[ SECRET POST #955 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #955 ⌋

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

102.


__________________________________________________



103. [repeat]


__________________________________________________



104.


__________________________________________________



105.


__________________________________________________



106.
[Beethoven]


__________________________________________________



107.


__________________________________________________



108.


__________________________________________________



109.


__________________________________________________



110.


__________________________________________________



111.


__________________________________________________



112.


__________________________________________________



113.


__________________________________________________



114.


__________________________________________________



115.


__________________________________________________



116.


__________________________________________________



117.


__________________________________________________



118.


__________________________________________________



119.


__________________________________________________



120.
[Battle Royale]


__________________________________________________



121.


__________________________________________________



122.
[beethoven]


__________________________________________________



123.


__________________________________________________



124.


__________________________________________________



125.


__________________________________________________



126.


__________________________________________________



127.


__________________________________________________



128.


__________________________________________________



129.


__________________________________________________



130.
[Versailles]


__________________________________________________



131.


__________________________________________________



132.


__________________________________________________



133.


__________________________________________________



134.


__________________________________________________



135.


__________________________________________________



136.


__________________________________________________



137.


__________________________________________________



138.


__________________________________________________



139.


__________________________________________________



140.


__________________________________________________



141.
[Pokemon]


__________________________________________________



142.


__________________________________________________



143.


__________________________________________________



144.


__________________________________________________



145.
[HIMYM]


__________________________________________________



146.


__________________________________________________



147.


__________________________________________________



148.


__________________________________________________



149.


__________________________________________________



150.
[HIMYM]


__________________________________________________



151.


__________________________________________________



152.


__________________________________________________



153.
[HP]


__________________________________________________



154.


__________________________________________________



155.


__________________________________________________



156.


__________________________________________________



157.


__________________________________________________



158.


__________________________________________________



159.


__________________________________________________



160.


__________________________________________________



161.


__________________________________________________



162.


__________________________________________________



163.


__________________________________________________



164.


__________________________________________________



165.


__________________________________________________



166.


__________________________________________________



167.


__________________________________________________



168.


__________________________________________________



169.


__________________________________________________



170.


__________________________________________________



171.


__________________________________________________



172.


__________________________________________________



173.


__________________________________________________



174.


__________________________________________________



175.



Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 12 pages, 288 secrets from Secret Submission Post #137.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 3 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

108. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/star22/houseelf.jpg

[forthecamera.livejournal.com]

108. I don't know how to feel about this one either. I agree, but then with the exception of Dobby all the other house elves were always running over themselves to serve people.

If my memory isn't faulty Hermione at one point says that they've been brainwashed since they know no other choice and I agree with that but just...the way they are presented in the book makes it so hard to really get evidence for that =/ Hrnn

[azuresquirrel.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I can't really have an opinion on the House-Elf issue because there really is no answer the way Rowling wrote it. Slavery is wrong, but you can't tell people they're being oppressed when they're doing what they want to do. *shrug* If Rowling wanted to have Hermione jump on board of an issue that made her obnoxious (as many teens do) then she certainly picked the wrong one for it.

[dragoon1940.livejournal.com]

You can't really free someone who doesn't want to be free, I suppose.

[lljscrawls.livejournal.com]

I think the Hogwarts half-elves are the exception rather than the rule. I think the largest problem is that most of the half-elves never really thought about freedom before, but that if they were offered the chance - or at least offered wages, better care, etc. - they'd really enjoy it, like Dobby did.

And as for Winky . . . Well, let's face it. She was just a little touched in the head.

[saramiskismet.livejournal.com]

Seriously?

I'm not deep enough in HP fandom to know the general positions, but if that's true, then wtfmates. Just because Hermione is the only one in the wizarding world to think that way doesn't mean the cause is wrong.

It's clear that Dobby enjoys working, he just doesn't enjoying being enslaved. I'm certain that the elves would continue to work if given a semblance of free choice in the matter, so the argument that the enslavement is necessary for the wizarding world has holes in it.

[shai-neko.livejournal.com]

I don't think Hermione should give up, but I do think she needs different tactics. She was pretty damn annoying at first.

[lljscrawls.livejournal.com]

She was fourteen when she started it. =/ It's not like fourteen-year-olds are the most sensible.

Also, your icon = such unbelievable win. <3333 When I read that he'd said that, I loved him even more than I already did.

[lljscrawls.livejournal.com]

I agree with this secret so much. It's like . . . the house-elves don't know any other way of life, so they think their way of life is okay - but that doesn't mean that it is. I mean, think back to the first book; Harry didn't necessarily like living in the cupboard under the stairs, but he was used to it and didn't exactly fight to get the bedroom. When he did get it, he liked it, but before that? It wasn't like he'd said, "Hey, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia - gimme the bedroom kthx." I think it's the same with a lot of the house-elves. They might not go out of their way to try and be freed, but I think that if they were, they'd see how wonderful freedom really is.

Just because someone is used to a particular way of being treated doesn't mean it's right.

[shai-neko.livejournal.com]

I'm not certain if it was JKR's intention, but I've always felt the house-elves were based on the stories of brownies. Brownies do many of the same things in the old stories, and they felt payment for their services was an insult. I always kinda wondered if the wizards took advantage of this characteristic (the Malfoys certainly did) and that's how the house-elf system came to be.

[zidane.livejournal.com]

Between this and the Hagrid hate secret from the other day I've come to the conclusion that I will just never "get" HP fandom.

[skelody.livejournal.com]

They want to serve.

She definitely shouldn't stop fighting for the house-elves, but she needs to start fighting for the right things: good treatment, respect as magical beings, etc.

[phate-phoenix.livejournal.com]

See, this I'm really, really iffy about. O_o At this moment in time, the majority of the House-elves are eager to work as they do, and are incredibly insulted if you try to offer them freedom. (Remember Hermione's act of laying those clothes-esque items around the Gryffindor Common Room, and how they elves were so upset they refused to clean it?) Sure, Dobby desired freedom, but he's the minority.

However, if there was more backstory to House-elves, such as how they came into slavery, how they came to work under wizards, how they became so reliant on Wizardkind, then we could work out just what should happen. If it turns out that the House-elves were forcibly enslaved and the Wizards interbred the fight out of them, then I'm all for House-elf rehabilitation. However, if that isn't the case, if House-elves eagerly and willingly came into the service of Wizards, then it's entirely different story.

[oberongeiger.livejournal.com]

I think it's because the movie version of Dobby was so horribly irritating, like "Jar-Jar x 50" irritating, that people want to see them punished now for his crimes against their own entertainment. That's my theory.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, people can read it different ways.

It's not slavery if they actually really want to do it, however, if you take that they were brainwashed, then it is.

It's complicated, so I think it's important to find out how they see the elves in canon.

[zanzou-chan.livejournal.com]

Consensual slavery is not slavery. Nor is brainwashing consensual. More information is needed on HouseElf magic (how it's tied to its owners, the House, etc) before any real judgement can be made.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think that JKR actually meant the SPEW thing as a satire on the middle-class do-gooder instinct. Hermione was like a little progressive, somewhat condescending to those she was supposed to be helping, and not really paying attention to or even asking them what they might want. Unfortunately all that JKR says the elves "wanted" was to serve, which made them seem like happy slaves. So the whole thing was kind of a mess. Like a few other things set up in GoF/OotP, she never really finished that thought because it wasn't the main point of her books. Ah well.

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

House elves aren't people, though. They're not strongly comparable to humans in terms of intelligence or psychology as far as anybody knows, and even if they were, they are not, on the whole, apparently unhappy with their lives. They're not an allegory for the cruelties of slavery in the real world. They're servant spirits. Every culture I know of has comparable beings somewhere in their mythology, from the genie in the lamp to certain types of fairies and house-spirits, all sorts of mythical beings whose purpose is to take orders or provide some service and not much else.

Slavery isn't slavery, period. That's just about saying that having working animals is a form of slavery. Slavery of PEOPLE is slavery. Magical beings are something completely else.

[xanykaos.livejournal.com]

I hate her stupid crusade, but mostly, I hate the way she goes about it. Everyone, including the people she tries to help, tells her to stop. Her response?

"Oh, I know better than you."

She then proceeds to insult the House Elves, unintentionally. And honestly, I think her trying to trick them into freedom is downright disgusting. Can you imagine the ramnifications on the average House Elf to suddenly find itself freed (largely viewed by all the Hogwarts Elves as a terrible thing) because it picked up the wrong bit of rubbish? Trying to gradually integrate the idea of freedom and wages may be one thing, but tricking them is basically forcing her will upon them without their consent because She Knows Better.

It's proof she's a Gryff and not a Claw. A Ravenclaw would've done better research and approached the problem in a better way. They probably would've even check Muggle sources and found a plethora of legends about brownies and similar hearth-faeries that liked to serve a particular house, and took pride in their work, so long as they were respected as a member of the household as well (if an unseen one).

But no. She goes plowing ahead, all bluster and arrogance, refusing to actually accumulate more information than the intial bit that made her leap into action, and flat-out denying everything anyone else had told her, instead of trying to look at the situation from every angle. It drives me insane.

Crusade for House Elf rights, better treatment, and maybe eventually wages? Yes, certainly. Treating an elf like Dobby would, in the legends, resulted in a cursed house and an absent elf. So they should be treated like people. Bust she refuses to even listen to the people she's trying to help. She refuses to try to understand their culture and instead wants to "fix" them against their will.

I'd probably be more sympathetic if she had ever bothered to learn where the whole arrangement of House Elves as slaves started. If wizards just rounded them up and brainwashed them, yeah, that should probably be amended--with a considerate transition. On the other hand, I've read stories where brownies/hearth faeries/etc without a family to be a part of would fade away and die.

If it's an allegory, then technically she was doing the right thing. If we're supposed to take it at face value, then no. Not enough information.

[lupineradiance.livejournal.com]

Thought she may have seemed annoying at first,I think Hermione had good intentions.

I don't think It was wrong for the elves to serve people if they wanted to and were treated kindly, but what WAS wrong was how some people, for example Lucius and Sirius treated them. Beating and verbally abusing someone who clearly has emotions and sentience, even if they are of a different race and may be "lower class' just isn't okay.

As we saw in the last book, though Dobby was a free elf, he was still willing to do whatever Harry asked because of the kindness Harry had shown him. Also, Kreacher, who had adopted a horrible temperament because of his abuse, became kind and helpful once Harry and the others began to show him respect.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I agree. But Hermione is only anti-slavery in GoF and OotP (claiming they have been brainwashed, though we don't actually know why/how they've become enslaved). In HBP she switches to the idea that they should be treated well and not made to punish themselves. She's perfectly happy being waited on by happy Kreacher in DH.

So it honestly seems like in the end Hermione gives up the slavery issue in favor of treating your slaves well, even though imo the books pretty much show that it's the slavery that really damages them, no matter what the House Elves might say about how they don't want to be free.

[erised-mirror.livejournal.com]

THIS!! SO. MUCH.
I completely agree with you. I mean, I know it's house elves' nature to help and do housework, but not paying them and treating them like shit is just crossing the line.

[bleed-peroxide.livejournal.com]

I really have stopped trying to understand the Harry Potter fandom. I can't imagine why people would want her to stop fighting for their rights - I mean, she was a bit annoying about it initially, but what fourteen-year-old girl is rational all the time? If that's her passion, then dammit, let Hermione do what she wants to do.

Also, agreeing with various other comments - not arguing against your enslavement =/= enjoying it.

It depends.

[cleverthylacine]

I strongly suspect keeping elves isn't good for humans. That is, it would tend to reinforce the same bad character traits that slavery would; we are always at our worst when we have absolute power over others.

At the same time, they're really not human. Star Trek and other TV shows, which I love, don't get me wrong, have given people the idea that any creature of human or greater intelligence will have human drives, needs and emotions, like the need for freedom. This is actually probably not going to turn out to be true.

What if house elves are like bees, and some of them are just not genetically wired to take control of their own destinies? If you ran into a species of intelligent insects where the queen of the hive had pheromonal control, would you think the worker bees needed a liberation movement even when they didn't want it?

I mean, this is the same kind of thinking that leads PeTA members to think that dogs, cats, chickens and other domestic animals should be set free and returned to the wild. Even if the elves aren't genetically wired to serve people, they've been domesticated into human society and might not be able to function in their natural environment any more.

If they really aren't human, what they need is a humane society, not a liberation movement they don't want.

I always thought Hermione and SPEW were meant to be a satire of the way privileged people always think they know what less privileged people need and want, like for instance those missionary groups that think people who actually need clean water and doctors need Jesus (or are only prepared to give them clean water and doctors if they will accept Jesus and give up the way they live in favour of the way the missionaries live).