Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire discussion

Josh wrote: "I think that was chosen by JKR for comedic effect. Later it becomes the Elf Liberation Front or E.L.F."

I'm sure you're right. SPEW is still a little problematic in that Hermione is the character most able to put two and two together but somehow misses the acronym when coming up with the first name for her movement. A little comment from JKR about the nature of public protest maybe? Just a little vulgar humor? Beats me. E.L.F. isn't a particularly great acronym since it has "elf" right there in the initials. So it'd be kind of like having a club called G.I.R.L.S. that stood for Girls In Real Life Society. Kind of a "derp..." moment there.

Perhaps a derp moment for Hermione, but obviously JKR did it on purpose, since the book is for children, she simply wanted to inject a bit of humour into an otherwise serious topic.

As for Hermione not realizing that the acronym is a synonym for vomit, she really does have a lot of blindspots despite being terribly clever otherwise; that's pretty realistic from a lot of the clever people I know. They tend to understand complicated things easily but then they miss the obvious from time to time.

E.L.F. that was the name Ron came up with, and I'm pretty sure it's meant to be intentional on his part that it spells that. I don't think that's particularly derpy, it's more down to personal taste whether or not you like that kind of thing, since there are many real life organizations that do things like that with their name.

Josh wrote: "@Bre: If Hermione imposes her desire for the house elves to be free upon the elves, how is that different from any other order that is imposed upon them? If you say that house elves want to be slav..."

Oh, God, please don't involve slavery in this. I'm not trying to compare a house elf's owner to a slave owner. While most (I'm hoping most) slaves despised toiling under their masters, the majority of the house elves we know, as seen in Goblet of Fire, enjoyed their work and serving Dumbledore. They had a comfortable living, a kind master, and could be paid for their work if they wanted, which they declined. Dumbledore is undeniably a good man, and there are many, many others as well that would treat a house elf decently. Dobby was a slave to the Malfoys, that much is obvious. The Malfoys robbed him completely of his will and would probably make cruel slave owners if they were. Dobby was meant to represent slavery, since J.K. Rowling mentions many controversial topics in her writing, but their entire race can't be mistreated this badly, and Hermione chose the wrong elves to be the face of her campaign. The house elves working in the kitchen were content with their lives, and didn't need to hear what she was saying. They were not slaves. They loved what they did and they did it well.

House elves aren't human and generally aren't abused by people like Dumbledore. There are likely plenty of good people out there giving plenty of jobs to struggling house elves that probably have trouble making it out on their own. And what they usually do isn't back-breaking or life-risking. Some of them scrub pots and pans or cook meals all day. It doesn't sound like torture. It seems like having a maid or a butler to help you keep your life in order. Again, Dobby is a worst-case scenario, not a best-case. After all, every cloud has a silver lining.

Bre wrote: "Oh, God, please don't involve slavery in this. I'm not trying to compare a house elf's owner to a slave owner. While most (I'm hoping most) slaves despised toiling under their masters, the majority of the house elves we know, as seen in Goblet of Fire, enjoyed their work and serving Dumbledore. They had a comfortable living, a kind master, and could be paid for their work if they wanted, which they declined."

How old are you, Bre, if you don't mind me asking?

Bre wrote: "Oh, God, please don't involve slavery in this. I'm not trying to compare a house elf's owner to a slave owner."

There's no need to compare them; they are one and the same. The people who use elven labour aren't referred to as their employers or bosses; they are their masters or their owners. Elves do whatever their masters require of them and they have no way of refusing. By definition, the house-elves' situation is slavery.

Just like in real life slavery, you can see examples of masters who try to treat their slaves fairly and take care of them, while others are cruel. However, the real problem isn't any particular slave owner; it's the entire system, especially the fact that the ownership of other sentient beings means that they are seen as less valuable than those who own them.

It really doesn't matter how infrequently situations like Dobby's occur; even once is a huge miscarriage of justice. Nothing you can do to a house elf is criminal, because after all, you can do whatever you want to your own property. For anyone else, if you hit them it's assault, if you kill them it's murder, and so on. For elves, there's no crime that you can commit against them. So the justice system just looks the other way no matter what happens to them. Nothing that the Malfoys did to Dobby was illegal.

Bre wrote: "House elves aren't human and generally aren't abused by people like Dumbledore."

Actually, the story really does imply that house elves are mistreated fairly often. Its narrative focus is mostly on Harry, who has a fairly good sense of right and wrong and who chooses his friends accordingly. But even so, we see a good three cases of abuse of house elves, from the point of view of a kid who never really goes out of his way to find such cases.

The fact is, any rich bully is likely to own a house elf who they treat badly. How many stories like Dobby's would be okay with you?

I regret arguing about house elves as a whole, because now I'm in a mess that's making me look like both a fool and someone that's pro-slavery, which was not what I was going for. It escalated because I began to involve the entire community, the entire system, which in retrospect is wrong on so many levels. You're right. I slipped up when I failed to see that both systems are one and the same. Both count as slavery.

I should have just argued the point that Hermione's S.P.E.W. campaign was annoying to the house elves only in Goblet of Fire, not that the system is justified. I went too far and should have knocked it down several notches. I apologize for offending anyone or wasting your time. It's humiliating, but I can't exactly go against what you're saying without looking even worse.

I can't argue that because it's true. And I can't erase my mistakes. So hopefully I can slip out of here unscathed and the world can forgive me for acting stupid.

Bre wrote: "I regret arguing about house elves as a whole, because now I'm in a mess that's making me look like both a fool and someone that's pro-slavery, which was not what I was going for."

Oh, don't feel bad; it's merely a misunderstanding, and from all appearances, a common one; in fact, you have many characters in the story who overlook it as well, including many of the good guys. I know how you feel; I've certainly had misunderstandings like this from time to time myself. It's good of you to admit it though, and I admire people who are more interested in actually being right by admitting a mistake than in seeming to be right by just being stubborn and never moving their position in an argument.

As for Hermione annoying the house elves, I kind of agree. However, it's odd that people are annoyed at her for messing up while she's trying to do the right thing (and after all she's fairly young at the time), but not at everyone around her who aren't even making any kind of attempt at doing the right thing and acting like she's making a big deal about nothing.

Which I think is the whole point of this sub-plot. It often happens that people who want to do the right thing go about it the wrong way and are annoying about it. They often come off as pushy know-it-all types who don't know how to mind their own business. However, being civil and polite shouldn't be considered more important than doing the right thing. Often it can stand in the way of doing the right thing. I don't know if I think that the story would benefit from Hermione being more tactful in her approach here because I think the fact that she is annoying about it plays a role in the point that's being made.

Josh wrote: "...in fact, you have many characters in the story who overlook it as well, including many of the good guys."

It is interesting that so few people seem to pick up on the context of the situation WITHIN the novel itself. Even Hermione doesn't articulate problem with the house elves being, essentially, under the threat of torture/death at the slightest whim of their masters. Given the nature of other magics in the HP universe (mind controlling curses, love potions, etc.) which have penalties like a trip to the wizard prison where your mind will be slowly sucked away, you'd think people would get it.

It is a series of books written for and from the POV of young folks, so JKR probably chose not to highlight that too strongly. It's not the "sexy" aspect of the story, after all. As is, the situation evokes the real world concept of slavery, which has many if not most of the worst of human characteristics wrapped up in it. Probably best not to delve too deeply into that kind of thing in a YA novel....

Gary wrote: "It is interesting that so few people seem to pick up on the context of the situation WITHIN the novel itself."

On the other hand, that's what it can be like in real life. Lots of otherwise decent people live or have lived in cultures where particular rights aren't extended to certain portions of the population in their country, and they never see it as living in a contradiction, or they do but they don't really try to do anything about it for various reasons. Perhaps you could say that JKR didn't highlight the issue of slavery as strongly as she could have, but you certainly can't say that she doesn't highlight it at all. I mean, we actually have someone speaking out against it throughout the story, and the treatment or mistreatment of house elves is often a big part of the plot.

I think a lot of the discussion around this topic highlights the desire of some people for the characters in these stories to be, if not perfect, then at least without particular flaws that they don't like. I mean, what's really wrong with JKR writing Hermione as pushy and a little inconsiderate on this subject? What's really wrong with JKR writing that Dumbledore and many other adults mostly ignore it? None of this has to mean that anything is being condoned or that we aren't supposed to look too closely.

There are themes in the books of teenagers becoming disillusioned with adults that they'd put on pedestals. Regarding Harry's father being something of a bully, we're carefully led through that, largely because it's important to Harry, so we can see that just because they're dead doesn't mean HP's parents were perfect. Concerning everyone ignoring slavery in their midst, this never becomes a central concern for the main character, but JKR pointed it out enough for everyone to remember it clearly. I think readers are supposed to have the same disillusionment with the characters in the story as they grow older, and realize that even among wizards, no one is perfect.

I'm sure a lot of rationalizations for things like real world slavery are informed much more by naivete and misinformation than any actual moral quality on the part of the person who expresses them. And that's fine to some extent given a person's age and development. JKR was writing for folks early in that process, so it's understandable that she'd not over-emphasize the point. One has to spoonfeed certain ideas and realities to people. The whole truth can be a shock, and that can actually damage folks and/or they become entrenched in their denial.

So in that context, JKR is just barely scratching the surface of the implications of the ideas she has in her text. She's not going to be able to do a Toni Morrison/Beloved story in which a slave woman is haunted by the ghost of the child she herself slaughtered rather than allow fall into a life of abuse, torture and rape as a slave. She can't delve too deeply into those Uncle Tom's Cabin dynamics because they would take over the story. If one considers the cruelties that are sometimes perpetrated by people against their fellow humans in the real world and then consider an alternate, fictional reality in which there are creatures bound by supernatural laws to obey any command... well, then that's got whole levels of horrific implications. In the real world Malfoy and his ilk are very likely the kinds of kids who might pull the wings off of flies or torment a pet. Imagine one of them with access to a sentient creature that actually HAD to obey them....

There are a whole lot of fascinating studies about how human beings behave when given just a hint of authority/control over other humans, and the results can be quite disgusting. On some level, I can't help but think that the denial of that reality is one of the factors that contributes to that kind of thing happening at all. It occurs because people are so sure it can't, to the point that they have trouble facing even a fictive version that would, in fact, be much more terrible.

But, like JKR, one has to be careful about presenting those ideas. People don't want to face their own capacity for such things. It's unpleasant. Most people spend a lot of their time rationalizing their behavior on much less serious topics, and opening that kind of introspective door leads to a whole hallway of them. That's a tough thing to get someone to do... and probably not the kind of thing that would sell a lot of books if done too forcefully.

Gary wrote: "Imagine one of them with access to a sentient creature that actually HAD to obey them...."

Yes, exactly. However, this is also what makes slavery in Harry Potter more subtle than the real world variation. No one has to beat a house elf into submission in order to get them to follow orders. It adds whole new levels to the potential for naivete and misinformation to prevent the creatures from gaining their freedom, and I'd say that it therefore makes a certain amount of sense that it would take longer for wizards to end slavery, especially when you add in the fact that the enslaved race is literally not human. I mean, the stereotypes about slaves in real life essentially aimed to "dehumanize" them, but in the case of house elves, they're already not human.

Btw, I did a bit of reading on the history of slavery, so fun fact: one of the earliest organizations that fought against slavery was called the Anti-Slavery Society. Suddenly S.P.E.W. doesn't sound so bad, does it?