To wonder who is the real Dolores Umbridge

[Toadinthehole]

DD1 has got into Harry Potter so I am quietly reading all the books she has got out of the library. I am reminded how utterly vile Dolores Umbridge is. She truly is one of the great villains of fiction - right up there with Nurse Ratched. She also reminds me of a teacher I used to have at school. We will call her Mrs . She was probably close to 60, and so is probably dead now. And while I don't like to speak ill of the dead, I cannot remember Mrs without reflecting on what an utter sadistic, capricious, and authoritarian bitch she was. If she took against you, there was no way of keeping out of trouble because she would always find something to punish you for. Like Dolores Umbridge, she looked like a toad with a large false smile, with a certain exaggerated, saccharine feminity hiding flint-eyed steelyness rather badly.

Phew.

DM has met her daughter who apparently is genuinely nice.

Apparently JK Rowling modelled her on a real person. So I mentioned this to DW who said she had "met lots like her in the English education system", and (appropriately enough) "particularly those who worked for the Ministry, but not always".

AIBU to wonder if Dolores Umbridge is Mrs *?

[Toadinthehole]

Haha. Should have chosen X instead of *.

[morelikeguidelines]

I always thought umbridge was just based on ofsted, the idea of government constantly interfering in schools etc. But willing to believe she is based on a real person.

I think book 5 is based at around the time ofsted inspection of schools started in mid 90s - if you count forward from fact harry's parents were killed in (if I remember) 1981.

[Toadinthehole]

The only problem with Umbridge is that she clearly had a plan in order to obtain power for herself, whereas in reality a lot of people like her are just useful idiots, abeit no less awful.

[Dawndonnaagain]

A couple of folk (including me) reckon she was based on my Mother. She taught in the English Education System. She behaved in the manner of Dolores but was not quite as clever, although (apparently, I don't see her) she still thinks she is far cleverer than anyone she's ever met!

[Stanky]

What happened to her in the end? Did she even get her comeuppance? She's put me off anything with pictures of kittens on for life.

[BMW6]

The thing about Dolores Umbridge is that she was actually a Ministry of Magic minister rather than a teacher. Her appontment to Hogwarts was Political so the Ministry's diktat was adhered to.