A sandwich/House Elf Storyline/JKR's Intent

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178748

> Geoff:
> This takes us right back to where I started. What you have written 
is
> how you view the matter. I view it in a different light and we 
both have 
> the right to hold our own views on this. 
> 
> You talk of "Harry is thinking of putting his feet up and going 
back to 
> his comfortable life." I don't actually recall Harry having had a 
particularly 
> comfortable life; one way and another, he's had a pretty grotty 
time of it 
> so the thought of putting his feet up might especially appeal to 
him.
> 
> I think many of us reached the "agree to disagree" point over the 
differing 
> interpretations of DH some time ago and reiterating the same 
arguments 
> ad infinitum is not likely to change our own individual takes of 
the situation.

Magpie:
This *isn't* where we see it differently and it's definitely 
not "back where we started" because we haven't been talking about 
whether or not Harry's had a hard life. My bad for sticking in the 
word "back" since of course Harry's life has been totally grotty. He 
tells us that often enough himself in case we missed it. (We're not 
going by the rule "Any year that you live in a castle is a good 
year" in this series.) This is not what the thread is about.

Harry is for the first time going to have a less than grotty life if 
you prefer--the point was not whether or not he'd ever been 
comfortable but what form that comfort is going to take. Which I 
think Montavilla explained quite well:

"It tells us that Harry is a decent bloke, who, after saving the 
world wants nothing more than a good sleep and a bit to eat. Not 
glory, not riches, not nookie. Just simple, modest desires.

Odysseus, returning from his twenty-year journey would be as
modest. He'd have a slave bring him his slippers and a cup
of wine. And think no more about the issue of slavery than
Harry does."

Magpie:
I don't see how looking at the line "thinking now only of the four-
poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering 
whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there" and thinking  
that Harry is thinking of having Kreacher, whom we know is his 
personal slave, bring him a sandwich is a stretch while the more 
obvious reading is...well, anything but that.

zgirnius:
Make that, FOUR books in a seven-book series, please. CoS, GoF, OotP,
and DH all have major subplots having to do with House Elves, their
enslavement, and the negative consequences thereof. HBP keeps the
issue simmering, without adding anything new to our understanding, so
I will not count it. Why a parenthetic thought of Kreacher and a
sandwich should wipe out the elf-related contents of those four
books, including a dramatic development *in the same chapter* as the
sandwich thought, is not clear to me.

Magpie:
The one line doesn't wipe anything out, imo, it's the logical 
conclusion to the storyline of all those books. CoS introduces Dobby 
who wants to be free, and Harry frees him. But in GoF we see that 
Dobby is not a normal House Elf. Those House Elves *do not want* to 
be freed, so our previous idea that House Elves are like humans 
enslaved against their will is challenged. We must re-learn House 
Elves. Trying to free them offends them. Winky, when freed, becomes 
a miserable drunk. The question of House Elf freedom is now far more 
complicated and this is the question for which one solution is 
offered in the series, imo. Harry freed Dobby because he wanted to 
be freed; it does not follow that he should necessarily free another 
Elf if he does not want also to be freed.

OotP has Hermione continuing to try to trick Elves into freedom, 
which leads them to refuse to clean the Tower (showing independent 
thought and action *without* being freed as they always have done). 
Dobby covers up their protest and does it himself. It's still Dobby 
vs. every other House Elf. We also meet Kreacher, who also doesn't 
ask to be freed even though he hates Sirius. (And they wouldn't 
anyway because it's dangerous.) Hermione continues her "House Elves 
can't speak for themselves because they're brainwashed" attitude 
with Kreacher but she can't free him. Dumbledore warns against 
underestimating House Elves's feelings because they can be tricky 
when they're only obeying you in the body and not the heart. 
Dumbledore himself has offered Elves freedom but since they refuse 
he staffs the castle with the free labor.

HBP does not keep anything in a holding pattern that I can see. How 
can it be a holding pattern when it's the book where our hero 
actually inherits his own slave? What will he do with it? He hates 
it personally, so sends it to Hogwarts--but when he needs somebody 
to do a dirty job calls on him and not Dobby, which is perfectly 
correct if he's accepted his role as Kreacher's master. It does not 
bother Harry that it's going against Kreacher's wishes to do that 
particular job--he just has to be smarter than Sirius in not giving 
him any loopholes. Hermione expresses no problem whatsoever with 
Harry owning a slave or giving him an order, though she counsels him 
to be polite in giving it. I'm not seeing holding pattern here, I'm 
seeing some development. Hermione drops SPEW and never mentions it 
again iirc the same book the problem becomes personal and involves 
her worthy friend and also the book where her love life gets more 
important. 

And then there's Book VII. Harry needs something from Kreacher 
again, and this leads to him hearing his pathetic story. He feels 
sorry for Kreacher, and gives him a very nice gift--"too much" I 
believe Ron comically calls it when Kreacher falls all over himself. 
Now Harry and Kreacher have a perfectly happy relationship. Kreacher 
loves serving "Master Harry" and "Master Harry" is waited upon in 
style while he tries to save the world. And Hermione and Ron benefit 
too. They live very well with Kreacher until the day they leave the 
house forever with Kreacher waving to them from the door and 
promising to have dinner waiting for the chilluns when they get back.

Dobby dies, but he was never a leader. Perhaps one day there could 
be a House Elf who would actually change things, or perhaps not. Not 
this story. There is no movement for House Elf freedom within canon.

Kreacher, meanwhile, is still a loyal slave when Harry gets back to 
Hogwarts, and Harry slips back into the Master role again.

I don't know where that one sentence a the end is supposed to be 
undoing anything. It doesn't make Dobby any less desiring of his 
freedom, but Kreacher doesn't want his freedom. Harry is not his 
liberator, he's his wonderful master and was before the last scene. 
Doesn't seem like it's wiping anything out to me. It just seems like 
this is the attitude they ended up with. Harry will become one of 
the good masters--like Dumbledore, partially by showing that he 
would free these guys if it were practical but it's not.

zgirnius:
Hermione never changes her mind about House Elf slavery being bad.
The last words we hear her utter on the subject, as I recall, are
these:

Magpie:
It being "bad" is a bit general. If she had the same view she'd 
always had, she'd be trying to free Kreacher the way she 
consistently tried to free other elves. Kreacher stops being 
punished in DH because he comes to love Harry as his master and when 
he loves him he doesn't disobey him. Not wanting House Elves 
sadistically punished is not the same as demanding they all be free. 
(House Elves even again give the slavemasters a break here they 
don't get in real life because they're self-punishing.)

zgirnius:
Hermione rewards Ron for thinking that the house-elves should be sent
to safety, when Harry raises the possibility of sending them into
battle.

Magpie:
Which is silly of her, because Ron's the one who says "I'm 
uncovering these hats because they ought to KNOW what they're 
picking up." 

zgirnius:
The issue of freeing them does not come up (though sending them away 
is closer to freeing them than doing nothing, because, as the 
example of Winky in GoF shows, it is difficult for her to even act 
to protect herself if she does not have orders to do so).

Magpie:
No, it doesn't come up. But the Hermione of GoF and OotP brought up 
nothing BUT that. Wanting to send them to safety doesn't mean that 
she can't also want them freed, but it also doesn't mean she is 
demanding they be freed. She didn't demand it about Kreacher.

zgirnius:
Kreacher, under a better master, becomes not only happy, helpful, and
kickass, but more able to act independently, as the choice of the
house elves to join the fight, a choice made without the influence of
any humans, demonstrates. That's the step in the right direction we
are shown in the final chapter of the series. This action suggests
that Kreacher and the elves he led might someday accept freedom as
their due, unlike poor Winky who had freedom thrust upon her when she
did not want it and had not been at all prepared for it by her life.


Magpie:
Kreacher acted independently before he was Harry's slave in 
betraying Sirius, for instance. He's no more or less able to act 
independently now. House Elves are always able to act independently 
if they're doing something their Master wants or doesn't care about 
or if they're getting around the spell. If Harry didn't want 
Kreacher in the fight he could have still just said "No!" and 
Kreacher would have to obey or punish himself (and if Kreacher had 
joined the fight on the DEs side in Regulus' name, I'm pretty sure 
Harry would have ordered him to stop). Harry's being a good master 
doesn't make Kreacher less a slave, it makes him a slave with a 
better master. I can't see how that is any step towards freeing the 
House Elves. They've *always* acted on their personal convictions to 
an extent. It's nice knowing that your House Elf is doing something 
he likes when he's doing something you like, but it doesn't solve 
the slavery question. It just makes the House Elves a complication 
in the plot.

zgirnius:
Kreacher and his fellow are explicitly fighting for themselves -
against a Dark Lord who would oppress them, and inspired by the
memory of a human who would protect them. An idea only Dobby had,
when we met him in CoS.

Magpie:
I thought Kreacher's story made clear they don't think on that 
level. Kreacher fought for Voldemort by getting Sirius killed, 
because he wasn't fighting against anybody who "would oppress him" 
as a political act. He was loyal to people who were kind to him. 
None of which has to do with House Elves deciding not to be slaves 
anymore, as is obvious when Kreacher fights the battle and is still 
mentioned in his old capacity in the last scene. 

> Betsy Hp wrote:
> > Honestly, I thought her stuff about uniting the houses and her
> > dwelling on the fact that the four houses represent the four
> > elements is completely contradicted by the text.
>
> Del comments:
> I still remember the horrifying moment when I first read about 
Harry
> entering the RoR for the first time in DH, and noticing that there 
is
> no Slytherin banner in it. My mind reeled with disbelief and shock 
at
> that time: this was just so WRONG!

Pippin:
There do not HAVE to be any Slytherins in the DA for
Slytherins to be opposed to Voldemort. It'd be like assuming English
Jews were against parliamentary government in the early Victorian
era because none of them served. They *couldn't* serve because
they were excluded.

Magpie:
They don't have to be in the DA for us to know that they're opposing 
Voldemort, but they do have to be shown opposing Voldemort. I simply 
do not see "Gryffindors keep Slytherins from opposing Voldemort when 
they want to" anywhere in the story. Why should I think they wanted 
to be fighting against Voldemort and were stopped only by 
McGonagall's sending them away? (Too bad they weren't this obedient 
when she was telling them not to play dirty at Quidditch.) This 
isn't real life, there's nothing there but what's on the page. It's 
actually totally not at all like assuming English Jews were against 
parliamentary government in the early Victorian era because none of 
them served. At all. In a number of ways.


Pippin:
Oh, I *see.* So the default assumption is that a woman who gets
married and has kids is politically dead? If JKR wants you to think
otherwise, she has to show you? I kind of hoped we'd moved
beyond that. ::sigh::

Magpie:
No, I think she means the default assumption is that what's actually 
on the page is what's actually in the story. Hermione could have 
become the Israeli Prime Minister for all we know, but it's not in 
the story because it's not on the page so that's not the ending she 
was written. Hermione doing anything whatsoever in her professional 
life is not part of the epilogue. The ending written on the page is 
that she has babies. 

Betsy Hp:
Apparently, after living in a house with a house-elf happily being
your slave, you become totally cool with it. <g> Harry defines
Kreature as his slave. He's a good boy so he's not into beating
Kreature, but he's very cool with Kreature serving him. So the
system works for Harry.

Pippin:
But the whole point of the passage, as I understood it, is that
no matter how good the master is or how willing the slave,
one of them may make a mistake and the slave will have to
punish himself, just as we saw in canon.

Magpie:
So shouldn't she be opposed to letting Harry act in his position as 
slave master at all? 

Pippin:
Sure it's nice to have the kitchen kept all tidy and sandwiches on
demand. Sure, some slaves develop a slave mentality and don't
object to slavery any more. But it's like the famous description
of capitalism as a dead herring:

"It shines and stinks."

Are the attractions of slavery so seductive that they have to
be swept under the rug lest people wonder why we ever got
rid of it? Do you see the need for a scare campaign like the
ones they used to use against illegal drugs, where every
aspect had to be described as horrifying lest people think
they should try it?I think the description of Kreacher's suffering 
is sufficiently memorable that Harry is never going to be okay with 
it. I'm certainly not. I don't know of any reader who *is* okay with 
it.


Magpie:
That's a nice argument against slavery from outside the books, but I 
don't particularly see how it relates to the books. What's the big, 
clever warning against slavery I'm supposed to be getting from HP--
that the author's actually showing in the story? *I'm* not the one 
who inherited a slave and lives in a society where I could own one 
who doesn't want to be free. It seems like you're saying I could 
write a story about happy slaves--perhaps a nostalgic revisionist 
ante-bellum story like one I unfortunately had to read a while back--
but it would still be an anti-slavery story because that's the part 
I'm supposed to bring to it myself as a reader. Not that that 
couldn't be done, but I just really don't get that from the House 
Elf story in canon at all. I can't get it from canon, actually, 
because the House Elves aren't human. Some of the most basic 
arguments against slavery don't hold true for them, while some of 
the most common arguments for slavery are true for them. And the 
idea that JKR is expecting us to see Harry as having become bad 
there seems hard to believe.

I mean, what exactly is the drug analogy supposed to imply? No, I 
don't think I need a "scare campaign" to keep me from becoming a 
slave owner. That's not a pressing issue for me these days. But I 
also don't assume that anything that includes slavery or drugs must 
be making a clear, coherent anti-drug or anti-slavery message just 
because drugs and slavery are included. What's the big fall that 
Harry's heading for with Kreacher, exactly, now that he's been 
seduced by the attraction? Harry fixes Kreacher's suffering. He's 
not suffering with Harry as his master. Harry's not suffering with 
Kreacher as his slave. So everything's fine.

Seems like the only anti-slavery part is where I, as the reader, am 
supposed to be anti-slavery before I start reading.

Pippin:
That Harry doesn't feel guilty for wanting Kreacher to get
him a sandwich doesn't bother me -- what does Kreacher
care whether Harry feels guilty or not? Actually, it's worse
than that. Kreacher would be upset and blame himself for
master's unhappiness.

Magpie:
How is this not a pro-slavery reading? You don't have a problem with 
Harry having a slave to do things for him. In fact, Harry is somehow 
helping Kreacher by ordering a sandwich, because as a slave Kreacher 
would blame himself for Harry's unhappiness at having to go sandwich-
less (in ways he had no problem with Harry being served by others 
back in HBP). Sounds like your average slave-owner would be quite 
happy with that idea. Isn't Harry just doing the most responsible 
thing given the reality of his world? It's not his fault Kreacher 
was born to be owned and to serve; Harry's just doing him a favor by 
letting him serve him. No danger to Harry in being selfless that 
way, is there? No reason he should be not letting Kreacher wait on 
him if Kreacher wants to, right? What does that say about slavery, 
exactly? That it's evil that slaves are magically compelled to be 
servile and punish themselves (even if their masters don't want it!) 
when they don't obey and fall apart if left on their own, but that's 
the way it is so the slave master must suck it up and let them make 
them lunch? That there's no reason to not keep people in a 
subservient position if they don't demand better?

Pippin:
If the book had ended with Neville thinking that maybe
Mum would give him a gum wrapper, would that mean he
was okay with her insanity?

Magpie:
What does that mean?

Pippin:
And I don't see, and no one has explained, how
wanting a sandwich at the end of a day when he's terminally
exhausted and has just saved the world, means that when
Harry gets up the next morning he won't be just as aware of the
drawbacks of slavery as he was when he saw Kreacher
punishing himself. We haven't forgotten, so why should he?

Magpie:
Not sure what drawbacks of slavery Harry will still be aware of 
you're referring to exactly here. Maybe I have forgotten them since 
he never mentions them or thinks about them. I would think that 
owning a slave that you have bring you sandwiches and being an 
abolitionist would be a bit of a conflict of interests. But good 
news for p.c. slave owners if it's not. 

Betsy Hp:
Because they'd shown themselves as baddies. (Or are you suggesting
McGonagall is a baddie now?) So... Hagrid and Ron were right.

Pippin:
McGonagall wasn't a baddie, but she was wrong. Wrong to believe
that Snape had murdered Dumbledore, wrong to behave as if he
had corrupted all of Slytherin House.

Magpie:
How do we know she was wrong about this? I think if McGonagall had 
mistakenly thought Gryffindor was the bad house they'd have come 
crashing right back into the school to fight and proved her wrong. 
Slytherin seemed to more prove her right by their behavior, save the 
few exceptions that proved the rule. 

Pippin:
If you'll remember, the whole school had drawn their wands and
were pointing them at the Slytherin Table, not just at Pansy.
What could they do then, except go quietly? Did McGonagall give
the impression that she would delay the evacuation if there were
objections? With Voldemort on his way, would that have been
a good idea?

Magpie:
They could stay back or come back, obviously. It's what most of the 
characters we know would have done. And if this was supposed to be 
a "Slytherin was wronged moment" I think they'd have done just that 
so that we'd see it was wrong. If I don't start out with the very 
conclusion I'm supposed to be proving (that slavery is wrong, that 
Slytherins were wronged) the books don't give it to me.

Betsy Hp:
Neither Death Eaters nor Voldemort were stopping changes occurring in
the MoM.

Pippin:
Lucius was stopping implementation of Arthur's Muggle protection
act. Arthur's career was stalled because he was too friendly to 
Muggles.

Kingsley Shacklebolt had to be distant from Arthur. Tonks and
Lupin thought their presence would give Scrimgeour an excuse
to hassle Harry.

The threat of DE's made the WW reluctant to stop relying on dementors
for protection and afraid to find out if any Giants would want to 
change sides. Some of them *were* sympathetic, and maybe, if the 
embassy had had ministry support more could have been saved than 
Grawp.

Magpie:
So now that Voldemort's gone (again) canon actually shows me that 
all these wonderful changes are going to take place because the WW 
was on the verge of all this except for Voldemort, whom they thought 
was dead for years already, was actually alive? Too bad there's no 
sign of this in the books that I can see. I thought Lucius Malfoy 
was on the defensive in CoS. How exactly did Arthur get the act 
passed if Lucius is so in control?

Betsy HP:
Also, Harry just killed Voldemort. Packs of fanatic bigots
could rise again because he did nothing to change or enlighten the
primordal soup they rose out of, IMO.

Pippin:
That was Arthur's and Kingsley's job--seventeen year olds aren't
ready to lead the WW, no matter how good they are at destroying
horcruxes. What Harry did was give those who were prepared the
opportunity to do it.

Magpie:
I'll have to read "How Arthur and Kingsley Enlightened the Wizarding 
World And Changed Everything That Needed To Be Changed After The 
Series Was Over" before I take that as canon. I think if it mattered 
to this story it'd be in there more explicitly. As of Harry's story 
Slytherins still suck on the whole and House Elves bring him 
sandwiches in bed.

Betsy Hp:
The epilogue reflects that by showing that neither the MoM nor
Slytherin has changed.

Pippin:
Slytherin has changed, since we no longer see people who
think werewolf descendants ought to be pruned, or Weasleys
should be insulted on sight or that Mudbloods ought to be
kept out of Hogwarts. Remember, if it's not in canon, it
doesn't exist <g>

Magpie:
We're not shown (too much that we can't explain it away) that 
they're not changed, so they could be changed. Daring way of getting 
that information across. Make the reader do all the work! I wish so 
many of these readings didn't seem to follow the same logic.

Betsy Hp:
The idea that they needed to change is so unimportant to JKR she
doesn't even address it. Instead we learn the names of the Trio's
children.

Pippin:
As for the changes in the MoM, JKR had so many that she felt they'd
be cramped in the epilogue, "shoehorned in" as she put it. That
would be another story, one that's about politics rather than 
adventures.

I don't think we need Advise and Consent for the Potterverse, 
although if someone wants to do the fanfic it's okay with me. <g>
Somehow I don't think that nineteen years of committee
meetings, special reports, speeches to the Wizengamot, and
fume-filled rooms is what the majority of JKR's audience wants to
read about <g>

Magpie:
So she chose the things that were actually important to the story. 
Which was not the actual changes in the world which you're for some 
reason pretending would entail details about committee
meetings, special reports, speeches to the Wizengamot, and
fume-filled rooms. She didn't include it so it's not there. 

Pippin:
I want to expand a little further on why I said it didn't matter 
about the reader's attitude towards Slytherin.

If you see Slytherins as victims of bigotry and don't think
that Harry did enough, the upshot is still a feeling on your
part that bigotry should be fought.

OTOH, if you see the Slytherins as villains because they represent
bigots and amoral power-seekers, you still have the feeling that
bigotry should be fought.

It doesn't matter who you see as the *fictional* victims or villains,
IOW, as long as you get the idea that the *real life* victims of 
prejudice should be protected from the real life bigots and from 
those who are more interested in getting power than in using it 
wisely.

Magpie:
Knowing "bigotry should be fought" doesn't tell you what bigotry is 
and how to fight it. 

-m