Kreachur and other House Elves // Ollivander // Dursley Boat // Fake Mermaid

Sun Apr 30 04:05:42 UTC 2006

No: HPFGUIDX 151667

Pippin once suggested, I think it was right after GoF, that House
Elves represented House Wives. 

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151403>:

<< As I said, I think Kreacher truly loved Sirius' parents and that is
what determined his actions towards Sirius. >>

Kreachur is the same as Dobby -- he rebelled against his slavery by
helping the people he wanted to help, the people he approved of, to
the detriment of the people who owned him. (Just as Snape is the same
as Pettigrew -- each was a spy who betrayed his school friends to
their deaths because he had joined the other side in the war.)
Kreachur *could* count as more noble, because Dobby sided with the
self-interest of himself and his people, not to be treated like
vermin, while Kreachur sided exactly against that self-interest.

However, what is with Kreachur's name? JKR had long ago given fans the
impression that all House Elves have two syllable names ending 'y'
(like our List Elves!). If Kreachur's name had followed that pattern,
it would be Kreachy. 

But HBP introduced another House Elf, a fourth specimen for our
limited sample of HE names; her name, Hokey, fits in the old pattern.
I don't know whether that was JKR telling us that she thinks our
pattern is 'hokey' ('1. Mawkishly sentimental; corny. 2. Noticeably
contrived; artificial.' according to American Heritage dictionary at
<http://www.bartleby.com/61/61/H0236100.html>) or whether it is JKR
further calling our attention to Kreachur's divergent name as a clue.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151496>:

<< First, there's his name. Kreacher = Creature. Surely no house-elf
mother would give her child that name, especially given the family
resemblance among the heads on the wall: he probably looked just like
her. And there's no reason why a house-elf wouldn't love her child
like any other mother. I'm guessing that Walpurga Black or at least
*a* Black who lived in 12 GP named him. >>

Surely JKR intended his name to mean 'creature' (with a stupid
phonetic spelling to look like 'treachery'), but 'creature' means
'something that was created' and could be taken to correlate with
her/DD's statement that Kreachur is what wizards have made him.

But if a member of the Black family had named him 'creature', wouldn't
they have spelled it Creature? (Which I have read was a common name
for babies baptized before birth in the fear that they might die with
their mothers in childbirth and be damned for dying unbaptised).

Who names House Elves anyway? Their parents and their owners are two
possibilities. It could also be some bureaucrat at the Ministry of
Magic or a magic quill like the one that selects students for Hogwarts.

Nick wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151511>:

<< He notices that they haven't got any clothes, so he makes them some
clothing.  When he wakes up the next morning the clothes are gone, but
the elves didn't make any more shoes.  He never sees them again... >>

One version of that story has someone overhear the elves saying: "Look
at my beautiful new clothes! I can't make shoes anymore, in case I got
my beautiful new clothes dirty and they weren't so beautiful anymore."

Another related story (IIRC not a shoemaker) has someone overhear the
elves rejoicing that they were cursed to live with humans until
someone gave them clothes without being asked, and now they're freed
from the curse and can go back to live in fairyland. 

Then there's the story Magpie mentioned, of brownies who are offended
by being given clothes, altho' gratified by being given a bowl of
milk. I can understand the concept of someone who does a favor and
then get offended (and permanently hostile) at being offered pay for
it, only because I have met humans who do that. I can't understand the
concept of milk not being pay but clothes are pay. 

(I did think of the brownies' bowls of milk when I read in FB about
the difference between Knarls and Hedgehogs.)

PAR wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151636>:

<< House Elves can be abused ï¿½"treated like vermin", as Dobby says.
But is treated like vermin mean that they are overworked?  The worst
punishment appears to BE freedom ("clothes"). >>

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151645>:

<< I cannot grasp fully why Dobby does not work for me. >>

I wish he worked for me! I'd put up with his silly conversation (and
pay quite a few Galleons) if he would clean my house and wash and iron
my clothes!

---------------------------------

Don L wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151570>:

<< Ollivander and the sorting hat are important rights of passage 
for 1st years.  I guess they will have had to borrow wands, or bought
from alternative European sources.  I expect there wizarding pawn or
second-hand shops exist, perhaps even mail ordering wizarding
businesses ï¿½ wEbay maybe... ï¿½ not likely. >>

Mail order, yes. Hermione bought the Broom Care Kit for Harry's
birthday by Owl Order and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes sold stuff to the
Hogwarts students by Owl Order.

Second hand shops, yes. In CoS, when Harry goes to Diagon Alley with
the Weasleys, "in a tiny junk shop full of broken *wands*, lopsided
brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains they found
Percy, deeply immersed in a small and deeply boring book called
Prefects Who Gained Power." (emphasis added)

Lazy Days wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151599>:

<< Ollivander was the fox that Bellatrix killed in HBP, at the
beginning of Spinner's End. >>

What would Ollivander, fox or otherwise, have been doing in a bad
neighborhood of a northern England mill-town? 

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151624>:

<< I think the etymology of the (probably invented) name is more
important than an anagram. IMO, "vander" is a respelling of the Old
Norse word "vondr" (stick), from which "wand" is derived, >>

I didn't know the word vondr until you mentioned it, but have always
seem the '-vander' as both a portmanteau  word of 'wand' plus 'vendor'
and a reference to the Greek-derived names ending '-ander' (for
'andros' meaning 'man') so that he sounds Classical.

<< Mr. Ollivander, whose misty silver eyes suggest mysticism and
deep secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if he had Druid ancestors with
some connection to the veiled archway in the Death Chamber of what is
now the MoM >>

And the "Olliv-" reminds not only of 'olive' (another Classical Greek
reference) but of 'ollave', a word which I have occasionally seen used
to refer to Druids.

------------------------

Sandy wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151568>:

<< Whereas the bricks could be magical the boat is not. It is the same
boat that Vernon used to get them all to the island. And that brings
up the question of how Vernon, Petunia and Dudley got off the island. >>

Once the storm had passed, in daylight, if the old guy (or his son who
should be looking after him) didn't come (in another boat) out to
check on the Dursleys, the Dursleys could have stood on the shore
screaming until someone on the mainland heard them and came to get
them. It's not as if their rock was so very far out to sea.

-----------------------

Talisman wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151430>:

<< a *bogus* portrait: the mermaid in the prefect's bathroom. I don't
think that creature was ever alive. In the course of time we discover
she looks nothing like a real merperson. >>

Could the painting have been painted from a live model, a witch
wearing a fake fishtail? If so, would the painting reflect the
personality of the model or of the imaginary mermaid?

On a related note, I often wonder whether Sir Cadogan was really a
[mad] knight, or merely a Don Quixote-ish madman who delusionally
thought he was a knight and therefore wore the costume?