Realistic Resolutions - WAS: Slytherins come back

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 180739

> > a_svirn:
> > Besides, this way it looks like *they* impose their beliefs on 
> > wizards with impunity. I mean look how happily wizards settled
> > into being slave-owners. Why should they give up their beliefs
> > to accommodate elves? Unless of course they have no real
> > objection to slavery, after all.
> 
> Mike:
> I'm not sure that I correctly understand your point here, but I'll 
> attempt an answer anyway. ;) I beg your pardon if I repeat myself.
> 
> Dobby was the oddball elf. He was the one that spoke of 
> "enslavement", he was the only one that spoke of "freedom". I think 
> Dobby's plight was supposed to be a reflection on the Malfoys. 
Notice 
> how JKR kept that information from us until the end of CoS?
> 
> The rest of the elves considered their "enchantment" as their 
being, 
> their reason d'etre. This "enchantment" can be their originating 
> condition, despite whatever their subsequent "treatment" was by the 
> wizards. The rest of the elves treated their possible release as 
> being "fired", not as achieving their "freedom".
> 
> I think Dumbledore was speaking to this "treatment" by wizards, in 
> the same way Dobby was lamenting his treatment by the Malfoys. 
> Despite his different outlook than his fellow elves, Dobby proved 
by 
> his negotiations with Dumbledore that as an elf he still was 
> compelled to serve a master and to seek subservience, even though 
he 
> was technically "free".

a_svirn:
So what? I wasn't discussing elvish point of view. It may be an 
interesting thing to discuss from the purely ethnographic 
perspective, but what concerns me here is the wizarding angle. If I 
think that slavery is abominable, I will not keep a slave only 
because it's a done thing and they like it just fine. Or at least, I 
should not. If I did, however, have a slave it would be more than a 
little hypocritical for me to explain it away by saying that I am 
only concerned with my slave's needs, or beliefs, or nature or 
whatever. Because it would be rubbish. If I had a slave, it would be 
because I would suit me just fine. Suit *me*, not my slave.  And I 
find it revolting that owning slaves is something wizards happily do. 

> Mike:
>  I was saying that Goblins, like 
> elves, were magical creatures with no parallel in the RL. That's 
the 
> way I read JKR's description of them. They were greedy, 
unreasonable, 
> intelligent, magical creatures (from the wizarding perspective) and 
> their sense of fair play eluded the wizarding mind. That's about as 
> far as we were taken into the goblin world, imo. No further 
judgement 
> was needed on their condition since they only played a bit part in 
> this play.

a_svirn:
Yes, indeed. And notice how little wizards concern themselves with 
goblins' beliefs and customs, and nature. Wizards do not want to play 
by their rules, do they? Because it wouldn't suit them. Goblins's 
notions of ownership clash with those of wizards, but they have no 
quarrel with elves' notions of happy servitude. So it's all down to 
wizards, not to the magical creatures. 
> 
> 
> > > Mike: 
> > > You might as well condemn the WW for keeping the merpeople 
> > > in the lake. They can't survive outside of that lake, 
> > > however unfair that is for their freedom.
> > 
> > a_svirn:
> > No one *keeps* them in the lake any more than they *keep*
> > centaurs in the forest. They *live* there and try to keep their
> > habitat safe from the encroaching wizards.
> 
> Mike:
> Yes and elves *live* in wizard houses serving wizards. Without 
their 
> servitude in the wizard houses, they are just as much fish out of  
> water as merpeople would be out of the lake.

a_svirn:
Not exactly. Winky for all her misery did not die, as the merpeople 
surely would without water. She even got a job. 

> Mike:
> I think too many people are forgetting Winky's plight and the 
> attitude of every other house elf besides Dobby in trying to 
> shoehorn the house elf object lesson into being about slavery, and 
> therefore a failure on JKR's part.
> 
> As for resolution, Pippin brought up a good point:
> 
> >> But as with Slytherin, it is for the Elves to decide what their 
> goals are, worthy or not. Wizards need to lift the enchantments 
that 
> make House Elves punish themselves, but that is a long term goal, 
> like the cure for lycanthropy. <<

a_svirn:

Well, we didn't get to see wizards lifting the enchantments, did we? 
So, this good point belongs to the realm of fanfiction. 

a_svirn