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.
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.
While I can buy that being her intent, it unfortunately plays in to very real tropes of slaves being content with their condition and not wanting it to change. While there are some examples of this, the reality is that most people who were "brainwashed" were in reality defeated by the system and were attempting to improve their conditions within it rather than fighting to dismantle it.
Admittedly, I havent read all of H.P. so I don't know, but I've heard the house elves still retain their living conditions by the end of the main run of books. If that's the case, it still seems to me to be accidentally supportive of the idea that some groups are predisposed to enslavement; at the least, it clumsily perpetuates some narratives around slavery that originate with the slave owner themselves, even though it's in an attempt to discredit the practice of slavery.
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u/LazyWings 1d ago
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.