EDITED TO ADD: I've since changed my mind as to everything I said in this post. I no longer think that Minerva was as bad as Umbridge or anything like that. I do, however, still think they handled it a bit poorly, which is why I'm not simply deleting this post so that people can talk about it.


I was reading OOTP,and something bothered me that I can't justify. In the chapter thirty, Peeves starts causing mischief. Of course he causes it to knock Umbridge off her position,right after Fred and George left. But he is described as "juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, flooded the second floor,etc." And several students dropped dungbombs "so frequently that in the corriders that it became the new fashion for students to perform "Bubble-Head Charms on themselves before leaving lessons.

Now my question is, why did the teachers allow this? Sure, Umbridge is horrible, sure they should try to overthrow her and get back Dumbledore, but the ways in which they were doing it was completely out of character. Aren't these teachers supposed to care for the school and the students? So why in Merlin's pants were teachers like McGonagall encouraging Peeves to continue breaking things and terrifying students? And remember, this wasn't just the Inquisition Squad that were being bombarded. Basically just about anyone was being attacked. So it seems very silly and out of character that noble teachers like McGonagall would allow and encourage activities that could endanger the students (especially those first years), just because the Headmaster is rotten. Isn't the reason why everyone hates Umbidge because she thinks the ends justify the means? She tortures people? Well in that case the teachers were acting just as bad.
Tell me what you think about this.

I don't think it was out of character at all. You have to remember that a great number of the teachers were in the original order, so they are a rebellious bunch. It was basically harmless kaos. They couldn't directly disrupt things themselves without being fired or much worse, so they let the students and peeves take care of things and just looked the other way.

I strongly disagree with this, wow. Peeves doesn't terrify, just annoy. I'm sure that no one was seriously injured or had harm come to them other than perhaps the odd jinx that is reversible. I hardly think that the teachers allowing things like fake swamps and peeves throwing things, equates to torture; like using a students own blood as ink. They are NOWHERE NEAR similar. Umbridge actively participated in harming students and broke laws, the teachers merely allowed the students and ghosts to be disruptive to the everyday running of things. Umbridge was vindictive and cruel, the teachers were not. To say they are the same is very inaccurate.

Well,annoy might be what it really was,but in the book,the word "terrified" is used. When Peeves was swinging torches above people's heads.

Okay,they are not nearly as bad as Umbridge. I agree,I hadn't looked at it in that way.

I think you have a valid and well-thought out point. I'd say the only thing they allowed to go a little too far was the Peeves stuff, especially juggling the burning torches. However, the damage done to the school can be pretty much fixed with the wave of Dumbledore's wand. I do think the end justified the means in this case, but the means was nowhere near as bad as what Umbridge and the Ministry was up to. I suppose you have to take the lesser of two evils, especially if the lesser one (letting mayhem spread) makes Umbridge look bad and eventually gets things back to normal (or as normal as Hogwarts can be!).

True,the damage can be repaired. But would the plan even work? In real life,when a school gets attacked by parents for having problems,the headmaster is not the only one who gets the blame. The whole staff usually gets the same treatment. I can't even think of one time in real life where only the headmaster was blamed. So wouldn't the teachers at Hogwarts be playing right into Fudge's hands by allowing chaos to sweep the school? The teachers would be blamed just as much,so their plan seems a bit silly. What they should have been doing was continue their normal jobs at the school,cause after all,if Umbridge decided,couldn't she just fire the teachers? And then there would be no good staff left behind.

okay, yeah teachers get blamed for a lot of stuff, but, they weren't actually doing anything, so Umbridge had no excuse to fire them. They were simply not preventing things from happening. Take like a person in high school being mad at thier friend. They pass someone in the halls and overhear that person say something negative about thier friend. If not angry with said friend, they would call this person out. However because they are angry, they just keep walking. The friend couldn't get angry at them for this, because the first person did nothing. They didn't actively bash the other, but they didn't prevent others from doing so. This is similar, though on a smaller scale, as to what the Hogwarts teachers did. They didn't participate in the chaos, but they didn't stop it. And the Bloody Baron has Peeves so obedient that Peeves wouldn't dare actually hurt any student, and if the "Terrified" students stopped to think, they would come to that same conclusion. Umbridge was HURTING students. Actively. She was pure evil.

Well I suppose the teachers hated her more than they let on. I mean, they did hate her enough to want to drive her out of hogwarts, so I imagine that they did everything they thought possible to do so. Plus, I don't think the other teachers had the authority to remove or prevent Fred, george and peeves' actions due to one of Umbridges decrees.

I guess due to one of her decrees the professors didnt have the authority to stop everything.