A sandwich

[Katie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178635

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" 
<gbannister10 at ...> wrote:

> > >
> > > 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. As for Kreacher, Harry was 
far more forgiving than I would have been considering that in any 
legal system on the planet he would have been imprisoned for being 
part of a murder conspiracy that caused the death of Harry's 
godfather. 
It's good to be provocative but if you push it too far you get silly.
> > > 
> > >  Eggplant
> > 
> > 
> > ***Katie:
> > 
> > I'm someone who is deeply disturbed by Harry's final remark 
regarding Kreacher, and I am in no way attempting to 
be "provocative". I was so shocked by that remark the first time that 
I read the book, that I was completely taken out of the story by it. 
The *line* is provocative, IMO.
The problem is not that Harry is wondering about a sandwich - the 
problem is that he expects that Kreacher may bring him one. 
>
> 
> Geoff:
> Hell's bells! Do we have to seek a subversive and questionable 
meaning in every sentence of the books? 
> 
> Supposing Harry had wondered whether Molly Weasley or Hermione or 
> even... Draco(!) might bring him a sandwich in Gryffindor Tower. 
What would you read into that?
> 
> Sometimes a cigar is just a... cigar.


***Katie:


Well, since I am usually someone who *doesn't* read into every single 
thing - I think this is something worth noting. I agree with you that 
sometimes we read too much into things - but in the context of all 
the other inconsistencies in DH - this, to me, is a big one. 


As some other people have noted, as I myself did a few weeks back, 
the House Elf storyline is one that is poorly developed, executed in 
a half-assed way, and altogether fairly confusing, IMO. I don't 
really understand what point she JKR was trying to make, but it 
definitely smacked of anti-slavery to me. Since that is how I saw it, 
it *was* very disturbing to me to think that after all the sacrifices 
the House Elves had made, and all the things Kreacher and Dobby had 
done for Harry, that he would be wondering about Kreacher bringing 
him a sandwich. It just seemed icky, distasteful. 


It was a line that jumped off the page at me as entirely out of 
character for Harry, and it seemed like it contradicted what I saw as 
an anti-slavery story. Maybe that isn't what JKR meant to do, but she 
certainly put enough in the books about the wrongness of House Elf 
enslavement that I feel justified in thinking that was at least one 
of the purposes of that plot...thus, at the end of that storyline, 
Harry's sandwich musings seem, at the very least, out of place. At 
least, that's how I see it. 


BTW, if Harry had wondered if Molly or Arthur would bring him a 
sandwich, that would have a totally different connotation. Molly and 
Arthur do not call Harry *master*, nor are they members of a 
subserviant race. Furthermore, Harry sees them as parental figures, 
who might think to bring one of their *children* a sandwich after a 
traumatic day, especially after losing Fred. That would be very 
different than Harry wondering about his servant bringing him 
one...very different.

Besides, I thought we all had fun discussing the books, good and bad, 
and this, IMO, is not a shining moment. I think it's worth 
discussion. Just my .02, Katie