[HPforGrownups] Re: No sympathy for Kreacher

[Jocelyn Grunow]

No: HPFGUIDX 124512


On Monday, February 14, 2005, at 01:30 pm, Janet Anderson wrote:

>
> Jocelyn Grunow <aandj at labyrinth.net.au> said:
>
>> I don't really think Kreacher was sane by the time we met him, which 
>> is
>> why I do not blame him for Sirius' death.  Not guilty by reason of
>> unsound mind.
>
> But you could make a good case that Crouch Jr. and Bellatrix are not 
> sane
> either.  Is that a reason not to blame them for the deaths, 
> bereavements,
> insanity, etc. they've been responsible for?  And if so, then why is
> Kreacher exempt?
>
Kreacher was a slave.  Not merely a slave in physical chains, either, 
but enslaved by the nature of his species.  He had no power to leave 
his enslavement.

People compare him to Dobby, but Dobby strikes me as both young and - 
as Hagrid says - a weirdo for his own species.  Even so, how long could 
he have remained rational, ironing his own hands, if Harry had not 
provided him with hope for the future and then freedom?

Crouch Jr and Bellatrix turned to the Dark of their own volition.  They 
suffered the penalties they endured as the results of those choices 
(which were available to them as humans).  I do not doubt that a case 
can be made for Crouch at least to have been warped by his upbringing, 
but he did have choices, and he made bad ones.

Kreacher never had a choice not to serve the dark.  Can house elves 
even commit suicide without permission from their masters?  (I doubt 
it.)  Kreacher was enslaved to the Dark for numberless years.  Who 
knows what he has seen and done at his masters' orders.

The situations seem significantly different to me.

Jocelyn