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SteamKnight Since: Jun, 2018
#226: Mar 4th 2022 at 11:06:12 AM

[up] Look, I see the difference. I just think it does not matter as much as you think it is. Heck, Harry himself own house elf slave, but it's fine because the problem isn't him owning slave, but whether or not he treat his property with care or not.

Not to mention there is something wrong with making a fantasy race that desire to be enslaved and then making a deal about it and even going so far as publishing a discussion about whether the enslavement of house elves is good or bad (i.e. To SPEW or not to SPEW) but also writing an out, in-universe winning argument to justify the continuation of said enslavement. It is like a sci-fi author that shall not be named writing the answer in their story to make them win an argument against their fans after losing out of butthurt. Besides, let's face it the house elves like to be slaves isn't written because JK want to explore the mentality or culture of said race, but to mock Hermione and all the "overzealous" activists that she is meant to represent and then to justify JK's own bad writing decision.

Seriously, this discussion is starting to go to the route of trashy isekai animes no. whatever.

Edited by SteamKnight on Mar 5th 2022 at 2:13:54 AM

I'm not as witty as I think I am. It's a scientifically-proven fact.
Unoriginalusername3 from Nimmermeer Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
#227: Mar 4th 2022 at 11:06:31 AM

[up][up]Owning house elf slaves is portrayed as good though when Harry (the main hero of the series!) does it, because he is nice to his slave.

Edited by Unoriginalusername3 on Mar 4th 2022 at 8:06:57 PM

Ultimatum Disasturbator from The Wiggle Room (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#228: Mar 4th 2022 at 11:33:30 AM

A slave he inherited no less (Kretcher) but I disagree with your assessment overall

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#229: Mar 4th 2022 at 11:47:38 AM

Seriously, this discussion is starting to go to the route of trashy isekai animes no. whatever.

At last you realize the truth: Harry Potter was the original trashy isekai. The "actually slavery is fine if you treat your slaves nicely" discussion just seal the deal.

Edited by Gaon on Mar 4th 2022 at 11:49:06 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Tharkun140 The Arch-Douchebag Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Arch-Douchebag
#230: Mar 4th 2022 at 12:43:12 PM

Heck, Harry himself own house elf slave, but it's fine because the problem isn't him owning slave, but whether or not he treat his property with care or not.

Harry is a dick to Kreacher at the start and has to shake that attitude off in the final book. The reason Harry owning a house elf is fine is because the alternative is having Kreacher happily run to Bellatrix with loads and loads information on the Order, which would not be kinder on the house elves in the long run. This is the stated, in-story reason and no, it's not an excuse for anything (other than maybe having some plot exposition a book later). It's just the character making the least shitty choice in a situation that developed over the course of the plot, just like Harry using Unforgivable Curses or breaking into the bank.

Besides, let's face it the house elves like to be slaves isn't written because JK want to explore the mentality or culture of said race, but to mock Hermione and all the "overzealous" activists that she is meant to represent and then to justify JK's own bad writing decision.

Hermione's problem isn't being overzealous as much as not caring to, I dunno, consider what the Hogwarts house elves actually want, which leads her to doing pointless stuff like knitting a bunch of clothes even though the elves don't want them, and they would have been freed long ago if they had. A misguided and misinformed activist is what she was meant to represent. This is the main reason house elves were written this way from the fourth book forward, and not Rowling wanting to "win an argument against their fans" or something stupid like that. And if you ask me, "listen to the people you are trying to help" is a pretty acceptable message.

Is that a good metaphor for real-life issues? Probably not. It suffers from being very removed from human social issues in that house elves have drastically different psychology than humans and thus you have to take a comletely different approach when trying to help them. But that's the thing; They are really freaking different from humans and their form of slavery is really freaking different from anything we see in real life. Anyone, no matter how uncomfortable with these creative decisions they are, should acknowledge that before raging at the characters for being "slave owners" and craptalking people who do acknowledge the difference between real-life slaves and fantasy creatures.

Seriously, this discussion is starting to go to the route of trashy isekai animes no. whatever.

Well sorry about that, my original point wasn't even about the quality or ethics of the slavery subplot, just that using it as an example of "team morality" is ignoring how the narrative treats it, and I made that point clear several times now. It's other people who insist on going on about that subplot, as though that hadn't been done enough already. If you are willing to admit that the whole "good slave owner team" spiel is baseless - or really just stop the discussion in any way - I'm happy to let you hate Harry Potter and/or isekais in peace.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Mar 4th 2022 at 9:54:45 PM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.
DoubleOG (Apprentice)
#231: Mar 4th 2022 at 12:56:42 PM

Oh Harry Potter...

Why is your world so cool yet filled with so many Unfortunate Implications...

AyyItsMidnight Look, just be decent to one another ok? Since: Oct, 2018
Look, just be decent to one another ok?
#232: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:00:53 PM

I peeped in here to see someone trying to justify slavery in these books. Uh, ok then.

[up]'cuz Rowling has famously backwards views on many many things and it leaks into her work.

Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)
Unoriginalusername3 from Nimmermeer Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
#233: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:25:18 PM

[up][up][up]

But at the end of the books, there is no risk that Kreacher will go to Bellatrix anymore and Harry still doesn't free him or start paying him a fair wage or something. I know this is justified in-universe as house elves liking to be enslaved, but Rowling didn't have to write it that way.

Edited by Unoriginalusername3 on Mar 4th 2022 at 10:25:37 AM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#234: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:34:39 PM

On top of her questionable political takes, she also just doesn't really think things through (another tidbit present in the Shaun vid). In the case of the house elves thing it's pretty clear she just wanted to do an arc where harry cleverly liberated a servant from evil malfoys and thought a race of fastidious diminutive magical beings who live to serve was pretty cool and not thinking through that these things don't really mesh together (and also the latter is a terribly conceived idea).

As mentioned before in this thread I'm sure Rowling wasn't deliberately channeling white supremacist pro-slavery propaganda in house elf slaves, but she was channeling the mindset of it. It's the "having someone who loyally does everything for me no questions asked is pretty cool" wish fulfillment thing, but she realizes that institutional slavery is a terrible thing, so she tries to shore up her morals with the idea house elves actually love to serve and to be slaves and hoping that's enough.

The problem is that she (and the people who defend that) simply don't really understand how institutional slavery works and that this is just creating a sort of plantation owner wish fulfillment 'verse (granted, House Elves are primarily house slaves rather than field slaves, but this hardly means much in the long run). So what she ends up is with this bizarre morally neutral slavery that is only as good or as bad as its slave-master, which is 100% unfiltired pro-slavery propaganda just with wands and magic words rather thaan whips and chains.

There's really no such thting as unproblematic slavery. Higher-functioning creative figures who still want the "having a highly competent and 100% servant workforce" tidbit usually just do the obvious and have them obviously be non-sentient artificial constructs. For a modern example The Owl House has the "Abominations", purple-ish creatures made of muck that serve the witches of the setting and are often doing manual labour for them (or carrying them around), but the Abominations are very clearly established as non-sentient artificial constructs that are just extensions of the witches (in fact when the witches are incapacitated they collapse into a puddle of nothing to illustrate this). That's essentially the same principle of the House Elf thing but without accidentally ratifying the articles of confederacy.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Tharkun140 The Arch-Douchebag Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Arch-Douchebag
#235: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:38:49 PM

[up][up] Come on now. We have absolutely no idea what happens to Kreacher after the story's conclusion, for better or worse. There is no point judging decisions Harry might or might not have made off-screen, cause you can conclude anything this way.

And of course whether Harry did or didn't free Kreacher is completely beside my point, but I've gotten used to that by now.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Mar 4th 2022 at 10:39:01 AM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#236: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:41:04 PM

What's on-screen and what's off-screen is decided by the author, so that's a terrible argument.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
PippingFool Eclipse the Moon from A Floridian Prison Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
Eclipse the Moon
#237: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:42:31 PM

I think the thing with the House Elf Winky becoming freed from being, well, enslaved and she immediately becomes a miserable alcoholic was like. Fucking yikes in how that was exactly the narrative against ending chattel slavery in the US, that the slaves will become miserable and drive themselves to things like alcoholism when "forcefully" freed from slavery. Like that even hit me as a kid.

It really comes off as best case (and most likely) scenario of JKR just not, thinking her implications through

I'm having to learn to pay the price
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#238: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:44:03 PM

[up]x3 I will give you that Shaun’s “teams” argument (and I will point out again that I haven’t watched the video, so I’m going by what everyone else is saying here) does seem a bit flawed, particularly when we take Sirius into account. But I don’t think that changes that Rowling doesn’t treat what is essentially slavery with the weight it deserves.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 4th 2022 at 4:50:26 AM

Oh God! Natural light!
Diana1969 Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#239: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:45:27 PM

The woman named a black character "Shacklebolt". I don't think her having a bad take on slavery is much of a surprise.

Tharkun140 The Arch-Douchebag Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Arch-Douchebag
#240: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:47:08 PM

4x[up] Are we really going to sit here and complain about the decisions Harry isn't shown making? Are we also going to condemn him for not telling the Dursleys the war is over? For not attending Lupin's funeral? For not paying taxes in his adult life? We didn't see him doing any of these things and it's plausible he never did them, but do you guys really hate Harry Potter that much?

Edited by Tharkun140 on Mar 4th 2022 at 10:47:34 AM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#241: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:53:45 PM

The team thing is Tharkun removing a part of the video from context moreso than anything. Shaun's larger point is that Rowling rarely grapples with the systematic problems of her own universe and instead attribute it just to bad individuals rather than anything systemic to a fairly ridiculous extent. In other words, Dumbledore and Harry own slaves but it's fine because they're cool masters, but the Malfoys are bad because they're bad masters. Shaun makes the same point earlier in the video with how the heroes get in righteous fury about slytherins calling Ma Weasley fat but regularly call people they don't like fat.

This is a semi-common problem in a lot of fiction in varying ways (you usually see it with crime), but HP is just very glaring about it given the presence of institutional slavery and race supremacy being treated this ambivalent way. Shaun doesn't even bring up the other elephant in the room of the HP verse that is Love Potions (which likewise get treated as either a rape drug or as harmless pre-teen hijinks entirey dependant on who's using with nobody really stopping to grapple with the wild availbilty of brainwashing rape drugs).

Are we really going to sit here and complain about the decisions Harry isn't shown making?

You're the only one digging your heels to talk about Harry Potter as if he's a real person. We've been talking about the creative decisions of the person writing him and for some reason it's just flying right past you.

Edited by Gaon on Mar 4th 2022 at 1:55:25 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Diana1969 Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#242: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:53:46 PM

We didn't see him doing any of these things and it's plausible he never did them, but do you guys really hate Harry Potter that much?

I mean, I certainly hate it and I think Rowling and her supporters are genuinely reprehensible people and hateful lunatics.

Edited by Diana1969 on Mar 4th 2022 at 8:54:26 PM

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#243: Mar 4th 2022 at 1:58:34 PM

[up]x3 When it comes to Harry’s actions, I do agree that we can really only go by what’s presented on the page, and the main plot (not counting the epilogue, that is) does conclude with Harry wondering if Kreacher will make him a sandwich, so it does indeed seem like Harry will continue to, well, own Kreacher for the foreseeable future. If he had said at one point that he would make a point to give Kreacher his freedom or something of that nature, that would be one thing, but he does not. I suppose it’s fair to not to want to condemn him for things he isn’t shown doing, but by that same token, we shouldn’t give him credit for stuff he doesn’t. We only have what the story gives us, and what it gives us has some Unfortunate Implications, to say the least.

And before you say that Kreacher wouldn’t want to be free, let’s actually step away from Doylist arguments for a second and look at the facts given to us in-story - Dumbledore explicitly refers to house elves being compelled to obey orders as an enchantment placed upon their kind. Thus, it is not much of a leap in logic to conclude that this reluctance to be free is a part of that enchantment, or at leads a product of likely centuries of social conditioning (for that matter, we never do see how house elves are born. I can think of a few theories that might be the case with that, and I’d wager all of them make the situation here even worse). That, my friend, is slavery of the worst kind.

And the story pretty much glosses over this - the most we get is Hermione saying how horrible it is that they have to obey, which is admittedly given more weight in Deathly Hallows than it was previously, but we don’t see any real discussion or action taken on this.

All of this is how Rowling chose to write the story. So yes, I’ll judge her choices here.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 4th 2022 at 5:03:08 AM

Oh God! Natural light!
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#244: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:03:31 PM

Also, on the subject of the house-elf plot point being overblown in discourse - it's a relatively important plot element in 3 of 7 books in the series (Co S, Oot P, and DH). It may not be THE focus of the story but it's also hard to ignore its existence.

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#245: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:05:29 PM

I’d also point out that it’s fairly prominent in Goblet of Fire (where SPEW first becomes a thing and we get a better look at house elves besides Dobby), and Half-Blood Prince.

So it really seems more like five out of seven, honestly.

Oh God! Natural light!
Tharkun140 The Arch-Douchebag Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Arch-Douchebag
#246: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:14:24 PM

We've been talking about the creative decisions of the person writing him and for some reason it's just flying right past you.

And repeatedely bashing me for 'defending slavery', and going on about how the house elf subplot is really Southern pro-slavery propaganda and recently expressing hatred for Rowling and her 'supporters' whatever that means. But sure, tell me more about how I'm the one being unreasonable, even though I only talked about why two points in the video were bad and why Harry Potter isn't all that terrible.

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#247: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:18:29 PM

I can't speak for everyone else, but (no offense) it's hard to take your arguments seriously when you keep making these bizarre comparisons that make no sense to anything (bringing up kant????????) and essentially invoking a thermian argument writ large.

Diana1969 Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#248: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:18:55 PM

and recently expressing hatred for Rowling and her 'supporters' whatever that means

I've personally been harassed by TERF morons who exalt Rowling for "defending women" through her transphobic bullshit.

This is not a "whatever that means". She has a legion of moronic followers who utterly despise trans women like me for existing.

Unoriginalusername3 from Nimmermeer Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
#249: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:25:44 PM

you guys really hate Harry Potter that much?

I actually don't. I like a lot of things in the Harry Potter series. I like the Hogwarts setting, a lot of the characters and the mysteries, especially the one from the third book where everything just comes together perfectly. However this doesn't mean that the Harry Potter series doesn't have Unfortunate Implications. You can acknowledge a series has flaws and still like (parts of) it.

Edited by Unoriginalusername3 on Mar 4th 2022 at 11:26:12 AM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#250: Mar 4th 2022 at 2:42:20 PM

My opinion on Harry Potter has always been the same: it's a very mediocre children/young adult fantasy series with a lot of problems that become magnified exactly by how much of a cultural juggernaut it became for a multitude of factors. J.K Rowling has always been a very mediocre (occasionally dipping into terrible) writer who lucked out tremendously in life, if you ask me, but she's far from the only one. Her inability to keep up the smoke-and-mirrors with her subsequent Harry Potter work (e.g. cursed child and such) was basically the cracking of the rose-tinted glasses people had about her capabilities, but it was still just "mediocre childhood memento wasn't as good as I remembered".

It'd have remained that way if it's author didn't combust into a ball of bigotry in her later year, which made the flaws come into very sharp focus.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

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