Treatment of house-elves (was: SHIP: Couples in the Potterverse (correction on Minerva's meaning))

[Bill Corey Jr.]

No: HPFGUIDX 48081

Linda McCabe wrote:

>There's also the difference in politics between Ron and Hermione.  She is
>very interested in the social welfare of house-elves.  He decidedly is not.
>He doesn't care one bit, but humors her and buys a badge basically to shut
>her up.  William Lloyd Garrison once gave an extemporaneous speech
regarding
>women's suffrage and compared its horrible reception by society with those
>who were opposed to the abolition of slavery.  He called it "intelligent
>wickedness."  That there are those who reject the light and knowingly
commit
>evil.  If they were simply ignorant than when they were shown the light
they
>would recognize their error of their ways and work to repent and change.
>Those that reject the light will foam and fulminate in response and use
>brickbats.  I'm not saying that Ron is eeeevil when it comes to
house-elves,
>but he didn't react the way that is someone who is shown the light and
>recognizes that they were wrong.  Instead he is very defensive and
offensive
>on this matter.  I still think that is very important and telling as to how
>R/H could work or not work as a couple later on.

Me:

I know this topic has been brought up in other threads, but it seems to me
that it deserves a bit of extra attention with regards to the R/H ship...

There's one thing that strikes me as terribly relevant to the R/H ship that
I think was missed above.  Ron, being a member of a long line of wizards,
would probably take the common WW view of treatment of house-elves as
normal, whereas Hermione, born from Muggle parentage and therefore probably
more closely-aligned with average Muggle mentality, would see only slavery
and mistreatment.  If Ron was indeed interested in Hermione, mightn't he, as
a fairly intelligent young man, rightly assume that Hermione has a slanted
view on the house-elf situation and simply acquiesce rather than pick a
fight?  As horrible as this may sound, I am oftentimes forced to act
similarly when my girlfriend takes a strong position in any discussion, even
if I know as fact that she's wrong.  (I'm sure at least a couple of you out
there understand where I'm coming from...) At first, IIRC, Ron attempts to
explain to Hermione (in his usual, rather blunt way) that she's missed the
point on house-elves (by the way, please forgive the lack of quotes and
references... my girlfriend has absconded with my books... she's hooked),
but when she sticks to her ethical guns and becomes angry, he shuts up and
buys the button to end the disagreement.  Sounds like a typical male
reaction to an angry woman he cares about (i.e. wife, girlfriend).
Remember, it was a man (Shakespeare) who wrote "Hell hath no fury like a
woman scorned."  He knew what he was talking about!

nightfall_42, newbie to the list, HP enthusiast, and adamant cave-in
specialist with regards to girlfriends and the like.  ;-)