Not to mention brewing it seems to be a time consuming process requiring certain conditions as mentioned by Snape when he was asked to brew more by Umbridge.

 

Owning house elves is wrong, no matter what the wizards think about it. Otherwise slavery would be ok in a country as long it's legal there - and I honestly hope no one here would advicate that. The sad thing is that just using canon means - unbreakable vow - one could deal with the worst excesses of house elf slavery without going against the wishes of house elves, indoctrinated or not: Simply make every owner swear an oath that he'll let his elves go as soon as they wish to work for another wizard, and that he will remind them of this each month or so.

 

Well they probably only consider other purebloods wizards and witchs and muggleborns and half-bloods are probably considered mudbloods

 

I'm amazed by the narrow-mindedness that people show in this thread. House elves are an entirely different species from humans. They don't act or think like humans. They have different needs and wants. They're extremely powerful magical beings and despite this, they all(almost) serve wizards, even the ones that treat them badly. Even Dobby, the most independent elf that we know of still ended up working in the Hogwarts kitchen with the other elves. With his abilities, he didn't have to work a day in his life after he got freed but still came back to do more menial labor, granted for people who treated him vastly better, but still. What I'm trying to say is that elves aren't human and you shouldn't treat them similarly to humans. You'd be doing both them and yourself a disservice by doing so.

 

It's not wrong if the House elves are okay with it. AFAIK, they're willing to work for free.

Ergo, not wrong.

 

I think what house elves do have is typical slave mentality. They have been enslaved and subjugated for so long that they have started believing that serving wizards is all they are good for. So much so that even while undergoing blatant abuse they don't even allow themselves to think ill of their masters often punishing themselves for the rare offences.
That can't possibly be right no matter how you look at it.

 

Then what will they do?

 

They can continue doing what they have been doing without the abuse that is. Thinking about it I believe Hermione had the right idea.

 

If they are willing to work for free then the wizards have neither need nor right to enslave them.

 

You should probably add counter-curses being performed on a spell while mid-air. There is no way in hell anyone is able to identify a spell, remember it's counter-curse and perform it while that spell is in the air. No way.

Hachi. I haven't checked any of the HP lore aside from the books, cos I honestly don't give a crap, but the House Elf situation is just like any form of slavery.

Sure, it's better to own a slave and treat him or her nicely, than to own one and treat them badly. But either way, you're KEEPING A FUCKING SLAVE. Seems to me the house elves have been forced into slavery for so long that they've just learned to roll with it.

 

Seems like the answer to this is obvious, as it's provided by canon:

1. The House Elves who overcome their brainwashing.

2. Assorted wizards who have higher moral standards.

 

The number of which are one and zero, respectively.(those filthy mudbloods don't count) Actually, Dobby doesn't seem to mind that the other house elves are enslaved so in reality it's also zero house elves. But obviously, every single other member of the race is brainwashed, that's a much more logical conclusion than that they actually want and like to serve.

 

You're repeating arguments that I have already offered counter-arguments to, without addressing those counter-arguments. Repeating "but they like it" does not suddenly make you right.

But from the mudblood comment etc. the troll is strong, so whatever.

(Incidentally, we know that Hermione was successful in converting a large number of wizards to her views in the post-Hogwarts years. As said previously: the moral Zeitgeist moves on.)

 

Even if people want and like to serve that doesn't mean one should enslave them.

---------- Post automerged at 21:26 ---------- Previous post was at 21:23 ----------

So... did you just describe Wizarding Britain as a society that has not progressed past the morals of an ancient slave holding civilization that ended 1500 years ago?

 

I made a counter-argument that you probably ignored. Essentially you're saying that sentient desires/wants=human desires/wants, when I don't think that's the case at all.

It was my way of saying that Hermione is basically a muggle with magic and doesn't in any way represent magical culture/tradition/society. I didn't realize you felt so strongly about an imaginary slur against an imaginary group of people.

House elves aren't people. Stop comparing it to human slavery, it's retarded.

 

I think something can go from entirely accepted within a society to widely reviled rather quickly, actually.

The obvious historical example is that of the real life anti-slavery campaign by William Wilberforce. Slavery went from almost universally accepted to being legally abolished in the space of 20 years in the UK. (Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade formed in 1787; Slave Trade Act signed in 1807)

All it took was good campaigning.

So Hermione getting the same done for House Elves in under 19 years is reasonably believable, given that House Elves are a) much less vital to wizarding society than slaves were to Britain in the 18th century and b) slavery is already accepted as wrong by wizards, they just have to be persuaded to extend it to House Elves.

Edit:

House Elves are the same as humans in every meaningful respect (i.e. in all ways that determine their moral rights). Since you cannot substantiate any sense in which they are different, other than behaviour which is highly sensitive to formative experiences (as Dobby shows, it's not an essential part of House Elves nature that they like slavery, it's something that can be unlearnt), your claim seems to be entirely baseless. It's an excuse, not a justification.

 

iirc, House elves feel insulted if you intend to free them (Hogwarts Elves, Winky).
They don't want to be free.
There's only one exception, Dobby, and that was because he was treated extremely badly.

And even then, he liked serving 'Master Harry Potter'.


Is slavery wrong if the slaves enjoy their subservience? Personally, I don't think so.

But we're derailing.

It's more likely subservience is an essential part of their nature and that Dobby was an oddity/anomaly.

 

Behavior and mentality are closely tied to biological factors like hormones etc. Of course I'm going to judge them on their behavior because that's the only real measure you can make in this case. How else? They want to serve. Every single one of them, and while there is a infinitesimal chance that it's because they're all brainwashed and they, in collaboration with their master, have developed the worlds most advanced techniques in this, the more reasonable and logical conclusion is that they're predisposed to it because they're a different species with different wants and needs. Gotta go with Occam's razor here.