House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 181006

> Carol again:
> But you concede that they *want to serve Wizards*, right? And I
> *don't* think that "plenty of humans," Muggle or Wizard, share that
> will. (Most of us work because we have to earn money, and, yes, we
> prefer a reasonable and kind employer, but that's not the same thing
> as *wanting to serve a Wizard master,* preferably one who doesn't
> abuse them, which is the only thing that House-Elves want. A 
vacation
> home in Majorca? Lots of chocolate for me to eat? A trip to the 
zoo? I
> don't see any House-Elf expressing any desire except to 1) escape 
the
> cruel treatment of the Malfoys or 2) serve the Wizard of their 
choice
> or 3) in the case of odd-ball Dobby, buy socks. They aren't human.
> they don't think like humans. They aren't caught up in our selfish
> desires for entertainment, material goods, and personal 
satisfaction.
> We don't even see a House-Elf pining for a loved one *other than* a
> human master.

Magpie:
Yes, the house elves we've seen all seem to want to do domestic 
service for Wizards. Lots of humans have a desire to do some kind of 
job and can take pride in similar work as house elves. Like the 
butler in Remains of the Day, for instance.

I don't understand why you keep pointing to Dobby's wanting to buy 
socks as being so very different than a human who works to earn 
money. Lots of people are happier working than being out of a job 
even without a need for money. This desire is not the same as wanting 
to be forced to do something you don't want to do.

But what humans do is kind of a tangent. Nobody's saying house elves 
are being badly served by having jobs serving Wizards. Their desire 
to serve isn't a problem until they're forced to do it against their 
will--at which point it's no longer a desire to serve. Only they're 
stuck. That to me is obviously the difference between house elf 
nature and house elf slavery.

Nor does the house elf pining we see meaning anything. Slaves can 
bond with their masters and love them. 
>  
> > Magpie:
> > Dobby and Kreacher both want freedom when they don't want to serve
> their masters--<snip>
> 
> Carol:
> Kreacher wants freedom? Canon, please? 

Magpie:
Kreacher does not want to work for Sirius in OotP or Harry in HBP. He 
would prefer to work for Bellatrix or Draco. He can't do that because 
he doesn't have the freedom to choose his own master. Kreacher 
doesn't call that freedom--house elves from what we see seem to 
define freedom as being sacked and humiliated, but obviously in both 
OotP and HBP we see Kreacher having desires for action that are 
frustrated by his position as a slave. If there was some way a house 
elf could apply for a different boss to find one he liked, it would 
be fine--it wouldn't be slavery. He would have some say in whether he 
stayed or went.

Carol:
What makes you
> think that Kreacher, deprived of his home in 12 GP and the portrait 
of
> his old mistress, would be any less disturbed? 

Magpie:
He's sent to Hogwarts in HBP. They don't ask Kreacher where he'd like 
to live, and he's got no say in it. (The only reason he still has the 
portrait of his mistress in 12GP is because it was stuck to the wall 
and they couldn't throw it out--they tried.)

Carol:
He doesn't want
> freedom. He just wants the renegade "criminal" Sirius Black to dry 
up
> and blow away. He was perfectly happy serving Sirius's parents and
> brother, and, once Harry shows respect for Master Regulus, he's
> perfectly happy to serve him and *voluntarily* cleans himself and
> starts acting like a Hogwarts House-Elf. 

Magpie:
Yes, he was happy serving Sirius' parents and brother. He's happy 
serving Harry later. But he's *not* happy serving Harry in HBP or 
Sirius in OotP. House Elves are happy when they're in positions they 
want for themselves, they're unhappy when trapped in positions they 
don't want to be in. I don't see how this is an argument for why it's 
good for them to be slaves like they are now.

Carol:
He's not the least bit concerned
> about being owned, any more than the Hogwarts House-Elves are. 

Magpie:
He expresses concern when he says he doesn't want to serve the master 
he has.  If you were sitting in a room happily reading and I locked 
you in, you might not notice and be perfectly happy in the room--
until you wanted to leave the room. The fact that somebody likes 
being in a room is not a good argument imo for it being okay for them 
to be locked into the room. When your desires go along with the 
desires of your owner you might mistake it for freedom, but Kreacher 
can only existing the way he wants when his master lets him.

> Magpie:
> These other things like the right to vote or open a business or 
start
> an eel farm aren't freedom.
> 
> Carol:
> They're not? I thought that living in a free country meant the right
> to vote and the right to seek (but not necessarily find) the
> employment of our choice, the right to start a business, etc. 

Magpie:
Freedom does not give one the right to vote. That's another right. We 
don't ever even see Wizards voting, actually. The right to seek 
employment of their choice is EXACTLY what Kreacher and Dobby suffer 
for being denied. Kreacher wants to work for Bellatrix but he is 
forced to work for Sirius. You seem to be saying that if they don't 
want to open an eel farm they don't want any more freedom than 
they've got now, and I am disagreeing that those two things are the 
same thing. House Elves *are* shown suffering from a lack of freedom 
when they can't choose the person they want to work for. 

Carol:
Funny
> thing: House-Elves don't want any of those *human* rights. They only
> want to serve Wizards, preferably Wizards they respect who won't 
abuse
> them. 

Magpie:
They are capable of having a preference for which Wizard they serve, 
but they can't choose to whom they offer their services. I don't see 
how that's good for house elves. We know they enjoy working for 
Wizards, but why should this mean they should be trapped in 
situations they don't like? Why should Wizards be the ones to decide 
to whom a house elf may or may not offer his services? 

Carol:
I guess you're saying that the Wizards who open business, say,
> the Weasley Twinsd, or start an eel farm like the witch in GoF 
aren't
> free? (She was also free to bet her eel farm on a weel-long match,
> poor thing!)

Magpie:
Um, no. I wouldn't say those people aren't free. That's part of this 
strange road you seem to want to pull me down where you link not 
being a slave to having a desire to open a business. I can't even 
follow how you got to the idea that therefore people who start 
businesses aren't free. 

> 
> Magpie:
>  Sure they don't want to be abused either--neither do most free 
people. 
> 
> Carol:
> No one, not Wizards and Witches, not Muggles, not House-Elves, not
> Mrs. Norris, not even Scabbers or Trevor, wants to be abused. Nor is
> anyone arguing that they do.

Magpie:
Except in a roundabout way you since you keep trying to divorce house 
elf slavery from all the things about it that make house elves 
unhappy--and all the things that give Wizards too much power over 
this other sentient being. Why must Dobby accept being abused by 
Lucius? Why must he do things he doesn't want to do for him? Why must 
he belong to him when he doesn't want to belong to him? Because he 
can't leave because he's a slave. Once he's free, he's off.
 
> Magpie:
> But Dobby even *uses* the word free to describe what he wants.
> 
> Carol:
> "Even Dobby"? I would say *only* Dobby, the oddball House-Elf.
> However, if the Malfoys had not abused him, chances are, he'd be as
> happy to serve as any other House-Elf, including Winky and the
> reformed Kreacher, whose reformation is, BTW, entirely voluntary.

Magpie:
I said "even uses" not "even Dobby."  As in "Dobby, who is actually a 
house elf, describes what he does not have and what he wants as 
freedom." You seemed to be claiming that Dobby is mistaken in saying 
that he wants freedom since all he wants to do is buy socks and his 
life once freed isn't different enough from his life before freedom.
> 
> Magpie:
> > It's so important to him that Harry puts it on his tombstone. It
> changes the way he's viewed by every character. How is it not 
freedom
> because he's a free person who likes to work and that his work
> consists in large part of domestic chores?
> 
> Carol:
> What changes the way Dobby is viewed is his eccentric disposition 
and
> views. Nevertheless, except for his unusual opinions, which the 
other
> Elves don't want to hear, and his extremely odd clothes, he is no
> different from any other House-Elf. He serves Wizards (Harry,
> Dumbledore, and, apparently, Aberforth).

Magpie:
And that he's now free rather than a slave. He serves Wizards on his 
own terms. He is no longer a slave, he's a free elft who works in 
domestic service.

Carol:
The
> "slave" Kreacher chooses to provide only useless information,
> sabotaging his human master, just as he sabotaged Sirius in OotP.

Magpie:
Kreacher didn't want to sabotage himself. He didn't want to do the 
task at all. He wanted to go straight to Draco and tell him 
everything, even offer Draco his services. Dobby is acting on his own 
desires in helping Harry and does a better job. Kreacher is forced to 
do the job, so tries to find ways of not doing it well. Dobby is the 
free elf, Kreacher is the slave.

Carol:
> "How is it not freedom because he's a free person"? Now there's a
> circular definition for you! If you mean, how is Dobby not free, I
> would say that he's free by Elf standards, having been accidentally
> given clothes by his owner thanks to Harry's trick, but he still
> serves Wizards, and he still punishes himself when he disobeys his 
new
> employer, Delores Umbridge. 

Magpie:
Dobby is free by human standards as well as elf standards, at least 
from this human's pov.

Carol:
> Do you think that freed House-Elves, sent to a school like Hogwarts 
to
> learn to be human, would change their nature? 

Magpie:
Don't know and it's not relevent. An elf doesn't have to go to 
Hogwarts and study to be MoM to be free any more than he needs to 
drive an SVU to be free because that's what a lot of Americans like 
to do. Enjoying being a valet or a dishwasher or a housecleaner is 
not enjoying being a slave. Nobody said they wanted to be human. They 
want, canonically, to work for people they want to work for rather 
than those for which they don't want to work. The inability to do 
that gets down to their being owned and being slaves, not their 
liking to do domestic chores for others (nor their not being 
interested in being paid).

Carol:
Note that Kreacher makes
> the *choice* to clean himself up, serve HRH real food (where he got
> it, I still don't know) and magically scrub the pots and pans. 
Again,
> his status as a House-Elf owned by Harry has not changed, but his
> attitude and behavior have come full circle because he respects his
> master. House-Elves like to work; they like to serve Wizards and
> Witches (but not Muggles or Goblins or other House-Elves). All 
that's
> required to make them happy is a master who understands what
> House-Elves want.

Magpie:
But House-Elves don't get to seek masters who understand or care what 
House-Elves want. That's the slave part. It's certainly nice for 
Kreacher that the world happened to change around him so that he 
landed with a Wizard he wanted to serve, but it didn't have to land 
that way.

> > Magpie:
> > I don't see how you're believing them when Dobby has asked for 
> freedom and you're claiming that what he really wants to be is a  
slave. 
> 
> Carol:
> *Please* don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that he wants to 
be
> a slave. That's your word. I said that *he wants to serve Wizards*, 
as
> canon aptly demonstrates. 

Magpie:
Yes, but you keep conflating "wanting to serve Wizards" with wanting 
to be unable to choose not to serve--iow wanting to be a slave--and 
that just doesn't fly imo. Dobby does not want to serve Lucius 
Malfoy, Kreacher did not want to serve Sirius. Yet they both had to 
serve them because they were slaves rather than employees who have 
the freedom to seek their own employer. A janitor is not a slave. 
Enjoying being a janitor is not enjoying being a slave. Dobby wanting 
to serve Wizards does not canonically equal Dobby liking to be forced 
to serve a Wizard he doesn't want to serve or do things he doesn't 
want to do. (I don't remember this clearly, but isn't Dobby trying to 
break himself of the habit of self-abuse after he's freed?)

Carol:
> Again, why not believe not only Dobby, who likes work an chooses to
> serve Wizards, but all the other House-Elves, including Winky,
> Kreacher, and the Hogwarts House-Elves?

Magpie:
I do believe them. I know they're happy while they're owned--and will 
continue to be unless their situation changes to something where 
they're unhappy being owned. That's what happened to Kreacher. That's 
why you can't say they're truly happy with the slavery part. To most 
House-Elves freedom means disgrace. It means you failed, that your 
work was sub-par, that you've been sacked. But Kreacher *isn't* happy 
being forced to work for Sirius any more than Dobby is happy being 
forced to work for Lucius. For Dobby this leads to an epiphany--
freedom doesn't mean being sacked, it means having a say in whom you 
serve. Kreacher never sees this, but he is still definitely suffering 
due to his slavery. 

It's not the wanting to serve that's a problem, it's where that 
desire is taken out of the elves' hands so that they're forced to do 
it. Many elves, because the job itself is enjoyable and their culture 
understands freedom the way they do, never come to the same 
understanding as Dobby. Plenty of elves probably never come up 
against the bars of their own cages because what they want never 
conflicts with their job. But in those cases when it does, those bars 
are right there and the Wizards can see them (and take advantage of 
them) even if the elves don't.

Carol:
 
> Listen to the House-Elves. They don't want to be "free." They don't
> want clothes. They don't want money. They don't want vacations.

Magpie:
"Listen to the house elves" as long as they're saying what the right 
people want to hear. When Kreacher was miserable working for Sirius 
or Harry, there was no need to listen to his desires and let him 
choose the master he wanted--Bellatrix, Narcissa or Draco. 

I'm not dismissing house elf culture. I can see that their whole 
culture is based around makng freedom a dirty word that only means 
you've failed as a worker because somebody didn't want you as a 
slave. But I can still see real ways where this hurts them and 
doesn't make them happy.

It's a hard situation the author's intentionally created, one that's 
full of excuses for owning house elves being okay. I'm not denying 
that. But I still think it's slavery. And I don't think this is the 
way it must be, that there's no way to actually work with house elves 
on their own terms to come up with a system that's far more truly 
mutually beneficial.

Iow, I still don't see why a natural desire to serve means you should 
be forced to serve when you don't want to, which elves are. Those 
that are never in a situation where it takes force are lucky. 

> a_svirn:
> If it were true, why didn't he offer his services to Harry? He spent
an entire year applying for various jobs and never once approached
Harry. Besides, he wanted to be employed, not to be owned by a
congenial master.

Carol responds:
Even if it had occurred to him to do that, what do you think that
Harry would have said, considering that Dobby had nearly killed him
with his Bludger and gotten him in serious trouble with the pudding
and the blocked entrance to Platform 9 3/4?

Magpie:
I don't recall anything in canon that indicates that Dobby really 
wants to be owned by Harry but is afraid to ask because he thinks 
Harry is angry over the bludger or the pudding or Platform 9 3/4. 
Dobby was doing that for Harry and Harry knows that. I don't think 
he's guilty about it now. Dobby spends the last five books of canon 
saying he's happy about being a free elf who's especially happy to do 
things for Harry because he made him that free elf. Dobby wanting to 
do things for Harry and serve him does not translate into Dobby 
wanting to be forced to serve Harry even if he didn't want to.

-m