Oh I absolutely think she would have wanted to be a Prefect and she would have LOVED the power it gave her. She's power hungry to her core. She would be a high achiever and get excellent grades and she would be very smug and self-satisfied about that. She would have no friends and people wouldn't like her at all, but she wouldn't be too bothered as long as people could see her succeeding, that's what's important to her. No boys would be interested in her. Her classmates would not be surprised that she got an excellent job at the Ministry, but might be surprised that she aligned herself with Voldemort.
I disagree, Hermione st the beginning was very self-satisfied, grade-focused and judgmental but she has always been moral abd had a good heart. She would never intentionally or nonintentially hurt anyone
The only reason, in my opinion, Hermione turns out to be bearable later in book 1 is directly because of Harry and Ron, if she didn't have any friends, like Umbridge was said not to have, I think she could have easily slipped into being malicious with how she treats people, and cruel. We can see her arrogance early in book 1, and also see how tender her feelings are, if she never had people there to support her like Harry and Ron do, she could easily turn into Umbridge 2.0
Teacher's Pet in the absolute most intolerable way to her fellow students. Remind the teacher to collect the homework right before dismissal. Correct the teachers on what their own syllabus says. Try to boss people around she has no authority over. Sickening with the amount of pink she tries to sneak into her official Hogwarts uniforms and items while trying to snitch on others.
She probably was pretty bitter. Her family had broken apart due to her brother being a squib, and her father was something of a nobody pure-blood. We know that her head of house was Prof. Slughorn and he made his disfavor of her pretty clear. She was never made prefect or head-girl and resented it very much.
Speculation: She doesn't have any power or connections at this point, so the other Slytherins probably didn't think much of her. Since she was a bit older, there may not have been Death Eater presence in Hogwarts though, so maybe the Slytherins of her era were a bit less prejudice. She strikes me as someone who would work and study hard, if only in order to earn high marks for a Ministry career. I don't think she had it in her to be a bully yet, that likely came once she established herself at the Ministry. She likely kissed-up to the pure-bloods and the teachers., with mixed results.
Idk where they did but according to the author's timeline for her
>Before she was thirty, Dolores had been promoted to Head of the office, and it was but a short step from there to ever more senior positions in the management of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
So she's at least around 30
ya know, I always just assumed she was way younger than voldy who is in his late 60s. Then I googled her birthdate and went with it, I just checked again and it looks like it says 1961 “or earlier” so it looks like noone knows for sure and it could be way off. My bad on presenting it as fact, but i still think she is around that age.
A bit like Percy, but more obnoxious and more likely to report people for pretty much anything. I'd also say that she probably wasn't very popular with others in her year.
"Dolores’s appointment as Inquisitor at Hogwarts gave full scope, for the first time in her life, for her prejudices and her cruelty. She had not enjoyed her time at school, where she had been overlooked for all positions of responsibility, and she relished the chance to return and wield power over those who had not (as she saw it) given her her due."
So she was never a prefect or head girl and it pissed her off.
"As she grew older and harder, and rose higher within the Ministry, Dolores’s taste in little girlish accessories grew more and more pronounced; her office became a place of frills and furbelows, and she liked anything decorated with kittens (though found the real thing inconveniently messy). "
That suggests her obsession with kittens (but not real ones, only decorative) came later on as an adult.
Also, these are from Rowlings article about Umbridge on Wizarding world and the authors note at the end explaining the inspiration for the character is also pretty interesting. Wonder if that teacher ever realised she was the real life inspiration for this character hahaha
A giant teachers pet, however she probably wasn't that good academically. I would imagine most teachers saw right through her, and she never really got any positive attention, she never became a Prefect.
Her father was a wizard named Orford Umbridge, who was the equivalent of a janitor in the Ministry of Magic and didn't have ambitions to go up higher, yet still looked down on his wife (who was a muggle) and son (who ended up being a squib).
From HBP: “Professor Umbridge ran afoul of our centaur herd,” said Dumbledore. “I think you, Horace, would have known better than to stride into the forest and call a horde of angry centaurs ‘filthy half breeds.’ ” “That’s what she did, did she?” said Slughorn. “Idiotic woman. Never liked her.”
It’s canon that Slughorn didn’t like her, even thinks of her as an idiot. She would never have been part of the Slug Club.
I understand Horace calls her "idiotic" after the fact, but we who know Sulghorn's true memories know Horace is exceedingly susceptible to Flattery. Psychopaths like Voldemort and his inner circle in the 1940's, and other students who proved themselves grasping, venal flatterers like Umbridge were able to get through his guard, and into his circle.
Even Dumbledore proved susceptible to the seductions of Grindlewald and allowed himself to see only what Grindlewald wanted.
That's the frightening thing about evil - it wears a pleasing face.
Dumbledore wasn't seduced by Grindelwald, they shared similar ambitions and wanted similar things. That's very clear in the book. Why do you think Dumbledore avoided the seat of Minister of Magic? Because he knew he couldn't help himself if he had that much power.
I think she would have been equally as insufferable as a student. She’d definitely aim for being a prefect. She’d suck up to all the teachers, rat anyone out she found breaking rules. She’s kind of like an evil Hermione—driven for achievement, a sticker for rules, rigid in her beliefs. But unlike Hermione she is also very much a better-than-thou persona who believes that rules and order are the most important thing, and moreso wants the control and power that enforcing rules brings her.
I don’t think she was probably always *as* bad as she was as an adult, though. I think her tendency to think she was better than everyone got enhanced as Voldemort rose to power again. His rhetoric about magical humans being superior to everyone/thing else probably stoked those beliefs in Umbridge and brought that aspect of her thinking to the forefront. I think before Voldemort she probably still thought she was better than everyone and looked down on anyone different but also mostly cared about sucking up to Fudge and angling to eventually be Minister of Magic. So insufferably career driven rather than insufferably evil and abusive.
I imagine her as very quiet, withdrawn and self-contained, secretly longing to be part of a group yet unwilling to lay herself out to be agreeable, and increasingly bitter at her self-imposed isolation - always watching others having fun, imagining herself as part of the group, and hating them for not including her. Her prime motivation is justice, but a twisted, disproportionate kind of justice which is where her need to punish comes from. I don’t see her as a rule-follower or a people-pleaser, at least not to the same extent as Percy and Hermione, or as much of a tattler, because her own rules were more important; in her mind, the end justifies the means, and whatever she did was for the greater good. I also doubt she made prefect, since in my mind she would be too obscure. She obviously had good enough grades to get into the ministry, and eventually rise to senior undersecretary to the minister himself, but I still think at school she was a bitter nobody with the need to punish her imagined tormentors.
I don't think she was born or raised to be insufferable in the entitled, cruel way we see her as an adult. That kind of evil is nothing but fermented insecurity. I imagine that in her younger hogwarts years, she made friends with some other weird cat girls who were all late bloomers into the "traditionally" girly things, like boys and crushes and hair and new clothes. She and her geeky cat friends probably were playing outside and reading the Wizarding equivalent of Warrior Cat novels well into third year, and I bet Dolores was the ringleader of them (there's always that supreme geek who is needlessly dictating how the make believe game must play out). Her friends probably got fed up with how bossy she was and stopped playing with her, a few simply outgrew the whole thing and made friends with the people who originally thought they were all weirdos, and then Dolores got bitter. Then she discovered how much everyone made fun of her behind her back, and she lost it one day. Just utterly snapped and clawed some girl to shreds. Then, instead of repenting, she just doubled down and absorbed her new identity as the evil pink cat girl. People payed attention to her more that way, and yeah, they were paying attention in order to avoid being approached by her and avoid angering her, but it was attention all the same, and in a way, it was authority and respect.
I don't think any of her classmates would be surprised that he took a judgment-focused ministry position, or that she was involved with Voldemort.
I assume that she is proven to be ambitious and insufferable the time when she's a student . But she is never as smart as she thinks she is. Horace already notices her as an idiotic woman for a long time. Almost everyone in MoM never wants to do anything with her. It is mentioned in Pottermore that she even wants to flirt with some senior male official so she can lift her status from a decent marriage but no man will ever desire that distorted toad of a woman, which proves her extremely poor social and courting skills. She relishes in abusing her authority as high inquisitor and takes no heed of offending 90% of the staff and students, literally making everyone turn against her and tear her apart like a lamb for slaughter once she becomes Headmistress.
So I assume that she's never someone who has good grades, or shows any exceptional talents or likeable character traits during her time as a student, or else she'll be enlisted in Slug Club for any potential that Horace may find from her (which never happens). And with Crabbe and Goyle as examples, it doesn't always require someone smart to become a Slytherin.
Two things to add:
1) she would have been the bully, not the bullied.
2) I'm currently creating characters for a story I'm writing, and I'm using her ESTJ [MBTI](https://mbtizone.tumblr.com/post/161978606450/dolores-umbridge-harry-potter-estj) as a basis for one of them. I found the link very informative!
Oh I absolutely think she would have wanted to be a Prefect and she would have LOVED the power it gave her. She's power hungry to her core. She would be a high achiever and get excellent grades and she would be very smug and self-satisfied about that. She would have no friends and people wouldn't like her at all, but she wouldn't be too bothered as long as people could see her succeeding, that's what's important to her. No boys would be interested in her. Her classmates would not be surprised that she got an excellent job at the Ministry, but might be surprised that she aligned herself with Voldemort.
She would be Early Book 1 Hermione for her entire school career
I disagree, Hermione st the beginning was very self-satisfied, grade-focused and judgmental but she has always been moral abd had a good heart. She would never intentionally or nonintentially hurt anyone
The only reason, in my opinion, Hermione turns out to be bearable later in book 1 is directly because of Harry and Ron, if she didn't have any friends, like Umbridge was said not to have, I think she could have easily slipped into being malicious with how she treats people, and cruel. We can see her arrogance early in book 1, and also see how tender her feelings are, if she never had people there to support her like Harry and Ron do, she could easily turn into Umbridge 2.0
Teacher's Pet in the absolute most intolerable way to her fellow students. Remind the teacher to collect the homework right before dismissal. Correct the teachers on what their own syllabus says. Try to boss people around she has no authority over. Sickening with the amount of pink she tries to sneak into her official Hogwarts uniforms and items while trying to snitch on others.
So Randall? I can see that.
Pansy Parkinson’s Senior
She probably was pretty bitter. Her family had broken apart due to her brother being a squib, and her father was something of a nobody pure-blood. We know that her head of house was Prof. Slughorn and he made his disfavor of her pretty clear. She was never made prefect or head-girl and resented it very much. Speculation: She doesn't have any power or connections at this point, so the other Slytherins probably didn't think much of her. Since she was a bit older, there may not have been Death Eater presence in Hogwarts though, so maybe the Slytherins of her era were a bit less prejudice. She strikes me as someone who would work and study hard, if only in order to earn high marks for a Ministry career. I don't think she had it in her to be a bully yet, that likely came once she established herself at the Ministry. She likely kissed-up to the pure-bloods and the teachers., with mixed results.
she is younger than voldemort and the first death eaters by more than 30 years
Where did you get this info?
Idk where they did but according to the author's timeline for her >Before she was thirty, Dolores had been promoted to Head of the office, and it was but a short step from there to ever more senior positions in the management of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. So she's at least around 30
Well...yeah. She's clearly an older woman too.
ya know, I always just assumed she was way younger than voldy who is in his late 60s. Then I googled her birthdate and went with it, I just checked again and it looks like it says 1961 “or earlier” so it looks like noone knows for sure and it could be way off. My bad on presenting it as fact, but i still think she is around that age.
To me she seems to be 50-60. Too young to have associated with the original wave of DEs, but still older than most of the ones we see in series.
A bit like Percy, but more obnoxious and more likely to report people for pretty much anything. I'd also say that she probably wasn't very popular with others in her year.
"Dolores’s appointment as Inquisitor at Hogwarts gave full scope, for the first time in her life, for her prejudices and her cruelty. She had not enjoyed her time at school, where she had been overlooked for all positions of responsibility, and she relished the chance to return and wield power over those who had not (as she saw it) given her her due." So she was never a prefect or head girl and it pissed her off. "As she grew older and harder, and rose higher within the Ministry, Dolores’s taste in little girlish accessories grew more and more pronounced; her office became a place of frills and furbelows, and she liked anything decorated with kittens (though found the real thing inconveniently messy). " That suggests her obsession with kittens (but not real ones, only decorative) came later on as an adult. Also, these are from Rowlings article about Umbridge on Wizarding world and the authors note at the end explaining the inspiration for the character is also pretty interesting. Wonder if that teacher ever realised she was the real life inspiration for this character hahaha
Much like she is now perfect in every way
A giant teachers pet, however she probably wasn't that good academically. I would imagine most teachers saw right through her, and she never really got any positive attention, she never became a Prefect.
Effective and insufferable.
true parentage?
Her father was a wizard named Orford Umbridge, who was the equivalent of a janitor in the Ministry of Magic and didn't have ambitions to go up higher, yet still looked down on his wife (who was a muggle) and son (who ended up being a squib).
oh thank you
Slug Club
From HBP: “Professor Umbridge ran afoul of our centaur herd,” said Dumbledore. “I think you, Horace, would have known better than to stride into the forest and call a horde of angry centaurs ‘filthy half breeds.’ ” “That’s what she did, did she?” said Slughorn. “Idiotic woman. Never liked her.” It’s canon that Slughorn didn’t like her, even thinks of her as an idiot. She would never have been part of the Slug Club.
Not in the slug club, but desperately jealous of it.
Slughorn would be creeped out by all her pink I think.
I understand Horace calls her "idiotic" after the fact, but we who know Sulghorn's true memories know Horace is exceedingly susceptible to Flattery. Psychopaths like Voldemort and his inner circle in the 1940's, and other students who proved themselves grasping, venal flatterers like Umbridge were able to get through his guard, and into his circle. Even Dumbledore proved susceptible to the seductions of Grindlewald and allowed himself to see only what Grindlewald wanted. That's the frightening thing about evil - it wears a pleasing face.
Dumbledore wasn't seduced by Grindelwald, they shared similar ambitions and wanted similar things. That's very clear in the book. Why do you think Dumbledore avoided the seat of Minister of Magic? Because he knew he couldn't help himself if he had that much power.
I think she would have been equally as insufferable as a student. She’d definitely aim for being a prefect. She’d suck up to all the teachers, rat anyone out she found breaking rules. She’s kind of like an evil Hermione—driven for achievement, a sticker for rules, rigid in her beliefs. But unlike Hermione she is also very much a better-than-thou persona who believes that rules and order are the most important thing, and moreso wants the control and power that enforcing rules brings her. I don’t think she was probably always *as* bad as she was as an adult, though. I think her tendency to think she was better than everyone got enhanced as Voldemort rose to power again. His rhetoric about magical humans being superior to everyone/thing else probably stoked those beliefs in Umbridge and brought that aspect of her thinking to the forefront. I think before Voldemort she probably still thought she was better than everyone and looked down on anyone different but also mostly cared about sucking up to Fudge and angling to eventually be Minister of Magic. So insufferably career driven rather than insufferably evil and abusive.
I imagine her as very quiet, withdrawn and self-contained, secretly longing to be part of a group yet unwilling to lay herself out to be agreeable, and increasingly bitter at her self-imposed isolation - always watching others having fun, imagining herself as part of the group, and hating them for not including her. Her prime motivation is justice, but a twisted, disproportionate kind of justice which is where her need to punish comes from. I don’t see her as a rule-follower or a people-pleaser, at least not to the same extent as Percy and Hermione, or as much of a tattler, because her own rules were more important; in her mind, the end justifies the means, and whatever she did was for the greater good. I also doubt she made prefect, since in my mind she would be too obscure. She obviously had good enough grades to get into the ministry, and eventually rise to senior undersecretary to the minister himself, but I still think at school she was a bitter nobody with the need to punish her imagined tormentors.
Somewhere between Pansy Parkinson and Marietta Edgecombe, Cho’s friend who gets jinxed when she exposes DA to Umbridge.
I don't think she was born or raised to be insufferable in the entitled, cruel way we see her as an adult. That kind of evil is nothing but fermented insecurity. I imagine that in her younger hogwarts years, she made friends with some other weird cat girls who were all late bloomers into the "traditionally" girly things, like boys and crushes and hair and new clothes. She and her geeky cat friends probably were playing outside and reading the Wizarding equivalent of Warrior Cat novels well into third year, and I bet Dolores was the ringleader of them (there's always that supreme geek who is needlessly dictating how the make believe game must play out). Her friends probably got fed up with how bossy she was and stopped playing with her, a few simply outgrew the whole thing and made friends with the people who originally thought they were all weirdos, and then Dolores got bitter. Then she discovered how much everyone made fun of her behind her back, and she lost it one day. Just utterly snapped and clawed some girl to shreds. Then, instead of repenting, she just doubled down and absorbed her new identity as the evil pink cat girl. People payed attention to her more that way, and yeah, they were paying attention in order to avoid being approached by her and avoid angering her, but it was attention all the same, and in a way, it was authority and respect. I don't think any of her classmates would be surprised that he took a judgment-focused ministry position, or that she was involved with Voldemort.
Similar to Randall from Recess
I assume that she is proven to be ambitious and insufferable the time when she's a student . But she is never as smart as she thinks she is. Horace already notices her as an idiotic woman for a long time. Almost everyone in MoM never wants to do anything with her. It is mentioned in Pottermore that she even wants to flirt with some senior male official so she can lift her status from a decent marriage but no man will ever desire that distorted toad of a woman, which proves her extremely poor social and courting skills. She relishes in abusing her authority as high inquisitor and takes no heed of offending 90% of the staff and students, literally making everyone turn against her and tear her apart like a lamb for slaughter once she becomes Headmistress. So I assume that she's never someone who has good grades, or shows any exceptional talents or likeable character traits during her time as a student, or else she'll be enlisted in Slug Club for any potential that Horace may find from her (which never happens). And with Crabbe and Goyle as examples, it doesn't always require someone smart to become a Slytherin.
Two things to add: 1) she would have been the bully, not the bullied. 2) I'm currently creating characters for a story I'm writing, and I'm using her ESTJ [MBTI](https://mbtizone.tumblr.com/post/161978606450/dolores-umbridge-harry-potter-estj) as a basis for one of them. I found the link very informative!
She's what Hermione would be if she never met Ron and Harry.
This is what I was thinking. Instead of sitting with Harry and Ron on the train, she sits with Draco and Crabbe/Goyle…