A sandwich/House Elf Storyline/JKR's Intent

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178754

Magpie wrote:
><snip>

> The one line doesn't wipe anything out, imo, it's the logical 
conclusion to the storyline of all those books. CoS introduces Dobby 
who wants to be free, and Harry frees him. But in GoF we see that 
Dobby is not a normal House Elf. Those House Elves *do not want* to 
be freed, so our previous idea that House Elves are like humans 
enslaved against their will is challenged. We must re-learn House
Elves. Trying to free them offends them. Winky, when freed, becomes 
> a miserable drunk. The question of House Elf freedom is now far more
complicated and this is the question for which one solution is 
offered in the series, imo. Harry freed Dobby because he wanted to be
freed; it does not follow that he should necessarily free another Elf
if he does not want also to be freed.
> 
> OotP has Hermione continuing to try to trick Elves into freedom,
which leads them to refuse to clean the Tower (showing independent 
thought and action *without* being freed as they always have done). 
Dobby covers up their protest and does it himself. It's still Dobby 
vs. every other House Elf. We also meet Kreacher, who also doesn't 
ask to be freed even though he hates Sirius. (And they wouldn't 
anyway because it's dangerous.) Hermione continues her "House Elves
can't speak for themselves because they're brainwashed" attitude with
Kreacher but she can't free him. Dumbledore warns against
underestimating House Elves's feelings because they can be tricky 
when they're only obeying you in the body and not the heart. 
Dumbledore himself has offered Elves freedom but since they refuse he
staffs the castle with the free labor.

Carol responds:
I was with you in your summary until this point, but I don't recall DD
offering the House-Elves freedom, only agreeing to hire Dobby and
Winky and offering Dobby better pay and more days off than he wanted,
which Dobby talked him out of because he likes work better.

Magpie: 
> HBP does not keep anything in a holding pattern that I can see. How
can it be a holding pattern when it's the book where our hero actually
inherits his own slave? What will he do with it? He hates it
personally, so sends it to Hogwarts--but when he needs somebody to do
a dirty job calls on him and not Dobby, which is perfectly correct if
he's accepted his role as Kreacher's master. It does not bother Harry
that it's going against Kreacher's wishes to do that particular
job--he just has to be smarter than Sirius in not giving him any
loopholes. Hermione expresses no problem whatsoever with Harry owning
a slave or giving him an order, though she counsels him to be polite
in giving it. I'm not seeing holding pattern here, I'm seeing some
development. Hermione drops SPEW and never mentions it again iirc the
same book the problem becomes personal and involves her worthy friend
and also the book where her love life gets more important. 

Carol responds:
In the first place, dropping SPEW is a good idea, right, since the
House-Elves don't want to be freed against their will? I'm not sure
that Hermione's friend owning a House-elf, much less her own lovelife,
has anything to do with it. She's never succeeded in converting anyone
to her view, not even her best friends. Maybe she just dropped it as a
lost cause. She has not, however, stopped caring about House-Elf
abuse, as "Kreacher's Tale" shows.
> 
Magpie:
> And then there's Book VII. Harry needs something from Kreacher 
again, and this leads to him hearing his pathetic story. He feels 
sorry for Kreacher, and gives him a very nice gift--"too much" I 
believe Ron comically calls it when Kreacher falls all over himself.

Carol:
Actually, the line is "Overkill, mate." Same idea, but in Ron's own
voice. But you're oversimplifying. Harry applies House-Elf psychology
(under Hermione's direction) and allows Kreacher to help with the job
he's been punishing himself for failing to do for sixteen years. Also,
Harry starts out assuming the worst of Regulus (that he would force
Kreacher to drink poison) and ends up understanding that Regulus was
an ally, fighting the same enemy for different, albeit wholly
personal, reasons (though come to think of it, Harry's reasons are
largely personal, too, starting with "he killed my mum and dad" and
going from there). It's not just a matter of treating him kindly. It's
a matter of understanding him (and forgiving his role in Sirius's
death, which was, in fact, no part of the original plan to lure Harry
to the MoM).
 
Magpie:
> Now Harry and Kreacher have a perfectly happy relationship. Kreacher
loves serving "Master Harry" and "Master Harry" is waited upon in 
style while he tries to save the world. And Hermione and Ron benefit
too. They live very well with Kreacher until the day they leave the 
house forever with Kreacher waving to them from the door and promising
to have dinner waiting for the chilluns when they get back.
> 
Carol:
But the old Mammy character that you're alluding to (a caricature of
female slaves in the antebellum South) was a human being. Kreacher is
a House-Elf. It's not a fair comparison. Mammy may have thought she
was happy or pretended to be happy serving the white master and
mistress and their "chillun." Kreacher actually *is* happy, for the
first time in sixteen years (or at least twelve years, which is IIRC
when Mrs. Black died). House-Elves likes work, miss. And they likes
having a good master to work for. They are not people, as the
depiction of the three Elf characters makes clear. Even the "free" Elf
Dobby *chooses* to work for wizards because it's what he wants to do
and all he knows. If a slave owner in the antebellum South gave a
slave his or her freedom and that slave didn't want to or could not do
the same job as before for pay, that slave could go north and find a
job, perhaps as a field hand or a factory worker, and his or her
children could get an education and perhaps do better than their
parents did. But what opportunities does a House-Elf have? At best, a
kind master. Unfortunately, no one wants a House-Elf who "wants being
paid." So freedom means disgrace, unemployment, and misery.

Magpie:
> Dobby dies, but he was never a leader. Perhaps one day there could 
be a House Elf who would actually change things, or perhaps not. Not
this story. There is no movement for House Elf freedom within canon.

Carol:
But Kreacher, surprisingly, *is* a leader. The other House-elves (who
have evidently heard his story and been inspired by it) follow his
lead as they never followed Dobby's. "Master Regulus, champion of
House-elves" is his rallying cry. And Regulus was not an advocate of
freedom for House-Elves but of humane treatment for them. That is what
they want. What would a House-Elf *do* with freedom? He would work for
wizards for "slave wages" to buy socks as Dobby did, right? The
Hogwarts House-elves, whether under Snape or under Dumbledore, don't
need or want to be free. They have a home, they have a job they like,
they have security (until the DEs breach the castle and threaten their
happy lives).
> 
Magpie:
> Kreacher, meanwhile, is still a loyal slave when Harry gets back to
Hogwarts, and Harry slips back into the Master role again.

Carol:
Which is exactly what Kreacher wants to be (but no doubt he'd be even
happier to go back to 12 GP).

The thing is, Harry's treatment of Kreacher in HBP is almost as
appalling as Sirius Black's was. He doesn't know what to do with him,
he hates and distrusts him, he orders him to do what he doesn't want
to do when Kreacher would much rather serve Draco Malfoy (not
realizing, probably, how badly the Malfoys abused Dobby). In DH, it's
willing servitude of a master he respects (though Harry will never
take the place of Regulus in his heart). Kreacher will be down in the
kitchens working in any case. Asking him for a sandwich, which he can
make and deliver in a twinkling if there's not one already made, is no
hardship, as it would be for a fellow human who has to climb all those
stairs down to the cellar and back to the top of Gryffindor Tower, the
lowest story of which is on the seventh floor. Kreacher can just
Apparate there and back. *And* he would be honored to serve the hero
of the hour. He would be much more hurt by Harry's attempting to make
a sandwich himself than by Harry's requesting him to make (or bring) one.

Magpie: 
> I don't know where that one sentence a the end is supposed to be
undoing anything. It doesn't make Dobby any less desiring of his 
freedom, but Kreacher doesn't want his freedom. Harry is not his 
> liberator, he's his wonderful master and was before the last scene. 
> Doesn't seem like it's wiping anything out to me. It just seems like 
> this is the attitude they ended up with. Harry will become one of 
> the good masters--like Dumbledore, partially by showing that he 
> would free these guys if it were practical but it's not.
 <snip>

Carol:

And what, exactly, is wrong with that, if it's what the House-Elves
want? They certainly don't want to be turned from their jobs,
wandering the WW homeless and jobless as Winky did. The House-Elves
showed their contempt for Hermione's well-meaning but unthinking
efforts to free them in GoF.

Let's suppose that, with Voldemort dead and the DEs an extinct species
(either dead or rounded up by Kingsley and the Aurors and having, in
any case, no master to serve) that the new MoM starts to institute
reforms. Consider the magnitude of the problem of freeing the
House-Elves. The only solution I can think of is to offer payment to
any Elf who wants it without taking away his job, allowing them to
wear clothes if they so choose, and giving those who want it an
occasional day off. But would we suddenly have House-Elf secretaries
and healers and reporters and politicians? Would they choose any
career except domestic service (as opposed to servitude)? I think not.
It's their nature to serve humans, and that can't be changed. To try
to change them would be like forcing the native Indians of the Amazon
natives to dress like modern people, go to school, hold jobs, and give
up their native traditions. And the same is true for the other peoples
of the WW. Peaceful interaction and mutual respect is the key.

Hermione (who BTW still expresses a desire to free the House-Elves as
late as "The Wandmaker" in DH) was wrong. Ron was right. House-Elves
aren't people, and it's wrong to impose a human lifestyle on them.

On a sidenote, someone asked whether House-Elves are considered
animals. They are magical creatures and subject to regulation by the
Department of Magical Creatures, which has Beast, Being, and Spirit
divisions. Unlike Centaurs, who (rather perversely) choose to be
classified as beasts, House-Elves (which are not included in FBAWTFT)
are classified as beings. Umbridge, I suppose, would call them
creatures with near-human intelligence. Whether she would be right or
wrong in that classification, I leave to the individual reader to decide.

Carol, who has twice requested a description of the life of a free
House-Elf, this supposedly ideal state that certain readers thought
would be achieved through Harry's victory, and is still puzzled as to
what they mean by "freedom"