Luna Lovegood and Dolores Umbridge By Lesley Gorley

We’ll get back to Umbridge later, but right now, let’s start off with Luna and Dickinson.

One similarity between these two is that people thought they dressed weird.

The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down. (U.S. Ed. OotP: pg. 185)

During the nineteenth century, the people of Amherst, Massachusetts (where Dickinson lived), never saw her in anything except a white dress. No one today knows exactly why that was all she wore, and maybe the people who knew her didn’t know either, since she was so reclusive. Today, people who study Emily Dickinson generally think her eccentric style had something to do with some sort of emotional crisis she experienced, caused by the death(s) of a close friend or relative.

Actually, Dickinson endured the deaths of several close friends throughout her lifetime, which made her acquire a calm attitude toward the subject of death. What happens when people die? Is there really such a thing as heaven and hell? Or is there just…nothing? These are the kind of questions Dickinson tried to answer and explain in her poetry. For example, “Because I could not stop for Death,” talks about how life is short compared to what lies ahead. Her theory in this poem is that people were put on this planet for a reason that’s not evident until they die. Only then, they will realize how great the afterlife is, that death isn’t something people need to be afraid of at all. This is the kind of thinking that made Dickinson an outcast.

Luna and Dickinson shared the same attitude about death. By the way, that poem mentions these horses that pull this carriage that the lady rides, and those horses are the thestrals in Order of the Phoenix. This explains why Luna was good at riding them.

Neville jumped down, shaking, but Luna dismounted smoothly. (U.S. pg. 767)

Another similarity between Luna and Dickinson is that people thought their ideas were crazy. Luna’s ideas were expressed in The Quibbler.

“I don’t think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the magazine,” said Luna dreamily. “They do it because it’s an honor, and, of course, to see their names in print.” (U.S. pg. 569)

Dickinson’s ideas were expressed in her poetry. She wrote nearly 2,000 poems, but only seven of them were published in her lifetime. The ones that were published were altered to fit the grammatical style of her time, which is why she preferred to keep her writing to herself.

Now, about that Dolores Umbridge, the Hogwarts High Inquisitor….

First off, let’s make sure everyone knows what the Spanish Inquisition is. To explain this event in a nutshell, in 1469, Ferdinand from Aragon married Isabella (who was Catholic) from Castile, so they could turn Spain into a purely Catholic country. But Catholic Sovereigns thought Ferdinand only married Isabella to try to convert her people to his religion, so the Sovereigns passed a series of royal decrees in an effort to keep the two regions from uniting, but the regions united anyway, and Isabella and Ferdinand succeeded in converting all of Spain to Catholicism.

The first day Umbridge arrived at Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat warned the students and teachers about Umbridge trying to disunite them.
“For out Hogwarts is in danger/From external deadly foes/And we must unite inside her/Or we’ll crumble from within….” (U.S. pg. 206-207)

After the Hat’s song, Umbridge made a speech that sounded “like a load of waffle” to Harry.

Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again (“Hem, hem”), but when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice. She sounded much more businesslike and now her words had a dull learned-by-heart sound to them. (U.S. pg. 212)

Doesn’t that speech remind you of a boring sermon?

And another thing: Harry thought Umbridge looked like a toad.

Harry was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad. (U.S. pg. 238)

A toad can mean two things: a little lumpy thing that hops, or a contemptible person. In this case, both definitions characterize Umbridge.

During the Inquisition Isabella tried to expel all the Moslems and Jews to make Spain purely Catholic. If the Moslems and Jews lied that they were Catholic in order to stay in Spain, they were considered heretics. In order to find out if Moslems and Jews were lying or not, Spanish Inquisitors tortured them until they repented. Umbridge used torture to make Harry Potter repent, not about being a half-breed, of course. I’m just trying to show you the similarities between Umbridge and a Spanish Inquisitor.

Again and again Harry wrote the words on the parchment in what he soon came to realize was not ink, but his own blood. (U.S. pg. 267)

Indeed, Umbridge tried to disunite Hogwarts by passing a series of educational decrees. Hermione says: “Fudge passed this ‘Educational Decree’ and forced her on us! And now he’s given her the power to inspect other teachers!” (U.S. pg. 308)

Another thing about the Inquisition: the expulsion of Moslems and Jews is called limpieza de sangre, or “cleansing of blood,” which relates to Umbridge’s inspections and hatred of “half-breeds.” Again, Hermione says:

“You see what she’s up to? It’s her thing about half-breeds all over again-she’s trying to make out Hagrid’s some kind of dim-witted troll, just because he had a giantess for a mother….” (U.S. pg. 450)

Thanks to Luna and her unfaltering beliefs, Umbridge and her prejudices didn’t stick around for very long.

Over the plunging, many-colored backs and heads of the centaurs Harry saw Umbridge being borne away through the trees by Bane, still screaming nonstop; her voice grew fainter and fainter until they could no longer hear it over the trampling of hooves surrounding them. (U.S. pg. 756)

Hopefully, Luna will continue to spread the word about Voldemort being back, if and when the wizarding world doesn’t think he is.