General opinion of themrandomnesesFebruary 12 2011, 00:46:16 UTC
The idea of House Elves make me really uncomfortable. I believe in self determination about stuff like "freeing yourself" from oppression, and I feel like while Hermione heart was in the right place, she didn't go about house elf liberation the right way. I'd like to think that there are some house elves that aren't totally brainwashed into servitude. Slavery doesn't really always work like that, contrary to popular belief.
Re: General opinion of themrandomnesesFebruary 12 2011, 00:55:57 UTC
I've got mixed feelings about this, because for some that may just be the brainwashing talking but at the same time it's condescending for some, like Hermione, to assume that they just didn't know any better and that they really do want to be free.
IDK IDK it's complicated but the idea of something that can think and speak and...all only living to serve others just is so D:
Re: General opinion of themdanneenessFebruary 17 2011, 03:51:03 UTC
Ack, that is why house elves make me uncomfortable, too, but I'm not sure that it's a bad thing. No, saying "Eh, they like being slaves" isn't okay, but it's also not okay to speak for them... gah. I guess the best option is to encourage the ones who want to be free, but Dobbies are supposed to be one in a million, so... Uncomfortable.
Re: General opinion of them4815162342xFebruary 12 2011, 01:46:26 UTC
I feel like while Hermione heart was in the right place, she didn't go about house elf liberation the right way.
So much this. It's obviously a huge issue that has been around for (possibly) hundreds of years. Her trying to simply free them isn't going to fix anything, which is why I think we met Winky. We get to see what would be considered the average house elf and how they would react to things like that. If anything I would think maybe it would have been able to really start with Dobby and not so much what he could teach the other house elves, but what he could have taught house elf babies. (That was such a weird sentence to write.)
Re: General opinion of themcoendouFebruary 12 2011, 02:53:00 UTC
It's unclear how much it's brainwashing, really. We really don't know nearly enough about the history of it to call it that definitively. It may be something more like domesticity in animals (and plants) - which some people think is something that humans forced onto them, but there is evidence that it actually evolved as a symbiotic relationship beneficial to both species at a time when the environment was changing quickly (the end of the last ice age).
Wizards certainly tend to take advantage of the sentient house elves in a way that we tend to consider unconscionable with a sentient species, but it's not a lot different from the way we treat other non-sentient domestic species. But the mere fact that they are sentient doesn't necessarily mean that the basic structure was forced on them and didn't, in one way or another, evolve more naturally.
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IDK IDK it's complicated but the idea of something that can think and speak and...all only living to serve others just is so D:
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So much this. It's obviously a huge issue that has been around for (possibly) hundreds of years. Her trying to simply free them isn't going to fix anything, which is why I think we met Winky. We get to see what would be considered the average house elf and how they would react to things like that. If anything I would think maybe it would have been able to really start with Dobby and not so much what he could teach the other house elves, but what he could have taught house elf babies. (That was such a weird sentence to write.)
Reply
Wizards certainly tend to take advantage of the sentient house elves in a way that we tend to consider unconscionable with a sentient species, but it's not a lot different from the way we treat other non-sentient domestic species. But the mere fact that they are sentient doesn't necessarily mean that the basic structure was forced on them and didn't, in one way or another, evolve more naturally.
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