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Doug versus Umbridge speculation
09-01-2012, 07:24 PM
One of the conflicts the majority of us reading Drunkard's Walk VIII look forward to the most is the showdown between Doug and that hate-filled, bigoted ball of slime known as Dolores Umbridge. We want to see Doug defeat her, not because we wonder who will win, but because we want to know how Doug beats her. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun speculating in the meantime.
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Far more satisfying would be to out her as a muggleborn. There's nothing in the HP Wiki article that suggests she isn't.... and she keeps the Slytherin locket solely to bolster her pureblood assertions. Wouldn't be the first blood-purist to turn out to be a hypocrite..... and that's always funny.
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I like the idea of her needing to be rescued from some of the consequences of her own stupidity and vileness by one or more of those kinds she hates: muggleborns, human-nonhuman hybrids, etc. Not that she'd learn anything from it; oh, no, not our Dolores, but it'd be so humiliating for her. And believe me, I'd want that to only be the start....
Dartz's suggestion would be a superb follow-up. But it can't end there....
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I simply have faith that it will be handled with a suitable level of style and flair... in Doug's irrepressible manner. Come to think of it, Doug's irrepressible manner is apt to be the point of contention, innit?
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Doug is competent, most of the Wizarding World isn't. With the excpetion of Poison Pen by Genkaifan, I can't think of a story which brings Amelia Bones in to stop Umbridge's insanities and innanities. Although with Doug, I have the feeling the House of Windsor will be doing some slapping of Umbridge and Fudge and the Minisitry. That symbol on his helment is the symbol of the U.N. Umbitch is going to say that British wizards should have say over what the U.N. should do. That should bring the ICW in and slap Umbridge down for trying to start an ICW/UN war.
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ShinDangaioh Wrote:Doug is competent, most of the Wizarding World isn't. With the excpetion of Poison Pen by Genkaifan, I can't think of a story which brings Amelia Bones in to stop Umbridge's insanities and innanities. Although with Doug, I have the feeling the House of Windsor will be doing some slapping of Umbridge and Fudge and the Minisitry. That symbol on his helment is the symbol of the U.N. Umbitch is going to say that British wizards should have say over what the U.N. should do. That should bring the ICW in and slap Umbridge down for trying to start an ICW/UN war. Assuming the Potterverse UN recognizes Doug as one of its agents, of course.
(And now I've got a song running through my head: "I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation / I'm gonna take my problems to the United Nations...")
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Actually, as a British subject, her attitude that any pure-blood wizard is totally superior to muggles -- which presumably includes HRM Elizabeth II -- can be construed as High Treason. The notion of Dolores getting beheaded on Tower Hill brings a warmth to my soul, only slightly soured by the fact that it's such an unsightly head.
Edit: Tower Hill, not Tower Green as I originally put. Umbridge isn't worthy of Tower Green.
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DHBirr Wrote:Actually, as a British subject, her attitude that any pure-blood wizard is totally superior to muggles -- which presumably includes HRM Elizabeth II -- can be construed as High Treason. The notion of Dolores getting beheaded on Tower Hill brings a warmth to my soul, only slightly soured by the fact that it's such an unsightly head.
Edit: Tower Hill, not Tower Green as I originally put. Umbridge isn't worthy of Tower Green. Wait... what? How can having a bad opinion of the queen count as high treason? I mean, unless she actually tries/plots to _do_ something to the queen, which is something altogether different (And seems pretty far outside of the scope of Drunkard's Walk).
Actually I find the section at the end defining the use of the emergency power act as pretty funny. As considering the date and the name, it basically has to be wizarding version of the UK law of the same name. Which was passed in anticipation of WWII - for which the wizarding world is the rise of Grindelwald, the last Dark Lord before Voldemort. I find this amusing, because at this point, the Ministry is pretty much utterly denying the revivication of Voldemort - and then they suddenly invoke a law that was passed to deal with the last Dark Lord. I suspect this might somehow bite them in the ass. (Note that this is an interesting deviation from standard HP, where the High inquistor position was created due to an education decree of all things).
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I try not to change canon arbitrarily for story purposes -- it's more of a challenge to stick with the world-as-is rather than customize it to suit my needs -- but in this case, I thought the idea made so much more sense than what happened in canon. Hogwart's is shown to be a private institution, not a branch of the Ministry, and to have a political functionary come in and basically promote herself to its head because she's an agent of the Minister fails the reality check for me. Someone should have publicly protested, and rightfully so.
That it also makes things somewhat more difficult for Doug is just a bonus.
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Wikipedia, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_treason_in_the_United_Kingdom Wrote:High Treason in the United Kingdom[/url]
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with the sovereign's eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the throne; levying war against the sovereign and adhering to the sovereign's enemies, giving them aid or comfort; and attempting to undermine the lawfully established line of succession. Several other crimes have historically been categorised as high treason, including counterfeiting money and being a Catholic priest. Yeah, I don't see anything there that quite qualifies as high treason for Umbridge, sorry. Unless there's some really squicky lesbian relationship going on with Camilla that honestly, I don't even want to know about.
I don't get the sense the Muggle world will be very involved in the story. The UN logo will confuse the hell out of Doug's opponents, but I think we're used to that by now. They'll probably just get perplexed that a wizard would be so misguided as to actually want to represent those poor muggles; it's as strange an idea PETA wanting to give civil rights to animals.
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I can see the whole "adhering to the sovereign's enemies" bit counting later on, what with the trials and the camps and the whole 'supporting the Voldemort administration' thing, but not yet.
All she's done by OotP is a bit of attempted murder. Well, that and being a loathsome, sadistic excuse for a human being, as ugly on the inside as the outside, but we sadly can't charge her for that.
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oh we can charge her. Just not with high treason.
Personally I suggest 10,000 volts.
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While we would all like to see a thoroughly evil character suffer a satisfyingly ironic punishment. One most remember there is a tendancy to defy the usual fiction conventions.
Might we see Dolores ultimately reformed in some way by the experience, to become a decent human being?
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Bob's done that bit already, in DW II...
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Well maybe Doug does something so traumatic that Umbridge becomes a nun. 
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Or you could just have Doug not punish her.
I mean, he's going to have to frustrate her every ambition in life, help Harry and his crew drive her up the wall, and all that, but you could just have him get her dead to rights, and walk away. That would invert some cliches.
There are other people who deserve to do the deed much more than he does, after all, and it's not like she's really all that *dangerous*...
(Extra points if she dies of her own paranoia whilst trying to prevent Harry/Dumbledore/Lupin/ from killing her.)
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Murdering the reigning monarch in a sudden fit of passion would appear not to qualify as high treason, though I can't see that distinction as keeping your head any more attached to your body. ^.^
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Bob Schroeck Wrote: Hogwart's is shown to be a private institution, not a branch of the Ministry, and to have a political functionary come in and basically promote herself to its head because she's an agent of the Minister fails the reality check for me. Someone should have publicly protested, and rightfully so. Isn't this nothing more than J.K.R.'s nod to the all the Acts that have been passed to control education in the U.K.? There are a lot of acts and many appear to impact Independent Schools. IIRC, Umbridge had the Ministry, through Fudge, pass acts that gave her the right to do what she did. As for someone protesting, most of the people in the Harry Potter world appear to be unable to think for themselves. If it's printed they appear to believe it and most of them would go along with whatever was "suggested." Look at what Molly Weasley did to Hermione after reading about her in Witch Weekly.
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