[HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151627

> Alla:
>
> The problem is we ONLY know about TWO freed elfs, that's all. Winky
> and Dobby indeed react to situation differently. Just as people
> react to same situations differently. Winky is unhappy with the
> freedom indeed, but Dobby is very very happy. So, I don't think that
> Winky's unhappiness necessarily represents how House Elfs in general
> would react to being freed. For all I know Winky is an exception and
> Dobby is a rule? I mean, I think that both possibilities are equal.
> I am NOT at all saying that they should be freed against their will.
> I am saying that I cannot be persuaded based on Winky's reaction
> that all House Elfs do not want to be freed. Of course you could
> argue same with Dobby, but that is what I am saying - at the end we
> will learn that House Elfs in their majority will react either like
> Dobby or like Winky to being freed and we don't know what that will
> be, but here is where JKR's position helps me to argue that they
> indeed will be quite Okay with their freedom. I am not saying that
> it will be easy for them at all, but I am just puzzled of the
> certainty expressed in this thread ( again not reacting just to your
> argument) that House Elfs LIKE serving humans.

Magpie:
We have a lot more than Winky's reaction to being freed.  It's canon that 
Dobby is the exception and Winky far closer to the rule.  All the house 
elves at Hogwarts together are angry at Hermione trying to make them free 
(and they protest it, though Dobby silences the protest by cleaning the 
Tower himself).  They've all been offered freedom by Dumbledore and refused 
it.  They're very vocal about their feelings about freedom.

Which I think means we really can't take it as a metaphor for slavery 
because what group of human slaves (as opposed to individuals who may not 
mind it as much as others) want to be slaves in the face of other people 
trying to free them?  (I can think of a possible example, but it still 
doesn't fit House Elves.)  You could also see them as just a way to give 
Hermione the teen!activist something to struggle against when the people 
she's chosen to save don't see things the way she does and don't want her 
saving them.  Imo, if JKR hadn't made the House Elves and Hermione equally 
stubborn and loud about the way things should be, this issue might start a 
lot more fights in fandom as people made their own metaphors and ran with 
them.

-m