God for Harry, England, and a Sandwich

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 178886

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?  <SNIP>


Alla:

We **all** are projecting our own ideas to the characters to some 
degree IMO and why not?

Whether one thinks that Draco is sympathetic because he reminds the 
list member of herself in the childhood to some degree ( as Betsy I 
think once wrote), or when I who comes from country who unjustly 
imprisoned **millions** during its history and that is why partially 
I will be especially sympathetic to Sirius because I cry for all 
people who were unjustly imprisoned by soviet regime and his story 
sort of resonates in me.  Or if Jen sees house elves as victims of 
learned helplessness because that is one of the things it reminds 
her because of her area of expertise, because of what she is trained 
to do. The symptoms of that behavior is right there in the books.

Elves punishing themselves, elves being under echantment, which we 
do not know indeed how came to be.

What Jen does IMO is using her RL experinces to imagine WHY elves do 
those things and how story worked out and maybe will continue to 
work out in some hypothetical imaginary future.

Why not, I wonder? It is indeed not like she is using her 
imagination to imagine Harry going to Mars or something.

If nothing about it is in the books, then sure, not fair to discuss, 
but I so think that what she described is plausible. Just as many 
other possibilities of course.

As to why we should not accept them as natural slaves, well we can 
of course, but people who are reminded of what Jen described may not 
to accept it for that reason, you know?

JMO,

Alla