this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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Yeah, it's Harry Potter. Social change is the enemy in the book. At no point does anyone try to improve anything in the book. They don't even oppose evil that much. They just oppose it when the existing evil tries to go too far by the current standards of evil.
Hermione tries to raise awareness about elf mistreatment.
It's implied that Dumbledore was trying to influence Fudge to improve things in their regular correspondence before the GoF/OotP story arc.
Then she gets to meet the slave race they keep in the basement and said slaves explain that their enslavement is a fundamental part of magic society and the only reason Dobby in particular had to be freed was because his owners were a bit too mean to him. The message becomes "slavery is fine as long as slaves are treated well.". Then they drop that particular can of worms because addressing it would require societal change. It is one of few endeavours where the heroes of the story just fail to do what they want.
Fuck it. Some more rambles because the house elves drive me insane.
The correct response to a slave race that wants to be subjugated is to refuse. You can see in the books that the existance of slave races has made the Wizards worse people and it makes them used to treating other races, that are free and sentient, as slaves. Tons of sentient races we meet in the story are either service staff or set dressing for wizards amusement.
What the fuck, you're right. Owning slaves is detrimental to how even the owners see the world. If we tolerate slavery even if we're on the benefitting side, it alters our worldview to include better and lesser peoples.
The house elves plot is one of the best examples of why the movies are significantly better than the books.
I feel that they avoid most of the insane choices of jk Rowling but does not fix them.
Wtf? Hermione goes to a point where she tries her best to force the freedom on them (leaving clothes around so they accidentaly pick them up and) so be freed. I think it is canon that she still pursues it even after school and makes actual changes while working at the Ministry.
This sounds like a problem with media analysis. I don't know how anyone could read the books and view her efforts as serious and successful actions.
This is lore from Pottermore I think, not something that was in the books.
I don't respect Pottermore. It's fanfiction about Wizards shitting in corners. If it's not in the book you can't use it to defend the book.
That's fair tbh.
Her trying to trick Hogwarts elves into freedom is actually part of the books
Yeah, I meant the bit where she improves their conditions while working at Ministry
Its crazy how a big part of subsequent novels is Dobby being unable to exist without slavishly devoting himself to another wizard. And his arc ends with him literally catching a bullet for Harry because he's convinced his life is worth less than a wizard's.
Just imagine reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and the whole way through its just Jim finding newer and more obsequies ways to serve at Huck's whims.
Yep, and she constantly gets made fun of for it.
So it's just like real life.
Those who argue for change are ridiculed.
I don't know about you but I think the people who argued in favour of abolishing slavery were not historically ridiculed as far as I've ever heard.
Can't say for sure about that, since we weren't there, but we are here now, and you can bet humanitarian and progressive voices are ridiculed today.
I can say for certain that they were, having read a book besides Harry Potter.
Shit, some American pre-Civil War slaver beat an abolitionist to death in Congress and got cheered for it in the South.
Here in the US we had a little scuffle based largely around slavery and those who wanted to abolish it were gunned down by the hundreds of thousands.
It took a while to get to that stage though.
Do you happen to remember who won that particular scuffle? And who had an enormous statue erected in memorial and is the most popular presidents in history? And whether slavery is in fact still legal or not?
Yes, yes, and yes!
Tries and fails. It never goes anywhere, and she's mocked as a well-meaning fool for trying in the first place because "welp most elves just enjoy being slaves what can you do shrug emoji". Jkr sets up something with Hermione and the elves and then doesn't follow through with it in any meaningful way (and I don't count commentary from her outside the books as following through) so it's left to just sit there uncritically as "slavery is a thing in this universe and is seen as completely normal by most characters, and only one person ever tries to do anything about it and she's depicted as a cringey radical in the process". Jkr doesn't even show the beginnings of societal change like more elves coming to Dobby's side of things once they see it's an option and that Dobby's is happy that way, or other house elves being motivated to think differently about their situation and starting to unlearn their generations of indoctrination. We don't even see a glimpse of Winky starting to recover instead the last we see of her is as a depressed alcoholic whose life was ruined by her being freed from slavery. Jkr depicts it as "yeah slavery is bad but you can't change the way the world works so might as well not even try." the house elves' servitude is treated as something so fundamentally tied to their species that it seems to be biological and thus humans taking advantage of that is to some degree the natural way of things which, I shouldn't have to explain what the problem with that sort of depiction is. Maybe that wasn't what she intended, maybe she just added slavery because it's a common world building trope, but if that's the case she did so without considering the implications or how it would come across in the end product or the messages it would send.
Holy shit. The more I read the less I like that woman. Biologically coded slavery? Sounds like some debunked phrenology bullshit.
If you reread the description of the Goblins at Gringots, you'll find typical antisemitic stereotypes too.
Not even just in the writing.
Literally on the floor in the Goblin Bank in the movie.
There's so many fucking racist tropes in the book that once you start glancing around you can't stop seeing them.
Isn’t Winky’s alcoholism also played for laughs? As is Trelawney’s.
It’s weird how casually Harry accepts slavery. All Hagrid has to do is say that Dobby is a weirdo and the slaves like being slaves, then he’s okay with putting Christmas decorations on decapitated slave heads.
In fairness, this is a common theme across all of JKR's writings after Goblet of Fire.
For maybe two dozen paragraphs in one book, and then she gives up because literally no other wizard will support her.
Its just so funny that there's a scene in Book 5 where Voldemort blows up a statue dedicated to Wizard Supremacy and you're honestly not sure who the bad guy is anymore.
Voldemort didn't disagree with the message of the statue. Him blowing it up wasn't a show of solidarity with non-wizard races.
Grand old Farty?
https://web.archive.org/web/20170929062836/https://www.pottermore.com/features/to-spew-or-not-to-spew-hermione-granger-and-the-pitfalls-of-activism
They don’t even question systemic problems within the magic world, let alone challenging them. Everyone is extremely content with the social stratification - something emblematic of the British society. In the books everyone is perfectly content with the oppression, just as long as THEY get to be the oppressors.
I was never a fan of the series - noticed these issues right from the first book. Every subsequent book or movie I couldn’t help but noticing how cruel everyone was - even the protagonists.
The problem is that the first four books are “monster of the week” children’s books. Everything operates on good guy/bad guy because the world building is a shallow pond - which is fine, they’re fun children’s books. Addressing the systemic issues would have required her to actually plan out her universe, and you can really see it start to fall apart by book 5.
But can I ask why that would put you off the series? The books are essentially a product of the society the author wrote them in, so it’s not as if they present an unbelievable social narrative, as it’s emblematic of British society as you said. Is it that you want/expect more of an engaged society from the magical world, or is it just boring to read of social attitudes that are so close to our own. Genuinely curious, as I’m not a massive fan of the series myself, but for other reasons :) I’ve never considered your point of view so it’d be good to understand
It is the potrayal of these conditions as acceptable/good. Many children of that generation loved the books and dreamed to be in Hogwarts and this magical world overall. It is given to an uncritical audience in an uncritical way.
This just goes to show you how little people care about elves. Even after the revolution you ignore that anything has changed.
I always liked the lens of Harry as a jock
They also have time travel, so they could undo all that shit.
Wrong. In the books Neville knocks over the shelf with all the time travel gadgets and they are all destroyed. I am not joking.
Kinda, not really. You can't undo anything that's already been done, and what you decide to do to change things already happened, so there's not a lot of major change you can do. You're throwing pebbles into a river and attempting to change its course. Maybe if all the wizards used the time turners at once they might be able to change what a day max? I don't remember what the limit of the time turners was, but either way, she didn't implement them well, which is why I think she destroyed all of them in book 5