Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-04-05 06:37 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-04-05 06:37 pm
[ SECRET POST #1920 ]
⌈ Secret Post #1920 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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[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.
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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.
This is what I hoped to cover when I said other elves might be afraid to speak out because of the way Dobby gets treated by the other elves. Obviously, wanting to be free/wear clothes is wrong and makes one a freak, so any other elf that might want to be free is too afraid to admit that he's interested in these kind of things as well. Like, no elf in their right mind would tidy up Gryffindor Tower because of the hats lying around, only a freak like Dobby go there. Plus, the question is if any of the Hogwarts elves would even want to get freed; Dobby was mistreated at the Malfoy's, but even without getting paid working at Hogwarts seems to be a much better gig than the Malfoy's.
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Because... why have a whole subplot that the protagonist isn't interested in? (For the record, I think he did have interest- at least interest in Dobby personally, rather than the entire moral quandry)
And if there's so much societal pressure keeping other elves from speaking up, what magical accident gave Dobby the courage to? I'd think if anything, Dobby being around and obviously happy would encourage other elves with such theoretical desires, because it's one person who would understand and that they could talk to.
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Presumably the same magical accident that gave feminists in the 1800's the courage to speak up and point out how massive unfair their lives are in the face of Victorian era propriety and period-typical sexism. For thousands of years, most or all of history up until that point, women had been second class citizens to men, one step above slavery in many cases, and suddenly they were demanding the right to vote, the right to speak in public forums, the right to be treated fairly and be able to make a decent living?
Weird shit happens sometimes. There are a LOT of elements of the expanded Harry Potter universe that are hinted at but that we don't know about. I mean, take a look at love potions - what kind of a culture gets to the point where it unapologetically sells date-rape drugs over the counter? Or better yet, take a look at the education itself - there is apparently no magical education whatsoever before 11, but where do wizard-raised/pureblood kids get their education before that? They obviously learn somehow, because there weren't any lessons on how to read or write or do simple arithmetic at any point in the books.
Has there ever been a Goblin that maybe said "I don't want to be a banker! I wanna play Quidditch/be a fashion designer/sing/whatever"? Who knows, we don't really get to know them. Maybe there's some weird, inherent drive in goblins that makes them want to manage money, or maybe they are having some seriously social and cultural problems in the form of young goblins coming out to their parents that *gasp* want to do things other than banking in their lives, like maybe be a CPA instead, and concerned goblin parents are freaking out about it because oh god next they are going to do such awful things like something not money related and that would just destroy goblin society and...
Either way, we don't know, we only met a small number of them in a few very specific situations and contexts.
I can think of a lot of ways the house-elves came to be in the situation they are in right now, right down to how the fuck did we end up with an entire servile species (as the Doctor once pointed out while talking about the Ood, a servile species is pretty damn hard to evolve). Maybe Dobby is the house elf Joan of Arc, way ahead of his time in terms of his expectations of the world and setting a trend that'll take a damn long time to be picked up. Maybe he's like so many LGBT teens around the world and happens to be the only one in his scenario being open about his desires while everyone else is still being kept silent but social pressure. But it wasn't the main part of the story, and in books that get sprawly and off-track enough as it is, trying to dig too deep into the topic would've just derailed the entire books.
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What? How on earth is that a comparable situation? 1800s women were not slaves. They were not an actual seperate species from men. There had, in fact, been a great deal of literature written by women in previous eras discussing various rights they should be entitled to, and even some written by men that wasn't totally awful. "Second class citizens" is not the same as having no rights whatsoever, and there was precedent and lead up to all of that.
We agree that the Harry Potter world isn't totally fleshed out, of course. But neither love potions nor education before Hogwarts are issues that are brought up repeatedly in several books. The treatment of house elves is a major part of the plots of book two, four, five, six and to a lesser extent, seven. I don't think it's outrageous to expect some in-book resolution.
If Dobby was indeed the house elf Joan of Arc, that would explain a lot- some God told him to be free?
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There's a lot here that we don't know, and that in the context of the books, it makes sense that we don't have much time to delve into the issues of house-elves. House elves play a particular role in wizarding society, and that's the part Harry interacted with and saw - and he learned even more from Hermione. There are a lot of things that could've been "resolved" in the books, but that would've made them long and cluttered.
We can probably gather from context and JKR's comments about Hermione's future career that a lot of those issues have been resolved. As for how exactly? That's why we have fanfiction. Anything more detailed, while interesting and maybe even important, isn't necessarily relevant to the story.
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-Harry's POV clouds every book in almost every chapter (with very few exceptions) so we're stuck with seeing through his eyes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and in fact, it served the series very well, but at the end of the day it does leave us asking questions, and something important to remember is that Harry actually hasn't met many house elves. He's met Dobby, and Winky, and Kreacher...but that's all he's met on a very personal level. I do think he met another one via a vision in the Pensieve, am I right? But even then, one must remember that Harry's met very few house elves.
-Someone else already said it, but I think it's obvious that a house elf would be afraid to speak up. It's a culture thing ingrained into their minds and their very BEING, to be servants, to be happy with X, not with Y or Z, and to do A B and C without fail. It's disturbing and it's scary, and people like Ron don't understand, while people like Hermione and Harry are Properly Horrified because things like slavery are wrong and only nasty evil people would keep a slave, and that's what Hermione and Harry have learned their whole lives-- but Ron's seen it, never thought much of it, etc and so on.
-I assume people look at house elves sort of like a pet, but not a beloved pet, more like a tool. Imagine if your dog cooked dinner and cleaned for you! But honestly, house elves are of equal intelligence with humans, so... -_-
-Let's not forget also that ALL beings who are "not human" are looked down on. This includes the centaurs, for one, and all dark creatures, including werewolves, and this includes upstanding citizens who happen to BE werewolves...like Remus. Who never did anything wrong and yet still suffers.
In the end being a house elf at least earns them a roof over their head, I guess, and just like with servants and/or slaves in recent and ancient times, some people are probably pretty decent or even good to their house elf, feedin' them well and stuff like that, but the people Harry knows who own house elves are either assholes or partial douchebags, and yes, I include Sirius in the latter category. I love him but he's not a nice person, not really, and Dumbledore is right in that he views house elves as "less than human" which is really sad considering Remus is a friend of his and that if Sirius, who is on the Good Guys' Side, believes something like that re: house elves, well, you can assume most of the wizarding world does, too.
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