God for Harry, England, and a Sandwich

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178875

> montims:

> The fuss made about the sandwich makes me think of a General or 
someone in
> WW1 - after fighting a terribly dangerous and heroic long battle, 
at the end
> of said battle, would people blame him for expecting his batman to 
rustle
> him up a meal, while he rested?  I suppose these days, people 
would...
> 
> It's a book, guys...

Magpie:
True, but as one of the "fussers" (I assume) I just want to make 
clear that I do agree that this is what it is, especially with your 
description (I think it was yours) that this is like Ulysses having 
a slave bring him a cup of wine--that's what the slave does, and 
that's perfectly proper. I made a similar connection with Frodo and 
Sam--if at the end of LOTR Frodo had stayed in the Shire and he'd 
been thinking of Sam bringing him some mushroom soup in bed, I would 
see him expecting his valet and former batman to bring him a meal.

Having a problem with this might indicate somebody is projecting 
their p.c. standards on a world where they don't exist (though I do 
think it's a valid question to ask what's so appealing about these 
kinds of hierarchies that are recreated in the WW with non-humans). 
However, I think so does re-interpreting the line so that Harry 
isn't doing that require projecting of p.c. standards onto a world 
where they don't exist. To use another LOTR example, I think when 
Sam and Rosie move in with Frodo at the end of the book and 
are "taking care of" him it means just that--they're working there. 
He's the master of the house until he leaves it to Sam. They're not 
living together as roommates a la Chandler and Joey on Friends (as 
people have argued they are, sometimes because it bothers them that 
Frodo would regard Sam as a servant). I prefer the LOTR version 
because it is what it is without a sort of modern p.c. overlay onto 
it. I admit, the HP version is weird to me. I mean, it is a book, 
but I'm talking about what the book says. I don't think it's going 
to cause young readers to start enslaving each other, but I do think 
it's nostalgic about that kind of society.

Jen: The difference is I don't accept the idea of house elves as
natural slaves. The elves read as victims of learned helplessness
brought about by the enchantment forcing them to self-punish for
generations. 

Magpie:
Maybe, maybe not. We don't know anything about the true origins of 
House Elves. Maybe thinking they're not natural slaves and just 
victims of learned helplessness--although I don't know if that's the 
right term for elves embracing their role as slaves--is incorrect. 
Perhaps they're like women who think their place is in the home with 
no rights and think women who think otherwise are shameful--or maybe 
they're not like people at all and the attitude goes deeper than 
culture. It gets into the same trouble Hermione originally had--we 
project our own ideas about their behavior onto them. We don't know 
that Wizards put the enchantment on them. So who's to say we 
shouldn't accept them as natural slaves? 

Jen:
I thought Hermione got to the point where the tide could turn when
recognizing that stopping the self-abuse was the first step in the
process of changing the lot of the house elves. 

Magpie:
Could be, but I don't see it presented that way in canon myself. All 
JKR would have to do is show it and she didn't. She showed 
Hermione's plans about SPEW all the time in books 4 and 5. Then 
suddenly in 6 SPEW completely disappears and Hermione's just all 
about treating them okay when it comes up.  

This, too, is a perfectly realistic evolution for a social activist. 
You can be very liberal in your youth and very conservative in your 
adulthood or anywhere in between. You can go through a fad. It's 
possible Hermione decided on a new plan for freeing House Elves via 
good treatment (most of the elves we see in canon are well-treated 
already), but she doesn't say this is what she's decided (and it's 
IC for Hermione to do so), she isn't shown talking to Kreacher in 
such a way that shows it, she no longer says anything about trying 
to do stuff with the House Elf situation in general (and yes, I know 
she's got Voldemort to worry about so I wouldn't expect it to be her 
main concern during DH...though god knows she had enough time to 
talk about it when she was sitting in a tent doing nothing for 
months--we could have heard a throwaway line about Harry having to 
hear all about it), she's not researching their history to find out 
where that compulsion comes from so she can lift it. 

I don't even have reason to think that Hermione knows she was doing 
wrong before. As far as we know in OotP Hermione thinks her hat 
knitting is working just fine. They're disappearing and elves are 
freeing themselves (Hogwarts elves are never shown punishing 
themselves that I remember). She doesn't know Dobby's the one taking 
the hats, that the Elves have stopped cleaning the Tower because of 
it and nobody ever tells her that we know. Frankly I wondered in HBP 
if Hermione had convinced herself that she'd *solved* the House Elf 
problem to a great extent. 

zgirnius:
It seems to me you are defining what the story is too narrowly.

Magpie:
I'm not sure what this means--I was defining the story by what's in 
the books.

zgirnius:
 Elves
are slaves, this can only be resolved if elves are free. Why is a
resolution in which the one main character who sees the problem,
manages to pass on her concern to two other main characters, not a
resolution? It constitutes a change from the previous situation. It
is a step in the right direction (more people caring, more people
thinking about it and treating elves better).

Magpie:
I wouldn't say the only resolution is freeing them--I think there 
could be a number of resolutions and the book finds one of them. I 
don't think Hermione passes on any concerns to Harry and Ron. Harry 
and Ron already had the same concerns they do at the end of the 
story (in fact it seems like Hermione comes around to Ron's way in 
at least one regard). They're not bothered by House Elves being 
enslaved, but don't like them abused. I don't know of anyone else 
who has gone from less caring about House Elves to more caring, or 
treating them better. I don't see most people interacting with House 
Elves, and most elves aren't abused in the story. The only person 
who really seems to change her outlook to me is Hermione, who starts 
off making the House Elves into a revolutionary cause of One, 
continues to do stuff for that cause without it having an effect, 
and then stops doing that. I guess she sort of reminds me of 
somebody who was a loud vegan for a couple of years as a teenager 
and eventually became somebody who just didn't eat a lot of red 
meat. If Ron inherited a House Elf I don't immediately think 
Hermione would have a problem with using it. She might treat it in 
an unorthadox way--or not.

Lizzyben:
It also means that Harry, Hermione, & the reader are asked to accept
a crazy world in which slavery is actually justified, slaves don't
want to be free, & they actually just love being good servants to
their masters. Harry can be a slaveowner without any guilt, because
his slave really just wants to be a slave & can't function any other
way. And I want to rebel against that, but I can't, because that's
how this world is.

Magpie:
That was pretty much my conclusion. There's no point in complaining 
about it within the story because this is the way it is. Without 
actual information about it how it came to be like this for 
thousands of years, I don't have the first clue as to how it would 
be solved any differently or how any of these characters would. It's 
like Slytherin too. I could think of some ways to attack the problem 
if I were in this universe, but I've no idea what would work and it 
doesn't seem like canon gives me a place to start. I feel like this 
is what it is.

-m