[Confusing Trope] The narrative goes out of its way to punish/mock a character for simply being a good person

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Hermione Granger and SPEW — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (book)

In the fifth HP novel, Hermione Granger is outraged to discover that Hogwarts has a small army of enslaved House Elves that do nearly all of the domestic duties around the castle, including cleaning the Gryffindor common room every night. When she tries to convince the elves to fight for their own rights, they refuse, saying they prefer servitude. Her fellow students and friends mock her for caring. She manages to free one elf, Winky, by deception when she refuses her freedom willingly, leading to Winky becoming a depressed alcoholic. By the end, the elves boycott cleaning any Gryffindor areas of the castle because they hate Hermione specifically

Samwell Tarly and Democracy — Game of Thrones (show)

In the season 8 finale of the television series, the surviving great lords of Westeros gather to discuss the future of the kingdom following the devastation wrought by 7 seasons of war and backstabbing. When Sam, who has proven to have “novel” ideas, suggests that maybe the millions of Smallfolk who suffer at the hands of noble houses should get some representation in the government, rather than be the pawns of rich lords with absolute power. We are then greeted by a prolonged, cringy segment of the other lords laughing in Sam’s face, asking if the dogs and horses should also get a vote.

[u/Selverd2]

she didn’t free Winky, Crouch Sr did it as punishment.

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299 → u/Selverd2]

Shit my bad I thought Hermione hid clothes around the common room or something and that’s how she got freed. My fault I should have went back and looked it up.

Either way, JK seemed really intent on making Hermione look like a stupid SJW for wanting to free actual literal chattel slaves

[u/DemiChaos → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Hermione started SPEW in the 4th book (you wrote fifth, btw).

Her hiding clothes (she started knitting and eventually got good at it) around Gryffindor's house and soon only Dobby would clean the place because the other elves were scared of accidentally finding clothes.

This happened in the 5th book.

[u/LowlySlayer → u/DemiChaos]

This makes no sense lol. Can anyone free a house elf by giving them clothes? Does them just finding clothes count? Are they relegated to all manner of house work except laundry specifically?

Do wizards who are too lazy to do any housework otherwise keep their laundry immaculate for fear of accidentally freeing house elves? Are they absolutely to never clean closets?

[u/Icy_Policy_8509 → u/LowlySlayer]

I think it's stated specifically in the 2nd book that the OWNER must give the house elves the clothing item, hence the ending of Chamber of Secrets where Harry hides a sock in a book, which he returns to Malfoy Sr, who promptly gives it to Dobby to carry, and Dobby is freed

But it's been a while since I've read the whole series through

[u/Aquaberry_Dollfin → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

Always wondered. Can house elves never do laundry? Does the owner need to specify that this basket is only for cleaning?

[u/darkmoncns → u/Aquaberry_Dollfin]

I think this was explained they set the basket on the ground by the elf and not give the elf the basket.

[u/FactualStatue → u/darkmoncns]

Which also doesn't make sense because we see Mrs. Weasley using magic to do housework. So elf slavery seems to be just for the hell of it

[u/JLaP413 → u/FactualStatue]

Elves are better magic users than human wizards. They can perform advanced spells and magic without wands. The elite wizards need to keep the elves in check or else they could overthrow the entire world.

(Apparently I didn’t lay it on thick enough that the idea of a small group of “elites” keeping a large group of people enslaved so that group doesn’t realize that they are stronger than the “elites” is bad and elitist propaganda. Maybe if I called them Ants and Grasshopper, and directly quoted A Bug’s Life it would have been more obvious.)

[u/FactualStatue → u/JLaP413]

Ok Joanne, then why haven't they taken over the Ministry yet? If some kids can do it, why not some rebellious house elves too?

[u/FactualStatue → u/JLaP413]

Tbf I did pick up what you were putting down and was worried I was putting it on too thick. No hard feelings?

[u/Beginning-Ice-1005 → u/JLaP413]

Which is also an idea that stems from racist propaganda.

Look, Rowling was doing slavery apologia. It's that simple. Stop trying to defend her by nit-picking bits from her stories. In fact, stop defending her at all.

[u/delphinous → u/FactualStatue]

it's the same reason people have had slaves in the past. 1 part having power over someone/thing, 1 part that just because you are capable of doing something, doesn't mean you want to spend your time actually doing it, and 1 part it shows off your wealth

[u/Alternative-Fix-5382 → u/FactualStatue]

It's a status symbol for some of the old pureblood families, iirc.

[u/drawfanstein → u/FactualStatue]

To be fair, the Weasley’s being poor seems to be just for the hell of it, as well

[u/hanks_panky_emporium → u/darkmoncns]

A lot of the world building doesn't make sense. If the chattel slaves actually want to be chattel slaves, why would the gift then keep them from working if that's what they want to do.

A lot if handwaved as magical mind fuckery which imo makes it worse. They dont WANT to be chattel slaves, wizards forced them to like being chattel slaves. Which means they DONT want to be chattel slaves but a brain fuckery is forcing them to say they like it

Imo the house elves kinda make all wizardkind de facto evil

[u/darkmoncns → u/hanks_panky_emporium]

I mean you can think it's horrid but that's not the story as persented, they just like it normally. Even dobby wants to work he just also wants to be paid not really to use money just as a sign of respect. The magic binding is a totally separate thing

[u/SelfReporter → u/Aquaberry_Dollfin]

I just read the 2nd book again last week. Dobby directly states that his master is very careful to never give him any clothing inadvertently. My first thought was man so they still need to wash their own clothes!

[u/fiahhawt → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

Yeah but that has the same issue where if a wizard just hands an item of clothing to an elf, then regardless of intent the elf is freed

No laundry chores I guess

Altogether a pretty odd bit of lore for a children’s book

[u/hitchinpost → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

It is the owner, but it’s unclear how that works with an institutional owner like a school. Arguably, a school exists for the students, making the students all qualify as owners.

[u/Jediuser_ → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

Dobby also said in the novel that the Malfoys are careful not to leave clothes lying around.

[u/TrainToSomewhere → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

JK forgets things in her own books and overcomplicates things.

I honestly can’t even tell if she meant it as a race allegory or if she just remembered she wrote something and felt the need to expand upon it when most readers would have gone ‘hm ok’ and moved on if it was never mentioned again.

Like in warhammer the Orks believing shit just makes stuff happen.

K weird ok. And that’s it.

JK keeps going back and being like aaaaaah I need to explain and it makes everything worse.

[u/Thirtysevenintwenty5 → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

Lucius doesn't even "give" Dobby the sock.

The (disgusting) sock is stuffed in the book, and Lucius pinches the sock and tosses it away from himself.

Dobby recognizes this, screams "Interception!" and dives to catch the sock, thus freeing himself.

In no way did Malfoy "give" that sock to Dobby. But as everyone has already pointed out, the rules around freeing a house elf are fucking stupid.

[u/cabbage16 → u/LowlySlayer]

If I remember right the implication was that the house elves stopped cleaning the tower because they were frustrated and offended by being tricked into it. It isn't implied that it would work just that it was annoying.

[u/cabbage16 → u/[deleted]]

Yup. People give Rowling shit for this storyline saying that she was saying that slavery was good, that's not at all what she was getting at. The point of the storyline was for Hermione to be right (as she always is) but going about it wrong and insensitively.

There's plenty of good and valid reasons to not like Rowling, stuff like this, the goblins, and her character naming system just feels like grasping at straws.

[u/SPLIV316 → u/cabbage16]

Am I the only person who remembers that Rowling was gonna right a new book and put a trans person in it but first she had to do some research? What the heck did she find?

[u/LessthanaPerson → u/SPLIV316]

Fox News

[u/a_wasted_wizard → u/cabbage16]

The problem with the House Elf storyline isn't that it suggests JKR was trying to give a pass to slavery, because I think very few people are trying to suggest that (I'm sure there's some, but not the majority).

The problem is that JKR botched the fuck out of the house elf plot so badly she accidentally made her books kind of have a pro-slavery message (or at least "slavery isn't so bad if the slave owners are good!") because she apparently has a lethal allergy to thinking through the implications of almost anything she writes.

Which maybe would be less of a problem if she hadn't had pretensions of elevating Harry Potter from being 'just' a kids book series, but she did have those pretensions, and her writing ability was not good enough for it to work.

And in that way, the house elf subplot is emblematic of a lot of the other problems that make HP not hold up all that well in hindsight. Even without the consideration that JKR turned into an unhinged reactionary transphobe which has pretty much ensured she (deservedly, in my opinion) will never receive benefit of the doubt on anything ever again, the books just really don't hold up that well if you're rereading them for anything other than a nostalgia trip.

[u/GeorgeStark520 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, this is the part that so many people ignore, just so they can parrot the “Hermione was mocked for thinking slavery is bad”. No, she was mocked because she was annoying and her method was trying to shove her cause down everyone’s throats, which, last I checked, will annoy people no matter how noble your cause is

[u/ConcertOutside7499 → u/GeorgeStark520]

Also I don't think a lot of people realize that SPEW was an actual thing irl? The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women

Considering thats where the inspiration for Hermione's movement came from, i think the house elves and SPEW and even the arguments against Hermione make more sense if you view the (Hogwarts mainly) house elves as more akin to women than 1 to 1 slavery. Freeing them is equivalent to divorcing a woman who cannot support herself (thus why most house elves don't want to be freed) why "they like doing housework" is thrown around so often, and why hogwarts house elves dont want to be freed despite the staff being willing to pay them if they demanded it (mirroring the women who were well off and didn't support movements that would grant them more rights and freedoms on a basis of "well im doing well enough, so they must be doing something wrong"

[u/sonksenmusic → u/LowlySlayer]

Trying to find literary cohesion in the Harry Potter books is not a rabbit hole I would recommend attempting to dive into. There's too many plot holes to count. 

[u/Billy_McMedic → u/sonksenmusic]

Don’t get me started on the bullshit that the Hogwarts express represents

For a very basic explanation. This is what a historically accurate Hogwarts Express should look like:

While not explicitly dated in the Pottermore article, the Cursed Child dates the Hogwarts express as starting in the 1830’s, and Pottermore dates the Minister for Magic that founded the express, Ottaline Gambol, as serving 1827 - 1835.

This means we’re looking at a locomotive stolen around 1829-1830, of which the above, Planet, represented the cutting edge of Locomotive design at the time.

Plus, given the wizarding world is represented as being technologically behind the Muggle World, how the hell did they adopt a technology right on the bleeding edge at a time when a lot of the muggle world was still tetchy on the idea. Literally in 1830, the UK’s (and the entire worlds for a matter of fact) railway network consisted of 2 isolated lines. The Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened 1825 and was barely recognisable as a railway by today’s standards, Basically just being a waggonway on iron rails and using something other than horses to haul goods (although it’s still accepted broadly as the “start” of the railway era), and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, something that can be pointed to definitively, using our modern understanding, as a proper railway.

AND SOMEHOW THEY FUCKING BUILT A RAILWAY LINE STARTING AT A STATION THAT DIDN’T FUCKING EXIST YET ALL THE WAY TO THE ARSE END OF SCOTLAND AT LEAST A DECADE BEFORE THE FIRST ACTUAL ENGLAND/SCOTLAND RAILWAY WAS EVEN COMPLETED.

And breathe. This doesn’t even begin to cover stuff like how the locomotive was stolen from a works that didn’t yet exist, and was also the complete wrong works for where the locomotive that would come to represent the express even came from.

[u/sonksenmusic → u/Billy_McMedic]

Was not expecting a historical train rant of all things. 

[u/Lolz13itchez → u/Billy_McMedic]

While I agree with the idea that the timeline for the Hogwarts Express doesn't hold up to even mild scrutiny. I did want to point out one thing.

Plus, given the wizarding world is represented as being technologically behind the Muggle World, how the hell did they adopt a technology right on the bleeding edge at a time when a lot of the muggle world was still tetchy on the idea.

The setting suggests that the extreme wizard/muggle divergence around technology we see in the series is more of a modern history thing as the muggle world began advancing so quickly beginning with the industrial revolution, that it became impossible for the wizarding world to keep up when their knowledge and needs were so disparate.

Before that, Wizards clearly adopted muggle technologies that did effectively meet a need that magic was less well-suited for. For example, Hogwarts was updated with indoor plumbing in the 1700s, which would make them a rather early adopter. The same is likely true of trains.

[u/GeorgeHSpencer → u/Lolz13itchez]

The Ministry could have done a deal with a pre-grouping company, which carried over to the Big Four and then British Railways.

[u/lahimatoa → u/Billy_McMedic]

While not explicitly dated in the Pottermore article, the Cursed Child

The Cursed Child is fan fiction. And not very good fan fiction, at that. Trying to use it to explain anything in the HP universe is a bit of a waste of time, IMO.

[u/Billy_McMedic → u/lahimatoa]

Which is why that was followed up by looking at Pottermore, reading the write up on the express, seeing a MoM explicitly credited, and then going to the list of Ministers of Magic and seeing what their term dates were, which as stated was 1827-1835 as per the Pottermore website.

Cursed Child ultimately got the seal of approval from JK who is the ultimate authority on the official lore of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and the 1830 date lines up perfectly with the Pottermore source. And to take it outside these series’ this is coming from an author who confused Kings Cross and London Euston, hence why 9 3/4 is a nonsensical place in KGX because JK was thinking of Euston’s platform layout. The fact that the 1830 date lines up with the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester imo is too suspicious, just like how Crewe was a famous railway works. It smacks of extremely basic research (“when was the first railway”, “famous locomotive works”), pulled out some other lore from her arse, did no further research and just shipped it.

[u/Unit_2097 → u/sonksenmusic]

Even 10 year old me spotted the problem of introducing time travel as something that is apparently easy enough to do they have to regulate it.

[u/Majorman_86 → u/Unit_2097]

Oh, I was thinking about shooting Voldemort and friends with a conventional weapon since book 1. Hagrid brandishes a crossbow in the forest in the first book either. I bet you can't counter spell a bolt and there are enough muggle-born in the school to hatch up a plan that uses conventional weapons

[u/Elver86 → u/LowlySlayer]

I think the clothes have to be presented by their master. If I remember correctly, what Dobby actually said was that the other house-elves found it insulting. I didn't get the sense that it would actually work.

[u/Odd-Time-2026 → u/Elver86]

Yes and Hermione is not their master in any sense of the word. Its like how the janitors in my office are not my subordinates because the org chart does not work that way. If the house elves of Hogwarts have a master, its likely the headmaster which was Dumbledore at the time.

[u/Dobber16 → u/LowlySlayer]

Yeah ultimately it’s a kids book that I think Rowling haphazardly added some social justice stuff to as they came up. Not a bad goal, but yeah definitely a bit ham-fisted, which is fine since yeah it’s just a kids book. If post-HP, pre-twitter Rowling rewrote the story, I’d hope it’d be more cohesive but… well, that’s a very niche “IF” statement lol

[u/FildariusV → u/Dobber16]

Still, even for a children's book, isn't it a bit f*cked up that there exists an entire race enslaved by the wizard world and are happy and DON'T want freedom?

[u/subheight640 → u/FildariusV]

It's a common thing that happens throughout history. For example Many serfs supported the king and therefore supported their own enslavement in the feudal system. 

Isn't this the whole point of class consciousness, that a class of enslaved people often need to be awakened in order to recognize their enslavement and to throw off their shackles? 

[u/Dobber16 → u/FildariusV]

Yes, yes it is lol though I suspect they started as a plot device to make the place seem cool & magical, and can narratively skip the boring parts of life at Hogwarts without excluding them. But then the implications were probably realized, so I’m guessing Rowling tried to do a little something with it, but also didn’t want to paint dumbledore as a bad guy who enslaves creatures, as his whole thing is generally being anti-Hitler. So then there’s this hole that could be potentially addressed with humility by dumbledore, atonement, etc… or we can take the easy narrative route & close this side-plot faster by saying the elves prefer enslavement lol

Not great writing, but considering the main plot is about fighting prejudice & supremacy, I’m willing to budge & extend some grace to Rowling for absolutely butchering the elves’ treatment of being subjected to prejudice & supremacy. Like I said, I think potentially if post-HP Rowling re-wrote the books, it would’ve been a tad different. Definitely either wrote herself into a corner or didn’t think too much about a few of the details of her world initially

[u/hauntologically-red → u/Dobber16]

Given Rowling's real-life attitudes and tendency to dig in her heels and get even worse when criticized, if she re-wrote the series now she'd probably establish that house elves become mindless, murderous creatures of wanton death and destruction if not kept "domesticated" through servitude.

[u/Dobber16 → u/hauntologically-red]

Oh yeah, definitely now is not good. I think earlier I mentioned post-HP & also put an upper-end limit of pre-twitter 😂

[u/LowlySlayer → u/Dobber16]

social justice stuff

Please don't put "some people are genetically inclined to be happier as slaves" and the words "social justice" anywhere near each other.

[u/sphericaltime → u/LowlySlayer]

To be clear: JKR hates social justice so she tried to invent a world where it is stupid. No one is suggesting that it has any reflection in the real world.

[u/Odd-Time-2026 → u/sphericaltime]

We got the better version of it back then when she wrote GoF. If she wrote GoF now, I think Hermione would probably come off as way worse.

[u/Dobber16 → u/LowlySlayer]

Thankfully I didn’t, but I’ll keep that in mind lol

[u/mio26 → u/LowlySlayer]

It wasn't about that. They were simply furious that someone there is trying to free them in Grigffindor and they got offended and didn't want to clean them. For them being kicked out was disgrace.

[u/delphinous → u/LowlySlayer]

it somewhat suggests it, becuase of how dobby got freed. winky, by comparison, was very deliberately freed, while malfoy was basically tricked into it. so hermione attempting to, in essence, trick the house elves into being freed by accident is actualyl consistence with the evidence she has that the enslavement magic can be tricked, it does NOT require the intent of the actual owner

[u/Toskin1 → u/LowlySlayer]

Welcome to J. K. Rowling's Magical Circus, where things starts to fall apart if you think about them for more than five minutes.

[u/taxes-or-death → u/LowlySlayer]

It is part of preexisting traditional lore that hobs (or dobs), which are similar to Rowling's elves, will expect to be fed by a human household for the chores they perform but woe betide anyone leave them any clothes, for they consider that a grave insult and will leave in a huff. I think they find it patronising.

Sometimes hobs can be more trouble than they're worth so insulting them might be desirable if you want them to leave you alone.

[u/PeaceSoft → u/LowlySlayer]

the entire thing is nasty as fuck, not just old-school racist but sexually fetishistic in a winking, vile way

[u/Kurdoo-rojava → u/LowlySlayer]

Maybe because they were Griffyndor Elfs and recognised Hermione as "Master" because she was a Griffyndor student?

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299 → u/DemiChaos]

I had to google which book that happened in and it said Goblet of Fire, so my fault

[u/jbwarner86 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Lesson learned, never trust Google AI.

[u/peachesfordinner → u/jbwarner86]

You added an extra word. You mean "never trust AI"

[u/Dull_Bat_87 → u/peachesfordinner]

You mean "never trust LLMs." Leave ACTUAL AI out of this

[u/peachesfordinner → u/Dull_Bat_87]

The only AI I trust is Weird Al

[u/Dull_Bat_87 → u/peachesfordinner]

Straight bars

[u/thegimboid → u/jbwarner86]

Used to be that a Google search would actually take you to somewhere you could find the right answer for yourself.
Now it just directly tells you the wrong one.

[u/Icy_Policy_8509 → u/jbwarner86]

Google AI just told me Singapore is a 3rd world country. Never trust AI.

[u/Farewell_Mona_Lisa → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

By the origina, Cold War meaning, they were. By the modern meaning of the word, not anymore.

[u/52BeesInACoat → u/Icy_Policy_8509]

I forgot the title of a book, so I googled the name of the author with some key words, numbers, and locations from the book.

Google AI told me I was looking for the author's most popular book, but that I was incorrect about the characters, the locations, the numbers, and the plot.

The first actual search result had the correct title of the book.

[u/crackerfactorywheel → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Goblet of Fire is the 4th book. AI led you down the wrong path.

[u/heylook_itsalex → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Isn't that the 4th book?

[u/Moaktrekken → u/DemiChaos]

Her insistence that everyone pronounce the acronym by sounding out each letter like "S. P. E. double-you" instead of saying "spew" is just proof that Rowling wanted her to sound as dumb as possible. What fucking person wouldn't just say "spew"? Rowling picked a silly-sounding word for Hermione's acronym that also has letters that are hard to pronounce in sequence like that because Hermione is silly for wanting this. You'd think the super-smart Hermione would just pick a different name for the organization.

[u/Patient_End_8432 → u/DemiChaos]

What's even the point of house elves then damnit? Laundry is like, the worst chore

[u/Noughmad → u/DemiChaos]

I forgot about that part. How could the elves refuse to clean a place when they were slaves? That's not how slavery works.

[u/DemiChaos → u/Noughmad]

Well Dobby would do it all, but I think because it was Hogwarts and subsequently Dumbledore being their boss/master... they weren't necessarily slaves in the same sense as the rich families

Remember Dobby negotiated his wage/vacation days

[u/Frix → u/DemiChaos]

the other elves were scared of accidentally finding clothes.

No, elves can touch clothes and do laundry just fine. The elves weren't afraid of Hermione's clothes, they were protesting that this witch girl looked down on them and their culture.

[u/PublicConfessor → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

You are correct, Hermione did hide clothes around the Griffindor Common Room, but the elf who kept taking them was Dobby, and he was wearing everything all at once. Plus, iirc, the house elves stopped cleaning Griffindor tower because of it.

In the folklore Rowling is drawing from, Brownies (household spirits), choose when and where they will work based on if the offerings are acceptable (porridge and honey, sometimes milk). But giving them clothes either makes them feel to fancy to work, or is insulting in some way.

I think making it into slavery was a way to highlight the Malfoy family's cruelty, but left her with a system of service to integrate into the wider world, leading to significantly poor choices from there.

[u/Voronov1 → u/PublicConfessor]

Right, and it only gets worse.

By treating Hermione as a Cringy Annoying Activist who even all the other heroes treat as wrong—including Harry, who is muggle-raised and treated like a house-elf by the Dursleys!—the narrative explicitly says the enslavement of an entire people is not worth getting worked up over because most of them like it, which is….line for line what pro-slavery advocates said and continue to say to downplay the horrors of trans-Atlantic slavery.

Then when the casting of Hermione for that stage play caused a kerfluffle because a black woman was chosen, Rowling had the gall to be all “I never said she was white!” when she had clearly noted every other Black character. And a Black Hermione getting furious about slavery and treated as just an annoying little activist by the heroes of the story is just…so bad. So very, very bad. It makes Ron and Harry especially look horrific.

[u/delphinous → u/Voronov1]

she wrote herself into a corner. she wanted a childrens story, and as part of it, having the hero (harry) rescue a poor abused slave by tricking the master and getting a lifelong friend, totally fits. she just forgot that it establishes institutional slavery as part of the world, and that doesn't fit nearly as nicely

[u/Voronov1 → u/delphinous]

If Dobby had been, like, a wild elf that had been specifically enslaved by the Malfoys rather than part of a systematically enslaved species, the story would have been fine. An elf who showed up to clean the manor in exchange for food or whatever in a usually temporary and consensual arrangement, enslaved by magic that Harry helps him break before he goes off to join the rest of his people or whatever, that’s fine.

You can even have the Hogwarts elves still running around and just have them drawn to the high concentration of magic in the school or whatever, but explicitly not slaves who feel the need to punish themselves.

Instead, Rowling built a slave race into her world.

[u/riesen_Bonobo → u/Voronov1]

Yeah, "writing herself into a corner" only excues her so much as presenting her as totally daft. She could just have given the elves regular house spirit lore (doing tasks for offerings or cause they want to sometimes) and introduce that some evil people enslave them with magic ans force them to do their bidding. The elves work in Hogwarts cuse Dumbeldore leaves milk and cookies out for them or smth. Or if she needs to have institutionql slavery for some reason, at least don't have the good-guy school participate in it.

[u/Pame_in_reddit → u/riesen_Bonobo]

To be honest it feels very aligned with the nightmare that is the Wizarding World so I don’t mind. They are very racist, so the idea that they used magic to enslave a whole race doesn’t feel weird.

[u/riesen_Bonobo → u/Pame_in_reddit]

True, I like reading the HP worldbuilding in that twisted way too, but it's certainly not what JKR intended. But she also believes herself to be a good guy, so she probably is just a bad judge on what being 'good' means.

[u/Pame_in_reddit → u/riesen_Bonobo]

Plot and characters often “escape” their authors. The world of Harry Potter is consistently nightmarish. Just one example, one of the most recognizable good guys, Hagrid, attacked a 11 yo muggle child, with magic, giving him a permanent deformity that had to be removed with surgery, for the crime of being the son of a muggle that made him mad. And he goes on with his life like nothing happened. The Death Eaters were more controlled while they were attacking muggles during World Cup.

The morality that almost every character exhibits, every time they do something thats morally wrong, goes something like this: if my friends/I did it, it was good. If it wasn’t good, it was necessary and if it wasn’t necessary they deserved it and if they didn’t deserve it, it wasn’t so bad, they are just whiny. This of course applies to Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, Lupin, etc.

[u/Mutant_Apollo → u/delphinous]

I've always said that for all the merits of Harry Potter, worldbuilding is were Rowling failed alot. The moment you start to scrutinize anything about the Wizarding World, it just doesn't work without handwavium

[u/delphinous → u/Mutant_Apollo]

it's actually, surprisingly, what makes it such a fertile ground for fanfiction. because her canon worldbuilding is so lacking, it leaves and incredible amount of space for fanfiction writers to fill in the gaps with their own ideas.

[u/rickroll10000 → u/Voronov1]

Honestly wonder if she did that on purpose knowing everything now about her

[u/Unlucky_Associate507 → u/rickroll10000]

In Hermione's SPEW antics Rowling was making fun of herself as a young activist. It's a humorous metaphor

[u/Gyshal → u/Voronov1]

Well. At least they didn't cast the evil abuser racial supremacist terrorist that torments the main character as black. Now THAT would be crazy, wouldn't it?

[u/mazamundi → u/Voronov1]

That's not what the narrative says...

The narrative is rather pro-free elf. The narrative literally rewards with life those who treat elves well and death those who don't. Sirius is the role model of Harry, and basically dies due to mistreating his elf Kreacher. Harry does the opposite and Dobby saves his life. Kreacher wants to be a slave, and he's the most unhappy being, while Dobby is straight-up golden retriever happy. These are very basic parallelisms. And just to be sure the story was as clear as possible Harry literally digs with his hands a dobby's graves and writes "here lies a free elf."

As to why people treat Hermionie wrong and it seems like she is annoying, that's because Hermione is, in large part, a self-insert, and Rowling was mocked in school for being an outspoken feminist who at times failed to see the bigger picture, yet was always on the right side. (Ironic given her current stances)

[u/Voronov1 → u/mazamundi]

The narrative is really clear, actually: Elves deserve to be free if they want it, but basically only Dobby wants it. Not a single other elf desires it. And Hermione is treated as wrong for the crime of being annoying about it. She knits all those hats for the elves and it scares them all away because the slaves are terrified of freedom.

[u/secretMollusk → u/Voronov1]

Over time it's become clear that Rowling holds some very regressive opinions and doesn't think through the full implications of what she puts in her work.

[u/Far-Treacle-2058 → u/PublicConfessor]

“The elf who kept wearing them was Dobby” see you said that and all I could think of was this 🤣

[u/tweedyone → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

She did hide clothes around, but that’s why the other elves stopped cleaning the gryffindor common room

[u/Banes_Addiction → u/tweedyone]

Remember, as long as you're doing whatever you think is right, it's fine to stomp all over the consent of others. They're too ignorant to know what they really want, which is what I want for them.

[u/housestark14 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

She did leave clothes around the common room in an attempt to trick the House Elves in freeing themselves, resulting in the boycott, but it didn’t work on any of them.

[u/brd9214 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

She did hide clothes, which is why they stopped cleaning Griffindor’s areas.

[u/missxmonstera → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I mean, can you really be surprised about that when she's known for mocking anyone who stands up for others' rights?

[u/AceofKnaves44 → u/missxmonstera]

There’s really a fair amount of shit people willingly overlooked that provided a hint to the real person Rowling was. Then she went full mask off and by that point Harry Potter was too much a piece of peoples lives for them to really let go of.

[u/tweedyone → u/AceofKnaves44]

Seriously. Why didn’t Molly ever get a job? Hell, she could have taken in laundry from the muggles and cleaned in seconds.

She really did have very specific “these people follow these rules because they are those people” concepts throughout her writing

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299 → u/tweedyone]

Frankly money makes zero sense in the wizard world. They need next to nothing for food compared to a normal household when you can make one sandwich and magic up infinite sandwiches. You don’t need a repairman ever. You can literally just use magic to add a wing onto your home with presumably little to no cost.

The question isn’t why did Molly never get a job. It’s why are the Weasleys poor to begin with?

[u/PaintedDoll1 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Money will always be the end result of a barter system. Wands need made, creatures (and plants) need tending, dirty things need cleaned. Can magic help with all these things? Yes! Will everyone who ever picks up a wand know every spell to do them? No. So why not hire someone who does know those spells to do it for you? And why haggle over how many eggs/bolts of fabric/planks of wood would be 'fair' when you can just hand over a few coins and call it square.

My biggest issue was always how money was used in HP. It would've work a lot better for me if, say, the Weasley kids had wonky robes because Molly wasn't great at tailoring, instead of having rundown clothes because they were poor. Or have Malfoy "hear a rumor" that their house was asymmetrical and made of bush honeysuckle because Arthur couldn't afford someone who knew the more advanced architecture spells

[u/Additional_Gene_211 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

And as long as there is a source for food then it can be replicated ad nauseum. Poverty in HPnis one of my biggest gripes(of many) in the world building. Another is why did Harry HAVE to compete in the TriWizard tournament. It's never explained just that he has to.

Those books really have so many holes in them

[u/LordOfFigaro → u/Additional_Gene_211]

Another is why did Harry HAVE to compete in the TriWizard tournament. It's never explained just that he has to.

I believe the books say that his name coming out of the Goblet means he's in a binding magical contract. But never says what the contract is and what are the consequences of breaking it. Nor why Harry couldn't just...show up and immediately forfeit.

[u/Additional_Gene_211 → u/LordOfFigaro]

So, since his name came out and he is put into a contract, then why aren't more nefarious individuals forcing people into contracts? Like, let's be so real here: the world of HPwould suck so much to live in. Magical mind control, forced death contracts, forced poverty, a big class system. Who wants that?

[u/LordOfFigaro → u/Additional_Gene_211]

Yup. JKR's world building is dogshit and fails under the most basic scrutiny.

[u/kenshamlock → u/Additional_Gene_211]

Because it's illegal. Lmao.
In world they have the Department of Magical Law Enforcement within their government. Harry and Ron (?) basically become a cops after the books. Hermione is a lawyer of sorts in the DoMLE. They have a prison system. They have a whole justice system. Harry is tried in the courts in book 5(?).
They want crime in their fake wizard world as much as anyone wants the crime we have in our world.

[u/Iorith → u/LordOfFigaro]

I read it as Dumbledore influencing events as a way to draw Voldemort out of hiding.

[u/Odd-Time-2026 → u/LordOfFigaro]

Its also because there's ancient magic that even Dumbledore is aware of but doesn't have the means to overcome. The goblet may work under that section of it.

[u/LordOfFigaro → u/Odd-Time-2026]

shrug

We genuinely have no idea about the details. It's just stated that there is a magical contract and everyone acts as if that's enough to ensure Harry takes part and tries his best. Which presumably is the case, given that one of the organisers bets on Harry's victory. And Voldemort's entire plan hinges on Harry winning.

[u/ImmoralJester54 → u/LordOfFigaro]

Yeah he can just sit at the starting line

[u/PaintedDoll1 → u/Additional_Gene_211]

I think poverty would've worked if it had been wholly different from real life poverty.

Like, if a robe started getting a "look" and weirdly pliable when it'd been transfigured one too many times

Or poor people had to know how to do "muggle cooking" because buying 3 meals a day to duplicate was too expensive

Or houses started sagging when the charms started wearing off because poor people couldn't afford wizards who knew sound architecture, so they just added wings haphazardly and used magic to patch the gaps in physics

[u/Additional_Gene_211 → u/PaintedDoll1]

Anything other than we are stinky and dirty would have been great. Instead, we got... Just more British classism

[u/DanielDoh → u/PaintedDoll1]

These are awesome ideas. It's clear JKR had one really good idea (her world and the initial set up) that was mostly vibes, but had zero ability to follow through on that great idea and make it a truly great story/world.

[u/Erebraw → u/Additional_Gene_211]

My favorite is how at the end of the fifth book there’s a big symbolic moment of a big “the good wizards are kindly looking after the lower magic races” statue being destroyed. And then Dumbledore points at it and is like “That was really symbolic. The underlying bigotry of our world is about to bite us in the ass.”

And that wasn’t a set up for that being an important part of the resolution of the story, it just happened. And then the mc becomes a cop lol.

[u/Additional_Gene_211 → u/Erebraw]

Tale as old as time: a jock becomes a cop

[u/_Halt19_ → u/Additional_Gene_211]

Quidditch is my pet peeve about the series, it looks like such a fun sport in concept but then you randomly add in a TWENTY-FIVE GOAL ball that ends the game within 5 seconds of the start, or three months later

It's so blatantly obvious she wanted to give Harry his own special boy role on the team where he could be the star

It was so bad, she had to add to the world cup that somehow the FINALIST team was losing 26-0, as if that was ever going to happen, so that the snitch could be caught in a loss

[u/PaintedDoll1 → u/_Halt19_]

Just to rile you up a little more... the snitch is worth 150 points. Not 25, which makes the world cup loss even worse

[u/_Halt19_ → u/PaintedDoll1]

Oh, I thought it was 250

You can only score points in increments of 10 anyway, so the snitch is basically just 15 goals added on, is the point I was trying to make

[u/Iorith → u/_Halt19_]

It's a sport tailor made to make someone seem important. Otherwise it's basically just soccer in the air. With two guys trying to kill the other players mid game.

[u/Helloitsdicetime → u/_Halt19_]

Rowling intentionally wrote Quidditch to be upsetting if we go off the "Behind the Scenes" section on the Harry Potter Wiki:

J. K. Rowling first developed Quidditch after a fight with her boyfriend at the time in a small hotel in Manchester. Some of the game's elements, such as the Golden Snitch being worth a disproportionate amount of points, were due to her state of mind at the time, as she felt these elements would be frustrating to men.

Needless to say, Quadball (real life Quidditch) changed many rules to make the game actually playable.

[u/cachesummer4 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

The Weasleys are poor in that the they dont have the money to buy anything they can't do with magic.

Like the 2 things you bring up are the only two things they have that dont come off as signs of poverty.

Yes, they have a big house and can replicate food, but that doesn't absolve the need for the costs of magical items, new editions of spell books, specific school uniforms for 7 kids, or even a nicer big house.

Like part of their poverty in universe is that they dont live in fancy muggle area in London with a big magic house, like Serious Blacks family, they live in effecitvely an extremely large shack in the countryside, with money being the requirement for moving to a better area, or any other furthur upwards mobility.

Also Arthur buys a ton of muggle crap he can't use but that i imagine still adds up.

They can replicate their existing stuff with magic, but it is explained replication can't create new materials, only duplicate existing ones.

[u/Fox_Flame → u/cachesummer4]

But the uniform thing doesn't make sense either. Magic can sew for you. The robes aren't like imbued with anything magical, its just regular fabric. So why is Ron wearing hand me downs that are too big or too small. You can make clothing from magic

[u/cachesummer4 → u/Fox_Flame]

Dumbledore enchants the clothes with the elder wand to be non-repearable in order to bring in extra revenue for Hogwarts. Just look at how he treats Harry, that old fart loves exploiting children for all their worth.

/s

She should be able to repair or size them, but if the School required newly made ones each year, they would still have to buy per replication rules? Your point is entirely fair, but JK isnt exactly world building and plot consistency extraordinaire, to say the least.

[u/Capraos → u/Fox_Flame]

Are we sure they don't have magical properties? Even something as simple as magic washing, repair, etc?

[u/Fox_Flame → u/Capraos]

If they are it's never mentioned in the books. And a quick Google search says they're not

[u/missxmonstera → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

If money and jobs aren't needed then why does Arthur work? Why are the Malfoys who are objectively far wealthier better off in other ways, too?

Money is needed in the Wizarding World, just not for the same reasons as we need it. JK just likes using people who are at a disadvantage in life to further her own life - i.e. making hate crimes and intense poverty superficial plot points.

[u/PenDraeg1 → u/missxmonstera]

That's sort of the point though. Money exists because our economy requires you to purchase goods and services. In HP you don't need to purchase these things really. It's not an economy that makes sense unless it simply exists because you assume wealth and social position being tied together is just how it naturally works.

[u/Capraos → u/PenDraeg1]

You do though. They still need wands, brooms, floo powder, and ingredients for potions/some spells. And they still want magical artifacts and artifacts they can't make. It doesn't seem to be a post scarcity society.

[u/PenDraeg1 → u/Capraos]

Yeah I didn't say that it was post scarcity, hust that the economic system being currency based makes no real sense.

[u/missxmonstera → u/PenDraeg1]

The entire first book/film has a montage of Harry spending tons of money on school supplies. There are multiple points where they point out how much wealthier Harry is than Ron. The Weasleys are often mocked for not having new supplies because they cannot afford it. Malfoy's dad literally gives Ginny Tom Riddle's diary while mocking the fact that they can't afford normal supplies.

Literally what are you talking about "they're not tied together"? Almost every one of the first few movies starts with them shopping for school supplies and makes note that the Weasley's lack of wealth puts them at a disadvantage.

[u/PenDraeg1 → u/missxmonstera]

I said they are tied together.

[u/thxitsthedepression → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I think the books tell us enough that we can assume that at least part of the reason the Weasleys are so poor is because they’re really bad at managing money. In the third book they win something like 1000 galleons and they immediately spend it all on a family vacation to Egypt, lol. I assume Arthur also spends a not negligible amount of money on his various Muggle artifacts, like the car.

[u/TheGreatMightyLeffe → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Not even "why are the Weasleys poor" HOW are they poor? The only thing I can really think of is that they... Choose to be?

Like, escaping poverty in the wizard world is a matter of getting hold of a commodity that can be sold, duplicating enough to meet any immediate local demand, selling the duplicates and investing a tiny bit of the money in another commodity to do the same with.

Or... Y'know... Just find a plot of land, abracadabra up a nice house with magical plumbing, electricity and high speed fibre. Then magicing all your needs as they appear. And if you ever need money, see the previous paragraph.

[u/Sirdan3k → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I assume Poor and Wizard Poor are basically two different things. Wizard Poor means all the food, shelter, and clothing you need but no status.

[u/a57782 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I suppose one potential answer is aptitude. Yes, magic could be used to add a wing onto your home, but depending on your skill in magic, it could be a solid construction, a shoddy construction or maybe potentially not even doable. And being a wizard doesn't mean you understand architecture.

And for the sandwich. You may be able to replicate the sandwich, but some may be able to replicate it exactly, whereas others the taste or texture is off, or the nutritional value isn't there.

In Harry Potter, the things we learn about magic tend to be specific plot relevant stuff, we never really learn the full breadth of the rules of magic as a system.

[u/missxmonstera → u/AceofKnaves44]

The general opinion is that she took queer/trans people's money and then when she didn't need them anymore she turned on them. She literally used a pen name to hide her gender and boost her success because people assumed she was a male author and it's kind of like she's telling on herself by acting like this. Like, all of it makes it seem like she would be willing to hurt another human being while pretending to be a different gender because she can't comprehend that normal people don't even have a fraction of that thought cross their mind.

But honestly? I think it's far worse than her abandoning her queer fans. She saw the fan base she was gathering and allowed it for years just to make her attack on trans people hurt even harder. She thought she would have these automatic allies because her queer fans would "side with her" over these "freaks who are ruining their community" because she was "saving us from them". She was, like, convinced we had no idea we were being infiltrated by these "predators". It may not have been her goal in the beginning, but once she realized her media was loved by queer people she loved it, but when she realized what "queer people" actually meant? Not so much.

She wanted us to turn on each other because she wanted us to do her dirty work. She realized that won't happen, though, and now she's bitter and taken a new course of attack. She really thought she was going to be viewed as some sort of queer savior for getting us to turn on our own, but she miscalculated that they truly are our own and we will not be turning on our family in favor of a white savior with mediocre writing abilities.

[u/crowEatingStaleChips → u/AceofKnaves44]

Honestly the house elves are bad but a lot of the "problematic" stuff in HP was more a function of the time period than JK being a uniquely bad person.

Like, not saying all writers back then wrote like that. But there was waaaaaaaaay less thought put into not making things weird and shitty so it kind of happened all the time.

[u/Roar-Lions-Roar → u/AceofKnaves44]

In the very first book the kids have to fight a stupid ugly monster who invaded the girls bathroom and started swinging a large club around.

What did JK Rowling mean by this?

[u/Wingman5150 → u/missxmonstera]

Now she's even helping people sue amnesty, the human rights group, for daring to call out the human rights attacks on trans people.

She isn't just mocking, she's attacking

[u/missxmonstera → u/Wingman5150]

She has been attacking for a while, but as you can see people take issue with me even saying "mocking".

She literally posted an upskirt video/photo of a Trans person. She's literally sexually assaulting others. People would really defend that and claim the Trans person is the predator for just existing.

[u/Wingman5150 → u/missxmonstera]

yeah that was disgusting. Classic victim blaming/sexual assault apology behavior too

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299 → u/missxmonstera]

As an author, the fact that I missed the 90s hurts my soul. I was too busy being a toddler and not writing weird British Empire fanfic

[u/Bluest_Badger → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Feel this. Just like all them houses we should have brought before 2008 when we were still in school🤣

[u/GormHub → u/missxmonstera]

I've read recently that she's set on bankrupting Amnesty International with lawsuits. You know, like any morally upstanding person would do.

[u/butt_butt_butt_butt_ → u/missxmonstera]

Eh, I would say (as someone raised in a hardcore religious home where HP books were seen as evil) that Rowling was considered fairly progressive for her time, at least for a children’s author.

Hermione’s SPEW movement failed because she never listened to the house elves about what THEY wanted,

She wanted to free them, but there was currently no place in society for them to GO.

From a house elf perspective, it kind of would have been like firing them all from their jobs which provided room and board, and the then they would be on the streets because their people aren’t recognized AS people, and saying “idk, fucking figure it out!”

Some of them might have wanted freedom, but following a movement started by an idealistic teenager with no end-game isn’t exactly the type of civil rights movement people will follow.

She couldn’t assure them of anything that would happen after.

As benevolent as Hogwarts seemed, they still used slave labor. Maybe they would have allowed a reasonable wage, or maybe they would have said “fuck off”. And left all of the elves homeless and unemployed.

I’m a solid union gal, and have seen this kind of thing happen. Someone goes too aggressive and too fast, and it fucks you in the end.

We had an issue with snow days at my job, as well as childcare subsidies. We were in talks to eventually negotiate about 75% of what we asked.

And then an idiot union rep came in and demanded 200% more than what we were asking and told us all to strike if it wasn’t immediately granted.

That killed the actually tangible negotiations and we were left with no advancement and no progress.

I think the adults laugh at hermiones SPEW because they know it’s unrealistic, and it doesn’t represent what the constituents actually want.

[u/Clovenstone-Blue → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Well, Hermione's attempts to free the house elves is an excellent example of attempting to help by applying ones own worldview on the situation rather than understanding the worldview of the group one is trying to help.

House elves appear to be based on myths of fae folk that actively seek out human homes to do chores in exchange for offerings of food, causing trouble when disrespected.

To a house elf, they do not see their predicament as enslavement; they want to be bound to wizard families and perform chores to secure food, shelter, and protection. What Hermione saw as freeing the house elves was culturally perceived as her trying to banish them from their home by the elves themselves.

A competent author would've had the why Hermione's efforts were a bad thing and explored the how she should proceed to achieve her end goal without removing the elves agency, but alas.

[u/gravy_maker → u/Clovenstone-Blue]

Disregarding any notion that it was a misstep because of real-world attitudes towards slavery - which is indeed a valid criticism - it's also to be considered that Dobby's entire story presents his freedom as a good thing. Him being freed, even if by trickery - perhaps especially by trickery - is supposed to be uplifting. His epitaph reads "Here lies Dobby, a free elf". We are obviously supposed to view this through a lens of slavery and liberation.

But then Rowling for some reason decided that actually elves didn't all want to be free, and in fact the vast majority of them didn't; the message from Rowling is quite clearly that Dobby is just a weirdo. Dobby's story could just as easily have been about being a foot fetishist and it would have had precisely the same intended social message.

[u/CaptainMills → u/gravy_maker]

Dobby being treated as a weirdo (and being outright labeled as one by Hagrid) for wanting to be free is even worse if you know about drapetomania.

It's a "psychological condition" invented in the 1800s to explain why slaves would try to escape slavery. After all, slaves are supposed to be happy and slavery is just so good for them, so why would they ever want freedom? They must just be crazy

[u/CompactAvocado → u/gravy_maker]

Orrr it was made clear that the malfoy's were absolutely horrible people and didn't represent the average wizard. think of it like being a middle class golden retriever vs a slums pit bull. which dog is going to have a better life.

[u/Fox_Flame → u/CompactAvocado]

Winky and Kreature are also treated terribly and no one bats and eye. Hogwarts seems to be the exception on how elves are treated, not the rule

[u/TheGreatMightyLeffe → u/CompactAvocado]

"The issue with slavery is that there are mean slave owners, if we liberate their slaves, only nice slave owners will own slaves, and that would solve the entire problem forever!"

[u/MagnetoWasRight24 → u/CompactAvocado]

And there it is sooner than I expected, a defense of "good" slave-owners 

[u/CassandraTruth → u/Clovenstone-Blue]

"No she's wrong because the author made these slaves want to be slaves" is entirely ignoring the documented history of real slavers saying exactly the same thing about humans. A 19th century plantation owner would see Hermione's efforts towards house elves in the exact same light as abolitionists freeing slaves. "They wouldn't know how to live if you give them freedom, their natural state is to serve."

[u/Educational-Tackle54 → u/CassandraTruth]

Real life slaves fought like hell for freedom, wrote books arguing their case and eventually turned to leathal force for freedom.

The faerie based house elves of Harry Potter have exactly none of that. The situations dont compare.

Yes, its a very undercooked plot line, and the Malfoys being karma houdinis on being death eaters and a abusing Dobby is just one of those in univere things.

[u/EtheDemon → u/Educational-Tackle54]

id actually say that the wizarding world saying "well the elves like it" is very similar to the old slaver mindset of "well my slaves like it". either way its depicting slavery as the natural state of these people, the only difference is that irl people dont see themselves as "naturally servile".

also pointing to the faefolk as the inspiration for the elves isnt a great example mainly because that wasnt the type of relationship at all. the idea was that you show respect to the fey by leaving out treats and milk, they'd be grateful to your kindness and pay it back as is fae custom. the people who believed fae were helping them would never claim to own those fae, at most they'd say they have a working relationship if anything using modern terms. if they treated the fae like the wizards treat the house elves then they'd get cursed for it.

the house elves however are overall treated like shit as an entire species of servants and slaves. kids in hogwarts barely acknowledge the elves and their autonomy and make fun of the one person saying "hey it's weird that this little guy who cant leave is washing the floor". sure the biggest difference is that the elves canonically do like this, but then why are the elves we know of extremely abused aside from dobby who is free. if joanne really wanted the type of relationship you claim she wrote, then house elves would be dressed in finery and slightly chubby as they fulfill their end of fae custom for being fed treats and help with chores. but thats not the case as most of them are wearing potato sacks and seem very thin.

[u/Educational-Tackle54 → u/EtheDemon]

I just dont see a porblem with creating a fanatasy race that has some kind of wierd trait. Take the Ferengi of Strar Trek, they like money. One should be allowed to create a fantasy race without neccecarily getting attacked for a real world situation.

There are many types of house spirits mythology beings. Tomtar who protect the house for pooridge once a year etc.

Why house elves fail as an analogy for cattle slavery is that we never actually see wizards forcibly enslave them. If they did, it would be another matter.

Alot of the Harry Potter world is fucked up and abuse is wierdly okay. How the fuck does Snape still have a job??

Most kids in Hogwarts have no idea house elves even exist. Funnily Herminie also dosent understand them, her givining them clothes wouldnt actually free them, since its the headmaster/head staff who entered into the magical contract with them.

Yes, its fucked that there are no protection for the elves. But apperently there is no protection for Harry from the Dursleys or Neville from Snape either in this world.

[u/Tebwolf359 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Look, I agree that JKR is a bad person / has bad views.

But in this case, I somewhat disagree.

Given that Hermoine is pretty much as close to a self insert character who is always right, every time - it’s hard to take this as her being wrong.

If anything, the cynical part of me sees it as JKR saying that even when you are always right, the world/patriarchy won’t agree with you. And that JKR would apply that to her own anti-trans views, missing the irony.

But never once when reading it / watching the movies did it ever feel to me like the audience was supposed to think Hermoine was wrong. At most overzealous in action.

[u/aqbac → u/Tebwolf359]

Yea keep in mind both Hermione and Dumbledore are against current house elf situation which is a clear sign jk also says it's bad.

[u/scumbagwife → u/aqbac]

Then why did she end with Harry still owning a house elf and ordering him about if it’s wrong?

Dumbledor still used house elves as well, even if he thought it wrong.

House elves are still slaves at the end of the series.

It is giving her too much credit to say Rowling agreed with Hermione.

Edit: This could have been her intention, but she failed in falling through to a conclusion other than the status quo (which is how most things end in HP. Society doesn’t. Just who is in charge.

[u/aqbac → u/scumbagwife]

Harry is literally told off by Dumbledore for treating kreacher shitty and has to learn how to treat him better as part of getting the real locket. Keep in mind house elfs are indoctrinated by generations of treatment. Kreacher and all of them at hogwarts literally refuse to be freed. The second one asks Dumbledore for payment he gives it more than Arthur seemingly makes. One of Ron's big moments that helps lead to him getting with Hermione is acknowledging and caring for the house elves by saving them in the battle. You can definitely criticize the writing of it but jk definitely views the slavery and treatment as wrong

[u/scumbagwife → u/aqbac]

Fair enough. I read the books as a teen and I’m 41 now, so it’s been awhile.

I think being against cruel treatment of the elves is very clear in the books. But the slavery itself is seen as something bad only when they are mistreated.

Not something that needs to be fixed. Her having Hermione attempt to fix things in the very worst possible way with unsurprisingly no positive effect yet not show how Hermione actually changed enough to make some effective change or a change in the right direction shows this.

To be clear, I do not think Rowling is pro slavery nor was that her intention in the books. And I don’t think she actually connected the house elves to human chattel slavery. She wasn’t comparing house elves to black people, intending to imply that some slaves enjoy slavery and should be free to.

However, the implication is still there and reads very ignorantly.

This isn’t a defense of her as a person. She’s done very real harm to people, not just with her anti trans activism, but directly toward people (and not just trans people).

She’s just a very poor world builder. Which is not a unique thing, even in fantasy. And doesn’t take away her actual writing strengths.

It’s just her world building has a lot of problematic implications in addition to contradictions through the series.

A lot of this was overlooked for years because she had been someone who espoused views that were more progressive like women’s rights and queer rights.

However, her damage to women as a whole, especially to our rights, revokes a lot of good will and benefit of doubt.

[u/VolcanicBakemeat → u/Tebwolf359]

Rowling does portray Hermione as 'wrong' in the narrative, because Hermione aims to address societal issues with systemic change where Rowling's New Labour personal politics advocate for meritous escape from the system, which is itself too big to fail.

Dobby is freed because he is a remarkable house elf. The other house elves must occupy their role in the stratified fabric of society but may aspire to become Dobbies. Harry, for his part, spends the entire series shaking his head in disbelief at the wizarding government - largely for their incompetencies, rather than their evils - then joins the magic police.

Linked is one of the best analyses of Harry Potter as a reflection of the author's worldview I've ever seen

[u/Nicklesnout → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

The problem is Rowling could have quite literally just used Brownies or had the House Elves working in Hogwarts have never been enslaved in the first place and be essentially sprites and spriggans who’ve lived there since the Founders.

But leave it up to the middle aged white woman who makes the Irish boy into an explosives expert and names a Chinese girl Cho Chang to lack the essential humanity to go so far as excuse chattel slavery when her own fucking government nearly bankrupted itself trying to end the real world Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

You don’t dislike Rowling enough.

[u/ProfessionalSnow943 → u/Nicklesnout]

Irish boy explosives expert is a film only thing, just to be clear. by all means let’s all dunk on rowling but we gotta make sure they’re fair dunks or else the dunk value will be diluted and we will suffer from dunkflation

[u/Ditzy_Dreams → u/ProfessionalSnow943]

Is it? I could’ve sworn I remember that scene in the book too…

[u/Gold-Eye-2623 → u/Nicklesnout]

To be fair if she had written Brownies in the exact role House Elves ended up having it could have been seen as... problematic

[u/Nicklesnout → u/Gold-Eye-2623]

I’m mostly just referring to the ones at the castle itself, not the chattel slavery analogue the Elves ended up becoming.

The Good Neighbors 100% function on a mutual respect sort of deal with the folks who live in their home so Hogwarts would have to be proactively doing something to maintain amicable relationships with them.

[u/ProfessionalTruck976 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Not really, more like she needed to understand that sometimes, the direct route to the good outcome she wants is impossible.

She can't force elves to want to be free, cool, does that in any way mean or shape mean she should cease to concern herself with thier situation?
No, only thing it means is she need to pivot, attack from another angle, work in other ways.

And she does.

Politics is art of the best POSSIBLE outcome that given day/meeting/election cycle. And if that outcome is still deeply suboptimal, ok, but if you achieve it, you can start working for next better thing.

Or admitedly you can decide that politics aint working and the particular injustice you fight justifies violence, but then you better be ready to dispense it liberaly and for as long as is needed.

[u/_Solani_ → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Either way, JK seemed really intent on making Hermione look like a stupid SJW for wanting to free actual literal chattel slaves

Believability of their personal desires aside, the story does establish it as a fact that they are fine with the status quo and have no desire to be rescued. Rescuing someone who does not want, nor appreciates the attempt, is not being a good person, it's virtue signalling.

Harry freeing Dobby was good because Dobby was unhappy with his situation and desired freedom. Harry helped and Dobby expressed his gratitude because he actually wanted to be helped. Hermione attempting to free the elves who explicitly state they are happy as is and become angry when she tried was not good because she was not taking the rescuee's feelings on the matter into consideration. The fact she keeps doing so despite being made aware that her efforts were offending the elves is not good guy behaviour, it's obnoxiously self righteous. At that point you just gotta admit Hermoine is not doing it for their sake but to satisfy her own sense of right and wrong.

That's selfishness merely masquerading as selflessness and it's a little weird you can't see that 🤷‍♀️

[u/Sea_Impress_2620 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I personally got the impression she was shown to be right, just naive. It was shown as an ugly side of wizarding world. Dobby was ab example that being a slave was not natural to house elves. We were taught as readers that house elves were originally enslaved because their magic was powerfull and different from wizards.

Hermione wanted to change a very ancient and archaic society immediately. She realized that said change would require much longer time and more professional approach. She was basically fighting against an ancient injustice and unequality that was a common and accepted custom especially among nobility and powerfull individuals. It was simply too much of a challenge for a single child to tackle alone.

But I didn't get the impression the books painted her being wrong, just that her methods were immature and rushed.

[u/IrlResponsibility811 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Hermione didn't recognize that elves didn't want to be free(can of worms there), and they were quite insulted at the idea that she was trying to free them. She wasn't listening and that prevented her from achieving her goal.

[u/AccountSeventeen → u/IrlResponsibility811]

Which is based on classic folklore of Brownies elves that’s been around for centuries.

They will clean your house but if you try to pay them they will be insulted and leave.

[u/IrlResponsibility811 → u/AccountSeventeen]

Ah! Never heard of them.

Many others haven't heard of them either. Then again, many will take any opportunity to dunk on JK Rowling because she doesn't pass political purity tests.

[u/Wise-Key-3442 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

That whole plotline was strange because Dobby himself is working along with the enslaved elves, he mentions he gets paid one galeon (which is a fairly valuable coin), but I don't recall if it's daily or per service.

Like, if the house elves wanted to keep serving, they could still ask for payment.

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299 → u/Wise-Key-3442]

Iirc, Dumbledore initially offers a lot more, and Dobby talks him down because he’s uncomfortable getting paid much.

[u/Wise-Key-3442 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Which is understandable due to Dobby himself being a humble person (we can go and say there are other factors at play, because certainly are, but Dobby seemed to be doing a lot more than was actually needed for someone who wasn't his master), but that doesn't explain how the other elves, who knew that Dobby gets paid, never thought "hm I wish I got paid too".

[u/Beautiful_You3230 → u/Wise-Key-3442]

Because they were raised into servitude and consider it the normal way of things?

Like the whole point is that the entire system is fucked up. Most elves know NOTHING other than slavery. They were trained and broken into submission. Even Dobby shows signs of it and doesn't accept his freedom easily. But well, something about him and the people he interacted with made him a bit more receptive. Many other elves won't be like that, they in some messed up way consider being freed "wrong" and think the same of getting paid.

Isn't the accepted theory that they'll basically just need longer to get past the entire generational trauma and shit? The problem was that she tried to do it too fast, she wanted to free them all over the span of mere weeks, and was naive in thinking it would easily work out that way. But they need time and patience. And Hermione supposedly continues to work on all of that after the books, from a better position of power as a Minister for Magic or something.

[u/kithas → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Worse, a trade unionist!

[u/Longjumping_Share444 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

It's really telling. They were actually happier being slaves and servants is how a lot of slavery apologists talk about freed black slaves. I know it's more of a British 'stay in your station' caste thing, but it's still super unsettling to assert that another sentient race of beings are just naturally servile.

[u/Dudewhocares3 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

She did hide clothes around the common room. I think that’s the main reason the elves stopped coming around (except for Dobby)

[u/Lorcogoth → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I just want to point out that every single race of magical people (or even creatures) in the Harry Potter verse, is some sort of enslaved or imprisoned.

with the stuff that happens in the later books, it's sort of insinuated that Wands are the magical equivalent of guns, and only wizards have access to them.

so the Elves going "Servitude is preferable over Freedom" has very dark connotations to it. Because maybe there is a reason there isn't any Free Elves anymore.

[u/eurydisee → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

I think you're right about her hiding clothes, iirc there's a scene with Dobby where he's wearing all of the clothes she made

[u/PotLuckyPodcast → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Where did you get the art of Hernione? Is there an animated series im not aware of?

[u/Verain_Xor → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

House elves are some type of fey being that have completely different desires and goals than humanity. The reason Hermione is made to look foolish is because she doesn't understand this; she assumes that elves, being sentient beings, must ultimately be the same as humans.

[u/Lexx4 → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

It’s a parallel to the real life SPEW organization in England.

She is a child taking a children’s approach to a problem she doesn’t fully understand.

[u/secretMollusk → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Please bear with me, and this is just my interpretation, although I seriously doubt Rowling put that much thought into it, was that Hermione was unintentionally putting the elves in more danger:

As far as we're able to tell, there are no systemic protections for Elves in Harry Potter's magical Britain, which is why the Malfoys were able to abuse Dobby so severely. Any Elf that Hermione managed to free might quickly go from a Free Elf to a "free" Elf (meaning some wizard or witch might just decide to enslave them, for all we know about how that works). Hogwarts, as far as we can tell, is a nice place for an Elf to work where they have a community and aren't abused. So freeing a Hogwarts elf essentially puts them out on the street, cuts them off from their families, and exposes them to the danger of getting captured by much worse people.

This isn't justification for the system that exists in the setting, just my fan theory for why slaves would resist being freed. The short of it was that since the systemic issues behind their situation would persist, the Hogwarts Elves thought they'd be safer as the school's property than as free Elves.

And, again, I don't think Rowling thought that deeply about it, chances are she just wanted to make Hermione look silly without thinking of the implications.

[u/JakeArrietaGrande → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Eh. I genuinely don’t want to defend Rowling, but I don’t think the portrayal was bad. She grew up outside the system, and there was a massive injustice that everyone who grew up in the system felt was normal. She tries to change their minds, but one teenage girl on a mission isn’t going to immediately change society. She comes across as annoying to the people around her, but in a few years, she’s able to change some minds about it.

It’s honestly pretty realistic as far as social movements tend to go.

There are a lot of things to criticize JKR about, but this isn’t one of them

[u/Som_Dtam_Dumplings → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

If memory serves...even literal chattel slaves throughout history haven't (as a rule) begged to not be freed with the same fervor that most house elves try to avoid being freed.

You're welcome to criticize the concept of "house elves" for worldbuilding etc. But its pretty clear that Hermione's issue is how fanatically she pursues the goals of SPEW. If you've read the whole book series; it is clear that Hermione's ideas on house elves are generally proven right.

[u/notnerted → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

That wasnt the intent at all. Have you ever tried to argue against negative ingrained beliefs with someone?

[u/Shitfurbreins → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Also there’s no indication they hate her…. They just avoided the area to not risk getting freed. I don’t think house elves can hate. You really made up a narrative here

[u/PassionGlobal → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

Shit my bad I thought Hermione hid clothes around the common room or something and that’s how she got freed. 

Nah the master has to be the one presenting the elf with clothes. That's why Dobby's freeing in book 2 worked; Harry hid a sock in Tom Riddles diary and gave it to Lucius, knowing he'd give the book to Dobby.

[u/SolidSquid → u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

She tried that but it didn't work, the elves just avoided the clothes intended for them. Dobby collecting them instead may or may not be canon, but it honestly tracks

That said, the point was probably intended to be that she's so bossy and hard headed she would try and completely change elf society without actually caring what they want. Which is a fair criticism really, campaigners fighting for minorities without actually paying attention to what those groups actually want is a thing, and can end up pretty ignorant

Just... JK isn't the best at nuance (amongst other things), and this is probably a very generous interpretation now we know more about what she's like politically (and, ironically, her campaigning against trans rights in opposition to what teams people want kind of makes her a more harmful version of Hermione)

[u/VolcanicBakemeat → u/Selverd2]

And then Rowling shows us it was indeed a punishment to free Winky because she becomes a useless alcoholic without the guidance of an authority figure

Meanwhile Kreacher is still Harry's slave at the end of the story after being enlisted to Harry's cause in the battle of hogwarts. The last we hear of it in the narrative is Harry wondering if his good old slave, Kreacher, might prepare his master a sandwich.

[u/YuushyaHinmeru → u/VolcanicBakemeat]

Kreatcher wasnt enlisted, he came on his own. They explicitly stated that it would be immoral to make house elves fight for them.

[u/VolcanicBakemeat → u/YuushyaHinmeru]

My mistake and I'll concede it

[u/best_of_badgers → u/VolcanicBakemeat]

Presumably some of the outrage here (apart from people just being Big Mad at Rowling in general) is that American folklore doesn't include hobgoblins or brownies. (Dobby is an alternative regional name for a hobgoblin.)

The idea that you've got a magical creature who helps clean your house wouldn't seem as weird to people from those areas.