolutely ridiculous- the perfect absurd
pairing with someone like Umbridge.
"The Ministry of Magic is undertaking a survey
of so-called "Muggle-borns," the better to
understand how they came to possess magical
secrets. Recent research undertaken by the
Department of Mysteries reveals that magic
can only be passed from person to person when
Wizards reproduce. Where no proven Wizarding
ancestry exists, therefore, the so-called
Muggle-born is likely to have obtained magical
power by theft or force. The Ministry is determined
to root out such usurpers of magical power,
and to this end has issued an invitation to
every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves
for interview by the newly appointed Muggle-born
Registration Commission"
So, what does Umbridge’s heritage look like?
Surely she must be confident in her pure-blood
status if she’s heading such a commission,
right? In the following excerpt from the Deathly
Hallows, which shows a conversation between
Hermione and Umbridge, she seems to suggest
that she’s related to a pure-blood family:
"That's - that's pretty, Dolores," she said,
pointing at the pendant gleaming in the ruffled
folds of Umbridge's blouse.
"What?" snapped Umbridge, glancing down. "Oh
yes - an old family heirloom," she said, patting
the locket lying on her large bosom. "The
S stands for Selwyn... I am related to the
Selwyns... Indeed, there are few pure-blood
families to whom I am not related....”
And while she doesn’t exactly make the proclamation
that she comes from the Selwyn family very
confidently, it’s worth addressing. The
closest known connection that we know to the
‘Selwyn’ family is a man only known as
‘Selwyn’- a british pure-blood dark wizard
and one of Voldemort’s death eaters. Selwyn
was present for most of the battles in the
second wizarding war, and is even addressed
by Voldemort directly during the battle of
the seven potters:
"Your wand, Selwyn! Give me your wand!"
Selwyn is certainly one of those characters
that flies under the radar, and while don’t
know too much about him, we do know that he
was involved with the capturing of Luna Lovegood,
and responsible for the subsequent threats
addressed to her father, Xenophilius Lovegood.
Selwyn was not a good man- he was an evil,
dark, prejudiced death eater- but, was he
really related to Umbridge? Or was that just
a feeble attempt at convincing Hermione of
her pure-blood status? Claiming that she came
from the ‘Selwyn’ family seems like a
bit of a large lie just to justify her possession
of the locket- so, is there possibly a real
connection there? If we dig just a little
bit in to Dolores’s history, I think that
we can quite easily refute her claim. From
Pottermore:
“Dolores Jane Umbridge was the eldest child
and only daughter of Orford Umbridge, a wizard,
and Ellen Cracknell, a Muggle, who also had
a Squib son. Dolores’s parents were unhappily
married, and Dolores secretly despised both
of them: Orford for his lack of ambition (he
had never been promoted, and worked in the
Department of Magical Maintenance at the Ministry
of Magic), and her mother, Ellen, for her
flightiness, untidiness, and Muggle lineage.
Both Orford and his daughter blamed Ellen
for Dolores’s brother’s lack of magical
ability, with the result that when Dolores
was fifteen, the family split down the middle,
Orford and Dolores remaining together, and
Ellen vanishing back into the Muggle world
with her son. Dolores never saw her mother
or brother again, never spoke of either of
them, and henceforth pretended to all she
met that she was a pure-blood.”
One thing that I’ve always found interesting
is how Umbridge established herself and got
started in the ministry without her identity
ever being properly questioned. In a world
that had only just recently begun to accept
half-bloods and muggles-borns as part of their
society, it’s curious that Umbridge got
by the way that she did. Had she tried to
enter the ministry a century sooner, it’s
untelling how that would have gone for her-however,
it is revealed that those who did passively
question her identity, or her fathers, almost
always had ‘nasty things’ happen to them:
“Nasty things tended to happen to people
who asked about Orford, or anything that Dolores
did not like talking about, and people who
wanted to remain on her good side pretended
to believe her version of her ancestry.”
So, why did she lie and say that she came
from the Selwyn family? First of all, I think
that the apparent ‘jumpiness’ in her voice
when questioned about the locket is totally
indicative of a liar. She’s currently serving
as head of the muggle-born registration commission-
and I can’t think of a worse time for it
to be surfaced that you’re a half-blood.
Additionally, Umbridge is very concerned with
her image, and she was likely almost ‘overly’
keen to convince everyone of her pure-blood
status. Whether she knew that the ‘S’
stood for Slytherin or not is unclear, but
she obviously felt compelled to make some
sort of connection between the S and another
pure-blood wizarding family, and Selwyn was
just the first that came to mind.
Could Dolores be related to the Selwyn family
somewhere in her lineage? Possibly, but, is
it likely? I don’t think so.
And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy
the content, please like the video and subscribe
to the channel.
UNTIL NEXT TIME
YER A WIZARD ARRY
