I believe someone mentioned goblins earlier, I bring this up because a lot of people seem to be confusing house elves with humans because they are sentient, can think, can feel, have their own ideals, etc. Do you view goblins as humans then, because the way I see it is that in comparing the house elves - or goblins, or any other sentient being with thoughts and feelings and ideals such centaurs and merpeople - to humans you are discriminating against their entire race.

House elves are powerful magical beings, Dobby for example easily sent Lucius flying when he defended Harry at the end of second year, so I doubt at the very beginning of their race that wizards would be able to subdue an entire race of magical beings and convince them to be their slaves.

Going back to goblins, look at how they are treated by wizards; most wizards generally have a disparaging attitude in regards to goblins and they are not allowed by law to use wands. They are not viewed as equals to wizardkind and are merely a bank to the wizards. They too are powerful magical beings and there have been many goblin rebellions due to their mistreatment.

In essence what I am saying is that goblins have fought back against wizards, while house elves have not. Both are powerful magical beings, both are banned from using wands and both are treated as servants of some kind to wizards, yet one race has decided that they like being servants and the other has rebelled against it.

 

Goblins are people too.

 

Okay...

Anyway:

19. Harry needing to be convinced to fuck pretty girls.

This stood out. That's an odd peeve. The implication being that if a pretty girl wants to fuck him, you'd stop reading if he said 'no thanks'?

5. In fact, Harry inheriting any manor house.

Another odd one. AFAIK the Potters are an old family from old money. Like, centuries old. Surely that money went into property eventually? Why didn't Harry's parents live there? Because Manors are fucking depressing places that make for a shitty home.

Edit: I'm talking specifically about a large, empty manor. Speaking from experience - what a horrible place to raise a child...

Of course, a Potter could have just as easily spunked away a fortune too.

Muggle stuff

Agreed, mostly because I don't want my magical fantasy to become even less magical/ fantastical than it already fucking is.

23. Any penis length over seven inches.

That just made me laugh. Unless it's PWP though, mentioning penis or cup sizes just seems tacky.

32. Wizarding world being depicted as having significant gender discrimination.

Wasn't the Minister during LV's first rise a female?

35. "Pup"

39. In fact, any kind of acrobatic Harry who is hopping and skipping around while duelling.

No mentions of mana or anything of the sort. Why anyone would think dodging a bullet (or faster) equivalent as sane always pisses me off. More Defensive conjuring/Transfiguration/ Apparition plz. That's actually one part of the movies I really loved (the smokey flying cloud thing).

41. Ability at practical magic being depicted as entirely independent of magical theory.

The only issue I have with this is my inability to rationalize magical theory in general. It seems wholly inexplicable and thus logically unteachable. What theory is there to study? Does being a mm off a certain wand movement matter when casting a spell? Does the manipulation of one's 'core' (ugh) factor into anything? Why? Good luck explaining while also keeping me interested enough to keep reading the story.

The one that always gets me is Transfiguration. You can get me to believe individual charms and curses/hexes/jinxes can be taught, but every possible variation of every possible transformation having a different spell attached to it? There has to be some degree of 'feeling it' there.

46. Harry ditching Ron and Hermione as friends.

Another odd one. They're annoying enough where it's not even remotely out of the realms of possibility, especially if he has other friends. Inventing traits or evil plots to do so is Xworthy though.

47. Excessive smirking.

This one actually verges on comical. There's some stories, usually involving 'sexy' (read: absolute dickhead) Slytherins standing around a room constantly smirking at each other. How anyone can take that seriously without cracking up is beyond me.

49. People casting wand spells without a wand.

Agreed, but what are your thoughts on more basic, yet powerful wandless magic? Let's just call it telekinesis for simplicity (not literally).

 

I feel like you're only getting half my point. I brought up BDSM to illustrate another situation where someone can welcome a power dynamic and physical violence which to an outsider way appear to be abuse. I'm not trying to say that it's the same thing. You can obviously wrap your head around the fact that it is possible to welcome and accept abusive behaviour. However you're unable to grasp the fact there could exist a situation that an individual doesn't have to be gaslighted or whatever to feel that way.

House elves aren't necessarily Uncle Toms culturally because they're slaves they may have become slaves because they're Uncle Toms. Canon doesn't say anything towards either of these conclusions so everything is just speculation.

In the end it doesn't really matter. Because looking at house elf culture we can see that fundamental values of it are conducive to slavery. I think we can both agree that the conditions they find themselves in are repugnant. However I think it is also possible to accept that most house elves are perfectly happy in those conditions and in fact are acting according with their own free will. Any attempt to free the majority of elves will be acting against their wishes. Any attempt to reeducate the elves is to me an equally repugnant option. You'd be approaching this issue from the perspective of a slave owner. The mentality that you know best and that these silly elves will be a lot happier once they do as you say. In fact it is akin to slavery of a different kind. You've remade the very soul of their kind into an image you find more pleasing.

 

Goblins aren't human.
House Elves aren't human.
They're magical creatures.
Black people are human, therefore they are people.

I suppose it depends of your definition of people.

We've moved past this already.

See p109.

Nobody here condones the mistreatment of elves. Make laws against House elf abuse if you have to.
We're not even against giving them a choice to not work as a servant. They should be able to choose who to serve.

We're saying that there isn't sufficient data that proves that House elves would be better off free.

No, you can't just say they're sentient creatures therefore they deserve to be free. Humans deserve to be free. It has been proven that we prefer freedom. House elves? They're fictional magical creatures. We do not know how they work, there hasn't been studies on House elf behavior, and we don't even know for sure if they've been brainwashed. It's a possibility, not a certainty.

 

You guys are repeating points from pages ago to which counter arguments have already been offered, without addressing those counter arguments. It's somewhat intellectually dishonest.

In short:

1. Humanity is not just a label, it is a set of characteristics.

2. House Elves share all those characteristics which are relevant to the determination of rights.

3. From the perspective of human rights, House Elves are effectively human.

 

Did you ignore my post (top of this page), Taure?

 

The issue of goblins is somewhat off the point, but yes, the same reasoning applies: Goblins have the mental characteristics which means "human rights" apply to them. They're not human, I should be clear I am not saying that.

Rather, I'm saying that "human rights" is a naming accident, a result of humans IRL being the only sentient species on the planet. If confronted with another species with equal sentience to our own (or even near our own, or greater than it), we would extend rights to them without hesitation.

The spirit behind human rights is a respect for the dignity of sentient beings. It goes beyond the desire to prevent suffering or unhappiness, because animal rights are less than human rights. Rather it's a recognition that there is something special about the set of characteristics which humans possess, and that set of characteristics gives the being which holds them certain rights.

House Elves and Goblins also hold those characteristics.

Note that this is a different issue to that of the idea of consent and duress (the "social imperius" idea). Goblins are not subject to the same brainwashing as House Elves, that is why they resist.

 

I don't think you will ever be able to see beyond your point that if they share some of the same characteristics as humans then they have the same rights.

At the end of the day, house elves are not humans, regardless of the fact they may share some of the same characteristics, so therefore the same rules cannot be applied to house elves that are applied to humans.

 

The point he's making is that 'human rights' is a misnomer. The spirit of the term refers to the rights of all sentient beings. Vampires, Werewolves, Giants, Goblins, Merfolk, etc.

None of those are humans, but do you argue that Werewolves shouldn't be afforded the rights of every other sentient being? (Probably a bad example, Werewolves aren't born in this universe AFAIK).

Would you be fine with being treated as a slave, or not afforded 'human rights' if you and your other half somehow wound up on an alien planet? Would you be okay if your descendants generations down the line were treated as such, but felt no injustice over the fact because they don't know any better?

 

I daresay that when the time comes when aliens are found to exist, they will quickly take us as their slaves. Humans are savage creatures at our base.

 

You keep saying this, but you give no reasons as to why you believe this holds.

No, House Elves are not humans. They are very human-like, however, just as Homo Neanderthalensis or Homo Erectus would have been.

What you're essentially arguing is Homo Sapiens exceptionalism - that humans alone in all the universe have special rights. All other beings, regardless of their characteristics, lack these rights, simply because they're not human.

Frankly, this is absurd. A thought experiment should show this:

Imagine we discover, on Mars, a race of alien beings. They look human. They speak and write language like us. They display complex social behaviour like us. They make art, music, and literature. They have science and philosophy. The love and hate, they have families and friends, they live and they die.

But they're not human. When scientists examine the aliens' tissues at the cellular level, it turns out that they're a silicon-based lifeform, not carbon.

Are these beings human? No. Do they have human rights? Yes.

To hold any other position is a mockery of all reasoning. It means you believe that humans are separate and above the entire rest of the universe, regardless of any and all facts that show that we are not unique.

So, from the thought experiment, it seems clear: mere classification as "human" in a biological sense is not the key factor at role in the determination of "human rights". Rather, we as a civilisation have decided that there are certain characteristics we value, and that all beings who demonstrate those characteristics are worthy of rights.

This is not a merely academic point. The UK government has already started consultation on legislation which would create rights for artificial intelligences.

 

I find the idea that by freeing the elves we are imposing our will on them and denying them their choice is false. A free elf can always decide to serve someone. He is not even prevented from acting like a slave. But he is not locking himself and his children into servitude to that person forever. Elves literally do not lose anything if they are set free, as long as they can keep working where they are.

 

Taure (and others), you continue to have the impression that humans alone have the right to decide the rights of other sentient beings. Do you not believe house elves or werewolves or centaurs or any other countless sentient being has their own sense - their own definition - of their own beings' rights.

Who are we, as humans, to decide the rights of others. That is very close to being slavery itself.

 

A few posts ago I posed a question which everyone ignored but since repeating myself is becoming a habit here it goes

Should house elves have the choice the choose their masters and leave them if they feel the need to?

House elves aren't people, but to most of the wizarding world neither are muggles and muggleborns (who are treated as inferiors compared to others), it was in fact a bone of contention during Harry's debate with Griphook who posed the same questions and how magical beings other than wizards and this included house elves have suffered under the status quo.

 

Back to ignoring people arguing about apples and bananas.

These are the ones on Taure's list I agree with.

Also, I've cut out the elves thing entirely, if only to try and get the thread back on topic.

These are the ones I am less inclined to agree with you on Taure.

He kinda did get this in Grimmauld Place. Depends on your definition of Manor, but it was definitely intended to give off the vibe that it was one by JKR. But this is the exception to this rule.

This one requires a bit more explaining by me. I dont like Harry getting anything from dead people beyond the norm (ie the cottage from James and Lily, Grimmauld from Sirius, ext) and him getting the gold Scrouge McDuck enjoys bathing with makes me click the big red X, but I can completely understand some of the wealthiest having obscene amounts of money. Bill Gates has more wealth than all but 36 countries. There can be outliers in the wizarding world like this. I wouldn't want it to be someone from canon, but if you introduce someone as the wealthiest wizard out there, I would easily buy him having tens if not hundreds of millions of galleons.

The ministry was displayed as very corrupt and prejudiced, I could easily see laws made to exempt certain 'upstanding members of society' from certain civil duties. Such as more restrictions on raids, and the like, which is partially canon, if I can remember Chamber of Secrets well enough. Didn't Malfoy say that "the Malfoy name still carries a certain respect" or something that meant he was forewarned of the raid or something? This could be that someone merely told him, but it's just an example, and I could see the ministry doing something like that.

...I might be misunderstanding you here, but this sounds like most of the Order of the Phoenix. I can see it happening, both too and by Harry in certain situations.

Dealing with these both at the same time because they're very similar. Harry is a celebrity who has had press hounding at him, who wants a normal life and to settle down with a family. I could see the romantic-at-heart teen celebrity being cautious about the random girls lining up to fuck him's motivations. And I could see girls wanting to queue up to try to get a shot at him because, as I said, he is a celebrity. Ask Harry Styles if he would sleep with a random fan of his just because she was there and wanted to (regardless of looks) and I'd suspect he'd be wary.

I WANT MY SMUT TO BE REALISTIC DAMMIT!

That's what that looked like to me. Tbh, if penis length is mentioned, it's almost certainly a smut fic, and I don't read smut, but if I did this would be weirdly picky considering about 10% of men have penis lengths of this or greater (why did I google this? I don't know, and so you dont see what I did, here's the link.) Of all your peeves, this one was most bizarre to read alongside stuff like Friendly Goblins and EEEEvil!Dumbledore.

Yeah, this is just personal preference. I have made it pretty clear that I dont really like reading about Harry, Ron and Hermione, and find it more refreshing where he isn't friends with them. I would probably reword this to say:

By unrealistic, I mean in terms of real life (ie, friends can grow apart, most friends dont stop being friends because the friend snores too loudly).

Now, to leave and come back in 3 hours to find that this post has been ignored in favour of arguing over semantics about the thought experiment of House Elves and slavery.

 

Rights don't actually exist. They're created by societies to protect those values which they hold most dear.

Non-recognition of rights is as much a determination of rights as recognition of rights. It's impossible for a society to avoid the decision as to what rights it recognises.

Your point steers dangerously close to cultural relativism. Women being stoned for being raped in Saudi Arabia puts paid to that philosophy neatly enough.

A society cannot be responsible for other societies and the values which those societies hold. They can only be responsible for their own society and the values they demonstrate. British wizards, when deciding what rights to recognise, must look to their own reasoning as to what is right and wrong, just as British Muggles do so, not taking into account that Saudi Arabia disagrees.

 

House elves are not a culture, they are an entirely separate race from humans.

 

1. Agreed, supposing you're using the term Humanity and sentience interchangeably.

2. & 3. I agree with most of this.

The understanding of the complex behaviours of slavery are really only required by the enslavers. They're the ones which have to understand the concepts of private property. For the enslaved it's really a matter of just obedience. In fact there's no real human analogue to the house elves. Through out human history slaves and masters have had the same understanding of the dynamics. Which is why there's the abundance of slave revolts, from the africans to the europeans.

The house elves situation is completely unique. You're right that every culture has their uncle toms and this is well documented however there has never been entire populations content and even happy in their slavery. House elves seem to be a weird mixture between dogs and humans. They've got all our intelligence however they're also blindly loyal to a master.

Also social construct vs genetics. Traits like submissiveness, aggression and docility do have at least owe part of their origin to genetics. We can after all selectively breed animals to display these traits more or less strongly. That suggests to me that the idea that humans are at least partially genetically predisposed to the institute of slavery. After all it's probably not a coincidence that most human cultures have utilised slavery at one point in time, depending on which way the balance of power leans. If we are genetically predisposed towards being slavers then it is not farfetched for a different species to be predisposed towards being the slave.

Now one last point if wizards have succeeded with house elves where they've failed with every other sapient creature. If these house elves have so perfectly fallen for this cultural brainwashing. Then perhaps they aren't sentient as we think.

 

Lol, this is a thread created from another thread that will surely spawn another to discuss the only issue anyone wants to talk about.

Oh, and from what I've heard of Harry Styles, I don't think 'wary' will be his reaction. Wasn't he the one caught telling that x-factor (or whatever) winner about how much pussy he'll now get?