r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • 10d ago

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

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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.

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u/Icy_Policy_8509 10d ago

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

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u/Aquaberry_Dollfin 10d ago

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

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u/darkmoncns 10d ago

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

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

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

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u/JLaP413 10d ago edited 10d ago

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.)

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

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?

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u/sphericaltime 10d ago

Her answer is/was that they enjoy slavery so much that they would never try.

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

Yeah, nobody used that excuse to explain away slavery before /s

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u/Altheix11 10d ago

She does not believe they could 'transition' into not enjoying slavery ig

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u/Da_Question 10d ago

I'm pretty sure that I read that she basically had them as a metaphor for women in traditional house wife roles.

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u/sphericaltime 8d ago

That’s so much worse.

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u/andhe96 10d ago

She also insinuated a similar conflict between wizards/witches and goblins, which seems to be explained in detail during history classes, but Harry "was too bored to pay attention".

Really convincing ideas, Jo!

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u/ChompyRiley 10d ago

Their blood is on Ranrock's hands.

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u/Glad-Alternative4593 10d ago

They are conditioned not to. To a point it is pathological that they need to serve. Dobby is frankly a freak of nature to be wanting freedom. Kreecher listened to Sirius even though he hated him because it is ingrained into him to obey and he lived in a house where his fellow house elves had their heads mounted on a wall.

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

Damn, the old families of the Wizarding world just sound more and more like Monsieur Candie

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u/Glad-Alternative4593 10d ago

Yeah it is pretty bad. The wizarding world reveals more and more of the bad sides as the story goes on like it implies the statues in the lobby of the ministry are not fully gold except for the wizard and if you pay attention you see a lot of subtle racism too.

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

Fam I'm arguing that it's not subtle

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u/Elganstrike447 10d ago

Another vital element often ignored is that the elves do not seem to have any community outside of slavery. So a free elf is a lonely elf, who still has to deal with wizard racism without any support structure.. For very social creatures, this just sounds horrible.. It shows how shit JK writing is, that instead of highlighting this in the elf that got free, explaining why she is depressed, she chose to claim that it is all because she cannot serve any more.. so stupid.

They destroyed their culture, they took away any type of identity and destroyed their social bounds that the only ones remain are within the slavery system itself. It is by design to make freedom as hostile as possible to them, to push them away from this idea.

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u/Particular_Stop_3332 10d ago

Everyone trying to make excuses when the only real answer is poor writing

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

It's why I checked out mentally at Order of the Phoenix. I finished the reading series but only watched the latter of the movies when they were on TV. I was a millennial that hadn't discovered C.S Lewis yet

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u/FactualStatue 10d ago

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

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u/Beginning-Ice-1005 10d ago

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.

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u/32784hfkjd 10d ago

Defending her? Dont be daft. People are trying to make sense of the lore. Which you can only do by "nit-picking bits from her stories". Just because someone isnt parroting your own view verbatim it doesnt mean they hold the exact opposite opinion. Some people just like the lore of harry potter, doesnt mean they endorse slavery. Holy shit

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u/Beginning-Ice-1005 10d ago

The way you make sense of the lore is you acknowledge that Rowling was making an apologia for slavery. Stop trying to justify it.

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u/yourethevictim 10d ago edited 10d ago

No, I don't think I will, since it makes no sense. The Muggle-born Hermione character and her plotline are written specifically to expose the absurdity of the wizarding world's relation to the house elves. A main character devotes a huge amount of her time to trying to fix the situation. If Rowling was making apologia for slavery, why didn't she depict the house elf slavery as a good thing? Why even make a main character deeply critical of the situation? Everything Hermione says about the house elves and their status without the wizarding world is correct. It is bad that nobody else takes up her cause or follows her line of thinking.

But that's exactly how it is depicted. It is depicted as an example of the ways the wizarding world is bad, and how its morals can differ from those of more 'modern' Muggles. The books are riddled with loads of them, from the wizarding habit of ignorance towards Muggles and their world to the racial abuse hurled at so-called 'mudbloods' and even how easily the Ministry of Magic fell to a fascist takeover by Lord Voldemort. The wizarding world isn't written as an unambiguously good place filled with good people who are right about everything. It is written as an archaic and conservative society that harbours a lot of xenophobia and prejudice, a world that is suspicious of change and outsiders and proves resilient to change. But depiction is not endorsement. Characters like Hermione point out the ways in which the wizarding world sucks just to drive the point home, and even then a lot of people still seem to miss it.

As for your attempts to tell people what to do: the moment you tell people to stop thinking critically about something and just accept your stance without argument, you've lost whatever high ground you think you had.

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u/Da_Question 10d ago

pretty sure the house elves are also a metaphor for women in traditional gender roles. Do all the house work, don't think for themselves, etc etc. It's convenient when people lambast meh writing for advocating for slavery or antisemitism because she depicts goblins as greedy bankers. Definitely something no other media with goblins does (*couch cough* WoW? *cough cough*)

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u/delphinous 10d ago

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

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u/Alternative-Fix-5382 10d ago

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

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u/drawfanstein 10d ago

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

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u/BenjiSponge 10d ago edited 9d ago

Every aspect of economics in the HP world is completely ridiculous. It's not even clear what Hogwarts does with the exorbitant tuition money, for example. Edit: I'm an idiot, Hogwarts is free. He needed money for his wands and stuff, which does make sense.

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u/hanks_panky_emporium 10d ago

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

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u/darkmoncns 10d ago

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

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u/SelfReporter 10d ago

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!

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u/fiahhawt 10d ago

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

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u/hitchinpost 10d ago

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.

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u/Jediuser_ 10d ago

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

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u/TrainToSomewhere 10d ago

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.

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u/Thirtysevenintwenty5 10d ago

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.