Centaurs and Goblins and Elves, Oh My ! (WAS: Hermione's Hats

[elfundeb2]

No: HPFGUIDX 89097

David wrote: 
I believe the 
function of Hermione's hats in the story is to signal her drift into 
arrogance. Crucially, she never tries to find out if her tactic is 
working. Why does she not wonder why all those joyful free elves are
not coming to thank her?

Frost wrote: 
We find it hard to understand why someone that is intelligent 
would want to be subservient to another, but then we have to 
remember that which Hermione is forgetting. They aren't human, and 
their value systems are vastly different than ours are. [snip]
The point is, Hermione is failing, and will fail, because she is 
trying to force her own value system on someone else. If anything, 
the hats would be a learning tool to help her understand that she 
needs to respect other peoples (beings, but I consider them people) 
values and points of view, even if yours disagrees. 

Debbie:
 
I think David and Frost hit the nail right on the head.  Hermione 
can only see from a human POV.  This is essentially the same mistake 
Hermione (and the rest of the WW) makes with the centaurs.  She 
refers to them as horses, apparently persuaded that their refusal of 
clothes and other accoutrements that humans find civilizing makes 
them less than human, and it is the height of arrogance for her to 
march Umbridge into the forest assuming the centaurs will be happy 
to help one set of humans in a dispute with another human because 
that other human is demonstrably prejudiced against the centaurs.  

Peter: What wizards call "goblin war" might have been a rebellion 
"just" to gain full rights - which they might have won, now having 
those rights. Or goblins lost but wizardkind so many losses that 
they 
had to admit certain rights. Such as the right to have property and 
run a business.

Debbie:

I'm not sure they have the right to own property; I'm not even 
convinced they own Gringotts.  Handling money may well be *dirty 
work* in the WW, especially the tricky task of exchanging the Muggle 
currency they receive.  The goblins have a crucial role to play in 
the coming war, and they're not necessarily going to support the 
Ministry just because they've been given the right to control the 
money.  They *don't* have full rights, despite centuries of goblin 
rebellions. 

The books are full of clues that the goblins are an angry bunch, so 
that conditions may be right for another rebellion.  For example, 
Lupin refers to rights that have been denied to them for centuries, 
and Bill adds that they are quite angry with the Ministry since Ludo 
Bagman never paid up what he owes them.  The Prophet uses 
accusations of ties to "subversive goblin groups" to discredit Madam 
Marchbanks' support of Dumbledore.  The Quibbler (whose accuracy 
should not be underestimated, notwithstanding the fact that it 
quoted a ministry insider who claimed Fudge had goblins cooked in 
pies) reports that Fudge would like to seize control of Gringotts 
and the gold housed therein.  

Interestingly, goblins are another intelligent non-human species 
that Hermione appears not to have any use for.  From GoF ch. 24 in 
response to Ron's joke about Hermione getting into the goblin 
protection business:  "Goblins don't need protection.  Haven't you 
been listening to what Professor Binns has been telling us about 
goblin rebellions? . . . Well, they're quite capable of dealing with 
wizards . . . . They're very clever.  They're not like house-elves, 
who never stick up for themselves."  Even though they *must* be 
learning in Binns' classes that the goblins don't have the same 
rights as humans despite centuries of rebellion (including their 
attempt to disrupt the Wizard's Council in the 14th century), 
Hermione seems decidedly uninterested in them, or perhaps she simply 
has them pegged as enemies of wizards.

Does anyone else find it odd that a Muggle-born like Hermione, who 
champions the cause of the house-elves who won't stick up for 
themselves, would be so insensitive to the rights denied to other 
magical non-humans?  Is it because Hermione wants to be a crusader 
for the oppressed?  Hermione talks about the us vs. them nature of 
the house system in OOP, but I don't recall her speaking about 
reaching out to other species.  Did I miss something?

Debbie