[ SECRET POST #1920 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1920 ⌋

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

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26. http://i42.tinypic.com/21m7v28.png
[linked for... sort of scribbly porny, not really]








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 040 secrets from Secret Submission Post #274.
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.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

22. http://i.imgur.com/rQ6Jr.png

[intrigueing.livejournal.com]

Well...let me try to answer all your questions one by one...

a) They like serving because it's in their nature to take care of people. Like it's in goblins' nature to deal with money and trade, and in centaurs' nature to study the heavens. They're magical creatures, it's fine for them to have weirdly specific inclinations.

b) Dobby does like serving, he just doesn't like being a slave for the Malfoys without pay or any other recognition of his worth. He loves his job at Hogwarts and turned down weekends off because he'd rather be cleaning and cooking and such. He just wants to be treated well and to have his independence.

c) There are no laws against mistreating them because the wizarding community is still choked up with conservative aristocratic bigots who think they're better than all other magical creatures and don't care about their plight. JKR only spent five books expounding fairly explicitly on this fact.

d) SPEW isn't meant to be taken seriously because it was a 14 year old girl's attempt to enact grand social change. Of course it's gonna look ridiculous and silly and uninformed and ineffective, just like most high school and college activists do. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- Harry gains some understanding of that in HBP when he and Dumbledore were discussing why Hepzibah Smith's house elf got unfairly blamed for her death. And JKR said that when Hermione grew up she became an influential Ministry official and a big proponent of welfare for magical creatures, you know, when she was an adult and figured out how to properly lobby for civil rights.

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

On b, I think the OP's point was why is Dobby the only house elf we ever see who has that specific hangup about pay.

[intrigueing.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was because most house elves (Winky or the Hogwarts kitchen elves) had internalized the notion that it was disgraceful and unseemly to be free or take money for services, and Dobby was among the vast minority. I thought that was pretty damn cool and realistic (especially when you compare it to stuff like internalized misogyny or racism) the way it was written (god almighty I loved Goblet of Fire. So very very much.)

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

But... how? How did Dobby come to not internalize that notion, seeing as we never see another house elf with his point of view? I would maybe get it if he was raised in a more liberal household, but the Malfoys are supposed to be super abusive, so where would he have even heard that there was a world out there that would accept a free house elf?
(I love Goblet of Fire too, though)

[hunterwithcause.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, how many other house elves do we really get to know other than Dobby? Winky, who obviously wanted to stay with Barty Crouch, and Kreacher, who wasn't happy at all serving Sirius but bound to him.

It's possible there were other house elves who wouldn't mind getting paid, but we a) just don't see them, or b) they don't dare speak up. Given the way the other Hogwarts house elves treat Dobby, any other elf with the same ideas might be too afraid to speak up. Besides, Dobby was a free elf when he negotiated the terms with Dumbledore. Any other elf might have to fear getting kicked out if they ever told their master that they wanted to get paid for a sercive they had always performed for free until now (and countless other elves were still eager to do for free).

In my headcanon, meanwhile, Kreacher and Harry always negotiate the hell out of the terms on which Kreacher works for Harry. Kreacher just wants to do his job like he's always done because he's a proper elf, but Harry wants pay him and give him off days in honor of Dobby (and because he doesn't want to risk Hermione's wrath). So once a year the two of them sit down and Kreacher tries his best to get as big a workload as possible while having to accept as less money and free time as he can get away with. (He's still very proper and respectful while telling his master to shove it. Kreacher is a very proper elf.) Harry, meanwhile, tries to negotiate the exact opposite while the rest of the family/friends just watches on in bemusement. (They had to exclude Hermione from the negotiation table after the first few years; she kept making Kreacher cry with the huge demands of pay and off days. Little did she and Harry know that Kreacher learned early on that tears were the best way to stop Ms Hermione from saying ridiculous things.)



Edit: LOL, my FMA is showing. I meant Winky, of course. Not Winry.

[(Anonymous)]

I like your headcanon regarding Kreacher. I'm totally going to incorporate it into my own headcanon now. :D

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, all that is totally possible, but that's the thing- it's pure speculation. There's no evidence in the text of a whole group of house elves all eagerly waiting to be paid or freed: in fact, OotP seems to go out of its way to establish that the only house elf that the trio have ever encountered who is interested in those things is Dobby.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

The same reason Remus is the only good werewolf we ever meet, I suppose. :/

[kyogres.livejournal.com]

Just butting in to say that I love your icon. Haar and Jill. <3

Do you have a link to the full version of the picture?

[captain-loki.livejournal.com]

a)They're magical creatures, it's fine for them to have weirdly specific inclinations.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they are magical creatures. They are group that is subjugated by arrogant men who brainwash them into believing that the only thing that they are worthy of is cleaning and serving. After generations of this type of thinking it is naturally ingrained into them, that is why they find the very idea of being paid or receiving fair benefits as insulting. If they were given the opportunity to rise above their station and to actually be free thinking individuals they would most likely never want to go back to cleaning and serving wizard kind.

c) There are no laws against mistreating them because the wizarding community is still choked up with conservative aristocratic bigots who think they're better than all other magical creatures and don't care about their plight. JKR only spent five books expounding fairly explicitly on this fact.

This. I have to wonder if the OP has read the same books...the house elves (and other subjugated magical creatures) are there to draw parallels to the muggles and muggle borns. They too are seen as second class by the magical world, and not just the Death Eaters and pureblood supporters. Time and again we see Arthur Weasley (a "muggle lover") treating muggles as though they are cute, adorable and quaint individuals, the same way these "lesser" creatures are treated.

There are numerous times throughout the books that the subject of House Elf rights are looked upon seriously, and yes SPEW was a bit ridiculous but it was sort of supposed to be, precisely to point out how little other wizards actual care about these issues which just continues to strengthen the point JKR was trying to make.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

precisely to point out how little other wizards actual care

THIS! This so much. It's true that Hermione tries really hard to get people involved and I honestly, truly felt sorry for her the entire time. There are tons of people who would be on her side, probably Hagrid and Remus Lupin among them, but I'll bet you anything that 99% of the HP Wizarding World are racist asshats...or just racist without even realizing that's what they are.

[duae.livejournal.com]

For debate's sake, what if the House Elves see it as Wizards have been brainwashed by greed and false-idol worship to put value in money and the only true way to be a good person and receive an eternal reward is to work without pay? That they pity the wizards who spend their whole lives caught up in this eternal struggle for more money and more things and keeping other people from taking your things and your money?

From a House Elf perspective, money could very much be like drugs. It's a gateway into a lifestyle they don't approve of. Dobby could very much be that weird kid hanging out behind the school smoking pot.

Part of respecting other cultures is to RESPECT other cultures and not demand they conform to your 'proper' beliefs.

[captain-loki.livejournal.com]

I think you broke my brain with the stupidity of this argument.

For debate's sake, what if the House Elves see it as Wizards have been brainwashed by greed and false-idol worship to put value in money and the only true way to be a good person and receive an eternal reward is to work without pay?That they pity the wizards who spend their whole lives caught up in this eternal struggle for more money and more things and keeping other people from taking your things and your money?

This part of it could in fact be true, and in part, probably is.

Part of respecting other cultures is to RESPECT other cultures and not demand they conform to your 'proper' beliefs.

I don't even...like literally...what the actual fuck. Yes, you are correct, there are many instances where demanding an entire group of people conform to your belief system is wrong. However, it also wrong to deny someone their basic civil liberties, to subjugate an entire race of beings and treat them like vermin, to tell them they are second class citizens and next to worthless and not even give them the opportunity to choose for themselves what they want. And you may argue that Dobby is an example of that free will, however, House Elves have been subjected to slavery for so long they lack the ability to rise above that slavery and demand what they are owed. They can never be anything more than they are because they are uneducated and brainwashed into believing this is what they want.

Basically what you are saying is that it's totally cool to have slaves because that is part of that society's culture and we should respect that. Again, it's one thing to respect a group of people's desire to work without pay, its another thing to respect a society's mistreatment of creatures that could be truly sapient but are merely sentient because of that mistreatment.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

CitizenKaneClap.gif

[cure-light.livejournal.com]

Because in all honesty, when you really stop to think about it, the wizarding world in Harry Potter is kind of a weird, fucked up place.

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

+1

[broadwaybabe11.livejournal.com]

++1

[uponadecember.livejournal.com]

Agreed. It's all lovely in theory, but I'd never want to really live in it unless they made some major changes.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

+1

I find the entire world to be extremely depressing.

[(Anonymous)]

+++1

When you think about it in any more depth than the purely superficial 'oh, that's cute/old fashioned!' it's actually pretty creepy and scary.

I thought a little too hard about what the Weasley twins actually had in their shop, and now I can't get the image of them as total sociopaths out of my head. =( I mean, sweets that make you bleed? That make your tongue swell? Love potions?

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

I will never, ever get what the deal with the house elves subplot was. Or whether Kreacher's actions in book five were actually intended parallel Dobby in book two- I mean, no one ever talks about it, so clearly it's me and my delusions again.

[drunken-clowns.livejournal.com]

It would be really cool if that was intentional, and I can't unsee it now.

I don't think it's that you're reaching as much as it is that people generally care much more about Sirius than Kreacher, and don't really think in depth about the elves.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure the author thought that deeply about it. Harry helps an elf break free from slavery in book 2. Harry enjoys having a devoted slave by book 7. (But he doesn't like him to self-harm so it's okay.)

[drunken-clowns.livejournal.com]

I always thought they liked serving because they were magically modified/created to like serving. It's also possible that they're conditioned to like serving. It seems like there are little or no opportunities for an elf outside of being a servant, and there's this whole weirdness about elves either being shown off as servants or kept out of sight. Most people see elves and think they'd never possibly want a different job, and the elves probably would never even be aware of it if there were people offering them different work (and they don't exactly have the resources to set up their own community and work for each other.) Elves have probably been dismissed for less than just being obviously unhappy with their work, too. I take it most elf parents would try to instill it in their babies to like serving, so their babies could be happy with their lives and not be out of work and starving, especially if their parents did the same thing to them. Or if elves are raised by wizards... well, wouldn't you rather your servant agrees with you about their place?

We've also never seen just elves talking to each other with no wizards around.

As for Dobby, his home conditions sounded unusually bad. The Malfoys seemed downright abusive even apart from the whole slavery bit, and because of that Dobby might be more likely to rebel than an elf who was still a slave, but treated reasonably okay or at least left to their own devices. He still has whatever conditioning the other elves have (magical or otherwise) though, so he seemed to just want to be "officially" free instead of having the same rights that a human worker would have.

They don't have any legal rights in place because they don't have the opportunities to advocate for themselves, and there aren't many wizards who'd want to advocate for them. Change doesn't spring up out of nowhere, after all. Wizards who grow up in the wizarding world would probably just see how elves are treated as normal- "maybe they shouldn't be abused, but they seem happy so let's leave well enough alone". Muggleborns might think it's weird, but there also is a strong social pressure in place against being open and unashamed about being a muggleborn. Those people would likely think that there probably isn't anything really wrong with the way the elves are treated since nobody else has done anything about it yet. And if elves could advocate for themselves, they might think any attempt to protect them would just make things worse. There was a really interesting fanfic about that someone posted in the rec meme- laws were written to help protect elves, and what they ended up with was a body count.

SPEW probably ended up being as silly as it was presented because activists being stupid and doing more harm than good is sometimes a thing that actually happens, but in this case probably more like an old joke. I think Hermione was also a little out of character during the whole thing, honestly. Naming her organization something that sounded like throwup was funny, but please, she would have caught that.

It did seem a little unnerving how the elf issue wasn't addressed in a serious way, but then everybody good came around at the end anyway. Seemed more like "these are good people because they don't believe in slavery, see?" (and some extra dawww around the Ron/Hermione hookup) than actually, you know, anything about the elves themselves.