What motivated Dobby in CoS?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 53576

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, SeventhSqueal
<seventhsqueal at y...> wrote:
> 
> Nobody's Rib posted:
> 
> We don't know much about house elf magic.  Might Dobby somehow
*know* that it will at some point be his job to save Harry?  ...
> 
> (snip)
> But house elves aren't allowed to make choices for themselves... 
well, all but one, the free one, the odd duck named Dobby.  
> 
> SeventhSqueal thinks about Dobby:
> 
> Dobby's role in CoS really bothers me. If this is what motivates him:
> 
> He (Dobby) wants to keep Harry Potter safe and away from Hogwarts. 
> Just because?
> 
> I don't buy it.
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> There are only two ways I can justify this. 
> 
> One: Lucius Malfoy didn't want Harry Potter damaged during the
following school year, ...
> 
> Two: Narcissa Malfoy put her house elf up to preventing Harry Potter
from going to Hogwarts and getting hurt, ...
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Three: Add your idea here.
 
> 
> ~SeventhSqueal
> 

bboy_mn:

Perhaps it is a simple as this-

Everybody needs a hero. 

Everybody needs hope.

Want the war to go better? Give the people a hero.
Want the economy to pick up? Rally the citizens behind a hero.

Sometime heroes are the only thing that give us the strength to carry on.

DOBBY:
"Ah, if HArry Potter only knew! If he knew what he means to us, to the
low, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remmebers how
it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers,
sir! We house-elfs were treated like vermin, sir! Of course, Dobby is
still treated like that, sir. But mostly, sir, life has improved for
my kind since you triumphed over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry
Potter survived, and the Dark Lord's powers was broken, and it was a
new dawn, sir, and Harry Potter shone like a beacon of hope for those
of us who thought the dark days would never end, sir...." 

That's probably all I should quote, I'm not sure how much I'm allowed
to put in before I go over the line.

The smallest, weakest, most helpless of beings, much like a house-elf,
a baby defeated the Dark Lord. How can Dobby not see himself as a
kindred spirit to that?

Dobby is able to endure his miserable life because he has a hero that
he can look to. Harry Potter is a noble thought upon which he can rest
his weary mind during the darkest and most depressing times. 

Then he hears a plot, there is a good chance that his 'Beacon of Hope'
may be extinguished. It took a monumental effort for Dobby to go
against his very nature, and attempt to save his hero, his beacon of
hope. 

When that 'beacon' is the only light in your dark and miserable life,
we would all go to great lengths, even go against out very nature to
protect it. 

rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/henry/Act3Scene1.htm
King Henry V -

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

I think that's what Dobby did. He set aside modest stillness and
humility. Then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews,
summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage.

I'll take a living hero over a dead martyr any day, and I think Dobby
would too.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn