Irregular Webcomic! #684

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< No. 684 >

Comic #684

For those who came in late, this refers back to the infamous former Care of Magical Creatures teacher.

And for those who don't know this particular theory about the Harry Potter books (warning: major spoilers follow):

In book 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was Professor Quirrel, who was evil.
In book 2, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was Gilderoy Lockhart, who was incompetent.
In book 3, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was Remus Lupin, who was good.
In book 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was Barty Crouch Junior (masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody), who was evil.

At this point, many people in the Harry Potter fan community formulated the theory that this evil-incompetent-good cycle was a real feature of the series, and ended up expecting the DADA teacher in book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, to be incompetent. Dolores Umbridge was, however, more than merely incompetent, as she actively attempted to thwart Harry's attempts to warn the wizarding community of the return of Lord Voldemort and inflicted ever more severe and unjustified punishments on him.

Some readers claim that Umbridge was merely misguided and hence fits the incompetent label, but it's easier (at least to my mind) to consider her evil and the whole cycle thing to be an unintentional artefact of dealing with a small sample of only four books.

* Retitled Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone in the United States, to make it more obvious to religious fundamentalists that the book is about magic and therefore dangerous.

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