[HPforGrownups] Dumbledore's Army = House Elves

[jazmyn]

No: HPFGUIDX 82688



Scott Santangelo wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Dumbledore's Army will turn out to be a loyal group of Hogwart's house 
> elves. I suspect they may receive some sort of "uniform" (ie:clothes!) 
> in recognition of their new status as (free) members of the school staff 
> (ie: they are "asked" to stay/work/be paid vs. "enslavement"). Elves are 
> powerfully magical, with a natural (wandless!) ability that even wizards 
> are fearful of (see Malfoy, Sr.). Therefore, under the Direction of 
> Dumbledore, they would be a formidable (and doubtless a defensive) 
> weapon in the Order's arsenal.
> 


One problem with this. The elves don't WANT to be freed.  Its clear they 
find the very idea of being 'free' nearly obscene.  They look 
disapprovingly at Dobby and pityingly at Winky.  Dobby even has to lower 
his voice when talking about his 'freedom' around the other elves.  So 
with this being the case, being freed would be seen as a punishment, not 
a reward.

Clearly people are thinking the house elves think like humans. They are 
not humans and simply don't have the same mindset as a human.  I suppose 
  they feel 'protected' by their families they serve and have no 
interest in fending for themselves in the 'wild'.  Hermione sees them in 
the same way animal rights activist see pets.. As slaves.  So.. they are 
slaves, but like most pets, they are happy with this and don't want to 
be liberated.  Dobby is an exception to the rule, likely due to how 
badly abused he was by the Malfoy's.   He would clearly have been better 
off 'in the wild' then being abused all the time.  Most other elves may 
not be abused.  Kreacher clearly is not abused, yet he is evil and 
twisted, blindly loyal to his 'evil' previous masters.  Perhaps he was 
such a good and valuable house elf to Sirius's mother, that he was 
nearly pampered as far as house elves go.  This might lead to him 
feeling Mrs Black was worthy of loyalty even after death.  Sirius tended 
to make it clear he didn't like Kreacher, though he didn't go so far as 
to abuse him, he didn't treat him very well either and in turn, got 
lousy service from the house elf.

Jazmyn