What was gilderoy lockhart most gifted at
She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans and it turned out great. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.
When she's not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey go Avs! Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round. After Hagrid's arrest, Lockhart openly claimed to be certain that Hagrid was truly guilty, [15] but whether this was a real hint of ill will or another sign of Lockhart's ignorance is unknown. By his own claims written in his many published works , his favourite colour was lilac, his secret ambitions were to rid the world of evil and to market his own range of hair care potions, and that he desired harmony between magic and non-magic peoples as a birthday present.
His empty ambitiousness shown since his studentship, such as claiming to create a Philosopher's Stone before graduation, captain the England Quidditch team into championship before knuckling down to become the youngest Minister for Magic yet accomplishing none of which he speak, it is very likely his "secret ambition" and "ideal birthday present" were just the same meaningless claims to gain attention.
After losing his memory, however, Lockhart became a much more humble and happier person, even if he did not particularly know it. Upon seeing Harry and Ginny after the spell hit him, he greeted them cheerfully and spent most of the time humming to himself absentmindedly.
When addressed as Professor, he expressed surprise at the idea and remarked that he must have been hopeless, without any reluctance at all. Despite forgetting his desire for fame and attention, he continued to enjoy signing autographs and responding to fan letters, a trait that Harry noted had not changed.
In his youth, Gilderoy was acknowledged by his professors as having been cleverer than most of his classmates, having been of above-average in intelligence and ability, and for having had the potential to become a great wizard by his teachers, had he just decided to work hard to get there. Years of misuse and abandonment and sole focus on the Memory Charm eventually diminished and rusted his magical abilities nearly beyond repair, thus making him unskilled and incompetent in most fields of magic.
Lockhart's wand , an expensive cherry wand. Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart. Lockhart was an accomplished author, with twelve of his books shown. Although nine of them were supposed to be about eradicating dark forces , they were in fact just recollections of his experiences of which he stole from other people and his personal profiles, somewhat an extension of his autobiography, and contained a good deal of invented details as opposed to pure facts.
Due to the immense popularity, the books were very expensive; he gifted an entire set to Harry Potter as a publicity stunt at Flourish and Blotts , which Harry donated to Ginny Weasley. Lockhart assigned seven of these books to be his textbooks for his Defence Against the Dark Arts course, though it was simply an excuse for him to sell his works to the students, [11] as none of them had any educational usefulness. He gave an overly long " little quiz " during the first lesson to test out how much his students took in from his collected works, but most showed little interest and did poorly.
Gilderoy was born in the Lockhart family , with a Muggle father , witch mother , and two elder sisters , both of whom were Squibs. His mother loved him more than she did her two daughters, which, when combined with Gilderoy's revealed wizardry and acceptance into Hogwarts, lead his vanity to grow like a weed. Both mother and son were too excited to remember that Hogwarts accepts all magical students from Britain and Ireland, and she was as deluded as her son in thinking that he was special amongst all children of his age.
Due to Mrs Lockhart's overly love and pampering, she completely spoiled and deluded her son, which would lead to a very negative impact on his future. When Gilderoy was admitted to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries due to self-inflicted amnesia, none of his family members nor relatives visited him. This implies that they too despised him and had no desire to spend time with him, or that they were even unaware of his unfortunate predicament, or had simply cut all contacts with him before.
Even his mother who overly doted him did not visit, suggesting that she was either deceased or came to hate him for his vain and annoying antics. Most of Lockhart's fans were composed of middle-aged housewives, such as Molly Weasley , [10] [11] and young schoolgirls, such as Hermione Granger and Susan Bones. Lockhart's notable fans, such as Gladys Gudgeon and Veronica Smethley , regularly wrote him adoring fan mail. During his time as a Hogwarts student, Lockhart was already unpopular with the school's residents, students like The Marauders and Severus Snape and the staff alike, almost immediately due to him being a spoiled child with a brat's sense of entitlement, self-delusions, and obnoxious personality.
He was expecting everyone to whisper and stare about him and found it dull and disappointing when they did not, especially when they were not particularly impressed by his naturally wavy hair, of which he was very proud. His attempts to gain himself more attention did him little good; instead they made him more of an annoying troublemaker when he begged Headmaster Albus Dumbledore to start a school newspaper solely for his own name to appear in its print, carved his name into the Quidditch pitch earning him a weeks' worth of detentions , shooting a hologram of his own face into the sky like the Dark Mark, and sending himself eight-hundred Valentines, causing breakfast to be cancelled due to the number of droppings and feathers in the porridge.
His squandering of his own talents and refusal to take his studies seriously also earned him the scorn of his teachers, when they once hoped that if he had worked hard, he might have made something positive of his gifts.
Lockhart's graduation was met with a faint sigh of relief from the entire staff. It was easily apparent that all of them would not hesitate to and perhaps even looked for opportunities to punish Lockhart out of sheer annoyance of his troublemaking and attention seeking personality, with the only Professor who didn't resent Lockhart and was willing to tolerate his antics appeared to be Dumbledore, as he apparently saw Lockhart's antics as amusing rather than irritating, evidenced by the fact that Lockhart's pleads for Dumbledore to start a school newspaper was the only time where Lockhart managed to get away unpunished.
When word of his supposed accomplishments of Defence Against the Dark Arts have reached his former educators' and, in Snape's case, peers ears, they began to think that they had misjudged him due to his seeming resilience and bravery, unaware he was a mere charlatan who stole the credit of accomplishments made by true heroes.
This misunderstanding, however, did not change their opinion on his annoying, attention-seeking personality, and they would later see him as the incompetent fraud he was. Albus Dumbledore , the only professor who did not resent Lockhart but was responsible for his exposure as a fraud. When Lockhart had erased the memories of two wizards Dumbledore knew personally, Dumbledore, having never been fooled by Lockhart's tall tales and always being suspicious of how Lockhart came to fame due to knowing just what kind of a person Lockhart was, easily deduced the truth behind Lockhart's fame and saw through his charade and decided to track him down and make him pay for his crimes.
Dumbledore offered Lockhart a position as the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, under the correct belief that school is the best location to expose the fraud for what he was.
Lockhart was reluctant at first, as he was more interested in his successful career as an author, but was instantly swayed when Dumbledore mentioned Harry Potter's fame, which Lockhart would believe as a boost to his own. Dumbledore appeared to be the only one who Lockhart didn't express superiority to and possibly held some level of respect for his old headmaster. During his tenure in the — school year , Lockhart made an utter mess out of the subject due to his incompetence and ignorance.
He also annoyed most of the teachers some of whom remembered during his time as a student [1] by making unsolicited advice to look as though he was superior to them in every one of their fields while constantly proving otherwise with his consistently terrible performances. As such, his coworkers found him extremely obnoxious and could not take him seriously as a professor. Lockhart's insensitive nature embarrassed Snape and Flitwick on Valentine's Day , when he made comments about Love Potions and Entrancing Enchantments regarding them, respectively, while disgusting everyone else by just overdecorating the Great Hall , and releasing dwarfs throughout the school to deliver Valentines, interrupting classes in progress.
Rubeus Hagrid , who had disdain for Lockhart. Even Rubeus Hagrid, who normally would never have criticised a teacher, publicly expressed disdain for Lockhart and did not believe any of Lockhart's fabricated claims, saying that he would eat his kettle if one word of it were true.
When Hagrid was sent to Azkaban based on Cornelius Fudge 's misguided beliefs, Lockhart adamantly believed Hagrid to be guilty of opening the Chamber of Secrets , despite future events and the continuous tension of the atmosphere proved otherwise. Severus Snape , who particularly disliked Lockhart. Gilderoy was particularly disliked by Professor Snape for not only taking the teaching post he coveted so much but also for his constant and presumptuous attempts to advise Snape with largely nonsensical suggestions: In fact, Lockhart was probably on top of the list of the DADA professor that Snape resented the most, with the only possible exception being Remus Lupin , who even then still got along better with Snape than Lockhart despite Snape's resentment.
Snape looked as though he was prepared to kill Lockhart during the Duelling Club, as Harry described, and something even Lockhart eventually saw when he looked at Snape's expression. The other teachers agreed unanimously, in the hopes of scaring Lockhart away, especially considering he had walked in obliviously while the other teachers were devastated by Ginny's impending doom; it was during this situation that they were all glaring at him with genuine hatred, something that he remained oblivious to.
In revenge, they took Lockhart's earlier claims and used it against him, while ignoring his attempt to stammer his way out with feeble excuses. While he was unpopular during his time as a student, [1] Lockhart, as a teacher, had a mixed relationship with the students of Hogwarts: about half of them admired him for his celebrity status, while the other half resented him for being obnoxious and fake.
However, by the end of the year, when Lockhart revealed his own fraudulence and left school due to his accidental self-induced amnesia, pretty much every student gave their round of applause at the news. The half of the students who initially admired him were mostly girls like Hermione Granger and Susan Bones , who fell for his good looks, and Muggle-born students who actually believed in the accomplishments in his books, such as Justin Finch-Fletchley and Colin Creevey.
However, when he was finally exposed as a fraud, the boys most likely abandoned their faith in him. Much like most of the faculty, the other half of the students simply found Lockhart to be annoying. Many of them showed little knowledge or interest in his history or published works, as they all did rather poorly on his "little" quiz that purely consisted of questions about him.
Even those who showed no outright sympathy either for or against Lockhart, such as the Slytherins , appeared to have no respect for and could easily enjoy and mock him behind his back, as Draco Malfoy mocked Harry for being dragged into the spotlight by the professor, [11] and along with the other Slytherins cheered when Snape effortlessly grounded Lockhart at the Duelling Club with the Disarming Charm. It appears that the only one in the Staff and virtually all of Hogwarts who had any amount of pity and compassion for Lockhart and his current state was Dumbledore himself.
While he had purposefully intended for Lockhart to be exposed as a fraud to the Wizarding World and evidently disapproved of Lockhart's attention-seeking , Dumbledore notably chose not to expose Lockhart's crimes to the public. Despite Lockhart's fraudulent nature, Dumbledore likely thought that the loss of his memory was punishment enough.
Since Lockhart would not remember either the so called accomplishments or his fraudulent behaviour, it would be cruel to expose him to a likely sentence in Azkaban. It is also notable that unlike all the other professors, Dumbledore was always civil and cordial to Lockhart despite knowing of his crimes, further implying while Dumbledore decided to expose Lockhart, he bore no personal animosity to him and only did so to protect more heroes from being denied their rights to be acknowledged for their deeds.
Lockhart himself clearly admired and respected Dumbledore, as he never claimed to surpass Dumbledore and was always polite to him and he never annoyed him directly or indirectly, which is a sharp contrast compared to his interactions with the other teachers, indicating that despite his vanity, Lockhart's acknowledgement of how great Dumbledore also came with the acknowledgement that Dumbledore obviously surpassed him, a fact that was very much true.
It appears that before he lost his memories that Dumbledore was the only staff member that Lockhart ever had any respect for.
Harry Potter , who was irritated and infruriated by Lockhart. Harry Potter particularly disliked Lockhart for dragging him into the spotlight against his will, beginning with the book-signing during which Lockhart made a spectacle out of Harry as a publicity stunt, [11] and for making Harry seem as though he was constantly seeking attention only to finally get told by Hagrid that Harry was more famous than him without trying; the only reason Lockhart returned to Hogwarts to teach was under the presumption that getting close to Harry would boost his own popularity.
Lockhart only further infuriated Harry by doing far more damage than help when he vanished Harry's arm bones instead of mending them when they were broken by Dobby's tampered Bludger , requiring him to use Skele-Gro.
Harry would further dislike Lockhart for insisting that Rubeus Hagrid is guilty of opening the Chamber of Secrets , simply based on the Minister's incorrect move of arresting Hagrid as a preventive measure, and barely resisted the urge to throw a book into his face. Because of his growing hatred for Lockhart, Harry would use Lockhart's ignorance against him with pleasure, by requesting him to sign a permission slip for a library book in the Restricted Section that no other teachers would so easily do, [26] and then have Lockhart return to class prematurely so Harry and Ron can sneak off from all security measures set.
When Snape easily sent Lockhart flying backwards at the Duelling Club , Harry didn't felt any sympathy for him despite the fact that it was Snape who did it. Upon Lockhart inadvertently revealing his fraudulence in his refusal to enter the Chamber of Secrets , Harry's dislike and fury intensified, and swiftly disarmed Lockhart with such force that he sent the man falling back on his trunk.
Neither Harry nor Ron had any qualms about attacking Lockhart and forcing him to enter the Chamber, and they even made him go first as a buffer for any approaching harm. Ronald Weasley , who particularly disliked and disdained Lockhart. Ron Weasley, who was already annoyed the book-signing at Flourish and Blotts made it look as though his family was unimportant, [11] saw Lockhart for what he really was during their first lesson, when the professor gave a test completely irrelevant to the subject, and then released a boisterous group of pixies he was unable to contain.
Ron's disgust deepened over the year, when Lockhart's continuous ineptitude annoyed him repeatedly, going as far as wanting to drop out of Lockhart's class because of it, [27] feeling very revolted alongside the rest of the staff with Lockhart's over-decorative "morale booster" on Valentine's day , [29] sickened by Lockhart's overly lavish peacock quill something Lockhart completely misinterpreted as admiration , and reached a critical level when Lockhart attempted to flee while allowing Ron's sister to die in the Chamber of Secrets; when they finally discovered where the fabled Chamber was, and that Lockhart inadvertently admitted himself as a fraud, Ron demanded that Lockhart go first into the Chamber as a test subject.
Hermione Granger , who was smitten by Lockhart. Unlike Ron and Harry, Hermione Granger was a big fan of Lockhart, showing excitement at the prospect at meeting him at Flourish and Blotts , saying that he has written almost the entire book list. Ron Weasley also noticed that she had outlined Lockhart's lessons on her timetable with hearts. It was presumed she was shocked when Lockhart was exposed as a fraud.
It was possible, however, that she simply fell for his good looks, as she was described to be breathless when she saw him at St Mungo's, despite Lockhart's true nature already having been revealed. Also, when she claimed that she didn't like someone just because they're handsome in their fourth year , Ron coughed the word "Lockhart". When Gilderoy was admitted into St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries due to his self-inflicted amnesia, the Healer in charge of his ward, Miriam Strout, took great care of him.
She was very motherly to him, catering to his condition with an affectionate tone, leading him back into his room when he slipped out while speaking kindly to him as though he was a child out of place. She also took pity on him for the fact that nobody visited him, not even any of his family members. Gilderoy was a name that J. Rowling found in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
According to the dictionary , the name belongs to two different highway men who were both described as incredibly handsome. Gilderoy is an Irish and Scottish name that refers back to Gilroy , which means "son of the red-haired servant", or "son of the king's servant.
Interestingly, "Gilderoy" is similar to the term "gilded", which means both to cover something in a thin layer of gold to appear valuable and golden when in reality it isn't , and "wealthy and privileged", both of which apply well to Gilderoy's character. Rowling found the name Lockhart on a war memorial [37] at a church in Edinburgh, and found it to be "a hollow kind of name", befitting of the character.
The word Lockhart is of Scottish origin and is said to mean "brave" and "hardy", which is ironic compared to his character. Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. Lockhart as a POP! Lockhart wearing blue robes as a POP! Vinyl special edition.
Lockhart as he appears in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. And, very clearly, the bones are not broken. Sir Kenneth Branagh was the perfect addition to the series.
Not only is he a wonderful actor, but he also brought the character alive like no other actor could! You knew that whenever he showed up, something ridiculous was about to happen! Okay, so I have to credit Martin from our London team for this addition, but he nailed it! Take for example the disastrous dueling session.