What motivated Dobby in CoS?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 53613

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, SeventhSqueal
<seventhsqueal at y...> wrote:
> From 7thSqueal's request for ideas...
> What motivates Dobby in CoS to prevent HP from going
> to Hogwarts?
> Three: Add your idea here.
> 
> bboy_mn:
>  
> Perhaps it is a simple as this- 
> Everybody needs a hero. 
> Everybody needs hope.
> (little snip)
> Sometime heroes are the only thing that give us the
> strength to carry on.
>  
> ...edited..
> It took a monumental effort for Dobby to go
> against his very nature, and attempt to save his hero,
> his beacon of hope. 
> 
> I'll take a living hero over a dead martyr any day,
> and I think Dobby would too.
> 

> 7thSqueal:
> ...edited...
> 
> Very nice. You suggest that we take Dobby at face
> value. He's the house elf equivalent of a misfit
> social visionary. O.K. 
> This still bothers me, though, because this makes him
> such a behavioral mutant. ...edited...
> 
> 
> =====
> ~SeventhSqueal

bboy_mn:

What makes Dobby such a misfit social visionary; such a behavioral mutant?

House-elves want to DO, Dobby wants to BE.

Yes, I think we do take Dobby at face value, BUT just like Neville, I
think there is A WHOLE LOT MORE to the face of Dobby than we currently
see. 

House-elves are happy when there is work to be done and Masters to
serve. And Dobby too, is happy to be doing his work and to be serving
his masters, but it's not enough. More than wanting to be doing his
work, he wants to be; to be Dobby. As with all great men, mediocrity
is a stiffling depressing existance. I can see Dobby getting very
depressed working for the Malfoys, not so much because of the abuse,
because elves seem to be conditioned to accept that, but because he
could never achieve excellence. He could never realize himself. He
could never satisfy his own conscience. Dobby has the potential to be
so much more than a common house-elf, and I think before this series
is over, we will see that Dobby is the most UNcommon house-elf who
ever lived. 

Great things in life are accomplished not by men who did it the same,
but by uncommon house-elves who dared to do it different.

I think the two most significant, VERY significant, unrealized
characters in this story are Dobby and Neville. They are both in the
background, but at the sametime, they are way to far into the
foreground to not be of major importants to the final resolution of
the story. 

I could very easily see the final defeat comming not from Harry but
from Dobby and/or Neville. In almost every case, Harry succeeds in
defeating and/or escaping his most immediate threat by receiving
outside help. Couldn't have gotten to the Stone without Hermione and
Ron's help. Could have defeated the Basilisk without Fawkes and the
Sorting Hat. Couldn't have survived the Dementor without Lupin.
Couldn't have saved Sirius without Hermione and the time turner.
Couldn't have escaped Voldemort if it hadn't been for a shared
component in their wands which allowed Harry's parents to come and
delay Voldemort while Harry ran for the portkey. Seems to be a theme
here. As great and powerfully magical a wizard as Harry is, his
greatest strength is in his allies. His greatest strength is in the
people who love him.

So, I'm patiently waiting for Dobby and/or Neville to jump in and save
the day, and maybe even save the world.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn