In defense of considering pureblood preference racism

[persephone_kore]

No: HPFGUIDX 107050

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ohneill_2001"
<ohneill_2001 at y...> wrote:
> Now Cory:
> 
> Do we actually *know* this to be true?  I ask because I am actually 
> curious about this myself, and I have considered the possibility 
> that House Elves may have been created by wizards.  What got me 
> thinking along those lines was Dumbledore's remark to Harry in OoP: 
> 
> "[Kreacher] was bound by the enchantments of his kind, which is to 
> say that he could not disobey a direct order from his master, 
> Sirius."  U.S. edition, p. 831.
> 
> So if House Elves are "enchanted," then who enchanted them, and how 
> did they get that way?  One possibility is that they were created 
> that way.
> 
> If anybody knows of any canon that supports or refutes this, I would 
> love to hear of it.  I suspect we will learn a lot more about the 
> House Elves in books 6 & 7.
> 
> --Cory

Now PK: We do have a quote in which JKR said that she had based the
house-elves on brownies, but thought it would be fun to have them
consider being given clothes a disgrace. I don't suppose this makes it
*impossible* that they were created by wizards, but I'm inclined to
doubt they are. 

Actually, their being connected to brownies leads me to think that the
enchantments on house-elves may have been made to put the wizards in
control of the relationship rather than to induce it in the first
place. Brownies would, in most of the stories I've read, arrive as
they pleased and work as they pleased, and be very helpful unless you
insulted them by one of various means: being slovenly yourself, being
stingy and not leaving out milk, or offering them other payment.
Though the elves in "The Elves and the Shoemaker" didn't seem
insulted, they just decided it was time to go.

Now, obviously there's no guarantee *that's* the case, either, but I
don't think it's contradicted.

PK