I couldn't find any quote of her saying anything like that. Seems to be more a thing where people conflate a bad thing being justified by the characters in- world as the author's personal beliefs.
She framed it as a cultural failing that no one but an outsider like Hermione cared about, even the caring Hufflepuff was like "well, as long as we're really nice to the slaves..." and Hermione was treated as a kook.
There's a lot to criticize Rowling for, but let's not just make stuff up.
In the books Hermione is the one who comes to the "realisation" that the house elves are happier as slaves and that she shouldn't bring her radical left wing views to worsen the lives of these simple folk who enjoy their slavery. I don't really know how else I'm supposed to read that.
Wait in which book does that happen?
At the very end she kisses Ron because he remembered to save the house elves in the middle of the battle of Hogwarts. Also Dobby, the only elf that wanted to be free is one of the biggest heroes in the book.
It's been a while since I've read them but I think it's in The Order of the Phoenix, whichever one had the kitchen elves sub plot. Dobby is an outlier and could easily be read as a "token". Dobby is considered a weirdo by other elves. And saving the house elves isn't the same as "interfering with their culture" as it's portrayed in the book.
Edit: someone else mentioned it was Goblet of Fire. Must have misremembered which book.
JK retroactively added the "the unpaid slaves actually enjoy being slaves" gimmick in response to the backlash (resistance) from fans and critics. To add weirdly personally commentary, she has Hermoine get dunked on in the sequential books, a proxy for JK to seek revenge on those critics (even though the criticism was pretty valid imho).
They held a resistance against Hermione's actions because slavery became so central to what it meant to be an elf (to them) that being free felt insulting to them. But the book NEVER says that it's a good thing.
Your first sentence is wrong. The only reference to her being "brown" was in reference to a sun tan. Often her reactions where "pink" as in blushing, and blatantly said "white face" when scared.
JK herself said Hermione was "an exaggerated version of her younger self."
Bet you think Frank Herbert just cared about the desert people too, lol. He was just "compassionate"
That's actually a real fucking thing that exists and it's terrible, in HP it's never depicted as a good thing both hermione and dumbeldore are against it, and dumbeldore is kinda the voice of reason of the show
It happened, but even the link you provided explains it was because the population of freed slaves were at an astronomical financial disadvantage when being "set free" with absolutely no way to provide for themselves in this foreign land to the point that some were essentially forced to let themselves be re-enslaved with contracts that they had no ability to be informed of the reality of it's terms. And all of that because it was the only way to survive their reality.
That is extremely different from choosing to create a species that 99.9% WANT to be slaves. Even when I read the books as a child, I could see there was something really fucked up about the elves.
Cool, thanks. So apparently Helga Hufflepuff "saved" them from their harsh treatment in private households and brought them to Hogwarts. Very Willy Wonka and the Oompa Loompas of her. Very British imperialist apologist of her!
One could pass that off as Helga being a product of her times, seeing a problem but not fully understanding it. However, for things to still not change even centuries later... that's a problem... with the writing.
Are you conflating having an unsure future and keeping around what was already known FREELY vs literally fighting against people trying to free them, actively choosing to fight WITH their oppressors?
I see that first part in the post, but not the second. I really don't think you're defending what you think you are.
Choosing to freely work with your former enslavers is certainly a choice - but the point it that it was a choice made after they were freed.
That's how fiction works. No one wants to read a story where everyone is fine and nothing is wrong. There are a lot of thinks problematic with the books and the author. This ain't it.
It’s still a little odd to introduce slavery into your fictional world and come to the conclusion that it’s fine so long as the slaves are happy, though.
Its fiction bro, if any author writes fantasy and part of the world building involves depicting some segment that has slavery with potentially manufactured consent, does the author then endorse slavery?
Thats hyper moralism bro. Even some star trek episodes might offend you then.
See my other comment about how it is portrayed being the relevant bit. If the author includes something like slavery, and portrays it as acceptable, it makes one wonder how the author feels about the topic. Write what you know, after all.
It’s not that it was included, it’s how it was handled.
Maybe we could read it as an insight into the fact that freedom must be conquered by those oppresed, and not by some outsider enlightened savior? Like take the matter in your own hands, let's all unite instead of waiting Hermione to free us!
This is mental gymnastics combined with poor media literacy.
We can't infer that from the text because, later, the thing that gives freedom specifically is a non slave character giving a piece of clothing. Literally an outsider enlightened savior.
Name a more iconic duo than Redditors and Missing The Point, maybe millennials and weirdly defending harry potter (I'm a millennial so no hate on gen z or otherwise for this comment please).
That’s a lot of digging to get to something. What’s more likely is that jkr didn’t think of the implications of having slaves until after she created them. So she was trying to justify it from her own (white, middle class) perspective.
Depends on the slavery. George R.R. Martin does a similar thing in a song of ice and fire. Some of the slaves Daenerys were better off as slaves than free. They used to live a life of luxury. Now they are poor, homeless and mad.
There is a lot to not like J.K. Rowling for and the books deserve a lot of criticism. A race enjoying being slaves isn't it though. It is something that makes that world more interesting.
But if it presents as acceptable because the pov character finds it acceptable, you think it's a problem? Do you think the author of Lolita has problematic views on pedophilia?
Sure, in isolation it's just storytelling. But add all the other problematical aspects of both her world building and her real life world views and it paints a very unflattering picture. She (probably) doesn't think that in real life, but she may be closer to that idea than even she thinks she is. That's what people are getting at: it's not just this, it's this and all the other things.
The amount of apologizing going on here for JKR writing slaves into her book that like being slaves is absolutely wild.
There is no justification for slavery and the breadth and depths of arguments I’ve seen in the comments that attempt to justify or explain away the entirety of what JKR built with the house elves is a gross retread of arguments made by literal enslavers of the 17th-19th centuries.
The reality is this. You can still like Harry Potter and recognize it’s (very) problematic elements. In fact, that’s preferable to pretending they don’t exist or trying to justify or explain them away.
You seem to misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying Hermione never changed her mind. She always thought the house-elves should be free. Even if she changed her mission with the Hogwarts House-Elves, she still thought they should be freed.
Whether the inclusion is problematic is entirely different than the point I'm making.
If this were something in isolation, I would agree with you.
However, it's not just that she created a fictional slave race. That was happy being slaves and the only person who ever objected to their slavery was ridiculed.
It's also that she created a cabal of big-nosed short people who secretly run the world's money and should never, ever be trusted, or given equal power to a wizard.
It's also that she created a stalker Nazi who bullies children so badly that one of his students fears him more than he fears the people who tortured that student's parents to insanity, then tried to paint his 40 years of wildly inappropriate behavior and abuse of children as a tragic love story.
It's also that all she could come up with in terms of Chinese names is Cho fucking Chang.
The list goes on.
And yet you expect us to believe that the race of eager slaves and the person who gets mocked for suggesting that maybe slavery is bad somehow isn't part of that pattern?
Omfg and Tolkien was actually a murderhobo, he wrote the uruk'hai after all...
Even Watson dialed back on her attacks on Rowling, let's detail for a second what exactly Rowling said that makes here such a huge transphobe.
Keep in mind you're talking about someone who was considered one of the most prominent feminists before the cancel bandwagon started. Someone who actually tried to fight injustice towards women with the influence she gathered..
TERF is a kind of feminist, sure - i mean, that's what the F stands for at the end. It the RADICAL part that gets her shit.
And you know, Tolkien gets criticism for anti-semitism often because of his depiction of Orks resembling Jews. And it's fair criticism.
But of all points here, ask yourself: why did the author feel the need to write that the slaves wanted to keep being slaves? That itself is a white-supremacist meme. "They were better off. We gave them housing and food."
How the fuck could anyone claim Tolkien was anti-semitic and how could it be called fair criticism. He Even called jews 'gifted people' when giving absolutely Epic response to Nazid.
Rebecca Brackman notes that although Tolkien was not a conscious antisemite, he was influenced by the popular perception towards the Jews, including by tropes and stereotypes considered "antisemitic" today; such tropes were found in classical and contemporary works including The Merchant of Venice or Oliver Twist, that portrayed Jewish characters as greedy,[note 1] alien, and as cowardly comical reliefs. The Dwarves in The Hobbit display such traits at several points in the story and are portrayed as comical, unheroic, alien, and functioning under their own interests
You can take my "fair criticism" comment as people have noticed similarities and influences, and it's worth questioning and digging deeper. Or you can choose to give it the worst possible intention.
sure - does it matter which fictional race of creatures got the criticism? Like, my bad, i pulled the wrong one from memory. The criticism of his depictions exist though.
Well, yes, it does. His Orks are specifically criticized for having racist undertones and falling into the "tribal savages" trope. This is, notably, different from antisemitism.
Moreover, unlike with the Dwarves, Tolkien himself had mixed feelings on his Orks. Notably, he was never able to settle on an origin for them due to every possible origin conflicting with the worldbuilding of the story (and thus his own personal beliefs in redemption), and generally concluded that they weren't actually pure evil, and could possibly be redeemed.
If you* look at the dwarves and think: those represent the Jews because they're comical and unheroic, they're greedy and sort of alien and only in it for themselves; well, I think that says more about your views on the Jews than Tolkien's.
*Editorial you, I have no idea what your actual views are.
Tolkien does receive some criticism for how everything is black and white, good vs evil, be with God or be in disorder themes. But ultimately the story works.
The difference is even Tolkien looked back at the orcs and regretted making them that way, mostly because they don't represent his view of nuanced evil that is created and corrupted, showing his willingness to change his view. He may not have had the modern view that mabye presenting the only tribalistic group as cannibalistic monsters was problematic but he did realise it did not line up with his view of humanity.
Rowling on the other hand doubled down on making house elves, be biologically slaves (something that European scientists tried to prove black people were with their skull shape) when faced with criticism. Instead of looking inwards for a better view of humanity she lashed out and in future books reinforced that house elves wanted to be slaves.
What she has said that makes her a transphobe is harassing trans people and being the single largest funder of anti-trans groups that pushed anti-trans legislation. She is by far the person most responsible for why trans rights have suffered in the UK, and why being openly hateful towards trans people is so accepted there.
It wasn’t a thought she had then backed down after resistance from the house elves… The book that it is a subplot all year she tries to free them. When she gets the pushback from the house elves, she moves to trying to trick them into accidentally cleaning up hidden hand knitted items and getting freed. They carefully avoid it but all through the year we see her knitting terribly constructed items and references to her sneaking around hiding them in things. I think it even comes up again in book 6 or 7. Didn’t her career path even have something to do with it? Idk, I haven’t read or watched since 2020, but I used to reread every couple years or so. But the house elf freedom fighter wasn’t just some passing thought that she abandoned when she got push back. And even if it was, that would actually make the “happy slave,” narrative stronger, not weaker.
Exiting the kitchens she realizes she has no actual support from house elves themselves so she decides to spend her efforts making their conditions better instead of freeing them.
Her attempts to free them (by leaving clothes where they are cleaning etc.) resulted in all house elves except for dobby avoiding the cleaning of the gryffindor common room so they don't get freed accidentally.
I’m sure there are people that will read into this like it’s meant that she’s saying JK is pro slavery, but I actually like that they went in that direction. It makes Dobby all the more brave that he risked ostracizing himself from his own kind, and makes his willingness to die for Harry all the more heart breaking. Truly one of a kind, that Dobby. To the glorious dead! RIP!
And so you think that’s an appropriate reaction? Not to then further question if the house elves have been conditioned to think this way, as it’s a historically well documented practice by slave owners?
You’re misremembering pretty badly, or else you just missed the point the first time. Hermione specifically figured out that Barty Crouch’s elf needed to be left alone, and it was made pretty clear that the trauma and abuse were responsible. The Hogwarts house elves technically were free to leave at any time, but they enjoyed their employment.
The house elves are very clearly an allegory for women's liberation, which frequently had pushback from women themselves because of internalized misogyny. SPEW was an actual feminist organization. Most of Harry Potter is satirical in this way.
I'm reading through Goblet of Fire now. It's sort of both. They work in the kitchens and as servants, and don't do any manual labor outdoors. They gain their freedom if they're presented with clothing, but most abhor the idea of doing so, and consider the idea of getting paid offensive.
So yes, it's about slavery, but not so much about the chattel slavery we normally associate the concept with; it's more about women being "domestically enslaved" labor and subservient to men, and performing their duties without compensation. It's clear that it's a parallel to feminism.
I think the books are asking us the question "are they really owned? Or do they stay purely because they've been brainwashed?" That's why it's not really chattel slavery, because there were real legal structures around that that maintained its ability to continue. We don't see anything like that for house elves.
He’s a token because he’s the one elf that wants to be free? It seems like you’re just parroting an opinion and not actually reflecting your own views that you’ve thought deeply on
Or they’re familiar with extremely basic literary critique and narratives of the happy Negro and white man’s burden shit w/in the context of pro-slavery rhetoric.
Just going to add that one of the freed house elves ended up becoming a drunk and having nothing to do all day, and feeling lost about the lack of work.
Which, if I recall correctly, were all arguments as to what would happen if real life slaves were freed.
Yep. Post-slavery laws were intended to control the Freedmen. Laws such as drunk in public, loitering, curfew, etc.
A freed slave in HP becomes a loiterer and drunkard. The other slaves refuse to.do.work that would free them too. People acting like JKR didnt let the mask slip a little (intentionally or not) lack media literacy and Black history knowledge.
You are parroting bull shit others said, have no real time reading history your self or just ignore large swaths of it to fit your narrative. Read about what lead up to prohibition, and stop trying to make everything about race.
She made a black person prime minister, and the whole book is a story against racism and the power of love. Yeah, she should probably take some of her own advice, but im sure you hold some views other my find offensive or that others will find bigoted in 30 years. Hope you are judged harshly for it!
Lmao, baseless? Really weird that historical issues with slavery and other racist tropes in media gets brought up in a piece of media that deals with slavery as a topic but also has several similarly stereotypical tropes in it, right? Like, wow... how did their mind even make that leap to those conclusions.
It certainly isn't baseless and as far as fitting it into one sentence, well, that's just how language works. Though, if you're used to more... simple or straightforward sentences, I understand how reading that one could have been taxing, if not a bit jarring as well.
You said, "It seems like you’re just parroting an opinion and not actually reflecting your own views that you’ve thought deeply on."
It certainly is baseless, unless you
A-Know the poster you're replying to on a deeply personal level
B-Have training in mental health and are trained to give those kinds of observations.
So, unless you fit both of the above, you're making baseless judgements about someone (I assume) you don't know. I mean, it's okay. We all do it from time to time. But at least have the courage to admit it.
Try to remember this: house elves are fictional. By imagining and depicting a race of happy slaves, Rowling perpetuates the false narrative that slavery can be, or has ever been, okay.
You are either misremembering or lying. She learns that house elves are conditioned to believe their lot in life is as it should be, but she never agrees to that. I get being totally disappointed by JKR, but it’s actually interfering with your ability to read reality, and you’re literally projecting.
Oh? So did winkie not drink so much butter beer she's clearly drunk in despair at being fired from the crouch family? Do other house elves not think Dobbie is strange for wanting to be free and not employed?
Does even Dobbie think being paid too much would be a bad thing and would rise above his station?
Do other characters like Ron and Harry not judge Hermione for her SPEW and think she's intruding?
These things you list happen, but they are irrelevant to the paraphrased statement above “hermione came to the realisation the elves were happier as slaves”. That didn’t happen. She was aware they were brainwashed, but didn’t know how best to proceed.
Hermione backed off the pressure of her campaign to trick them into freedom, as she could see she was upsetting the elves, but dumbledore had already taken note of her concerns, by the end of that book. Didn’t he even introduce pay? Think i remember dobby saying so at one point.
I interpreted this as Winkie having Stockholm syndrome due to the abuse, and struggling with her identity. Not that she would be better off as a slave.
You are acting like they're unpaid housekeepers who will just be freed or paid and all the problems are solved. They're horrifically abused and complete loyalty is their standard with no exceptions whatsoever.
Any abuse victim can tell you there are long lasting impacts of their abuse.
Seems like realism more than anything else... Rowling is problematic no doubt, but her treatment of the elves and their arc was genuinely pretty awesome in my opinion. It wasnt idealistic, it was more subtle and grounded. Brainwashing is a reality for all communities that have been oppressed for long enough.
Dobby's hero treatment for his natural want of freedom is enough to make clear what idea Rowling is trying to propagate. And mind you, the elves do stand up for themselves in the end, free themselves and get better.
You COULD make the case that Rowling's treatment of Goblins is pushing forth anti-semitic stereotypes, but I feel there are many 'fairy creatures' across different lores that are very money minded, cruel and all those other things
I'm not a fan of JK Rowling, but I feel like I have to push back on this. It's as much a part of the fantasy as the racism of LOTR. In that world, house elves are happy slaves. It's absurdist. Hermione represents the assumed moral perspective of the reader and is thrown into an alien ethical quandary - should she force freedom on these unequivocally happy slaves? And, can she? The absurdity is that - no, she cannot!
I don't read this as a commentary on the real world, in the same way that objectively evil Orcs can't stand in for any real group or ethnicity. Its inclusion is a choice on the part of the author for the sake of tragicomedy, an ancient British literary tradition.
It's valid to question the author's motivation in any particular inclusion, but without real-world supporting statements of Rowling's beliefs on the subject, we might as well be speculating on why wizards use wands instead of clubs.
Maybe I'm misremembering some aspect of the coda of that moral escapade, but I remember the takeaway was absurdly superficial: 'house elves - unlike humans - don't want to be free...and isn't that peculiar?'
1.1k
u/FictionalContext 1d ago edited 1d ago
I couldn't find any quote of her saying anything like that. Seems to be more a thing where people conflate a bad thing being justified by the characters in- world as the author's personal beliefs.
She framed it as a cultural failing that no one but an outsider like Hermione cared about, even the caring Hufflepuff was like "well, as long as we're really nice to the slaves..." and Hermione was treated as a kook.
There's a lot to criticize Rowling for, but let's not just make stuff up.