Facing the Reality: Do We Need to Reflect on Dolores Umbridge?

It was a very dark afternoon. The clouds were purplish blue, and the sky was almost black. Lights were lit up everywhere and the Jakarta’s traffic was almost jammed as usual.

Thousand miles away from a taxi that took me to my destination, Trump has been officially won the election. I could hear people scream.

First of all, I don’t have any connection with the United of States, but in some ways, the surprising election result irritated me. As perhaps for many other people in my country. To determine my feelings, I scrolled through the Facebook’s timeline and I was right. I correctly guessed that some accounts had been furiously talking about it. So did international media, even some of them expressed it through elegantly provocative headlines.

In the rise of all the chaotic status or tweets or Facebook’s posts, my mind went to a very different direction. To one of my most favorite books among the series of Harry Potter, Order of the Phoenix. I suddenly remembered a middle aged woman with a toad face: Dolores Umbridge.

In one chapter of the book, Harry burst out of anger when people cynically judged and accused him for being mentally unstable after he told the truth about Voldemort’s return.

The wizarding world was too comfortable for being in a very framed peaceful situation under Fudge’s government of ministry of magic. It was too peaceful until the reality shadowed by false hope. A real crime was seen as a deluded disturbance that could be done by ignoring it.

Fudge was being prejudice to people who wanted to tell him the truth. He shut his eyes and ears and being happy for not knowing the real truth. The wizards and witches around him were not helping. As it always happens in the chain of power, they didn’t tell Fudge the truth. Instead, they told him what he wanted to hear not what he needed.

For most people, the election in United States of America can mean many things. As it is one of the most powerful countries in the world, it affects the globe. Throughout his campaign, Trump kept avoiding the values of diversity. Instead of giving people hope to stick together trough hard times, he fed them with racism and hatred. No wonder people were afraid if he got elected.

After Umbridge becomes the inquisitor of Hogwarts, the face of the one thousand year old school had changed. But it was still the only place in the world of Harry Potter where one man called Albus Dumbledore tirelessly tried to wake Fudge up before everything was too late. But Dumbledore was not without flaws. His then unknown act of avoidance to Harry made him in the position of Fudge himself.

Fudge always found a way. He put one name under his noise to oversaw the school from his so-called enemies. Never before one person made Harry Potter’s readers more annoyed than Voldemort. Umbridge was a symbol of occupancy who tried to shut the truth behind the walls. The new era of Hogwarts under Umbridge is happening around us. There is one truth we need to learn.

Filled with intriguing political situation, the Order of the Phoenix isn’t a peaceful bookish-world. It examples an ignorance towards reality.

In the midst of anger towards Trump’s victory, it’s strange seeing how the world reacted. It’s weird how an election would bring a unity around the world to overcome hatred. At least in media social.

Dolores Umbridge’s hateful opinion towards Muggles and Half-Bloods made her Hogwarts’ occupancy more frightening. She had her own agenda. She’s a racist, bigot, and Trump’s possible best friend.

Trump’s black campaign towards Moslems, Latinos, and immigrants were unforgivable. It’s such a sad truth to realize that more than half of the voters seemed to be agree with him. But none must be mistaken.

In case of terrorism, it’s undeniable that their perception towards one community has changed drastically. But again, we cannot blame one mistake to another.

Long before the arrival of Alecto and Amycus Carrow, Umbridge ruled the darkest days in Hogwarts. With support from Fudge, she made unmistakably the craziest rules of them all. Our favorite trio, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, made a pact to fight undercover by founding Dumbledore’s Army.

It’s not difficult to imagine that some disappointed Americans will likely make a group or community that supports Hillary Clinton to the core. Perhaps, they’d follow Harry, Ron, and Hermione’ step to make Clinton’s Army. The point is, the votes that went to one of the strongest women on earth is as strong as the vote that went to Trump.

After getting rid of Dumbledore, Umbridge made it clear than no one in Hogwarts would stand on her ways. As a greedy leader, she needed to know everything that happened under her nose. She used Verita Serum to dig up the truths buried under the ground. But she missed one certain thing, she trusted unlikely teacher at school, Snape, who always knew that she was up to no good. He cheated her. It was a flaw in her plans.

From my point of view, Trump’s campaign is tricky. He didn’t play his part as a victim, instead he played his part nicely as a suspect. He started his campaign by attacking many Americans with racism. It was ugly and unforgiven. It didn’t matter if it’s serious or just a merely meaningless black campaign, but many people started to pay more attention to him.

The attention also encouraged by media and parodied by number one TV shows. For those who didn’t really understand what was going on, Trump’s faces emerged every day. In the opposite side, Clinton grabbed million hearts by her common good campaign. People loved her, yet the attention that went for her was nothing but usual.

It’s good but not a clever campaign. In a country where people are angry at bomb attacks, terrorism, and so on, Clinton’s solution was nothing new. Most of the times, angry people must be fed with what they want not with what they need.

When Harry was doing his OWL. he got a vision that his most beloved godfather was being tortured by Voldemort. That vision led him and his groups to go head to head with Umbridge. Brilliantly clever Hermione tricked Umbridge that ended up in getting rid of the most unwanted headmistress in Hogwarts’ history. Unfortunately, Harry’s decision to trust his vision instead of his friend’s brain almost made his friends paid.

Thousands of people in large states of America went to protest Trump’s presidency. The now elect-President Trump just becomes himself, whilst Clinton went to take a walk and unexpectedly met one of her voter who also took a walk after her unwanted losing.

If the history really repeats itself, the protest will go down. Americans need to accept the truth and face the next four years. It’s just hard to imagine, even for me who live across the globe and doesn’t have anything to do with it.

In the end, Harry needed to face the Death Eaters himself. His friends helped him but they were just a folk of students. When Voldemort came, Dumbledore showed up. The equally powerful wizards went to one of the most stunning duel in Harry Potter books’ history. As we are able to guess, the good always takes the winning.

That’s in the book — a novel where winnings are planned, where death is intended. As it is in reality, we are the writer of our books.

Hogwarts’ students in Harry’s fifth year should face their own reality. So does American and the rest of the world.The president-elect Donald Trump might not your choices, but his winning marked that everything is possible. And the darkest days in our land might come.

But as Hagrid once said, “What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does.”