Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Rita Skeeter
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| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Character | |
| Rita Skeeter | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Hair color | Blonde |
| Eye color | Unknown, behind large spectacles |
| Related Family | Unknown |
| Loyalty | Galleons |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Rita Skeeter is a free-lance journallist specializing in writing poison-pen stories based on false information and misreported interviews. Her recording tool is a green "Quick-Quotes Quill" that she apparently likes the taste of. Her stories have appeared in The Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, and, when blackmailed by Hermione Granger, The Quibbler – this last publication does not pay for stories.
[edit] Role in the Books
[edit] Goblet of Fire
Rita Skeeter is first mentioned after the Quidditch World Cup, where the Muggles in charge of the campsite are attacked by Death Eaters. Rita's story, appearing in The Daily Prophet, over-sensationalizes events, and includes some inventions such as supposed dead people being removed from the forest after the Dark Mark appeared. Molly Weasley, reading this, comments that Rita's stories always contain fabrications and should not be believed.
A week later, Ludo Bagman mentions that Rita has heard about Bertha Jorkins' disappearance, and she soon writes a story about it.
When the Goblet of Fire selects Harry as a Triwizard Champion, Skeeter interviews him at the Wand Weighing ceremony. However, her 'Quick-Quotes Quill' fabricates many of his supposed comments, such as, "Sometimes at night I still cry about them. I'm not ashamed to admit it." Harry is both troubled and embarrassed by these erroneous statements.
Following the First Task, as Harry returns to the Castle with Ron, she appears from behind a bush in the Forbidden Forest, asking Harry for a word. Harry provides her with one: "Goodbye."
Skeeter later interviews Hagrid, supposedly for an article about the Blast-Ended Skrewts. While she is setting up the interview, Ron wonders how she got there – hadn't she been banned from Hogwarts? She actually wants to pump Hagrid for information about Harry for another scurrilous story, although Hagrid refuses to say anything negative about him. When she later discovers Hagrid's Giant ancestry, she writes an awful article claiming he is dangerous to students and brutal in his classes.
When Harry is watching the courtroom scenes in Dumbledore's Pensieve, he spots a younger Rita Skeeter in the audience, with the same Quick-Quotes Quill, reporting the trial.
During the Hogsmeade visit just before the second Triwizard task, the trio encounters Skeeter, who approaches Harry for another interview, but Hermione chases her off, telling her she ruins peoples' lives. This leads Harry to suspect Hermione will be Rita's next victim. Indeed, in her first Harry article, Rita had hinted about a romance between Harry and Hermione, at least according to Colin Creevey. Soon, a vengeful Rita, now writing for Witch Weekly, claims in a new story that Hermione, whom she calls "plain," may be using illegal love potions on both Harry and Viktor Krum. Soon after, Witch Weekly readers send anonymous and threatening letters to Hermione.
After the final Triwizard challenge, Hermione traps a beetle while visiting Harry in the school infirmary: it is Rita Skeeter, who is an unregistered Animagus. That is how she eavesdrops on private conversations and reports them in her articles. Hermione suspected she was an Animagus after observing Draco Malfoy conversing with a small object, shortly before the article about Hagrid appeared. She also recalled that whenever any secrets were discussed in private conversations, they soon appeared in Rita's stories, and there had always been a large beetle in the vicinity. Hermione tells Skeeter she will not report her as an unregistered Animagus if she abstains from writing any stories for the next year.
[edit] Order of the Phoenix
Rita is seen again when Hermione meets with her in Hogsmeade village. When Hermione had forced Skeeter to stop writing stories for one year by threatening to expose her as an unregistered Animagus, Rita fell upon hard times. This was evidenced by her once fashionable clothing that had became frayed and worn.
After Harry's assertion that Voldemort has returned (in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), the Ministy of Magic waged a smear campaign against him and Dumbledore in The Daily Prophet, disputing his claims. To garner support for Harry, Hermione blackmailed Skeeter into writing a favorable story about Harry that Luna Lovegood's father published in his paper, The Quibbler. Rita's story convinced many readers that Harry was telling the truth and Voldemort had returned.
After the Battle at the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius Fudge personally sees that Voldemort has returned. Shortly after, the Daily Prophet reverses its editorial stance, and Harry once again becomes a hero. The Prophet buys the rights to the Quibbler interview and runs it as an "exclusive".
[edit] Half-Blood Prince
Although Rita is presumably writing for The Daily Prophet, she plays no role in the story.
[edit] Deathly Hallows
The Daily Prophet sends a reporter to interview Rita as a result of her having written a book. This book, a scurrilous and unauthorized biography of Dumbledore, is a typical Skeeter hatchet-job, putting the worst possible interpretation on everything that was known of Dumbledore's early life. This book, which alleged that Dumbledore's sister Ariana was a Squib who had been locked away from society for all her young life, that Dumbledore had been friends with the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald as a youth and had been discussing his plan to take over the entire world, and that Aberforth had broken Albus' nose at Ariana's funeral, among other things, leaves Harry wondering about his hero. Harry's worries about Dumbledore, inspired by this book, are only put to rest when Aberforth later tells Harry what actually happened.
[edit] Strengths
Little is known about Skeeter's magical talents, although she learned to become an (unregistered) Animagus, which apparently takes considerable wizarding ability. She appears to be an intelligent and resourceful journalist, who uses whatever means she can to uncover information for her stories. As an unregistered Animagus, she uses her beetle form to eavesdrop on unsuspecting witches and wizards who are then victimized by her scurrilous pieces.
Skeeter intuitively knows her readership and works hard and fast to meet their expectations. Her biography of Dumbledore is researched and written in just a few weeks after his death. Skeeter is able to gain the confidence of Bathilda Bagshot and others, which allows her to document unpleasant aspects of Dumbledore's youth, many based on fact.
[edit] Weaknesses
Vain and self-serving, Skeeter is an unethical journalist who uses any means to gather information, accurate or false, for her sensationalistic stories. She cares little for how her subjects are affected by her malicious lies, and uses an enchanted "Quick-Quotes Quill" to fabricate "quotes" for her articles.
[edit] Relationships with Other Characters
While we don't see much of Rita's relationships with other people, we do see that Rita seems to have a good working relationship with her photographer. Perhaps this is possible because she has no intention of ever writing anything about him. Anyone else would have to guard what they say around her for fear of having their life histories published, slanted for maximum readership (thus maximum scurrilousness). Likely because of this, Rita has co-workers, but we see no sign of friends.
Among those she interviews, Rita seems to be regarded with emotions ranging from anger at her misinterpretation of what she said (Elphias Doge, Hermione), through fear that more such misinterpretations may be coming (Rubeus Hagrid, Harry Potter), to, at its mildest, cheerful dismissal of anything she has to say or write (Albus Dumbledore).
[edit] Analysis
At the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Daily Prophet buys the publishing rights to Skeeter's interview with Harry that appeared in The Quibbler. It is interesting that the galleons paid for that story go to the Lovegoods; quite possibly, Rita receives nothing. This may increase her hatred of Harry and Hermione, though any story that appears critical of them will be spiked in the editorial environment of the day. It is entirely possible that this is why she turned her eye on Dumbledore at the start of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; if nothing else, Rita is a realist and would know that with Potter still "the Chosen One", she would not be able to get anything published against him. As the tide turned, and Harry became "Undesireable Number One" with a price on his head, it is likely that a large part of the venom hitting the press about him was hers.
Rita is not at all selective with her venom; it appears that previous to her book about Dumbledore, she had written a similar book about Armando Dippet, the headmaster at Hogwarts before Dumbledore. That book is mentioned only in passing, on the cover of the Dumbledore book: Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?
