Next Harry Potter Short Story Reveals More About Umbridge

[Johnny Novgorod]

Chapter dedicated to her time in the forest with the Centaurs.
Calling it now.

Probably won't be done, but there's a popular fan theory that she got raped in there...

Hate to spoil this for you, but that's not a fan theory, that's what actually went down.
In an interview with Rowling herself she danced around the subject while basically admitting it.
Same thing with Albus' brother fucking a goat.

Rowling's careless afterthoughts are hardly canonical though.

 

[Therumancer]

I am not a HP fan these days but I do have a question for people who still are. Were any of you asking for this? I was under the impression that Umbridge was not even a character people liked to hate, they simply hated her. Or have I simply missed something and there is a massive fanbase for this character that I have been completly unaware of?

I am all for authors doing side stories on characters who are not central to the main story, as a fan of the Dresden Files I have been able to enjoy a number of side stories from the POV of characters other than Harry Dresden but Jim Butcher wrote these stories about popular characters.

Harry Potter is a BIG business, I've managed to get to Universal Studios: Orlando twice, including once this year while moving (planned vacation ahead of time for right in the midst of our moving plans) I've seen both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley opening year... not sure when if ever I'll get a chance to get back (hint if you visit though: Butterbeer is good, but the Fishy Green Ale is overlooked and is something everyone should try at least once). With Universal Studios full tilt behind it, and now competing more successfully with Disney than ever before (or so they claim) they have interests in wanting to see more done with the IP, and move things forward, especially as the actors themselves are aging and are a big part of creating the material. It wouldn't surprise me that a good choice for promoting a new villain would be Dolores since she's a hated bad guy, but someone who wouldn't have been purged as of the end of the stories so far.

At any rate, I'm guessing the idea of doing this new movie trilogy (or just one movie) is probably going to be to produce new material for Universal to exploit, assuming it's in as a producer it will wind up getting both the profits from the movies (guaranteed the first time) and fodder for their theme park. Rumor had it when I was just there that they were already planning on doing another Harry Potter expansion now that this one had opened, they are apparently about to lose the Marvel "Island Of Adventure" when the contract expires, and the wording of their contract prevents them from doing a whole lot with it without Disney's permission. They just "bridged" their two parts (Islands and Universal Studios) with the Hogwart's express, and allegedly they wanted to try and do some kind of new nature safari thing to compete with Disney's version. It just "clicked" that if they went with this magical beasts concept they could knock over Marvel and some of the other aging portions of Islands Of Adventure and build it there and build some kind of animatronic safari-themed area based on the new movies. Say they get the next section up and running in 4 years (which is what Diagon alley took, it's where Jaws used to be), coordinate it with a movie release, and then they get the advertising and can expand every 2-3 years when the other parts of the trilogy comes out.... speculation of course, but it fits with some of the rumors I heard while there.

At the end of the day I like her work, but I have little respect for JK Rowling nowadays as she seems to be increasingly in the "anything for more fame and money" category. I didn't care for how she went about "outing" Dumbledore... no he's not gay... well if any character was gay it would be him... okay he's gay... all gradually done
as she felt out the crowd to make the most popular decision. What she did there (making him gay) wasn't a big deal (even for someone with my attitudes) so much as the way she went about it. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if JK Rowling's plans are entirely based on other people's ambitions and how much money they are going to pay her. She also appears to be selling off pieces of the HP universe piecemeal to Universal Studios if nothing else, for example they have a "Trademark" on Butterbeer right now (which is a soda combining shortbread and butterscotch) and apparently the recipe is proprietary to the park.

 

[Therumancer]

Umbridge was really pushed. She was a part of this whole deus ex thing rowling fell into towards the end of the series. I won't rant too much but I recall definitely having lost interest around the time she became a central antagonist. Could not care less about a story involving her.

Well, the thing was that JK Rowling needed some kind of overt antagonist that could be used without spoiling the secrecy of the Death Eaters, that and she had defined this massive magical bureaucracy and government as being present, capable of doing things like engaging in massive scale brainwashing. The point of this character seemed to be to drive a bigger wedge between the characters and that government so they would have to go it on their own.

The one character that they never did much with that I liked was Mad Eye Moody, the guy was supposed to be a badass, one of the generator's greatest dark wizard hunters, but he got taken out off camera all the time it seems. I was kind of hoping they would do something cooler with him as time went on, have him reincarnate through his faux eye or something, but that never happened.

I also admit that while obnoxious I thought Professor Slug turned out pretty cool as well, nobody seems to care much for him, but I thought it was kind of cool that he came across like the stereotypical decadent fool/politician but was actually incredibly powerful and nobody's fool. Master with potions, and was actually described as fighting multiple death eaters at the same time in the final battle. I was expecting him to turn out to be nothing but a non-stop joke or foil... but he didn't.

That said, as I mentioned in length earlier, as one of the few bad guys likely to have survived the events of the main novels, Dolores Umbridge has some marketing potential depending on what they do with her. If I had to guess, I'd guess that Universal might be behind the plan here at the moment. Especially seeing as they shouldn't have too many problems getting the actress that played her in the movies to do nearly anything they want for a paycheck... which is increasingly less true of Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.