Harry's remark about Kreacher WAS: Re: JKR messed up........ no.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178612

> Magpie:
> > That's exactly what I said. Harry's only duty lies in noblesse 
> oblige, to accept that it is his rightful place to be served by 
House
> Elves and to treat his inferiors well. He's a "good slave owner." 
<snip>
> 
> Carol:
> And within the context of the WW, there's nothing wrong with that. 
If
> you have a slave, you have a moral obligation to treat him (or her)
> well, with respect and consideration and understanding of House-Elf
> psychology, which includes the desire to serve a loved or respected
> master or mistress. You can't free a House-Elf without disgracing 
him
> and making him miserable. Noblesse oblige, exactly. And asking for 
a
> sandwich on the morning after a battle, when the House-Elves are
> probably preparing breakfast, anyway, for those who aren't 
sleeping in
> (I assume that the students who didn't fight are returning to 
school),
> is not a hardship or in any way unreasonable. It's just asking
> Kreacher to do his job.

Magpie:
Exactly. Within the context of the Wizarding World there's nothing 
wrong with that. Individual readers may still find the whole concept 
distasteful, though, and prefer a hero who makes his own breakfast 
and doesn't have slaves. They might not care for the lesson of how 
one should treat one's slaves well.

> Magpie:
> <snip> The point really isn't that Kreacher will be unhappy at 
Harry
> asking him to make him a sandwich, it's people saying they don't 
like
> this kind of situation no matter how justified it is in this 
universe.
> They don't want their hero having a slave and don't much admire him
> when he's thinking about what food he wants his slave to bring him 
in
> bed. They might not see any reason for him to have a servant at 
all.
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> To respond to the last paragraph first, the readers who are having
> that reaction are thinking of real-world slavery, IMO. Harry has a
> servant because he inherited one, and he can't free that servant 
with
> insulting and hurting him. 
>From JKR's perspective, she can't have
> Harry free him. Kreacher and Harry are together till death do them 
part.

Magpie:
Of course they are. But that doesn't mean they don't get that 
Harry's been forced into having his slave and is responding by being 
a blessing of a slave master. I think they get that this is the case 
and just don't like it anyway. 

If somebody created a species where the women were less intelligent 
and wanted the men to take care of everything else because they were 
offended at doing anything but having sex and having babies. It 
might be true in their universe that the men really had no choice 
and it would be irresponsible and insulting to treat the women as 
equals, but that doesn't mean some readers might not read it and not 
care for their hero doing that or say, "Yeah, I get how it works but 
you can take your sex slave fantasy somewhere else, thanks." 
Especially if the story's also seems to have the desire to be seen 
as being about treating people who are different with the same 
respect you'd give people who were like you--guilt free slavery 
that's biologically justified for some doesn't really fit with that.

Carol:
> As for the "slave race" (they're not a race of people; they're a
> separate species) and writing history the way she wanted it to be,
> she's not writing history here at all. She's writing fantasy.
> House-Elves are based on the brownies of folklore and have nothing 
to
> do with any human race whatever. (IMO.) 

Magpie:
Yes, I know. But that doesn't mean people have to be pleased with 
the whole story if they're not. For me House Elves are just one 
more "other" type that our heroes are better than and don't even 
much stand out in the elitist hierarchy. The statue in the MoM very 
much represents reality in the WW (the one with the creatures gazing 
up at the higher wizards, not the one Voldemort puts up). I know 
that there's no defense whatsoever for Harry setting Kreacher free, 
that in fact that would be hurting him. Kreacher isn't a person. He 
also isn't a brownie. He's the fictional creation he is. But Harry 
is a person, albeit a fictional one, and may continue to 
illustrate "why it's bad for people to be slave owners" to some 
readers even while Kreacher can't illustrate "why it's bad for 
people to be a slaves."

Alla:

Why? Maybe Tolstoy in his mind was going alternative history route?
Why would you assume that it is going to happen in one work of
fiction ( if it is non fiction, obviously different story) and will
not happen in another?

Magpie:
Well, then, people are free to dislike that the characters in W&P 
have serfs. I certainly didn't like plenty of things about them.

Eggplant:
In the insatiable desire to be provocative some have found yet 
another
way to demonize Harry; apparently even after going through the
tortures of the damned to save the world asking for a sandwich as a
reward is being unforgivably selfish. 

Magpie:
Do the hp4gu bop! Somebody says they don't like the hero's last line 
reminding them how the author's engineered a situation where he has 
people he expects to wait on him. People argue that Harry thinking 
of asking Kreacher for a sandwich means anything but Harry having 
asking a servant to make him a sandwich. Other people reply that no, 
Kreacher seems pretty much is a slave to them and Harry owns him, 
and if they don't particularly like that then they don't and they 
probably won't be argued out of it. And then someone must swoop in 
like the ghost of Petunia Dursley who's heard people saying 
something less than wonderful about Dudley because omg, people are 
being hard on poor Harry YET AGAIN and are accusing him of being all 
kinds of horrible things when he's already suffered enough and 
they've just got it in for him. The poor boy can't even have a 
sandwich. Either you argue that Kreacher is not Harry's property and 
not Harry's servant and Harry could never order a sandwich from him 
or you hate Harry, probably hate sandwiches and don't deserve to 
have had your miserable life saved from Voldemort by Harry.

For me, I think it's a lot easier to just call it like I see it: JKR 
created a species of fawning servile creatures that are apparently 
made to wait on Wizards lucky enough to own one, and not only does 
Harry own one but a House Elf is lucky to have such a great master.

-m