house elves Re: [HPforGrownups] Re: Snape and Harry again.

[feklar]

No: HPFGUIDX 113286

> > Pippin:
> > Excuse me?  There are at least 100 House Elves owned by
> > Hogwarts, and I have never heard Dumbledore treat any of them
> > the way Sirius treated Kreacher.
> >
>
> Alla:
>
> Oops, sorry. I concede of course. Dumbledore does treat house elves
> better than anybody else, but still it is the exception, not the rule.

Actually we don't know what the rule is.  Of the four examples, Lucius and
Sirius (both raised in dark magic families) are abusive.  Barty Crouch is
cold and mean, but not so much abusive as indifferent -- arguably he treats
the elf much as he treated his son.  Dumbledore is apparently nice to house
elves and claims to think the magic world should treat other creatures with
more respect.  This implies they're not treated as well as they could be,
but that could mean anything from "they're slaves but generally treated ok"
to "they're all abused horribly."

I must admit, at times I worry that the HEs represent some weird classist
philosophy, along the lines of " the servant class wishes to be a good
servant above all else."   At the end of COS, when Dobby turns on Lucius, I
wondered if the magic users enslaved them because they feared them (didn't
want elf rebellions to go with the goblin rebellions) and included a
"Stockholm Syndrome Charm" as a bonus.  Winky seems to support the former
theory more than the latter, though.

Feklar