Heaven save us, another original thought (was House Elves' Real Power)

Amanda Lewanski editor at texas.net
Thu Mar 29 02:58:08 UTC 2001


No: HPFGUIDX 15460

crystal white wrote:

> Remember at the end of CoS when Malfoy Sr. started to go after HP for
> "losing him his house elf"......Dobby said "You will not harm Harry
> Potter" and then flung Malfoy Sr. down the stairs.  This is definite
> forshadowing to me.

This reminded me of something my husband said (he of the 2/3 the way
through book 1). I'd told him of our WWII comparisons, and also of the
concern about Harry having to decide to kill and how he would be marked
by evil ever after even if he'd had the best of intentions.

He suggested that, following a WWII train of thought, perhaps Voldemort
will actually be finally destroyed by a third party, much the same way
that the balance was tipped for Hitler by Stalin's turning on him. Harry
will be pivotal to Voldemort's demise, but this other party will kill
him (in a related analogy, kind of like the end of Lion King where Simba
didn't actually kill Scar, the hyenas did, but Simba put him down
there). I'd been talking about house-elves, but I got to thinking.
Consistently, in the background of the books, has been mentions of
goblin rebellions, goblin wars, and goblins seem to formidable enough
opponents to worry Bagman.

Can anyone see the havoc if Voldemort courts and wins over the goblins?
They control the economy, they run the impregnable Gringotts! And they
evidently have had great power as a race, although they seem so passe
now--could Voldemort's ultimate end be when these allies turn on him?

What does anyone think? It seemed to me that via the excessively boring
relative of mine, Professor Binns, we have as readers been delicately
and thoroughly conditioned so that goblins as a danger, or goblins even
doing anything except banking, is something for the dusty pages of
history--but at the same time we've been made very aware of goblins as a
race. A Formerly Potent race. Hmmmm.

Apologies if this was mentioned before. False advertising on my part.

--Amanda

(are house elves related to goblins...?)


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