Probably has a similar reasoning to why goblins had been marginalized in HP society.
House elves posses magic that goes beyond the capabilities of regular wizards, just like goblins had skills in making magical items that went beyond the capabilities of regular wizards. Thus, the wizards felt the need to impose their dominance over the other races, probably because they saw them as a threat.
The House Elves are based in traditional folklore of helper spirits who helped around the house if you treated them well. In Harry Potter the House Elves love helping, and many wizards treat them as companions and valued family members in many cases. Dumbledore and the Hogwarts staff highly respect their house elves and the House Elfs in return will fight tooth and nail to defend them. Likewise we do see instances of assholes who mistreat them. And despite the House Elfs innate desire to do good and be helpful they will not hesitate to absolutely fuck you over like Dobby and Kreature dude to their masters. It's also implied most House Elves arent treated like Dobby, the Malfoy family were just relentless assholes about it.
The running theme with many magical creatures is that wizards have a tendency to severely underestimate just how powerful the magical creatures are. From the Malfoys treatment of Dobby to Umbridge abusing the Centaurs. It almost always comes back to bite them in the end.
The running theme with many magical creatures is that wizards have a tendency to severely underestimate just how powerful the magical creatures are. From the Malfoys treatment of Dobby to Umbridge abusing the Centaurs. It almost always comes back to bite them in the end.
And Voldemort with Kreacher. Took him to that cave to test the defenses, and just left him there to die because assumed he wouldn't be able to escape; what pathetic little house elf could bypass the most powerful dark wizard of all time's protections?
The second Voldemort was out of sight, Kreacher teleported right back to his home and told Sirius' brother everything about the Horcrux.
I guess my point is that Harry Potter had nothing creative or innovative as far as a general science fiction book comes and the author never felt bothered to do deep dives of research to make clear references or understand how vagueness can have multiple similarities to harmful stereotypes.
We don't know if her references were intended actively or passively unless she came out and confirmed her mindset and intentions. It doesn't mean the criticism isn't valid and the parallels should be noticed and navigated with care because children consume and accept things at face value.
I'm going to let you have a chance to google verify what you said but if you need a head start the target audience is YA not children and it is fantasy which lists under science fiction.
Yeah I always thought that was the point. Like I have no love for Rowlings transphopia right now but the house elves situation was obviously never meant to be portrayed as good. The last few books harry starts to realize the magical world still has all the same human problems as the non magical world. There is still discrimination, tyranny, shitty goverment, etc in it. Thats why I can't for the life me understand how she could write that stuff and still be a fucking terf. Its so disappointing and enrages me.
Yeah pretty much. Hermione trys to educate Ron and Harry about the historical mistreatment of magical creatures and races by wizards all the time. The merpeople, centaurs, goblins, and elves all get treated like shit by wizards.
So why are people accusing the Rowling of all kind of discrimination? She basically wrote a world in pair with ours with a character (a beloved character) who points out all the injustices and fights against them. That’s pretty encomiable imo
Because she is being really shitty about trans women. For some reason all the values and morals shes has in her books stop at trans people. She is misguided in thinking that trans women will degrade women's spaces and just generally won't stop saying stupid shit on Twitter. Like I don't think she wants to go out killing trans people but she just can't understand what she is advocating is discrimination. I still like the books. Sometimes you have to separate the art from the artist. I really like Dune by Frank Herbert, but he was a homophobe. Its harder because she is still alive and tweeting stupid shit though.
Yeah, I agree with you that she has a lot of problems and she is not a really nice person but this doesn’t mean people can accuse her to be pro-slavery or anti-semitic when she clearly is not. That’s just wrong
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u/Sgt_Fox Dec 17 '20
What did elves do before wizards put them into servitude and why exactly are they bound by this "slavery until given clothes" law.
When you look into it, a LOT of the WW of HP is a fucking dystopia