Firenze (Harry Potter)
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| Harry Potter Character | |
 |
|
| Firenze | |
|---|---|
| Sex | Male |
| Hair Colour | White-Blond/black |
| Eye Colour | Blue/yellow |
| Residence | Hogwarts (formerly the Forbidden Forest) |
| Species | Centaur |
| Allegiance | Unknown |
| Voice Actor | Ray Fearon |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
Firenze is the name of a character in the Harry Potter series of novels by J. K. Rowling. Firenze is a centaur and appears in books one, five and six.
Firenze's first appearance comes towards the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in which he rescues Harry from Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Having carried Harry to safety on his back, Firenze is involved in an altercation with the other centaurs resident in the Forest, who object to the symbolic suggestion that centaurs are subservient to humans. They argue further about the responsibility of centaurs to read the future in the stars and whether it is correct to intervene in the unfolding of that future. Firenze remains with his herd but he is clearly at odds on some issues.
The character does not make another appearance until Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in which he is appointed by the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, to teach Divination at Hogwarts in place of Sybill Trelawney, who has been sacked by High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge. When Harry sees Firenze in class, it is obvious that Firenze has been attacked, and it emerges that he was indeed cast out of the centaur herd for agreeing to answer Dumbledore's request for help. Firenze ignored the centaurs' taboo on assisting humans because he felt he had an obligation to contribute to the struggle against Lord Voldemort. At the end of the fifth book, Firenze remained a member of the teaching staff, and in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince he shares teaching duties with a reinstated Professor Trelawney, a situation which she finds most distasteful. The reason Dumbledore keeps them both on, he explains to Harry, is that he can ask neither to leave: while Trelawney is wanted by the Death Eaters for her prophecy, Firenze would have no place left to go, being an exile from his herd.
His appearance in the movie is much more bestial than that suggested in the book; in the story he is described as having white-blond hair and deep blue eyes, and girls at the school are apparently very intrigued by his upper-half at least. His bottom half is that of a palomino horse.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, he is mentioned by Professor Trelawney as "Dobbin". This is probably intended to be derogatory; "Dobbin" is a traditional name for a domesticated horse, much as "Fido" is a traditional name for a dog.
Firenze bears some resemblance to Chiron, a centaur who tutored many of the ancient Greek heroes in astronomy and medicine. Firenze is the Italian name for the city English speakers call Florence. His name was probably chosen because Florence is the last resting place of Galileo Galilei, the first modern astronomer.
