House-Elves - QWC strategy - Neville

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 26813

Gwen wrote:

> I don't think Amy Z or anyone else who has voiced an anti-Hermione
> opinion (or even elves aren't human opinion) thinks slavery is a 
Good Thing.
> I certainly don't.

Whoa, I agree with your point, but how'd I get shuffled into that 
camp?  I agree with whoever summed it up as: Hermione has a ways to 
go as an anthropologist--and, I would add, as a labor organizer--but 
her heart is in the right place.  She's 14 (or is it 15? <g>) and is 
just stretching her social-consciousness wings.  Give her time.

I like the house-elves story line (not allegory--I don't much like 
allegories and don't think JKR is writing them) *because* it goes 
into the complexity of political movements, instead of making them 
out to be simple Good Folks (Hermione) free Poor Downtrodden Folks 
(Elves) from Bad Folks (Malfoys, Crouch Sr.) despite Willfully 
Ignorant Folks (Ron, Hagrid) and Apathetic Folks (Harry).  People are 
frequently afraid of freedom; even the most oppressed are afraid to 
fly to troubles they know not of.  That doesn't mean they are happy 
the way they are or that the movement to liberate them is wrong--even 
when it is marred by self-righteousness and paternalism.  Or in this 
case, maternalism.

You may be right that the parallel will prove to be about something 
very different, e.g. "that humans are in fact only as powerful as 
they are valued."  Time will tell.  You make a good argument, but if 
I had to put money on it I would say that isn't where Jo is taking it.

s_luhtanen wrote:

>Therefore, Bulgarian strategy: Get the snitch as fast as possible.
>            Irish strategy: Score, score and score while keeping the 
> game going on!

Yes, but that's not very *good* strategy on the Bulgarians' part.  
They need to get the snitch as fast as possible but not until they're 
less than 150 points behind.  Same principle as Harry needing to wait 
to be 60 points up in the Quidditch final in PoA.

Haggridd wrote:

> Does anybody else have any canonical evidence, any red flags, 
> pertaining to Neville his epiphany and any possible significant 
role 
> for him?  

Just that after two books of relative obscurity, he emerges once 
again as an important figure.  Knowing that he has a secret adds a 
lot of intrigue to him--it prompts one to wonder, what else might 
there be to learn about Neville?

It's very possible, of course, that it will end there and we won't 
learn much else about him at all.  But at the moment, he seems like a 
bundle of the kind of red flags that got planted back in book 1 or 2, 
only to turn into full-fledged key plot points later on (Polyjuice, 
Animagi, etc. etc.).  His parentlessness was one such red flag; his 
courage was another; now we know that he has another kind of courage 
(at least, I would call his fortitude re: his parents a form of 
courage) that Harry, for one, identifies as superior to his own; 
what's next?

Amy Z

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 Just then, Neville caused a slight diversion
 by turning into a large canary.
                  -HP and the Goblet of Fire
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