House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 180762

Magpie:
<SNIP>
More importantly in this case, the *wizards* consider them slaves.
Whatever the mindset of the elves, who are not the pov characters,
the Wizards make no bones about seeing them as slaves and don't come
to some new understanding that from their (the Wizards') pov they're
something else. Wizards are humans and have the same understanding of
the human construct of slavery that we do. That's why the question
isn't whether house elves are wrong to want to be what they are--
whether or not a house elf truly understands himself to be a slave
because that's a human construct that they don't understand, the
Wizards absolutely understand them as slaves in the same way readers
do. <SNIP>


Alla:

Well, actually I challenge the idea that wizards have the same 
understanding of the human construct of slavery that we do. Oh, it 
looks like slavery all right, but the very same actions and events 
in the different society can be something totally different by the 
way.

Oh, and for the record I totally think that house elves are slaves 
and hold the POV that JKR left the storyline widely opened for a 
reason - that slavery does not dissappear so fast, BUT I totally 
understand the POV of those who think it is not.

Have you ever read the book "Swordspoint" by Ellen Kushner for 
example?

If you did, I am sure you will agree with me that this society does 
not think of itself as society of mass murderers. But, um, there are 
swordsmen who can be hired to kill anybody basically at any point 
and this is considered a job as any other and every noble of the 
society basically accepts that his life can end at any time and if 
it is done by following couple of rules, those swordsmen do not get 
punished or put to prison, etc.

So, if I were to follow the rules of my own society, I would 
certainly call what was happening in there to be murders committed 
over and over and over again. After all, those will be in **our 
society**.

Same thing with house elves - how do you know that if it looks like 
slavery to you ( and me) that human wizards consider it to be the 
same thing as  we do?

I know I do not know that. I mean, I LIKE interviews and freely use 
them, so I do not doubt that JKR intended to portray slavery, but 
where is it in canon that human wizards think of it as such?

We agree that elves want to serve, don't we and the main issue is 
whether it is disgusting for human wizards to accept them a such?

Well, how do we know that they think of house elves as slaves?

Alla.