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
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UNTIL NEXT TIME
YER A WIZARD ARRY