Freedom for House-Elves (Was: Kreacher the Plot Device Elf)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162195

Carol earlier:
> > And what he chooses is to obey Harry. He says "Dobby is a free
> > house-elf and can obey anyone he likes, followed by "Dobby will do
> > whatever Harry Potter wants him to do!" (HBP 421) (HBP Am. ed. 421).
> > IOW, he does not say that he doesn't want to obey. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Sure, he does. If we are told that fair is foul, we know that it's
> anything but fair. If Dobby obeys by his own volition he doesn't
> really obey at all. Obedience requires compulsion. 

Carol again:
I hate resorting to definitions, but here goes:

obey
transitive verb
1 : to follow the commands or guidance of
2 : to conform to or comply with <obey an order> <falling objects obey
the laws of physics>
intransitive verb : to behave obediently 

Dobby *chooses* to follow the commands or guidance of Harry Potter. No
one compelled him to do it. As a free elf, he will obey the human of
his choice. (He also chooses to obey his employer, Dumbledore, AFAWK.)

Humans like you and me also have a choice whether to obey or not. If
we disobey the "request" of an employer, we'll be fired, so generally
we choose to obey. Nevertheless, it's our choice. We also choose to
obey the laws of our state and country, mostly because we're good
citizens and consider the laws (for the most part) to be reasonable
(income tax laws perhaps less so than, say, traffic laws) but also
partly because the consequences for disobeying the laws are
unpleasant. Similarly, a person who enlists in the armed services
*chooses* to obey his superior officer. And Snape chooses to obey
Dumbledore, his superior at Hogwarts. 

The only difference between Dobby's case and these human examples is
that the consequences of the choice to disobey Harry (or fail to carry
out his orders satisfactorily) would be largely imaginary and would
consist chiefly of Harry's disappointment or displeasure. The
consequences of obeying Harry and serving him well consist of giving
him pleasure, or at least satisfaction. That satisfaction from service
well performed is Dobby's reward, the only reward he wants from Harry.
He does not want paying from Harry Potter, sir (and as little as
possible from Dumbledore). Dobby receives no such service or offers of
obedience from Harry, who would no more think of obeying Dobby than he
would think of inviting him to have tea with himself and Aunt Petunia.

Carol:
> And you don't obey your
> > equal. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Exactly. But I can render services to my equal. If I choose to do so.

Carol:
I suppose it's possible to render services to your equal, but in most
instances your equal could and would perform them for himself. You
render services to someone in need who can't perform them for him or
herself for whatever reason or for a superior who has some claim over
you (authority or a paycheck). Even the equal has the claim of
friendship and would expect favors in return if the need arose. But
Dobby isn't offering his services to, or as, an equal. He is offering
them to his chosen human, whom he chooses to obey, as he said himself.
He neither asks nor expects services in return. Imagine the reaction
if Harry offered to help Dobby with his elfly duties in the kitchen.
Or "I'll make my own bed and wash my own laundry, Dobby. You don't
need to do that." "But Dobby wishes to be of service to Harry Potter,
sir. Please tell Dobby what else he can do to help Harry Potter, sir."

a_svirn:
>  His relationship with Harry is reciprocal. Harry bestowed a gift of
freedom on Dobby, and Dobby wants to return the favour by only way he
knows – render him services. 

Carol:
Such an exchange is not reciprocal. Only a superior can offer freedom,
and the offer of services is the offer to become his unpaid servant.
(Note the etymology: "Servant" and "service" are both dreived from
"serve": Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French servir, from
Latin servire to be a slave, serve, from servus slave, servant.) If
the socks are symbolic, as you suggest, they reiterate Harry's gesture
in giving Dobby the clothes that freed him (or rather, tricking Lucius
Malfoy into doing so). They reenact a gesture that only a superior
could have performed. Freeing Dobby did not, in Dobby's mind, make him
Harry's equal. It only enabled him to work for pay (actually a
hardship in a world that expects house-elves to work for free) and to
choose his own employer (Dumbledore, the one wizard in the entire WW
who will actually pay him). Once he has a job and his need for food,
shelter, and work is met, he then chooses to *serve* and *obey* Harry
Potter, who does not pay him or reciprocate by offering his own services.

Carol earlier:
> > That's not what Dobby said, though, is it? It's more like "Your
wish is my command." 
> 
> a_svirn:
> You make it sound like he is courting Harry. 

Carol:
LOL. And yet the analogy isn't that far off. Dobby does love Harry in
a worshipful sort of way, rather like an old-fahioned lover who kneels
at his beloved's feet. His attitude toward Harry is not the friendship
of an equal. It's idolatry.

> a_svirn:
> They were well on the way on being equals in GOF and OOP. In the
last book, Harry treats Dobby more like inferior. Hardly surprising, 
considering he's become a slave owner and rather enjoys the experience. 

Carol:
I see no evidence of equality in the other books. The offer to help is
entirely on Dobby's side. Harry buys him socks (without perhaps
realizing that they symbolize his release from bondage to Lucius
Malfoy), but nowhere do I see him offering his services to Dobby. In
HBP, Harry finally requests the services that Dobby has been offering
all along, but in Dobby's view, he asks the wrong house-elf--the one
who belongs to him aand serves him unwillingly rather than the one
who, paradoxically or not, *wants* to serve and obey him.

Carol, who is tired of this topic and intends to resist the compulsion
to answer any further posts relating to it, particularly the one that
called her pedantic for reading the text closely and expecting others
to do the same