fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5117 ]

[ SECRET POST #5117 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5117 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[Rise of the Phoenixes]

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02.

[A Bug's Life]

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03.

[Nightmare before Christmas]

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04.

(SPN)

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05.

[Dragon Age]

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06. [SPOILERS for Wonder Woman 1984]
[WARNING for discussion of non-con]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of transphobia]

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08. [WARNING for discussion of suicide/self-harm]

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09. [WARNING for discussion of sexual assault]

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10. [WARNING for non-con]

[Bridgerton (Netflix)]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #732.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aren't House elves based on the mythical creatures called brownies?

Only in that they are little creatures that do housework. JKR came up with the slavery all by herself.

I mean, she really didn't come up with the idea that - if you went to a really rich British person's country house - you wouldn't have to do any housework, cooking, or menial tasks. She brought the idea of houseservants and the idea of brownies together and she made house elves. Because that's how the whimsical world of Harry Potter works.

DA Brownies aren't slaves, though, and neither are house servants. Brownies will be mad if you thank them because they don't want to be acknowledged or beholden, because they CHOOSE to do the things they do, not because they genuinely just want to serve you with their lives and will beat themselves bloody for even thinking about freedom.

Hoo boy. There was a lot of messed up stuff that went on under the social contract of master and servant. It didn't have to be outright slavery to still be fucked up.

JKR's creative contribution to the idea of house elves was to make them slaves. No matter how poorly Sir Foppington treats the Willy the stableboy, Willy's not a literal slave whose free-will can be forcibly overridden by Foppington's orders.

+1

Like, the house-elves LITERALLY HAVE NO FREE WILL. They are trapped in body and soul unless the magic words happen, and even then, they expressly rant about how they don't WANT freedom.

Cool, so you're missing the crucial point here.

AYRT

It's complicated! I think, if you look at the literal circumstances of house elves, slavery is a fair comparison. And that's definitely one of the weird, fucked-up things that is going on there.

But I think there's also some ways in which slavery is not a good comparison, and house servants are. For one thing, it's much more resonant with the basic setup of the Harry Potter universe, in which you take British (usually pre-WW2) things and make them magical. While slavery did exist in Britain, it was much less common, and largely relegated to colonies and places outside the British Isles proper - whereas house servants were a significant part of the social texture that JKR is trying to evoke.

Second, to me the fact that house-elves are supposed to be happy with their station in life evokes a very aristocratic, conservative, classist set of ideas about natural divisions between different kinds of people - the idea that there's a natural order in society, and people are not only best suited to one position, but are actually really happiest in that position. House-elves are really genuinely happy to be servants, it's what they really want, and any interloper like Hermione who says they're being mistreated doesn't understand what they really want. At the same time, masters have a duty of noblesse oblige to their servants - you can have bad and abusive masters on the one hand, and good masters on the other, and it's the responsibility of the masters to be good masters - but ultimately they are masters, it's their station in life. So there really was this idea that the lower classes were an essential but lesser part of a holistic social order, and that they were fitted by nature to being part of the lower classes, and didn't want to be taken out of that holistic social order, and I think that really informs a lot of what's going on with house elves.

(Of course, you do have similar themes in American slavery, but the way that they're used in Harry Potter feels much closer to the British example, which makes sense, given that JKR is British and writing a series set in Britain)

AYRT -- I really do get the point you're making here, and obviously that kind of classism is fucked up, but I really don't think the fact that JKR likely accidentally made things a lot worse by adding magical force and a literal racial other-ness to the situation makes it...not worse. What she intended to do isn't necessarily what we got, especially when the word "slave" is repeatedly invoked in the actual text.

Oh, totally.

I think it's bad in multiple different overlapping ways, one of which is the comparison to house-servants.

I genuinely don't think this even occurred to her. Everything about the set up is evocative of them being commentary on British social class issues.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 04:00 (UTC) - Expand

Exactly. They're not commentary on actual slavery, they're commentary on the aristocracy and their servants, using a mythological creature angle.

I wish to god Americans would quit viewing everything through their fucked up societal lens.

just out of curiosity, are you british?

lmao

Are you under the impression that slavery never existed in Great Britain? That's adorable!

It's entirely not adorable that you are apparently unaware that a famous court case in the 18th explicitly said that no-one on British soil could be a slave.
Slavery existed in the Iron Age, Roman empire and up to the middle ages. Not in stately homes. But carry on lecturing us wrongly about our history.

This is... not really accurate.

You're thinking of Somerset v Stewart here (I'm pretty sure). And, one, Somerset's case didn't actually say no one on British soil could be a slave; that was the argument that was made by the anti-slavery lawyers, but the actual judgment just said that the slave's owner couldn't force him to leave the country. And two, Somerset overturned the existing legal opinion at the time, which held that slavery was completely legal in England. So... before Somerset, it was absolutely possible for slaves to exist on British soil, and there were in fact slaves on British soil.

It is true that they weren't a major feature of British life, the way they were in the colonies, but "no slaves in Britain" is really not correct.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 01:26 (UTC) - Expand

Ikr? They do so like to wade in on it. I think it's because they have no culture of their own and have to steal or shit on everyone else's as a result. I remember someone commenting here that HP had absolutely no relation to British culture at all, because magic wasn't real lolol.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 01:51 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 02:02 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 03:17 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 03:27 (UTC) - Expand

Do you....do you think slaves were just sad servants?

Saying that it's about the class dynamics of British society does not make it less fucked up

the class dynamics of British society are incredibly fucked up

No shit Sherlock. That's the whole fucking point of the house elves.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 01:38 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-09 01:46 (UTC) - Expand

She did come up with the idea that the elves were enslaved though. Brownies and rich people's servants could quit whenever they wanted. Hell, half the brownie stories are about making sure you don't offend them so they don't either leave forever or fuck your shit up (or both). JKR also came up with the fun idea that the house elves' masters could override their free will and that they would be forced to physically punish themselves if they disobeyed an order.

Yeah there sure were a lot of options for lower class people who were reliant on their employer's good will to get their next job. Not to mention that big houses were often major employers in rural areas and workers rights were absolutely non-existent. Yep lots of options there.

You... really don't know the difference between being poor with bad options and being property with no legal rights? That's really fucked up and you should probably talk to someone about that.