Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151497

Carol:
And yet
perhaps, in another household, with a different name and a clean tea
towel, he might have had some modicum of self-respect instead of
giving his devotion to people who didn't deserve it and would not 
have
become an agent of the Dark side. I doubt that he would have been a
rebel like Dobby, but he might have been more like Winky before she
was sacked. 

Magpie:
That's the funny thing about House Elves. To me Kreacher's got a 
modicum of self-respect.  More than a modicum. He's a servant who's 
internalized the class system in which he lives and doesn't see it 
as a shameful thing.  He seems to get pride from his place as 
servant to this important family.  If Kreacher in his younger days 
met with other House Elves he might have had great authority over 
them because his Masters were more important, for instance. To us 
they may seem like the Blacks don't deserve it, but nor does 
Kreacher believe some other Wizards deserve the love they get.  One 
could say Harry doesn't particulary deserve the great worship 
lavished upon him by Dobby.  But neither Dobby, Kreacher or Winky 
appear to be faking their feelings. We have to be careful to know 
why we're re-interpreting their feelings if we do.

This is what makes the House Elf question so difficult, imo.  House 
Elves are always associated with some degree of rebellion. Dobby is 
a rebel in going against the Malfoys; he spends every day after 
adoring the great Harry Potter who freed him. Kreacher (and I don't 
think we can assume that this is not a perfectly respectable House 
Elf name and couldn't have been given to him by a mother) is 
completely rude to the people he considers interlopers in his house 
and makes his hatred of Harry clear.  Winky is loyal to the Crouches 
and defends them.  Winky and Kreacher may both be suffering 
depression to account for their filthy clothes and wonky behavior.  
The House Elves at Hogwarts protest Hermione's attempts to trick 
them into freedom by refusing to clean Gryffindor Tower--and Dobby 
silences them by taking the clothes himself.  (Why?  Here Dobby 
supposedly supports House Elf freedom, so why is he embarassed when 
they exercise freedom and being sort of a scab?)

So yes, I think you would say that Kreacher is a product of his 
upbringing and world, just as all the House Elves are.  But it's 
hard to separate him from himself at this point without projecting 
our own mindset onto things.  Like many things in the Potterverse I 
think they slip from one idea to another.  They're I think based on 
brownies who help around the house but get offended and leave if you 
try to pay them.  We get Dobby who's reminiscent of one kind of 
ideal.  He adores Wizards like Harry who granted him his freedom.  
Winky and Kreacher remind me sometimes of the stereotype of the 
family servant who has no problem with a class system and takes 
pride and comfort in his/her own place in it.  (Those kinds of 
people don't make the class system right, but it's part of human 
nature that some people thrive this way.)  Kreacher in particular 
has a bit of a Mrs. Danvers quality about him to me.

Dumbledore saying that Kreacher is what Wizards made him reinforces 
that because he (like Hermione, imo) overrides Kreacher's own 
definition of himself and says he's just that which he was created 
to be by Wizards. A Wizard (DD) has thus "made him" again by 
defining him as this.  But there have been human beings who have 
shared Dobby's view of things just as there have been human beings 
who have been like Kreacher, identifying with the family they serve 
rather than wishing for freedom.  I honestly think if you made 
Kreacher and Dobby both human tomorrow it would be Dobby who would 
disturb people more.

-m