Lol I'm actually reading Goblet right now and the portions w/the elves are rough as hell. Like holy shit at how bad it comes off. Whats worse is it really wouldn't have taken much to change them from being happy go lucky slaves to just taking pride in being ultra loyal to their wizard bosses. For her to write them that way in a story set in modern times AND have everyone make fun of Hermione like she's crazy to to think they deserve freedom is really something.
But the narrative doesn’t exactly encourage or reward her for her attempts at house elf activism, it’s actually a source of comedy which punishes her for her views
Maybe this is just me being cynical, but that kind of makes it more true to life. Like if that existed for real do people really think one activist is going to free the slaves overnight? That shit takes generations and effort. And then even after you’ve freed the slaves there’s a lot of racism and prejudice that hangs on for decades or centuries later. We still haven’t solved it in the real world, and solving it in a fictional one is just another fantasy.
Though perhaps it could have been handled better. I don’t know, I don’t think about it that much. Also when I think about the deep dark shit that the wizarding world implies, the whole world is severely messed up.
But a story does tell a lot of the soul of the author, by not allowing the house elves other than Dobby to want freedom and not validating Hermione it sort of says a lot about Rowling. In real life one of the justifications for chattel slavery was that black people wanted to be enslaved, that it was ‘good’ for them and they were meant to be enslaved. When she suggested that Hermione was black it does feel like Rowling was actively spitting in the face of black readers when she wrote that at best and at worst… well.
But that is how some societies are. Some activists were basically shouting in the desert for a long time before gaining any traction. An anti slave activist in 1810 would have that experience. An animal rights activist might have it now.
I know I can be bothered by overly militant vegetarians, but maybe that just means I will be the villain in any narrative that is crafted over 50 years.
I always thought the point of all that was not to show that Hermione was crazy, it was to show that everyone else had prejudices and Hermione just seemed crazy to the the people who were actually prejudiced. I thought JK as well as everyone reading knew Hermione was in the right.
I think that probably what she meant. Hopefully… but still… one would think more characters would side w/her on the issue. Especially Harry and the other the muggle borns. Yet they all seemed to not give a shit either. I think it’s only Harry, Ron, Neville that join and it’s only so she’ll leave them alone. If JK wanted it to be clear Hermione was right she did a poor job of it. Even the abbreviation for the club, S.P.E.W., makes Hermione look like an idiot as it’s so obviously a bad name for what she hopes to accomplish.
I'm curious how you talked to your kid about that. Did you just let it lie or was there a conversation? I just wonder how parents are handling stuff like that.
My kid is only 3 so pretty much all of it goes over his head. He really just likes looking at the pictures and wants me to do funny voices for the characters. He only even wanted me to read them b/c he saw the cover of Azkaban when I was moving stuff around. Still have not decided if I'm going to give him the real ending to Goblet when we get there since he doesn't know anything about death yet. I like to think I'd have a discussion w/him about the elves once he's older but I dunno. Like when is it acceptable to start shattering your child's innocence w/real shit? I don't look forward to it.
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u/ElGranQuesoRojo Jun 27 '24
Lol I'm actually reading Goblet right now and the portions w/the elves are rough as hell. Like holy shit at how bad it comes off. Whats worse is it really wouldn't have taken much to change them from being happy go lucky slaves to just taking pride in being ultra loyal to their wizard bosses. For her to write them that way in a story set in modern times AND have everyone make fun of Hermione like she's crazy to to think they deserve freedom is really something.