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There is also the whole element of the legal slavery of a race of sapient beings capable of thought, speech, etc. that is nearly unexamined at least as an institution by even the good characters of the universe. That part is so weird/'problematic' to almost be funny.
I really don't want to defend Rowling's writing or plotting, which ranges from the sodden to the incoherent, but I don't think this is particularly complete criticism: Granger, at least literally starts a (muddled-thinking) organization specifically opposed to House Elf slavery. It's kinda a significant plot line in book four!
Without meaning to move the goal posts, a single one of the main trio of characters (and the perhaps overly socially-conscious/goody-goody one at that) caring about slavery, therefore clarifying that at least in universe its something that the characters could conceivably care about, but for the most part, just don't, is almost funnier.
Yeah, that's a more reasonable description. Granger's pretty explicitly well-intentioned by not especially well-considered (eg, an early SPEW action involves putting out hats, which terrifies elves that don't want to be free and wouldn't work), while Potter only cares to the extent that Dobby is especially poorly-treated, and Weasly doesn't think about it at all, and these are just treated as facts of the setting rather than saying anything serious about the character's morality. There's Watsonian reasons for that, especially given Potter's home life looks worse than that of Hogwarts house elves, but from a Doylist perspective it does come across really incoherently.
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I never knew exactly how we were supposed to read that part. I always felt like we were supposed to be rolling our eyes at Hermione and that her attempts at elf liberation were a satire of overly zealous leftism but then other times it felt like we were supposed to be on her side, granted I haven't engaged with the material since I was like 17. What do other people think?
My recollection is that Hermione's liberation front was viewed as a misguided (we see that not all elfs would adjust as well as Dobby), but the slavery system is not obviously good either.
I think that particular plot element was one the many elements of satire or should I say cynicism in the series. Remember the first chapter of the first book, almost as if penned by Roald Dahl? The world of Harry Potter is not nice: it it is unkind, uncaring, in general, quite drabby in the British kind of way. Not just Muggles, but it is often the overall undertone and outlook of Wizarding World, too, while it has more bright spots. (At least for Harry. But consider Snape.)
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I personally felt like Hermione's crusade on behalf of house elves was meant to be eye-rolling. Well intentioned, but still cringy and ill advised. She gets told constantly it's a bad idea, offends the very people she's trying to "save", etc. Heck even the name of her movement (S.P.E.W.) is a joke on her overzealousness and obliviousness.
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I thought it was an obvious satire of overly zealous leftism, as befits the centrist liberal Rowling - exactly the type whose general feeling towards activism might be seen as bemused "silly kids, they'll grow over it", at least until she became a major target for activists herself.
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They're a race of fictional creatures that help with chores. I think people are trying way too hard about this.
Whenever I see someone on reddit go on this big rant about how awful it is that the characters in Harry Potter aren't constantly denouncing house elves I just roll my eyes. Boy, could you imagine how embarrassing it would be if we exploited animals in real life?
Animals can't talk and most aren't regarded as sapient. On the other hand, house elves basically have a human equivalent mind in a small body, and are also non-consensual and generally unhappy servants of humans. As another commenter pointed out, this injustice actually is addressed in the books (though practically in passing) when a socially conscious/activist main character starts an organization opposed to house elf slavery, clarifying that it is conceivable to view it as i.e. worse than eating meat in-universe. Just that most characters don't care. This is silly to get into but again I regard it more as odd/funny than anything.
That's just Dobby. Normal house elfs are neither unhappy nor wish to leave.
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It's been a while since I read the Harry Potter books, but IIRC there's not much sign that other house elves besides Dobby don't want to be slaves. The problem is we hear so little from them that we're more-or-less just told that Dobby is an exception to the general rule that house elves are natural slaves.
Everyone remembers Dobby but the later books actually delve into the whole enforced but not necessarily unwanted servant relationship pretty well with Kreacher. An old, bitter, devoted to the concept of servanthood who hates his current (at character introduction) master and pines for his previous ones. Betrays the main cast but cannot be set free because of his knowledge of secrets and in a YA book for modern sensibilities, killing him is foreclosed as an option. Takes a liking to his new master who is initially very uncomfortable with the relationship but settles into a sense of normalcy. Has a heroic moment in the climactic battle but the literal last mention in the books is the protagonist wondering if the elf will bring his master a sandwich.
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Not only isn't there much sign house elves want freedom, we are shown the opposite. When Winky gets emancipated she's a depressed wreck afterwards, drinking and crying in the corner of the kitchen. And when she is asked if she gets paid by Dumbledore, she indignantly proclaims that she might be disgraced, but isn't so low as that. When Hermione tries to convince the other house elves about her cause, they are offended and push her out of the kitchen politely but firmly.
We don't get to see how house elf society in general feels, but at least the elves at Hogwarts do not want freedom.
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A wrinkle people often miss is that house elves supposedly are quite powerful themselves.
Powerful yes, but not so much as HP wizards who are in theory just shockingly OP.
I've always been drawn in to the setting partly by the idea that modern HP wizards (save a handful, like Voldemort and Dumbledore) are as silly, lazy & unoptimal in their use of magic as they are portrayed due to winning so hard against everything else that they no longer need to put in much effort.
Dobby casually overpowered Lucius Malfoy, a powerful Death Eater. And once upon a time the Elves fought a war against the wizards and lost so badly that their enslaved descendents shudder in horror at the thought of being freed.
Yes, HP wizards are quite strong but in the same way real world humans are. HP wizards can kill someone with a word but we baseline humans have, as far as combat is concerned, strictly better weaponry. It's true that in HP the castle disables technology and perhaps that's the kind of thing wizards can bring with them everywhere but wizards in HP really are only roughly as dangerous to eachother as the rest of us can trivially be if we allow the carry of our equivalent of wands. I was always disappointed in the lack of exploration of how a wizarding world would interact with the muggle world but I know think it was for the best. The HP world really just can't be resolved with living among muggles, especially not where any wizard is so poor.
You are absurdlyunderestimating how OP Harry Potter style Wizard's are. Wizard's powers are not equivalent to that of a modern human with a gun.
In an actual war between all of the muggle world and a group 10 talented wizards, the wizards would win in a single day. Apply an invisibility charm, aparate to Washington, imperio the President, do the same to all ranking cabinet members. Repeat for each country. Be back home for lunch. You already won, but you can spend the next week Aparating around under invisibility charm and casting imperio on everyone that matters.
That is a single trivial application of what you could do. It doesn't matter if a gun is better than an Avada Kadavra, a wizard should win every fight against a muggle without using any lethal force.
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I'll admit that not all wizards have access to the full magical arsenal, but HP wizards have:
-transformation, including perfect impersonation
-healing, regeneration & poison removal
-long-term mind control (Imperius curse alone solos the muggle world) and truth-detection
-limited time travel and the 'I win button' of perfect good luck
-invisibility, personal flight and teleportation
-installation cloaking (Hogwarts is nuke-proof because you can't target it)
-a million situational spells, potions, items & useful creatures that any given wizard might have access to, and will quickly proliferate if they prove useful (as, say, a ward against bullets might)
Wizards do not see muggles as a threat in the same way as humans don't really see bears as a threat - a careless human can easily die to a bear attack but this essentially never happens, and if humans ever decided to eradicate bears it would be an entirely one-sided affair.
Wizards can be poor because they don't have anything other wizards want & are barred by wizarding law (with downright spooky surveillance abilities) from participating on the muggle economy. But they're never truly destitute as long as they'vegot a wand, as they can magic up the rough neccessities of life in extrema.
More than that, you just cast an invisibility charm, apparate next to world leaders, Imperio them, repeat for people at every locus of control, and wizards control the muggle world.
Yup. And then have three options:
-commit to a grinding worldwide counter-insurgency against weak but numerous, intelligent and highly motivated foes, with no end in sight
-make the changes you want & then rebuild your masquerade and vanish from muggle perception. Memory charms arent perfect at information control, but you can probably limit the leakage to rumors & legends that magic was real in some past era...
I feel like the untold history of the HP world was pretty metal.
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Any Transfiguration master who knows where to read up on chemistry can, as HPMoR demonstrates, cause death and mayhem far more efficiently than if he had an automatic gun, or even a rocket launcher.
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Never read any of his stuff, but that sounds good, actually. Copy-pasting modern morality on societies that are supposed to mimick medieval ones is one of the most annoying things about modern fiction.
Harry Potter is set in basically the modern day (the late 90s to early 2000s, to be exact) and the main setting is meant to evoke the experience of students at a mid to late 20th century British boarding school, one perhaps a few decades 'behind the times' of the actual year during which the story takes place. I agree that more fiction that mimicks historical societies in setting should try not to transplant modern morality onto said setting, but that is not the situation of Harry Potter. The existence of slavery and the idea that a person who is basically a young millennial going through high school is so nonplussed by the widespread slavery that exists in his world actually is almost funnily bad.
Sorry, I made a wrong turn. I thought this was the Sanderson thread.
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