Gryffindor & Slytherin roles (was Villain!Dumbledore)

[stephab67]

No: HPFGUIDX 177756

> And Mus notes:
>
> This is a world where house-elves like being enslaved (and that is
the resolution of their story), so perhaps it is no surprise to find
that the invented Slytherin mind works thus.
>

Stepha67 wrote:
This is one issue in the story that was never really resolved for me.
 Clearly Dobby was happy to be freed, but he seemed to be in the
minority.  Other house elves seemed to have taken the stance that it
was somehow dishonorable to have been freed (read fired), but is that
because that's what they really believe, or has the situation been
thus for so long that the house elves don't really know what they
actually want?  In other words, do they want to remain slaves because
it's the only condition they've known, or do they actually prefer that
life of their own free will?  Hermione, having been raised by Muggles,
is really expressing our own horror with slavery and that the
wizarding world allows it, while Ron is not horrified because it's
always been that way.  Who is right?

I also found it interesting that it wasn't Ron asserting that the
house elves should be freed, but that it wasn't right to order them to
die for the anti-Voldie forces which earned him the kiss from
Hermione.  He's now treating them with respect, while she has
seemingly backed off on her commitment to freeing them.  In fact, the
whole time they were hiding out at 12 GP she didn't try to free
Kreacher even once, as I recall.  This is really a tough one because
I'm not actually sure what JKR was trying to say with this.  On the
one hand, Dobby was happy to be freed; but Kreacher likely would not
have wanted to be freed, he was just looking for his masters to treat
him with respect.  Hmmmm.