Elves again was: Wands and Wizards...Again

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 183713


> Kemper now:
> Kreacher wanted a different master other than Harry initially.  He
> wanted to serve Bella or Draco.  He rebelled as best he could the
> commands given to him by Harry pre-DH.  Nowhere in the books do the
> Elves claim to desire slavery.  They express a desire to serve. 

Magpie:
Yes, exactly. The slavery is not that they serve people--you can 
serve people without being a slave. It's Kreacher not having the 
freedom to choose who and when he serves that makes him a slave. He 
can only try as best he can to get around the enchantments or lash 
out passive-aggressively as he did in OotP and HBP. 

> > Magpie:
> > ... It's like an 
> > abstract problem: can you find something wrong with slavery if a 
> > person wants to be a slave? And I feel like it would still be 
wrong. 
> > And I suspect there have been plenty of human slaves throughout 
> > history who did have reasons to want to be slaves.
> 
> Kemper now:
> That question doesn't refer to the Elves.  I address the Elf issue,
> the question should be: if you want a servant and someone is willing
> to serve you, is there anything wrong with that?  
> 
> Assuming that both beings are of age, my answer is 'no'.  Morality
> only enters into issue if the server no longer wants to serve and 
the
> 'master' does something to hinder the server from his/her choice to 
leave.

Magpie:
I agree that if you want a servant and someone is willing to serve 
you there's nothing wrong with that. But the Elf situation goes 
beyond that, and that's where they run into trouble. Kreacher wanted 
to serve and so did Dobby. Neither of them ran into trouble because 
they didn't like serving people. They ran into trouble when they were 
forced to serve against their will. That trouble remains even when 
it's hidden by a pleasant situation. Kreacher is in the same 
situation he was in OotP. He's just happy with that situation now.

There's nothing wrong with employing a servant or accepting the 
services of someone who wants to serve you (well, that could lead to 
some problems for you but there's nothing wrong with it in itself). 
There is, imo, something wrong with accepting ownership of a person 
in a situation where they're compelled to serve you. That part of it 
is hidden once Kreacher wants to serve Harry, but they're actually in 
the same situation. And we can't quite just brush it aside by saying 
that if Kreacher wanted to leave Harry and serve someone else Harry 
would just let him and thus he isn't a slave, because Harry actually 
didn't do that. Perhaps he'd do it now or in the future because he 
now has reason to want to make Kreacher happy, but that still comes 
down to Harry's needs and wishes.

-m