Movies - Sybill Trelawney

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	Movies - Sybill Trelawney

Sybill Patricia Trelawney (Sibyll Patricia Trelawney in the United States) is a fictional character who appears in J.K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels.

Trelawney wears many gaudy bangles, cloaks and shawls, all covered with shining sequins. She also wears thick glasses, which cause her eyes to appear greatly magnified. She affects ethereal and misty tones when speaking. Her classroom is in the North Tower of Hogwarts. A fire is always going, scented quite heavily with perfumes that often make students either fall asleep or make wondrous predictions of the future.

She is great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated seer Cassandra Trelawney, named after Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess in Classical mythology. Despite frequent comparisons to Cassandra, she does not live up to her ancestor, having made only two verifiably correct prophecies (although the Trojan Cassandra was blessed to make true prophecies, but cursed to always be disbelieved) . Trelawney was played by Emma Thompson in the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Trelawney at Hogwarts

Trelawney is professor of Divination at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger believe Trelawney is a fraud, with which the teachers (particularly Professor Minerva McGonagall) are inclined to agree. Her credibility as a Seer is undermined by her habit of making repeated predictions each year that one of her students will die - pronouncements which have never yet come true.

In Harry's third year (his first in Divination), Trelawney began to predict his imminent demise. During every class thereafter, she continued to insinuate that his death could come at any time, to the great irritation of Harry and his friends. Eventually, in part due to this habit of Trelawney's, Hermione dropped the class. Harry and Ron continued Divination studies until their fifth year, at the end of which they failed the exams and could not continue further - although neither was upset about this.

In 1996, Professor Trelawney was put on probation by Dolores Umbridge, Hogwarts High Inquisitor. This news pushed Trelawney into a spiral of alcohol-induced paranoia, and she was subsequently seen around the school clutching a bottle of cooking sherry and moaning about her victimisation at Umbridge's hands.

Her fears were proved justified when Umbridge dismissed Trelawney, although Dumbledore exercised his remaining authority as Headmaster to prevent Umbridge from evicting Trelawney to boot. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince it is revealed that Dumbledore feared for Trelawney's safety if she ventured outside the school, since Lord Voldemort would probably want to obtain from her the prediction she made concerning him. Dumbledore employed a centaur named Firenze as Trelawney's replacement. Trelawney was reinstated after Umbridge was ousted from the school and returned to the Ministry of Magic. Much to her displeasure, Trelawney now shared responsibility for teaching Divination with Firenze.

On a different note, Trelawney's first name is spelled differently as the books progress. From her first appearance in the Prisoner of Azkaban through the Order of the Phoenix, it is spelled "Sibyll." But in the Half-Blood Prince, it is re-spelled as "Sybill", though this is presumably an error--or purposeful change--by the author. (This applies in the American versions only.)

Prophecy

Trelawney has been at Hogwarts since 1979 (seventeen years, by the end of Harry's sixth year) and has made only two real predictions. Both of them involve Lord Voldemort. The first prediction was made during her interview for her teaching post at Hogwarts. She told Harry that initially Dumbledore did not seem encouraging, but by the end was much keener to employ her. She is unaware that she made a prophecy, and only remembers feeling slightly faint and unwell, which she attributed to not having eaten. She then recalled being interrupted as the Barman and Severus Snape burst into the room. The first prophecy is:

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