House Elves...

[Scott]

No: HPFGUIDX 16934

Amanda said:
"Has no one else thought that the house elf/human relationship might 
be a symbiotic one? Such things are totally natural, occurring all 
over everywhere, where two different species have evolved to operate 
together (clown fish and anemone spring to mind, but there's scads of 
others). The house elves don't exactly run off at the mouth about 
what they get out of it, but that whole "keeping the secrets" thing 
hints that there's lots more to the relationship than we know.

"And even if wizards are exclusively served, and elves are 
exclusively the servers, if this is indeed a symbiotic relationship 
of the sort you see in nature, the elves still would need the 
wizards, as part of the way they exist and survive. Take a poor 
oppressed clown fish away from his anemone, where he's forced to 
stay, and liberate him, and the odds are he'll get munched pretty 
damn fast."

--Sort of like a Patron/Client relationship? Quid pro quo? That makes 
sense, but I don't see it in canon. If it's a symbiotic relationship 
then it's a commensalistic one (at least to our knowledge so far in 
the canon) and that's where the problem arises. The humans are 
benefiting but the HE(')s don't seem to be. Whether they are or not 
we may find out in future books. 

The only evidence that I see that shows HE(')s actually getting 
something from their masters is that they seem to know/keep all of 
the families secrets. (Perhaps HE's automatically have knowledge of 
the dealings of their given family?) 

Then again I might be missing the point. Are you trying to say that 
one can't survive without the other. If so I don't buy it. Humans can 
obviously survive without HE(')s (glances at messy kitchen...on 
second thought...) and Dobby seems no worse for wear at not serving 
the Malfoys.

Lynn wrote:
"I totally agree Scott."

--That's always nice to hear :-)

"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. "

--Which then begs the question that if indeed it is a symbiotic 
relationship, or just the fact that they ARE happy is it not better 
let them continue working. (Since that's what they want!)   The fact 
is we don't really know whether it is elvish nature to serve wizards 
or if its an accquired trait and in fact not at all in their nature. 

I do admire Hermione but her biggest problem was that she never asked 
these important questions before delving into the fight for elvish 
rights. She never said to herself- "Do they want rights?"

"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."

--Animal rights, eh? So does this mean that SPEW was JKR's way of 
poking fun at PETA? I believe strongly in animal rights ( THAT is 
however better suited for the OT-chatter list). There's one big 
difference though, animals can't talk or tell us how they feel so 
it's up to humans to make that interpretation. The HE's can talk and 
so some would argue don't need Hermione to speak on their behalf.

"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."

--So you really think HE's will be liberated beings by the end of 
book seven, eh? I don't know, but I do think that their special 
powers will come into play in later books. (Amanda suggested that the 
goblins would be the third party to destroy V, and I think it'll be 
HE's so to each his/her own!)

Just because most people don't agree with Hermione doesn't mean no 
one does. Didn't Arthur Weasley says something like (paraphrase) "I 
agree with you about the treatment of House Elves Hermione, but now's 
not the time to discuss it." Of course he could've just been trying 
to shut her up.

Scott
Who loves sock, but doesn't like cleaning and doesn't think he could 
be a House Elf...