Hey guys,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be
discussing the fabled Patronus charm, and none other than Dolores Umbridge. Dolores
Umbridge stole the hearts of many young fans during her introduction to the franchise,
immediately being conveyed as a kind, fair woman who always looked after Harry’s best
interests.
..Ok..So, something’s wrong with the above statement, right?
The issue with Dolores Umbridge’s character is that despite the fact that she was a cruel,
evil woman with nothing but malintent running through her veins- she was still somehow able
to cast a patronus charm. I’ve seen so many of you asking for this video, particularly
as I’ve been covering Patronuses quite a bit lately, and the question that I’m going
to be answering is: HOW could Dolores Umbridge cast a patronus charm? There’s no explicit
canon answer for this question, but I think that we have more than enough information
to theorize. First of all, we need to dive in to Umbridge’s past to get a better sense
of her overall character. When we’re first introduced to Umbridge, she’s supposedly
30-something, so maybe, just maybe, there has been a point in her history when she wasn’t
quite so awful.
Dolores Umbridge was a british half-blood witch born in the year 1965 (or potentially
a bit earlier). Given that she was a half-blood, which is interesting given her perspective
on blood purity, it goes without saying that she had 1 muggle and 1 magical parent. Her
father was a wizard by the name of Orford Umbridge, and her mother was muggle Ellen
Cracknell. She even had a younger brother, whose name is never revealed, that was born
a squib. Squibs are non-magical people born in to a wizarding family.
Dolores’ family life was complicated, and her family was the source of much shame for
her. Her father, Orford, was a floor mopper at the Ministry of Magic, where Dolores would
later work. You can only imagine what she thought of that. Her father also blamed her
mother for birthing a squib, Dolores’ brother. This was a toxic matter that really divided
the family, and led to Dolores’s eventual loathing of her mother. She hated her just
because she was muggle born - her own mother! Does that remind you of a certain someone
and their father?
The constant tension inside the walls of the families home eventually meant that everyone
would part ways - the magical side of the family, Dolores and her father, continued
to live in the wizarding world. While the non magical-side, Ellen and her son, moved
to the muggle world. This didn’t happen until Dolores was 15 years old, but it has
been expressed that neither side of the family ever saw the other again.
Just like everyone else, when she was 11 she began attending Hogwarts school of witchcraft
and wizardry, and was sorted in to none other than Slytherin house. Before heading off to
school, she travelled to Ollivanders to have her wand selected, and she was the recipient
of a notably short wand- an 8 inch birch wand with a dragon heartstring core. Ollivander
has expressed in the past that the length of a witch or wizards wand can be an indicator
of their moral character, so I can only begin to imagine what this says about Umbridge.
“Most wands are between 9-15 inches long. Wandmakers often match the wand length to
the height of witch or wizard who will use it, but Ollivander considers this measure
inadequate. In his experience, longer than average wands tend to be drawn to those with
a physical peculiarity or a bigger personality whereas abnormally short wands select people
whose character lacks in something.”
When she finally got to school, her head of house was Horace Slughorn. Slughorn disliked
Umbridge almost immediately, and has even referred to her as an ‘idiotic woman’.
For this reason, despite her being a massive keener, he never rewarded her with any position
of power, I think that Slughorn could see right through her. But never being appointed
as prefect or head girl in her house, despite wanting it more than anything, only added
fuel to the fire for Umbridge, as her career at the Ministry of Magic exploded after her
graduation.
By age 30, Umbridge even managed to secure a position as head of the improper use of
magic office- the perfect posting for a deranged stickler for the rules.
By the time the 1995-1996 school year came around, we had just recently been introduced
to Umbridge, and at that time 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 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, grounds, and...basically everything. For the duration that she was
at there, she made the lives of the students increasingly miserable. She did everything
wrong. She would conduct unreasonable and abusive punishments, as we see in the ‘I
will not tell Lies’ scene in the Order of the Phoenix, she would speak to students and
staff members condescendingly, and she was just awful.
So, this pretty much covers Umbridge’s backstory - it doesn’t look like there is a whole
lot of good in her past. Everything about her history points to her dubious morality.
She blindly hated her own mother and brother, was massively disappointed in her own father,
was selected for a wand below the normal ‘minimum’ length, and couldn’t even impress her head
of house despite doing everything she could. It seems like Umbridge was just rotten to
the core, which is extra confusing to me, given that she was able to cast her own patronus
charm.
The patronus charm is famous for it’s representation of light, happiness, and purity, and it’s
produced when a witch or wizard casts the spell Expecto Patronum. There are two types
of patronus charms, corporeal and incorporeal, and the type that the witch or wizard casts
will depend on their experience / preference. The more basic form of the spell is the incorporeal
patronus, which assumes no animal form and simply resembles a burst of white vapour or
smoke, and the more advanced form of the spell is the conjuring of a corporeal patronus.
It’s a hard spell to cast, on a technical-level, but the hardest part about it is mustering
the necessary emotion to cast it. Not just anyone can do it, and it’s been widely accepted
that most dark witches and wizards just don’t have it in them. In fact, Rowling revealed
in an interview that Severus Snape was the only death eater that could ever produce one:
Given that a Dementor is the primary creature that you’d want to ward off with a patronus
charm, I guess it makes sense that dark witches and wizards wouldn’t need to be able to
produce one. They’re sort of on the same side. But I can also imagine Umbridge wanting
to be protected at all costs, particularly as she works so closely with Dementors. Umbridge,
after all, was the one who notoriously sent Dementors to Little Whinging to attack Harry
Potter.
But again, how can she cast one? How is that even possible? We’re taught time and time
again that it’s a skill reserved for the pure of heart. We even learned of what happens
to wizards that aren’t pure of heart who try to produce it in the tale of Raczidian,
who was eaten alive by maggots. Umbridge was sick and twisted, just like any other evil
witch or wizard, so what gives?
The following excerpt from Pottermore sheds some light on this, and I believe that what
it comes down to is Umbridge’s own sense of righteousness:
While there is a widespread and justified belief that a wizard who is not pure of heart
cannot produce a successful Patronus (the most famous example of the spell backfiring
is that of the Dark wizard Raczidian, who was devoured by maggots), a rare few witches
and wizards of questionable morals have succeeded in producing the Charm (Dolores Umbridge,
for example, is able to conjure a cat Patronus to protect herself from Dementors).
It continues:
It may be that a true and confident belief in the rightness of one’s actions can supply
the necessary happiness. However, most such men and women, who become desensitised to
the effects of the Dark creatures with whom they may ally themselves, regard the Patronus
as an unnecessary spell to have in their arsenal.
What this suggests about the Patronus charm is that, if the witch or wizards moral compass
is so broken and twisted that they have deluded themselves in to thinking that they’re doing
the right thing, then there is no reason that they wouldn’t be able to cast a patronus.
Producing a patronus requires good/happy thoughts, and to Umbridge, law and order were happy
thoughts. In a way, she was sociopathic, because she had a fundamental inability to understand
the empathy or emotions of others. She was focused only on her own objectives, and even
by doing bad things, she was able to convince herself that she was doing the right thing.
Umbridge genuinely felt that her actions were contributing towards the greater good, and
for that reason, she could do it- she could cast a patronus.
And that’s it for this video! What do you guys think? Why did YOU think Umbridge could
cast a patronus? Let me know down in the comment section below.
Until next time
YER A WIZARD ARRY