JKR's intent (was:Re: A sandwich)/Noblesse Oblige

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178697

Carol:
> Harry has the moral obligation of noblesse
oblige, as Magpie said, though she apparently doesn't approve of the
concept--the duty of those in power (in this case wizards who own
House-Elves) to behave responsibly, honorably, and generously to 
those
who are below them in rank or power, including servants. It would be
cruel to deprive the aged and eccentric Kreacher of kind treatment, a
home, and the opportunity to serve wizards that gives House-Elves so
much pleasure (as we see with the reformed Kreacher after Harry gives
him the locket).

Magpie:
I'm not bothered by noblesse oblige as a reality, exactly. You are 
sometimes going to find yourself in a position of power over 
someone, or a position of advantage, and if you are in that position 
I think you do have a moral obligation to treat them well and be 
responsible for them. Power imbalance exists and it's always better 
for the person with the power to be responsible. That's a fine thing 
for people to learn.

But the term is also associated with the idea that certain things 
make you inherently superior to other people and that's what I 
disagree with--and what I see absolutely set up in the Wizarding 
World. One can't make the objection that one would with real people, 
for instance by saying hey, people of that race are not different 
from us, because the author has created races--or humanoid species 
if you will--who actually are set up to be inferior. It's the same 
problem as we always have in discussions--it's not bad to treat 
people as unequal to you if they are...but is it a plea for 
tolerance? (It's not just other species, of course, that Harry is 
naturally superior to. I think he's got a paternalistic relationship 
to those of lower human classes as well.) He's born into a superior 
position to other humans or humanoids. 

House Elves really can't take care of themselves. They really do 
live to serve. It really is either slavery or drunk in a gutter. So 
it's just Harry's duty to have them wait on him, for their own good. 
And yet she says the House Elves=slavery. It's really only the fact 
that she's writing in 2007 and seems a normal person that makes me 
try to figure out a way that this isn't an argument about slavery 
being right for some races in that case. It could be just as easily 
be a nostalgic world based on somebody's memories of growing up with 
slaves. Nothing in the text shows the slavery as inherently wrong, 
only certain (easily spotted, really) masters as wrong.

> Betsy Hp:
> I share your confusion.  Honestly, I do.  At first when I finished 
> DH, sickened and angry, I decided JKR was plain crazy, filled with 
> fury and hate and this is what came of it.  But now...  You can 
write 
> a first draft in a storm of emotion, but did JKR really pour 
through 
> her drafts and consciously *decide* to leave all the petty hate 
> intact?
> 
> I mean, as Lizzyben points out, the message that the way of the WW 
> was right all along is pretty darn consistent.  One or two story-
> lines falling by the wayside, maybe, but all of them? So yeah, it 
> leaves me wondering what the heck JKR was thinking.
> 
> What *was* her intent?

Magpie:
Good question--that I can't answer, of course, because I'm not in 
her head. What it almost feels like to me is that there's a clash of 
things going on. Elkins wrote about this years ago, pointing out the 
almost schizophrenic nature in parts of the book, for instance, the 
way many stories start with a right skewering of the Dursleys for 
their attitudes when those very attitudes are celebrated at 
Hogwarts. (As I said, I think the books end with Harry pretty much 
just becoming Vernon--albeit a far superior, more deserving and most 
importantly *wizard* Vernon.)

It sometimes feels like the reason bigotry is important in the story 
is because it's nowadays a shorthand for "evil." I mean, the story 
isn't doing much in exploring bigotry, it's just making it the evil. 
The good guys don't have to think about bigotry, they just have to 
recognize it in Slytherins who "are" bigotry. (Hagrid might call 
centaurs mules or refer to Filch as a sneakin' squib or look down on 
Muggles, but he'd never slip up and say "Mudblood" and he doesn't 
murder people). But we're not getting any view into what's really 
behind this. In fact for me one of the biggest clunkers in DH was 
that ridiculous "they're stealing magic" idea, which didn't come 
naturally out of anything we'd seen before. It seemed like in the 
end it was just a mish-mosh of different racist attitudes rather 
than a coherent one.

So it felt like, for me, the idea of "Nazis are bad" was just there 
to give some character to the evil without bigotry itself being 
explored. Perhaps if she were an American writing in the 50s the 
Slytherins would have been Communist-like instead of Nazi-like. 
Well, Nazi and snobbish and cowardly etc., but the philosophy was 
Nazi-like. It felt like the author was really far more interested in 
something else--the individual triumphing over "bad people" maybe? 
I'm not sure.

Because ultimately I think if you really look at the series starts 
with Harry being reviled and kept from the good life and ends with 
him winning it for himself. (It might almost have been a Rags to 
Riches story rather than Good vs. Evil...perhaps it still could be.) 
The squabbles between magical species add color to the WW but 
despite the desire for many critics to link them together I just 
don't think that holds up. The book starts with this awful guy 
(Vernon) who hates Harry controlling Harry's world. Harry gets a 
better world, one which is his by right of birth. He triumphs in a 
number of different ways, including over people who are mean to him 
and want to keep him down. In the end he's got a devoted band of 
followers and his enemies acknowledge his superiority, they join him 
or slink away in disgrace. And now he's happily bringing his kids to 
school, master of his world--one not sketched out as much broader 
than Vernon's and not fundamentally changed from the way he first 
encountered it. (I remember someone once bringing up the question of 
why Harry's kids don't seem to know that he's famous and why...it's 
a funny question since whatever he's told them, shouldn't being 
stared at be normal for them by now? But then I found myself 
thinking--why assume these kids have ever left their tight family 
circle before?) Harry's not being a bigot shows that he's truly 
worthy of his status. He's the best of his class, instinctively 
treating his inferiors as a gentleman should.

Harry's world is also a sort of nostalgic one, and carries with it 
for me a lot of obvious baggage from the time it sort of reflects. 
Lealess' description is exactly how it seems to me:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/178668

This isn't something I thought myself into, it's the way the books 
totally come across to me, especially after DH. So the Harry who 
goes up to his cozy four poster (which I have no trouble believing 
would be waiting for him) and considers having the servant bring 
sahib a sandwich there is the natural victor of that opening set up. 
Ultimately it seems like what's cringeworthy about the statue at the 
MoM isn't that it's false but that it's vulgar to build statues to 
yourself about it. It's that clash of modern attitudes on a 
nostalgic world. 

Of course it's hard to reconcile the anti-bigotry message with 
attitudes that are now usually seen as linked to bigotry. There's 
something very bizarre about taking a 20th century boy from the 
suburbs, saying he's going to enter a world and have an adventure 
that's anti-racism...and then have him wind up with an attitude 
towards other races (and I am using "race" there to refer to other 
species, since they're all humanoid) that imo is far more like that 
of a 19th century white male than the attitude he started out with 
(and I don't think that's a clever way of challenging my own 
attitudes about sweat shops or some other modern question). He even 
takes a step up from just not caring about the House Elf question by 
owning one. What attitudes has he learned that would actually help 
him back in his original world? Probably the stuff about relying on 
your friends and standing up to bullies. I don't think the stuff 
with different species says anything very coherent about real life 
inequalities, or presents it as a problem with no easy solution, 
because there doesn't seem to be any need for a solution. They 
current solution is working fine.

-m