Cornelius Fudge

Fudge is the Minister for Magic (only in Britain, though, it appears) and the series' bumbling old fool both. Basically a comic character, he is a rarity for a magician - one that is a confirmed skeptic. He is airy, vague, and rather gullible. He also is not very good at his job - from Hagrid's conversation with Harry in Book 1 we know that he asks Dumbledore for help at regular intervals (like daily).

Ahem. Anyway, despite all that Fudge basically usually means well. His primary job is, after all, to keep the peace in the magical world and he does exactly this - ignoring threats in favour of stability. He is a confirmed Dementor supporter (in that he likes having them around) and is extremely conservative.

He is quite funny, though, mainly because in the light of all that is going on his ignorance seems even more ridiculous. And he's a rather bad liar. His comment 'we don't send people to Azkaban just for blowing up their Aunts' is a fairly good indicator of his intelligence level. In other words, he's a total klutz.

As a result, he is influenced very easily, and responds to Rita Skeeter's writing in exactly the way she would probably want him to. He begins by the end of the fourth book to distrust Harry, Hagrid, and even Dumbledore. At the end of the fourth book, his attitude towards his job becomes dangerous, as he point blank refuses to believe anything Harry or Dumbledore say about Voldemort's return.

He'll probably be a far more important character later, as his attitude towards Harry's information increases the danger already posed by Voldemort. He'll probably be a lot less humorous, too and - since the HP series is written from harry's perspective - a lot less kindly. Oh well, you can't always win. *Sigh*