House-Elves yet again

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181345

Carol responds:
> > Of course, I don't think that House-Elves tricked Wizards into
being their owners. What I think is that, in offering Wizards their
services, the first House Elves bound themselves in a kind of binding
magical contract (cf. the Goblet of Fire) which could only be broken
by giving an individual Elf clothes. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Very likely.

Carol responds:
Okay, good. Something we can agree on. But, of course, I'm only
speculating.

a_svirn:
 However, in that case the bonding enchantment is no more a part of
elves' nature, than the magical contract was a part of Harry's nature
in GoF. 

Carol:
The thing is, it *has become* part of their nature. You give any Elf
clothes and he's "free" whether he wants to be or not. (I wonder, BTW,
if Dobby were to enter into a contract to serve another Wizard, say
Harry, as his master instead of working for DD for, erm, slave wages,
whether he would be bound all over again. Of course, his contract with
DD specifies that he'll receive wages, which he uses to buy socks, so
the enchantment doesn't kick in again. But if he were to trade in his
clothes for a tea towel to serve Master Harry along with Kreacher,
assuming that he survived DH and Harry allowed it, what would happen?

Sidenote: The problem of Dobby's unhappiness is solved partly by his
being given a sock, which frees him from the Malfoy's abuse, and
partly by his being given a job by Dumbledore. But Dobby dies and
there's no other "free Elf" in canon besides Winky. Kreacher's
unhappiness is resolved by Harry's earning his respect. He can't be
freed and doesn't want to be, but I doubt that he will have any
offspring, so Harry's children are unlikely to face the obligations of
House-Elf ownership (noblesse oblige). Winky's unhappiness may or may
not have been resolved, but with her owners' death/Dementation (yeah,
it's probably not a word), she can either accept her job as a Hogwarts
House-Elf or drink herself to death with her unearned wages. I wonder,
again, what would happen if she put on a tea towel and refused wages.
Would she become a happy Hogwarts House-Elf, bound by the same
enchantment as the others?

At any rate, we seem to be left with House-Elves who have rebelled
against the DEs and Voldemort, rejecting them as masters, and
returning happily to their jobs, not caring that they're still owned
by whoever is in charge of Hogwarts. And it seems that they've never
rebelled against a headmaster (not Phineas Nigellus or Snape or even
Umbridge). They don't really care who owns them as long as they're not
abused. The prospect of being owned by DES, however, seems to scare
them. Perhaps Kreacher, still bound to a master and loyal to him
(though he loves Regulus more) persuaded them through recounting his
experience with Voldemort in a way that the disgraced and eccentric
"Free Elf" Dobby could never do.
> 
Carol earlier:
> And since the Elves didn't *want* clothes, they became bound, over
time, to particular families. I'm oversimplifying, but I do think that
the enchantment (which term, BTW, seems to be used on this list
without being part of canon) is part and parcel of their magical nature.
> 
> a_svirn:
> This is the term used by Dumbledore. He said that elves are bound to
wizards by enchantments of their own kind. Merlin knows what he meant
> by "their own kind", perhaps that the enchantment originated from
> elves' magic rather than wizarding magic.

Carol:

It would help if you supplied the exact quote for us to analyze.

a_svirn:
> However, the word enchantment is not really all that ambiguous. One
cannot be born with enchantments as part of one's make-up.
Enchantments are supposed to be performed. They also supposed to be
leaned in order to be performed. <snip>

Carol responds:
Not necessarily. The accidental magic performed by Wizard children is
an enchantment, is it not, even though no spell is performed? And
House-Elves don't seem to use incantations; they just snap their
fingers or whatever and the Hover Charm or whatever is performed.
House-Elves don't go to school. They seem to perform their magic,
including House-cleaning, naturally. They're born with it just as
Wizards are, but unlike Wizards, they don't have to learn how to use
it and control it, as far as we know. No schools, no wands, no spells
to learn. They just do it.

a_svirn:

> I don't even start on the enchantment's being built around cultural
> artefacts. )

Carol:
Why not? House-Elves are attached to *houses* and the enchantment that
"frees" them involves *clothes." Both clothing and houses are cultural
artifacts. I don't see how *House-Elves* can exist without houses, and
they can't be freed without clothes. The Elves in the tale of the
shoemaker weren't really House-Elves yet. They were naked until they
received the gift of clothes, at which point they no longer served the
humans they had chosen to serve. But those humans weren't Wizards.
Something happened to change the nature of House-Elves when they first
began to serve Wizards. Who knows? Maybe all House-Elves are descended
from one original pair, the Adam and Eve of House-Elves. That would
explain how all House-Elves could be *born* bound by the same
enchantment. Again, whatever "enchantment" means. I don't think it's a
spell (incantation). And if there was a contract involved (Serve me
well and I'll reward you with good working conditions; serve me ill
and I'll give you clothes and send you away), the existence of the
enchantment (clothes "free" the Elf from further obligation) must
already have been known.

At any rate, House-Elves can't predate houses. and clothing existed
before houses. So both cultural artifacts were in existence at the
time the first House-Elf became bound, probably through his own will,
to serve a Wizard. Maybe they'd previously served Muggles?

BTW, I looked up "enchantment," which gave me a cross-reference to
"enchant," for which the chief definition is "to influence by or as if
by charms and incantation." "By or as if by" allows the possibility
that no spell (incantation) was performed. Again, I suggest the
analogy of bowing (a human action) as part of the nature of
Hippogriffs. Who *enchanted* them to behave this way? Probably no one.
This humanlike action is part of their *nature*, an inborn trait of
all Hippogriffs.

a_svirn: 
> <snip> If it is natural for elves to be owned, it must be natural
for wizards to own elves. Which doesn't seem to be the case. 

Carol:
Not necessarily. Wizards clearly outnumber House-Elves since Hogwarts
has fewer House-Elves than students and staff (even if we go with the
280 students figure) and most Wizarding families don't own
House-Elves. What's natural is the desire of House-Elves to serve
humans, and the humans they serve in canon are Wizards. That doesn't
mean that all Wizards naturally need and want to be served by
House-Elves or that they can't get by without them.

At any rate, this "problem" of a population of unhappy, abused
House-Elves "enslaved" to masters they don't want to serve appears to
exist solely in the imagination of certain readers. Dobby's and
Kreacher's problems were resolved; Winky's were *caused by* being
"freed" and could only be resolved by returning to her old masters
(impossible) or accepting a new one (whether or not she accepted pay).

The Hogwarts House-Elves *did* choose their masters. They fought
aginst the Death Eaters to preserve the staus quo. So where's the
problem? they don't want to be free. They're happy as they are. They
stepped in to make sure that they don't have to serve cruel masters.

Why not let them be what they want to be?

Carol, wondering whether old Kreacher is even still alive by the time
Harry's children go to Hogwarts since if he's dead, the problem of
Harry as "slave owner" is a moot point