House Elves

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 59120

Brief Chronicles writes:

>>Could their reluctance to be freed go back to some cultural restriction 
that was placed on them, perhaps by wizards, long ago? <<

More likely that their existence depends to some degree upon being bound to a 
specific place. They are earth spirits of a sort, after all. 

The problem is that the traditional house spirits in Muggle folklore were 
rarely seen by the families they "served" and while they were bound by their 
nature to serve their own place, their service to the family which lives in 
"their" place is entirely secondary to their service to the physical house and land. 
And if the family left, the elf was still bound to the place and remained for 
the next family. 

Among wizards, the situation is more complex since the wizards can see the 
Elfs and command them to serve the family rather than the house. The wizard has 
the power to "free" the Elf from his existence. It isn't, as Muggles are 
inclined to view it, a reward.

I think that Dobby had been abused to the point of being what qualifies as 
suicidal in Elf terms. Being forced to serve the Malfoys was worse than the slow 
death of possibly not being able to find a new place. In Elf terms he is 
still clearly deranged because he wants paying, but he is also obviously clever 
enough to have twigged to the fact that what a human pays for they tend to value 
more than what they get for free. Dumbledore allowed him to bind himself to 
Hogwarts and pays him enough to allow him to keep some degree of independence. 
He will be able to unbind himselrf and leave to another "place" if he chooses. 
Which makes him a bad influence by traditional Elf standards.

-JOdel


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]