Harry Potter: 10 Worst Things Dolores Umbridge Has Ever Done

Lord Voldemort is the main antagonist of the Harry Potter series. As well as murdering Harry’s parents, this psychotic wizard is obsessed with the idea of magical purity and would love to remove all Muggle-born witches and wizards from society.

But despite how evil Voldemort undoubtedly is, there’s one Harry Potter character who is hated above all others: Dolores Umbridge. This vile woman first makes an appearance in The Order of the Phoenix. With her pink dress sense and her high-pitched voice, she’s immediately irritating, and as the story goes on, she becomes more and more hateworthy.

Beneath the girlish mannerisms lies the personality of a sadistic psychopath. As well as torturing the students of Hogwarts, Umbridge neglects her teaching duties, attacks other staff members, abuses her political power, and enjoys herself immensely whilst she’s doing it.

Though we witness a lot of Umbridge’s villainy in the movies, there are even more reasons to hate her in the original novels. Every time she appears, it’s impossible not to loath her, and her extensive acts of evil will always be a notorious part of the series.

Every year, Harry and his fellow classmates have a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Usually, Professor Dumbledore handpicks the teacher himself, but in The Order of the Phoenix, Cornelius Fudge (the Minister for Magic) selects Umbridge for this prestigious role.

Rather than teaching defensive magic, Umbridge forces her students to sit and read the textbook throughout the lesson, and this dull method of teaching never changes. The students have to sift through the same old rubbish again and again for an entire year. Given Harry and his classmates are OWL students, Umbridge’s arrival couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The motivation behind Umbridge’s lacklustre style of teaching is even more infuriating. Fudge, Umbridge and the rest of the Ministry are convinced Dumbledore is trying to raise his own army and seize power for himself, so the last thing they want is for the students of Hogwarts to be combat-ready.

In other words, Umbridge’s terrible teaching style is motivated by unfounded paranoia. Dumbledore has no desire to take over the Ministry, yet Umbridge is still determined to stamp out all forms of defensive magic.