House Elves and War and peace WAS: Re: Harry's remark about Kreacher

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 178591

> Alla:
> 
> But what proper place? Who decides that everything in proper place?
> 
> Magpie:
> Harry. Not everyone in the WW thinks everything's fine this way, 
but 
> Harry's fine with things without Voldemort. Harry goes from a 
Muggle 
> who knows nothing about House-Elves to owning one. Some people 
don't 
> like having Harry own a slave, that's all. He's not born into a 
> society that exists, JKR made it up for him and ended it with 
Harry 
> owning a loyal slave. That's the end. I don't think that's the 
same 
> thing as War & Peace or Gone with the Wind or any story based on 
> history. If people don't like their 20th century hero owning a 
slave, 
> they just don't like it and there's no explanations regarding 
> historical accuracy that apply.


Alla:

"If people do not like their 20 century hero owning a slave, they 
just do not like it." Well, yeah. They just do not like it, this is 
very true.

But sorry, the second part is just not working for me. I just gave 
you an example of the novel where situation with the slaves was not 
resolved either AND there was no hint whatsoever that it will be 
resolved at all.

So, to me the comparison actually working very well. Loose 
comparison obviously, but comparison nevertheless.


So, I am not explaining historical accuracy, I am loosely comparing 
two societies, real and fictional, or more like fictional and 
fictional where one ugly issue was NOT brought to its logical 
conclusion as I would love to see it.

I am disputing the *proper place* part. I see no indication that it 
IS elves' proper place, that they cannot achieve more, fight for 
more, etc.

What I am seeing is rather close analogy with history, yes, that 
situation with serfes in RL russian society was resolving itself for 
MANY decades, many many decades.  That it was happenig slowly/

Whether Harry seems content or not, I do not see it as indicative 
of "proper place of the elves"


ALL main characters of the War and Peace are pretty content on the 
personal level as well.

Never for a minute I doubted that Tolstoy was not content with the 
situation of serfs and he left me enough hints during the novel to 
show that he was not either. It is just something that was 
unresolved in the society yet.

IMO same thing for house elves in WW. This fictional society did not 
resolve that particular problem either. IMO YET.

Alla.