Yahoo News Harry Potter theory claims Umbridge isn't bad after all
Harry Potter fans are always discovering things about the world of witchcraft and wizardry.
From the realisation that James and Lily Potter were only 20 years old when Harry was born to the exact reason why Rik Mayall wasn't in the films, it's a franchise that just keeps on giving.
The latest Hogwarts talking point focuses on Dolores Umbridge and the horcrux locket, and we're desperate to get to the bottom of it.
So you know how Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger acquire it from her in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2?
And proceed to be adversely affected by its negativity – so much so, that it drives a wedge between the golden trio and they can no longer wear it?
Well, does this mean Dolores Umbridge is actually only really mean because she's been wearing a horcrux all this time, without even knowing it? WHAT?
Let's look at the evidence.
So Umbridge acquires the locket as a bribe from Mundungus Fletcher, and though it once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, Merope Gaunt, and Hepzibah Smith, Umbridge is unaware that the locket is one of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes – or that it belonged to him at all.
Instead, she lies about the meaning of the locket in a bid to bolster her pure-blood credentials – choosing to pretend it's a Selwyn family heirloom.
Anyway, from the end of book five (The Order of the Phoenix), she's wearing the locket – so could it be the case that the malign influence it exerts is the reason for her horrible nature and bad temper?
And how does she manage to conjure a Patronus while wearing the locket when Harry wasn't able to?
There are so many theories about this among Harry Potter fans, but let's leave it to the Hogwarts creator herself to get to the bottom of it.
JK Rowling said in an Online Bloomsbury Webchat in 2007 that it was because "she is a very nasty piece of work", adding: "She has an affinity for this horrible object, which would help rather than hinder her."
Suggesting that while the locket does have a negative influence, Umbridge has always been an awful person – the horcrux only enhanced the terrible personality she had already.
This is also corroborated by JK's 2014 Pottermore essay, in which she describes Umbridge as "one of the characters for whom I feel purest dislike".
Surely if it was just the horcrux making her evil, JK's feelings wouldn't be so strong?
The author wrote: "Her desire to control, to punish and to inflict pain, all in the name of law and order, are, I think, every bit as reprehensible as Lord Voldemort's unvarnished espousal of evil.
"Umbridge's names were carefully chosen. 'Dolores' means sorrow, something she undoubtedly inflicts on all around her. 'Umbridge' is a play on 'umbrage' from the British expression 'to take umbrage', meaning offence.
"Dolores is offended by any challenge to her limited world-view; I felt her surname conveyed the pettiness and rigidity of her character."
That settles that one.
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