Kreacher the Plot Device Elf (was: Potter...wealth - ...Nature of Elves)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 161754

Steve:
> Keep in mind that it is house-elves who have set the 
> standard for service, loyalty, and fealty. Kreacher 
> provides none of those things, he falls far short of
> the common standards for house-elves, and in that
> sense, he is both worthless and dangerous. 

Magpie:
But so do Dobby and Winky who, like Kreacher, prefer to choose whom 
they wish to serve. Dobby ran away from the Malfoys and actively 
worked against them. Winky sits in the Hogwarts kitchens and drinks. 
Kreacher has been just as good an example of service, loyalty and 
fealty to the family he considers his true owners.  You have in this 
post decided that his letting the house go is a sign of disloyalty, 
but I don't think the state of the Black house is ever connected to 
Kreacher being disloyal in the text. Actually, I connected it more 
to Winky's slovenliness that is a sign of her despair at losing her 
family. If given to Narcissa, for instance, I see no reason that 
Kreacher couldn't become a productive house-elf. 

At the height of the Black family power he might have been Mrs. 
Black's personal elf with a team of elves cleaning the house. To me 
it seems like Kreacher's fairly standard for a house-elf in that he 
is tremendously loyal but has his own ideas about who he's loyal or 
not to, just as all the other house elves we've seen. None of them 
are as subservient as they seem on the surface. It's one of the odd 
things about house-elves that I don't know if JKR planned or not, 
that she introduces them with Dobby who's basically just another 
character whose loyalty to Harry is kind of for laughs. But since 
then it seems like most house-elves have a strong emotional bond to 
their masters. It becomes more clear just how different Dobby is, 
and why they can't understand him.

Of course, this brings up the question of what happens when they're 
too old to do anything. The Blacks seemed to honor the elves by 
beheading them and mounting them on the wall, but what happens at 
Hogwarts? Is there a retirement wing? Do they get lighter and 
lighter tasks until they drop dead?

-m