House elves and holidays

[LynnP333 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 16843

( First off... I hope my mail thingy here on AOL doesn't add blank spaces 
between all the lines as it has been annoyingly doing when I post to yahoo... 
My apologies if it does. )

Scott wrote:
<~~~snipola~~~>
>Hermione's whole SPEW concept goes 
>against popular wizarding belief. Even those who subconciously think 
>"Maybe she IS right" don't want to believe it, since it is so much 
>easier to just accept things the way they are. Remember when 
>Dumbledore said "You will have to choose between what is easy and 
>what is right." (paraphrased). I think that is as true for the HE(')s 
>as it is for Voldemort's return.
>
>Where JKR takes this subplot in future books will be interesting 
>indeed.
<~~~further snipola~~~>

I totally agree Scott.  I sympathize with Hermione's efforts too and I 
commend J.K.R. for making it an even harder concept to defend by making those 
Hermione sees as oppressed (the house elves), not see or agree to it 
themselves.  It makes Hermione's job a lot tougher, trying to convince the 
"oppressed ones" that they are indeed oppressed, and makes it a hard sell to 
wizards even more so.  

It could have been a very obvious (i.e., boring) sub plot ... creating an 
oppressed, disgruntled group of house elves to be gloriously liberated by an 
enlightened Hermione and members of S.P.E.W., thereby bringing them and their 
powers over to Dumbledore's side, but J.K.R. made it wonderfully gray and 
muddy.  Quite a dilemma and challenge for Hermione.  

When I first read about S.P.E.W., I related it more to the Muggle perceptions 
on animal rights (my own personal S.P.E.W. type thing) than to slavery of 
humans though, since the human slavery issue would involve dissidents and 
overwhelming hatred of being enslaved from the inside to change things 
effectively.  Since that aspect doesn't seem to be the case with house elves 
(at least to any significant degree as yet), I didn't go too far with that 
analogy in trying to understand it.
I instead compared the generally human perception of where animals stand in 
the Muggle world as almost parallel to where house elves stand in the wizard 
world ...including the attitude that "it's always been this way and that's 
how it was created to be so it should be that way till the end of time" sort 
of thinking, and the comparison of animals not being able to speak for 
themselves (creating a difficult sell to other humans that animals do not 
deserve to be used by humans in any manner they choose to use them 
whatsoever) to that of house elves not seeing anything wrong in their place 
in the wizard world. Both make it especially difficult to change others 
perceptions.   Does that gobbledygook make any sense? 8-}
I didn't blame Harry and Ron for being unenthusiastic toward Hermione's 
S.P.E.W. idea either. I think they (like Muggles) tend to fight against the 
injustices they relate to most, and/or when and how they feel they can be 
most effective.  

The relationship of house elves to wizards must go back eons to be such an 
accepted and even desired way of life for house elves to continue to want to 
maintain.  It would be interesting to find out how it came about. 

Anyway ... since Dumbledore told Madame Pomfrey to fetch Winky and take her 
to Dobbie at the end of GoF, I'm betting he's counting on Dobby's influence 
to change a now disillusioned and perhaps very maleable Winky at this point, 
so as to further persuade other house elves to change their way of thinking 
as well.  If nothing else, their way of life may be changed forever if V 
comes into power so the house elves may now be persuaded to use their own 
special elf powers to join with the others Dumbledore is rounding up, even it 
is just to maintain their status quo and not their ultimate liberation. 
As much as I *really really* need a house elf around my home being as I 
*really really* hate elfish duties... I reluctantly wouldn't have one either 
unless they accepted some form of payment - besides socks.
Instead... All I have are five very Peeves-like felines who must be part 
Kneazle since they are *way* too smart for their own good.

Lynn <8-)