[HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151638

> Alla:
>
> You are right about Hogwarts Elves of course, but IMO the difference
> is that they are NOT freed yet, they are talking about their dislike
> of freedom, while not truly tasted the freedom yet.
>
> The reason for that could be that they are indeed under some kind of
> enchantment, which makes them dislike the freedom?
>
> I actually really like what Pippin says in the post just before
> yours:
>
> "The more I think about it, the more I think they are both
> right about the Elf issue. Hermione is right that the status quo is
> unconscionable. But Ron is right that the Elves have grown accustomed
> to slavery. Their culture has adapted to it, and so it isn't only
> wizard
> culture that has to change."
>
> Again, my main thing is that I don't remember any proof in canon
> that House Elfs willingly entered their service to humans. That is
> why I am hesitant to agree that they really like such service.
>

Magpie:
Oh! Yes, we don't know how the thing started, and so we can't say whether 
they're not under some enchantment.  I think where the problem comes in, 
though, is that it begs the question of why a House Elf's words mean less 
than a wizard's.  That is, if the elves very vocally want things one way, 
and wizards decide that they don't know what's good for themselves, how is 
that giving them their freedom?  We see House Elves acting freely a lot in 
canon, just around the rules of their own culture.  So it's hard to know 
where to draw the line between where the culture ends and their true 
feelings begin.

It's true we don't know if all elves would react to freedom as badly as 
Winky does--Hermione unfortunately does not seem able to even really 
acknowledge this as a problem.  She can't really help Winky because she's 
projecting her own views on the situation and just can't get into Winky's 
mindset.

What I like about Ron's reaction in OotP is that he's not sabotaging 
Hermione to the extent that he could.  He's not taking the hats away.  He's 
just uncovering them--*not* because the Elves have grown accustomed to 
slavery, their culture has adapted to it and must change, but because "they 
ought to know what they're picking up."  He's not really acting out of a 
political idea but a personal one--he doesn't like House Elves pushed around 
by Lucius Malfoy or by Hermione.  It just seems right to him that people 
shouldn't be tricked into something when they've said they don't want to do 
it.  (Not that Ron is against trickery all the time in other cases, of 
course.)

This is also what makes Dobby so problematic to me, because he's such a 
charicature of Wizard Worship. Even to the point of the problem I keep 
coming back to, which is that when the House Elves essentially go on strike 
by not cleaning Gryffindor Tower to protest Hermione's insult, he does it 
himself and takes away all the hats, flattering Hermione and silencing the 
House Elves.  He's just such a weird character for me because he seems 
frankly more subservient to Wizards than the other House Elves, while at the 
same time less because he's not a slave.If all House Elves were like Dobby I 
can easily imagine a new found freedom lasting only a couple of generations 
before it started to become slavery again--which could be the point, for all 
I know.  Maybe that's the way they became enslaved!

richter_kuymal:
Is there any real reason to believe that if all the House Elves at
Hogwarts wanted to be paid for their work that DD would not do it?

Magpie:
I'm somehow sure it's canon that Dumbledore has offered to pay all of them.


-m