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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.
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.
Dumbledore is the single most powerful wizard know, and the most influential in magical Britian. He runs a school where he is beloved by nearly everyone. If he wanted to change things, he easily could have done more. Especially since Fudge wasn't very powerful and had to deal with an entire bureaucracy. Direct change at the school itself would have been feasible.
And while the parents might have threatened to remove their students, they weren't really. Where else are they going to send their kids to get educated? There are other schools but the culture difference was so stark that seems unlikely.
Dumbledore got kicked out in Chamber of Secrets by the governors. If he started implementing more radical progressive changes, that would happen on an even quicker timeline.
That's like saying "Dumbledore had the biggest assault rifle of anyone, so he can do anything".
Sure he was a powerful duelist, but a group of others could take him down.
So, setting the "power" aside, he has 2 choices:
Operate within the system and bureaucracy to effect change via normal political motion
Use non combat magic to manipulate others, (time travel, invisibility, foresight) effectively hoping to be a benevolent authoritarian
If he goes with 1, he has to maintain favor. You can see how tenuous that is, with his favor slipping during the unrest. The parents wouldn't take their kids out of Hogwarts long term, they'd kick.dumbledore out instead.
For the most part it's feasible that he could have made more direct changes to the school, yes. Good point.
I didn't read that even slightly as if he was talking about magical power; I read it as he was talking about Dumbledore being extremely influential.
Except it's not, not even close. Having a gun is not the same as having authority and influence in an institution or government. He ran Hogwarts, for one thing, as you said. He could have very easily refused to have house elves at the school unless they were paid employees, and that alone would have made a very public statement, which would have meant a lot on a societal level coming from such an important, influential, public figure. There are other options for labour, so it's not like he had any excuse not to. He also had political influence and could have pushed for changes in legislation if he wanted. Part of why the ministry was so afraid of him was because of the influence he had. It wasn't because he was a string wizard and they thought he would come to the ministry one day and shoot up the place if he didn't get his way, Dumbledore could only do so much against an entire building full of powerful wizards, even he wouldn't be able to stand up to all of the ministry's aurors. He had friends, connections, a reputation, a history, control over one of the most influential schools in the world which produced a significant percentage of the world's licenced and trained Wizarding population, direct access to thousands of witches and wizards who could all potentially be the next minister of magic or the next Voldemort or hell the next Dumbledore. He absolutely could have leveraged that to change something societally but he only ever used it to maintain his own status quo when the ministry got too jumpy and tried to knock him down a few pegs.
You say that like it would be difficult. He was beloved by most of his students, many of which had influential parents or would become influential themselves. He had an untold number of connections from favours he'd provided over the years, people he'd helped, or even just friends in high places. He was close with many high ranking experts in their respective field including his professors and others outside of Hogwarts. He'd previously been the one to take down the first wizard Hitler, and had been instrumental in fighting the second wizard Hitler. Etc, etc. His favour only slipped with the ministry precisely because they were aware of the power he held politically and were afraid of him leveraging that, and thought his claims of Voldemort returning were part of a move to take over the ministry. That was the entire deal behind the Dumbledore's army conspiracy. Even when they managed to force him out of Hogwarts they had to basically play dirty and strong arm him out of the position because they knew they couldn't do it through any legitimate channels. Even then the school constantly pushed back against them taking over and it became a nightmare to deal with.
But it's not like he would have to stage a revolution to enact meaningful change. All he'd have to do is suggest a change in legislation to important figures who respected his opinion, openly advocate for said legislation to gain public support, y'know, regular everyday activism and political lobbying, and he'd undoubtedly get results.
Yes, the two modes. Timid acceptance of the status quo with minor calls for change behind closed or full blown revolution and authoritarianism.
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.
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.
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.
Voldemort tried to overthrow the status quo. He was trying to install a viscous fascist state, but that actually wasn't important to the characters' motivations. The only thing that changed by the end of the series was the removal of Voldie's stooges from government. Everything went back to normal. I think they might not have rebuilt the Torture Prison, but unsure.
Almost makes you wonder why he bothered. I mean the society seemed pretty accepting of fascism before he got involved. Casually the racism displayed by random characters not even villains shows through. The man could have probably easily gotten into office. Like everything he accomplished could have probably been done in the daylight with minimal opposition.
This just goes to show you how little people care about elves. Even after the revolution you ignore that anything has changed.
Almost nothing changed for house-elves. SPEW existed and literally only one person actually cared about it. The author also made her attempts laughably bad at raising awareness. Coupled this author sabotage with the author creating a race of slaves that want to be enslaved speaks volumes about the fact that there was never going to be real change. In the epilogue only Hermione really cares much still.
I always liked the lens of Harry as a jock