HG-HBP/LegalSystems/Co-Creator(3)/Sandwich/Bed(2)/CHAPDISC(2)/Free HE/Regulus

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178848

> > Magpie:
> > Hermione is not, canonically, doing any such thing, so I don't 
see 
> > why you're speaking as this is a given. There's not a hint in 
canon 
> > of how any of the things you're talking about could even come 
> about. 
> > Hermione talks about taking SPEW further in fifth year when 
she's 
> > obsessed with SPEW, but her interest in it disappears in the 
last 
> > two books where she never brings it up even with regards to 
> > Kreacher. When dealing with the individual Elf Kreacher she more 
> > just gives lessons on the proper way to deal with them as a 
master.
> 
> zgirnius:
> To me, the words "Oh, don't you see how sick it is, the way 
they've 
> got to obey?" are not a commentary on Harry's treatment of 
Kreacher, 
> or advice to Harry. They are a criticism of the House Elf 
enslavement 
> iself, either of its very existence, or of the specific form it 
> presently takes.
> 
> She has accepted since OotP the security reasons for why Kreacher 
> cannot be freed. When she did so, she did not also drop the idea 
of 
> freeing House Elves in priciple. This is why she focuses on his 
> treatment in HBP and DH.

Magpie:
Sure those words are a criticism of the situation, but freeing the 
elves also creates its own problems. Freeing Kreacher would have 
also stopped "how sick it was" in that scene, but she didn't suggest 
it either when security reasons were an issue or after he was on 
their side, or at the end of the book--there are reasons it's bad to 
free the House Elf. Though the last line links the more positive 
parts with ordinary comforts like a warm bed.

Of course someone could write a fanfic where Hermione spent the rest 
of her life on this problem, but it's not part of the story that she 
did. We've no more idea how one would lift that compulsion without 
throwing them all into massive depressions than we did back in GoF. 
People presumably thought that lifting this compulsion or spell 
would be part of the story. Instead it ends with the resolution that 
as sick as it is to watch House Elves punish themselves that hasn't 
changed, and this particular House Elf belongs to Harry, with a 
focus on the nice bits. It's a problem that's there, that Hermione 
makes noise about, but does not find any solution for, that still 
goes on being there at the end of the book--but it's also got some 
pleasant sides to it and that's the last image of it we see. 

-m