Rita Skeeter

Hate Sink

Full Name

Rita Skeeter

Alias

Queen of the Quills

Origin

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Allies

Draco Malfoy

Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle
Pansy Parkinson

Powers/Skills

Magic

Insect transformation (blue beetle Animagus)
Quick-Quotes quill
Charms
Nonverbal magic
Intimidation
High intelligence
Manipulation
Deception

Goals

Become famous (succeeded).
Write outrageous reports and stories for the Daily Prophet.
Get rich.
Unearth Hagrid's giant origins and paint him as a mad man in the Daily Prophet.
Discredit Harry and Hermione by inventing a love triangle story
Discredit Dumbledore (all succeeded for years, ultimately failed).
Convince Harry and Hermione to be paid to write his testimony on Lord Voldemort's return to be published in the Quibbler (failed).
Unearth the secrets of the Dumbledore family and publish an autobiography of Dumbledore with all his secrets revealed after his death (succeeded).

What Makes Them Despicable

Invading the privacy of others and defaming them in her stories.

Her malicious, vindictive nature.

"Love to hate" factors

Miranda Richardson's performance.

She helped Harry reveal the truth about Voldemort's return to the public, albeit under Hermione's coercion.

Type of Hate Sink

Scandalous Reporter

“	You horrible woman! You don't care, do you, anything for a story, and anyone will do, won't they?	„
	~ Hermione Granger calling out Rita's writing style.

“	Young love! How stirring. If anything goes unfortunately today, you two may even make the front page!	„
	~ Rita to Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

Rita Skeeter is a supporting antagonist in the Harry Potter franchise. She is a journalist infamous for writing defamatory and scandalous stories about people in the Wizarding World.

She was portrayed by Miranda Richardson.

What Makes Her a Hate Sink?[]

She writes libelous articles and biographies about people and events, which are not only exaggerated or misleading but sometimes even entirely fabricated.
She spies on people and eavesdrops on private conversations in her animagus form as a beetle to find gossip for her writings.
She is implied to be prejudiced against giants, based on her article about Rubeus Hagrid.
She shows a vindictive personality, as when Hermione Granger criticised her for her libel, she retaliated by falsely accusing Hermione of toying with the emotions of Harry and Viktor Krum in one of her stories.
Her articles about Harry convinced Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic that he was untrustworthy and set the foundation for their smear campaign against him.
Although she did interview Harry about Lord Voldemort's return and allowed it to be printed in the Quibbler, this was only because Hermione blackmailed her into doing so. She even asked to be paid for the interview, relenting when Hermione threatened to expose her as an illegal animagus.
She forced Bathilda Bagshot through Veritaserum to tell her secrets from Albus Dumbledore's childhood and published a defamatory biography of Dumbledore based on them, just four weeks after his death.
She somehow kept her job two decades after the Battle of Hogwarts despite everything she did and commentated in her traditional style during the 2014 Quidditch World Cup, resulting in Ginny Potter giving her a cathartic jinx.
While a very vague character in the fourth movie compared to the seven novels, Warner Bros. still goes enough out of their way to establish that Skeeter is objectively a manipulative little prick, so she qualifies.

External Links[]

Rita Skeeter on the Villains Wiki

Navigation[]

Hate Sinks

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