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What was Umbridge's plan?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by adamsmitgh, Sep 29, 2017.

  1. adamsmitgh

    adamsmitgh Squib

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    What was Umbridge's idea of how to shut up Harry when she sent the dementors to Privet drive? Did she think he would do magic and be expelled? But if so, how did Umbridge know Harry could do a patronus? Did she hear from Fudge or some other ministry member?

    Or was she planning on having the kiss performed on Harry and saying that he finally snapped and cover it up. However, if that occurs what would happen if people did find out it was dementors. A mass hysteria would start as people would believe that the Dementors were out of control of the ministry and Voldemort may be back. The only way for them to fight those rumors would say that someone sent them there accidently or find a scapegoat and start a huge bueacratic nightmare and massive coverup.
     
  2. Goten Askil

    Goten Askil Groundskeeper

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    You have to remember it's the same Umbridge who was a second away from casting the Cruciatus on Harry right in front of several witnesses. I'm not sure she really thought about the consequences.

    That being said, it wouldn't have been very difficult for the Ministry to hide the fact that Harry was kissed and pretend he simply died. Stupid arrogant boy was probably still convinced of Sirius Black's innocence and got killed for his effort, or something.
     
  3. Sataniel

    Sataniel High Inquisitor

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    Speculation? Speculation:
    1. Blame Harry's death on something related to his living among Muggles.
    2. Remind people that it's Dumbledore's fault that he was placed there and thus his fault that the Boy-Who-Lived died and make up some story about how the earlier claimed craziness of Harry was Dumbledore's fault too.
    3. Have one of the problems removed and other severely limited.
    4. ???
    5. PROFIT
     
  4. Zombie

    Zombie Black Philip Moderator DLP Supporter

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    I think she was secretly working for Voldemort. She had the dark mark on her belly button, but people get older so no one would want to look at that. That poor snake would be nothing but strech marks. Also think she kidnapped Gilderoy from St Mungo and was planning some on flew over the coocoos nest type shit. But that's just my speculation
     
  5. vlad

    vlad Banned ~ Prestige ~

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    Short answer: since when did Rowling worry about making the bad guy's competent, beyond the odd incidental flash?

    Long Answer: Kill Harry, blame Dumbledore. What Sataniel said but tempered with the fact that Umbridge was more enthusiasm and evil than she was patient and capable. She almost used an unforgivable in front of witnesses. She was transparent at the school (not that Harry didn't mouth off anyway), she followed Hermione like a retard.

    In other words, a decent strategy but in the hands of someone who was fond of tactics they weren't particularly suited for.
     
  6. Lord Twain

    Lord Twain First Year

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    I think there were several layers to this plan, and it was all really rather clever:

    • Firstly, her knowing Harry could cast a Patronus is not out of the question. She may have already been looking into the Defence professorship at the time, and have looked through Harry's records in D.A.D.A., with Lupin possibly recording Harry's proficiency with the Patronus Charm there.
    • Moreover, the fact that Dementors are fought off with a Patronus is not common knowledge, at least not among half-bloods. If a random muggle-raised wizard was faced with a Dementor, he wouldn't go "Dammit, I can't do a Patronus, guess I'll just have to let him suck out my soul". They'd frantically try every duelling spell they knew, hoping something would work. It wouldn't but that's entirely besides the point.
    • Then, assuming the Dementors did manage to suck out Harry's soul, Umbridge probably counted on the fact that Dumbledore would have people watching Harry even if she wasn't aware of the Order-related specifics. Had Harry lost his soul that day, who'd have been the one to find him and report the event? Mrs Figg. At this point it's child's play for Umbridge's kangaroo court to say: "You've got to wonder why Dumbledore's undercover minion just happened to get there a minute after the Dementor Kissed poor Harry…" and blame Dumbledore.
    • If all else failed, she could easily have ordered the Dementors to clean up behind them by strangling the Kissed Harry to death. That way the only true non-Death-Eater witness of Voldemort's return is history, and as a bonus she may be able to twist it all to paint Dumbledore in a bad light for letting "muggle scum" murder the Boy-Who-Lived.
     
  7. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Maybe I'm having my HP friendly week, but similar to Voldemort et al. behaviour, I don't think this is crazy. Like @Lord Twain said, it's not impossible she knew about Harry's Patronus, but let's first assume she didn't. In that case, I'd think she meant for the Dementors to kill him. Consider:

    The Ministry does what Fudge tells it to. So Dementors appear in Privet Drive, kill Harry and vanish. The end. No investigation, no questions, nothing magical around for miles: A Muggle illness, perhaps, so sad, too bad. Why was Harry around Muggles anyway. It's dangerous, he should have know better. Oh, that was Dumbledore's idea? Let's investigate that.

    It's a more or less fool-proof plan with possible nice bonus effects. It gets more tricky if she expected him to survive, because then, he would have used magic, which she could put him on trial for, sure, but the plan hinges on no one knowing Dementors were there, and he would testify that. Here, the prior Prophet campaign becomes important, because his testimony instantly values less if he is known not to be quite sane. As such, both plans would be related.

    Even so, she would have to convince a jury, and that's something you just can't plan. Therefore it's remarkable that she almost succeeded, and only Mrs. Figgs, as an additional witness, saved the day. That was an oversight by her, btw -- Fudge knew quite well that there weren't any other wizards around, but she (they?) forgot to check for Squibs.

    As a tangent, I wonder how much Fudge knew. At the latest at the trial, he seems to be quite aware of what went on. That by itself should be a scandal of gigantic proportions. In my head-AU where Harry used his political clout, that backfired spectacularly. Then again, maybe it also never would have happened in the first place.
     
  8. elucidinian

    elucidinian First Year

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    I think it's unlikely that she intended the dements to kill him. I assume it is easy to identify a kiss victim in the magical world, hence it would be quite hard to pass it off as a muggle illness. Even if the Ministry kept mum about it or tried to cover it up, there is no guarantee that they would have gotten to the body first. After all the Order managed to retrieve Harry from Privet Drive before the aurors did when Harry cast the patronus. Honestly I think it was just Umbridge trying to "help" the administration by getting rid of a problem, only that it was Umbridge and ineptly done.
     
  9. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Wrong focus, though. No one has any idea about Muggle illnesses, and that's why it's easy to claim anything.

    At any rate, I don't see the consequences. The order gets Harry's body and does ... what? Go to the Aurors the Ministry commands? Go to the Daily Prophet the Ministry commands? Get a trial where the Ministry is at the same time prosecutor, defendant, judge and influences the jury? Complain to Fudge about all three?

    Obviously, the Order would not believe for a second that Harry randomly died. But the Order is also irrelevant.
     
  10. arkkitehti

    arkkitehti High Inquisitor

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    The thing is, dementors don't kill, they "eat" the soul. So Harry's body would still be alive, only a soulless zombie. I'd say that's something that's pretty easy for wizards to recognize as what it is. At least it's not something that can be mistaken for a simple illness.

    Still, it's not likely that the ministry would take much damage from Harry being kissed given how completely they control everything at that point. Likely they would simply find some random guard and blame the "rogue" dementor on him, and then summarily execute him for "causing the death of our young, heroic champion, Harry Potter". And if Dumbledore tries anything after that, Fudge and Umbridge can blame Dumbledore for trying to make a political spectacle out of a tragic accident...
     
  11. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    It strikes me this is rather similar to a coma, as far as the visible effects go. But my point was, I've been trying to imagine this in practice all the time. So the Order gets Harry's body. What do they do with it, to convince people it was a Dementor? Parade it through Diagon Alley? Hardly. He'd be shipped to St. Mungo's, probably. A Healer there would determine the cause easily enough -- provided the CEO-equivalent doesn't buckle before Fudge via Malfoy, who is a generous donor ... or has been for the longest time, as the case may be. There story might be dead already there. If it isn't, you have a Healer-certified Dementor's Kiss. How would people get to know that? The Prophet worked like this in OotP:
    That's a career down the drain. I probably wouldn't let myself be quoted, in such cases. But perhaps there's a courageous (or self-destructive) individual around. Given the hold on the news Fudge has, I believe the very best you could hope for is a he-says, she-says article.

    The final question is how the general population reacts to hearing about the BWL's demise. That's tricky, because Harry never tries to exploits his popularity, so we don't really know how much sway his name has. His credibility is attacked, but how would a fatal incident affect that? Let's say the outcome is uncertain and could go in either direction.

    But then all this means is that Umbridge and/or Fudge need to make sure the relevant quote does not reach the population, and given that everyone won't be coming to convince themselves of the accuracy of news reports, it doesn't matter what they say. Like, at all. They could claim anything in the world, symptoms that three-year-old would see don't fit, because people don't see Harry for themselves.

    That was what I was thinking of. It might be easy enough to identify a Dementor's Kiss, but how will people do that?
     
  12. Sivcere

    Sivcere Squib

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    Hey just a reminder on this topic. Harry did use a Patronus in his second year when the Malfoy's dressed up as Dementors, that's a lot of witnesses that saw Harry using the spell.

    It's not difficult for her to learn that Harry knew the spell, she could of read it in the news or overheard some co-workers chattering about it after they heard from their children about Harry using it.

    From their it's not difficult to figure out her plan, she's not planning an assassination, just discrediting and removing a rebellious part of the population. It's easy for her to learn that Harry can defend himself from Dementors and then create a situtation where he has to and then have his wand snapped for it.
     
  13. Tempest

    Tempest Third Year

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    You mean "third", right?

    If I remember correctly, all Harry did was creating some mist (I'm not sure though, it could have had a shape for seconds). And it was in the air. It is too much to assume that everybody would know about the Patronus spell. Even if some people knew about it, it would be difficult to identify because of the distance and success of the spell. The whole scene was stupid anyway. What was Malfoy thinking, interfering with an ongoing match? It could have cost his position in his house team, amongst other things (I think JKR gives Malfoy the idiot ball more than necessary, but that's another issue and I don't want to rant).

    I also don't think Umbridge is the kind of person who follows a very elaborate plan. She has a superiority complex, is willing to do horrible things to prove her point and generally doesn't care about the consequences, as her actions in OotP show us. Also, I always wondered why Umbridge never played up the 'Parseltounge is Evil' card to extreme to discredit Harry, and by association Dumbledore. Was is because there was no press articles about the events in the second book? Or JKR just didn't care about most things, if they didn't fit in the book's general plot?

    I mostly agree with this review:

    There aren't great plans seen in action: just about one such careful planning in each book. Like Dumbledore foreshadowing the Scarcrux in the second book, and later planning his own death. The struggle between the good guys/bad guys is simpler than similar events are in other book series. And many potential conflicting elements end up not being used.
     
  14. Lord Twain

    Lord Twain First Year

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    Dementors' prime mode of attack is to eat the soul. However, a Kissed wizard wouldn't put up much of a fight if for some reason (for instance, because Umbridge told them to) the Dementors strangled his mindless body on the way out.
     
  15. Methos

    Methos High Inquisitor DLP Supporter

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    Checking if Harry is the real thing and not fake a Boy Who Lived

    British representative somewhere: our BWL fry Dark Lords at age 1, getting bitten by a Basliks at 12 and slaying it with a sword afterwords, banish a horde of dementors at age 13, out fly a dragon at age 14 and clawing is way out from a Dementor belly with his bare hands at age 15.
    Defy us at your own risk.
     
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