Harry Potter Characters: New 'Harry Potter' Material Released On Pottermore Website; Author J.K. Rowling Reveals Dolores Umbridge Inspired By Her Real Life Teacher!
Even if the books and the movies have long closed out, Harry Potter still lives on! Of course there's the upcoming spin off movie based on the other Harry Potter related book by J.K. Rowling -- Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. But steady news from Potterworld and the lives of the Harry Potter characters come more frequently through the Pottermore website -- the official website of Harry Potter, and the one that J.K. Rowling uses as a platform to release more stories, details and other interesting thing related to the magical world of the boy wizard.
Most recently, the Pottermore website published a new essay that delves deep into one of the Harry Potter characters that J.K. Rowling harbors the "purest dislike" for. This is none other than Professor Dolores Umbridge. The 1,700 word essay talks about the inspiration behind the wicked witch, who first appeared in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
According to J.K. Rowling's essay, Dolores Umbridge was actually based on someone she knew in real life, one of her teachers in fact from "long ago... in a certain skill or subject."
Says Rowling of the inspiration for this most hated of Harry Potter characters, "The woman in question returned my antipathy with interest. Why we took against each other so instantly, heartily and (on my side, at least) irrationally, I honestly cannot say," Rowling wrote. Even the look of Umbridge was inspired by this particularly vile teacher, who Rowling describes has having a "pronounced taste for twee accessories", such as "a tiny little plastic bow slide, pale lemon in colour," which was more "appropriate to a girl of three".
In the Harry Potter movie version, the said character was played to great effect by English actress Imelda Staunton.
Other new material that appeared in the Pottermore website much to the delight of the fans include stories on Thestrals, the history of the Azkaband prison, and other interesting backgrounders for different details in the Potter universe.
