A sandwich

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178732


> Geoff: 

> If people feel that they wish to read into this statement that 
Harry, 
> by expressing a feeling that he would welcome someone - like, say, 
> Molly or Kreacher or, if he had lived, Dobby - offering to make a 
cup 
> of tea and cut a slice of cake for him is undermining the 
structure of 
> the Wizarding world, then that is *their* privilege and choice.
> 
> Personally, I just see this argument (using the word in its best 
sense) 
> as a storm in a teacup, making a mountain out of a molehill and my 
> use of the phrase "Hell's bells" is not emphatic. I say it in a 
tired voice, 
> accompanied by a sigh and a feeling of déjà vu which is *my* 
privilege 
> and choice. :-)

Magpie:
Isn't it clear that we know it's a storm in a teacup according to 
canon, where owning a slave is a perfectly fine thing? Harry is 
thinking of Kreacher bringing him a sandwich--not "someone," not 
Molly (the recently bereaved mother), not Dobby (his freed comrade 
in arms who died heroically saving his life), his personal slave. If 
it's no big deal why the need to write out that aspect out of the 
line? Own the line if it's no big deal.

If Frodo had not gone away at the end of LOTR and *he* had ended the 
book happily climbing into bed and thinking Sam might bring him a 
sandwich I wouldn't be trying to re-write Sam's relationship to 
Frodo by saying that Frodo's just idly hoping a sandwich will drop 
out of the sky but he accidentally said Sam's name. I'd assume that 
Frodo, as Sam's master, was going to ask his manservant to make him 
a sandwich. Which is what Harry's doing.

As it happens, Sam is *not* Frodo's servant (he was never his slave) 
at the end of LOTR. Frodo has made Sam his heir and now he is the 
master of Bag End. 

But I think everyone understands that it's not supposed to be a big 
deal. (In an earlier interview JKR said the House Elves are about 
slavery and she is aware that people have strong feelings about that 
so it's an odd choice for a "no big deal" line.) However, as the 
last line of course it's important. Sam's "I'm back" would not be 
any less important if he'd just thought it, just different. His 
saying it out loud just underlines all the Sam isn't saying to his 
family but that we understand from his line.  Harry is thinking of 
putting his feet up and going back to his comfortable life. But if 
the last line has someone's domestic bliss including having the 
servant bring him a sandwich then that's part of the picture of 
domestic bliss. I don't see how this can be described as reading 
anything into it or creating a storm in a teacup--that seems just 
like calling a spade a spade. I think you have to do far more work 
to make it about anything but Harry thinking about asking his slave 
to make him a sandwich the way said slave has done many times before 
when Harry was feeling peckish. It is NOT "undermining the structure 
of the wizarding world" at all. Quite the contrary. It shows in one 
more way that Harry has taken his place in the structure of the 
Wizarding World--his place at the top.

-m