House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 180968

> SSSusan:
> What I object to is the, to me, rather offensive assumption that 
this 
> is all a reaction to HARRY, the implication that people who have 
> taken the view that I have [about wishing there were a different 
> term] are such shallow readers that we are incapable of handling 
> anything negative pertaining to Harry.  So that when we encounter 
> something icky that good ol', sweet ol', Hero Harry is doing, we 
> can't "compute" and so go scrambling for some way to explain it 
> away.  That bothers me.  

Magpie:
I didn't mean for it to sound so shallow as not being able to 
believe Harry could do anything bad. It was just easy to refer to 
Harry because he's a shorthand for generally positive things, or 
behavior that the book says is okay (or at least forgivable). It 
does seem like the basic idea behind it not being slavery is that 
it's not bad in the same way, and I think that's because that's the 
opinion the book puts across--not by having Harry do it but by 
having the same views as Harry on it. 

The way it comes across in the books to me seems to be that JKR 
wanted to have these house elves because they're neat. They're like 
brownies, which would be fine--except then she changed them and used 
one in a storyline that required Harry to save him from his slavery. 
In fact, most of the house elf storylines in the books come 
specifically from their being oppressed and enslaved as individuals. 
But in the end house elves are a cool part of the WW, as fun as 
Portkeys or something like that. 

I do, I admit, doubt that if Lucius Malfoy were the only house elf 
owner in canon (along with perhaps Mr. Crouch) we'd generally 
consider house elf slavery to just be slavery. Not just because 
Harry wasn't doing it but because it wouldn't be presented as a nice 
thing in any way. We wouldn't have the face of a "reluctant" slave 
owner to deal with. The distinction between somebody like Lucius and 
somebody like Harry does seem to be made both in the books and in 
this thread, as if Harry being a guy who treats his house elves 
better than we imagine Lucius treating his changes the nature of 
their contract. I don't think it's about just trying to absolve 
Harry, I think it's an argument in favor of what Harry happens to 
wind up doing, which is totally excused in canon. In this case Harry 
is a stand-in for the reader who has the same attitude that's being 
argued here. 

SSSusan:
In this whole discussion, I have 
> been focusing on the ELVES and how I see them, how I read their 
> natures, wishes, words and actions, and from THAT came the desire 
for 
> a different term.  It had nothing to do with wishing I could make 
up 
> some softer word to get Harry's ass off the hook.

Magpie:
And I'm trying to get away from the elves, not only because it takes 
away the fact that Wizards are pursuing their own interests in this 
arrangement (as if they're just giving into what's best for elves, 
when Wizards do what's best for Wizards), but because the elves 
themselves don't conform to the position you're giving them, if I 
understand it correctly. You seem to be arguing that since elves 
don't want freedom and want to be owned, it's not slavery, yet canon 
has given us plenty of examples of elves unhappy because they don't 
have the freedom to follow their own desires. The whole idea 
that "it's natural" glides over the numerous examples of elves 
acting against their own desires and wills thanks to their position.

To use the "just because it looks like slavery doesn't mean it is" 
argument in yet another way, just because house elves look like they 
want to be slaves doesn't mean they actually do. They like serving 
others, but suffer under the institution of slavery as it exists in 
the WW. We lose the ability to make this point the minute they stop 
being free.

> Magpie:
> You're right it's not real world slavery--it's fantasy slavery
> where the slave is magically compelled to obey you, for one thing.
> But I haven't seen anybody show that it's actually different than
> slavery in the way it works.

Mike:
But that is the difference, Magpie. It's fantasy slavery, house elf
slavery, not real world human slavery. That's why I'm not willing to
attach real world values to it, nor condemn the wizard slave owners
like I would real world slave owners. It doesn't work *exactly* the
same, humans weren't enchanted to be slaves, slave humans were sold,
bought, traded, not bound magically to a family/homestead, human
slaves didn't have magic that they couldn't use without their
master's permission, and the vast, overwhelming majority of human
slaves would not have eschewed freedom because it was an insult to
their being.


Magpie:
But those values are right there in canon imo. I'm not condemning 
them as humans--really we mean, Muggles--I'm condemning them as 
Wizards (who are human) for the reasons I see in the books. JKR's 
fantasy world relies even more heavily on recognizing RW stuff than 
most (we know Mudblood is a really bad word because we recognize the 
reactions and tone as like a racial slur). 

It doesn't matter imo whether the overwhelming majority of human 
slaves wouldn't have eschewed freedom--the very fact that we're 
talking about freedom being the opposite of the condition implies 
we're talking about slavery. What's important is that any who *do* 
want freedom (and any time you wish you could do something other 
than what your master wants you to do is wanting freedom) don't have 
it, and if anyone developed that desire they wouldn't have it. That 
situation has been dramatized plenty with house elves in canon. 
Dobby can't do what he wants when he's owned by Lucius, Kreacher 
can't do what he wants when he's owned by Harry. Maybe one of those 
two still considers it a disgrace to be sacked and out of work, but 
he's still suffering from a lack of freedom and trying to find ways 
to be free to act according to his own wishes. 

If house elves were only being driven by a desire to work for 
wizards in a household without the yoke of slavery there would be no 
problem. Kreacher could switch from serving the Order or Harry to 
serving the Malfoys or Bellatrix--while still refusing to do 
anything those new owners wanted him to do if it were a problem. 
Dobby could switch from serving Lucius to doing things for Harry. 

An ironic thing about not judging it like human slavery, of course, 
is that human slavery wasn't and isn't judged the way we judge it 
today, and all humans who were slaves weren't always judged as fully 
human.

Mike:
As I've said, that term works for me. But I understand the search for
a new word. Take the moving stair cases in Hogwarts. One walks up and
down them like stairs, one moves to a different floor with them, and
other than the cool headmaster's circular escalator, one must provide
one's own propulsion. All just like regular stairs. Except they are
enchanted to move, so one doesn't end up at the same place every time
after one takes the same stair case. I don't have another name for
them besides "stairs", but they don't have all of the same qualities
as real world stairs. So simply calling them stairs seems lacking to
explain all that they are, they don't *exactly* equate to real world
stairs.

Magpie:
Right--but we still call them stairs because they're stairs with 
some magical specialties. Just like we call their broomsticks 
broomsticks, photos photos, portraits portraits. We just distinguish 
whether we're talking about the Wizard version or the Muggle 
version. It would just be needlessly confusing to refuse to use the 
word "stairs" because they're different than Muggle stairs.

> Magpie:
> The differences lie in how the enslavement is enforced and how
> it's viewed imo. The institution fits all the requirements for
> regular slavery only with a magical component, and that's
> considered mutually beneficial rather than a bad thing. It's
> culturally approved slavery.

Mike:
Yes, I think you've got the essence of it. That magical component is
critical and is also what makes it culturally acceptable in the WW.

Magpie:
I think there's other things that make it culturally acceptable to 
Wizards and acceptable to readers, actually. We don't know whether 
the magical compulsion was created by Wizards any more than we know 
if Elves were the ones who came up with their being the property of 
Wizards.

We also don't know that elves couldn't survive outside of these 
norms. Winky survives, Dobby survives. Winky is depressed at being 
sacked, but she doesn't shrivel up and die like she would in a 
symbiotic relationship. We've seen examples of elves being killed by 
Wizards, but not Elves dying for lack of Wizards. Elves are under an 
enchantment to punish themselves if they disobey their owner, but 
not to kill or harm themselves in a similar way if they no longer 
have an owner. The society isn't currently set up to support them as 
free people looking for work, but their body doesn't give up without 
Wizards.

Carol:
What would happen to the Elves of Hogwarts if they were suddenly
"freed"? Would they just keep their jobs as if nothing had happened
and refuse wages, time off, and clothes (the mark of a disgraced
House-Elf), in which case "freedom" is meaningless? 

Magpie:
But freedom isn't "meaningless" at all without those things! Freedom 
doesn't mean wages, time off and clothes, it means owning yourself 
rather than being owned by someone else.

Carol:
Slavery is the condition of one human being owning another human
being. RL slavery exists and can exist in no other form.

Magpie:
That's completely untrue in a fictional world where "persons" aren't 
always human. Humans owning humans is the only kind of slavery in 
the RW because humans are the only species on the planet who can 
reach the sentience of people. In fictional universes this isn't 
true--and it's not in the WW. House Elves are persons, they just 
aren't human persons. Just as Lupin, Hagrid, the giants, Firenze and 
Griphook are people. 

Carol:
 We are
talking about imaginary beings here, not people. And so far as I can
see, they have no other purpose and no other desire than to serve
Wizards. (Please show me canon evidence to the contrary if you can
find it. Even the "Free Elf" Dobby continues to serve Wizards,
Dumbledore for the low wages he talked DD into giving him--DD
originally offered too much money--and Harry by choice.)

Magpie:
We are talking about imaginary people. And I think this 
conflates "wanting to serve Wizards" with "wanting to serve Wizards 
against my will." We have plenty of canonical evidence of House 
Elves who have other purposes and other desires than what their 
Wizard master commands that they do. Dobby the house elf sees the 
difference between working for Dumbledore for low wages by choice 
and being owned and commanded against his will by Lucius. Was 
Dobby's entire life a hallucination? 

Carol:
This is not slavery. It's either voluntary (willing) or involuntary
(unwilling) servitude. And a House-Elf *can* disobey his master, so
long as he punishes himself for the disobedience. *That's* where the
problem comes in, as Hermione points out in "Kreacher's Tale."

Magpie:
The "problem" coming in here being slavery, the fact that they are 
in a position where they're supposed to do things according to 
someone else's will rather than their own. Naturally it's in the 
moments where their will conflicts with their master's it becomes 
most apparent. Kreacher only left the house when he could twist 
Sirius' words into permission to leave. The elves we've seen being 
recalcitrant aren't able to just act as they like and iron their 
hands later no biggie, they operate around their orders. Kreacher 
*wanted* to side with Malfoy in HBP. He couldn't because Harry made 
sure to give him orders that prevented him doing it. They have some 
leeway where they know they're really working against the master and 
punish themselves for it, but it's not like Dobby didn't see the 
difference between his position at the beginning of CoS and the end.

Not that this enchantment to punish has been lifted, btw. Hermione 
says it's sick, but it's not gone anywhere by the end of the book. I 
think that if it was lifted, frankly, masters would just start 
punishing their house elves themselves, because as the master it's 
their right to have their slave obey them. 

You haven't just argued here that house elves aren't slaves, you've 
argued that humans have never been slaves either. After all, human 
slaves have even greater ability than house elves to disobey their 
masters. They could run away, they could disobey, they could be 
openly defiant. So according to this view of slavery no human has 
ever been a slave, because as long as you aren't a mindless zombie 
(of the Val Lewton variety, not the George A. Romero kind!) you 
can't be a slave. 

-m