deathtocapslock | OOTP Chapter Fifteen: "The Hogwarts High Inquisitor"

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OOTP Chapter Fifteen: "The Hogwarts High Inquisitor"

Well, university life certainly disrupted my sporks
a bit, didn’t it? Still, holidays now, so hopefully they should become more
frequent again.

* “Hogwarts High Inquisitor” sounds a bit like the wizarding
equivalent of OFSTED. But note how JKR’s named the position in such a way as to
conjure up images of unfair, cruel and intrusive enforcement of rigid dogma. Now,
if JK Rowling wants to do a caricature of big government as controlling and
intrusive, that’s fair enough (and probably rather accurate after ten years of
Tony Blair), but it does make one wonder why she’s such a big Labour supporter.

* Also, the situation in the WW isn’t really
comparable to that in the Muggle. Muggle education systems are ultimately run
by the government, which is accountable to the voters, whereas DD seems to be
able to do virtually whatever he wants in Hogwarts with practically no
oversight or scrutiny. (He’s theoretically accountable to the Board of
Governors, but they don’t seem to do anything except in emergencies – we never
get any indication that they look over the day-to-day running of the school,
for example.)

* Even then, Umbridge’s powers are quite tame
compared to those of Muggle Britain’s government. It seems that she can just
report on the standard of teaching, not determine what’s on the school
curriculum, what disciplinary procedures to use, and so on.

* Percy’s interview reads to me less like his own
thoughts and more like an official press release he’s been told to read out. Although
he probably would agree with most of what he’s reading.

* But in case any of us were in danger of agreeing
with the Ministry, up pops Lucius Malfoy to support the idea. As no bad guy
could conceivably support any good idea, the High Inquisitor must be a bad
idea, too.

* Also, the word “decree” – does that mean that the
Minister just comes up with an idea and it’s implemented, without any need to
pass it through a legislative body? Do the wizards even have such a body? We
hear of people drafting regulation often enough, but never of it being voted on
by the Wizengamot or whatever it’s called. How do they hold their leaders to
account? We hear in PS that “they” wanted to give to job of Minister to
Dumbledore, but he refused and Cornelius Fudge was appointed instead. Do “they”
also have the power to remove Ministers whom they think are doing a bad job? I
suppose this could check some of their more megalomaniacal impulses, although as
a system of holding your executive to account it’s still not particularly good.

* Harry is worried by his low Potions grade, and
resolves to do better in future. This could have been a good example of making
Snape into a more rounded character – yes, he can be nasty to students, but
he’s only being cruel to be kind, and his abrasiveness turns out to be for the
best in the long run. It’s a pity this wasn’t explored more, really. (Also, do
we see Harry working harder in future, or is this just one of these things
which is brought up once and never seen again?)

* I really feel sorry for Trelawney here, but still,
if she gets so flustered by a simple inspection, how can she cope with the
pressures of being a teacher? What does she do if one of her pupils misbehaves?
Umbridge certainly doesn’t seem much worse than Hermione here.

* Also: least. Convincing. Prophecy. Ever.

* If Hermione’s already read Chapter Two, there’d be
no harm in reading it again to pick up information she’d missed the first time.
Surely a bright, bookish kid should know this?

* Also, this is quite obviously a way of showing off
to her classmates. “Look at me! I’ve read the whole book while you’re still on
Chapter Two. Aren’t I clever?”

* “Counter-jinx” to me sounds like it ought to be a
spell that reverses the effects of a jinx, but the way it’s being described
here makes it sound like a jinx which you throw at people when they’re trying
to jinx you, in which case Slinkhard’s quite right to say it’s just a
euphemism.

* Also, “[counter-jinxes] can be very useful when
they’re used defensively” isn’t a proper argument. It’s entirely possible for
something to be both (a) a jinx and (b) effective when used defensively.

* Umbridge doesn’t bother trying to refute
Hermione’s argument, making it look like Hermione’s right. In reality, of
course, this is a logical fallacy: just because one person does not refute an
argument, that doesn’t mean that no refutation exists.

* And Harry has to go and stick his oar in again. What
an idiot.

* McGonagall’s right, detentions don’t have any
effect on Harry. Even when he’s having to cut his hand open as part of the
punishment.

* Fudge is “gesticulating forcefully, clearly giving
some kind of speech”. I wonder if that’s supposed to remind us of Hitler or
Mussolini?

* IRL, of course, being rude to your inspector would
be quite a bad career move. McGonagall, however, can seemingly get away with
it.

* Grubbly-Plank’s got the right idea, IMHO: polite,
to-the-point, telling Umbridge what she asks. Although I’m not quite sure why
she’s so happy with Dumbledore. Perhaps because as a substitute, she’s not
really aware of some of Dumbledore’s more… interesting decisions.

* Grubbly-Plank plans to teach the children about
the animals they’re most likely to be tested on, whereas Hagrid wastes a whole
year making them participate in his twisted experiments. But Hagrid’s more
loyal to Dumbledore, so he gets the job.

* For God’s sake, Harry, shut up. I might be more
sympathetic to you for your treatment by Umbridge if you didn’t constantly give
her reasons to put you in detentions. It’s almost as if you like cutting your hand open.

* Hermione gives Harry “a slightly nervous look”
when she suggests forming the DA. Is she worried that he’ll psych out on her
again?

* Still, she soon gets over it, and her eyes are now
“lit up”. Yup. She’s really looking forward to learning all those nasty curses,
all right.

* Not that I think this is necessarily bad (in terms
of characterisation): showing Hermione as attracted to the Dark Side could have
made for some interesting tension as to whether she’ll end up becoming the
image of what she’s trying to fight, as well as making the Dark Arts seems more
threatening, as even well-intentioned people could fall into them. A pity this
didn’t go anywhere, really.

* Apparently trying to put a stop to slavery is a
“far-fetched scheme”. You can tell how much JKR wanted to fight bigotry, can’t
you?

* Is Harry
the best in the year at DADA? Pretty much all of the extra-curricular spells he
knows were taught to him by Hermione, and a lot of his success is due to luck,
more talented friends and having the same wand core as Voldemort, none of which
can be taught.

* Also, simply being good at something doesn’t
necessarily make you qualified to teach it, otherwise nobody would bother with
any special training for people who want to become teachers. Although given
that JKR apparently taught in Portugal without any particular qualifications,
maybe she does think that being good at a subject is qualification enough.

* This whole idea of needing lessons “to prepare
ourselves for what’s out there” is just daft, really. Stupefy, Expelliarmus and
Protego are all you really need in a
fight.

* Harry beat Hermione in their third year, the only
year they had a teacher who knew the subject. And who was friends with Harry
and gave him private tuition, of course.

* Hermione saying Voldemort’s name is apparently
such a big deal, even though she only found out about him aged eleven, one of
her favourite wizards goes on about how everyone should use the name, and she
doesn’t seem like the sort to now say it for no good reason. JKR really should
have made her a Pureblood: her characterisation would have made a good deal
more sense, and it would explain why she knows so much about the wizarding
world.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Also, does anybody know how I can clear up the formatting so that the text doesn't just take up half the width of the page?

Well-spoken, my friend. Well-spoken. :) *Claps* ^^

(It is actually chapter 15, :) )

Indeed, Lucius' input is Rowling's way of telling us how wrong the Ministry is to want to improve educational standards.

Harry is worried by his low Potions grade, and
resolves to do better in future. This could have been a good example of making Snape into a more rounded character – ... (Also, do
we see Harry working harder in future, or is this just one of these things
which is brought up once and never seen again?)

Well, Harry only resolved to try harder this particular lesson. And only because he didn't want to give Draco anything to ridicule about. Not because Harry wants to learn anything.

Also: least. Convincing. Prophecy. Ever.

But true. Anyone taking the DADA job is in great danger.

Agreed about Hermione. And Harry.

The term 'counter-jinx' is used in canon in both meanings. In SWM James casts a counterjinx to undo the jinx he previously cast on Severus, but we also have Dumbles telling Harry he has his permission to use any counterjinx or curse that occurs to him if they are attacked that night (when they leave 4PD).

Not that I think this is necessarily bad (in terms
of characterisation): showing Hermione as attracted to the Dark Side could have
made for some interesting tension as to whether she’ll end up becoming the
image of what she’s trying to fight, as well as making the Dark Arts seems more
threatening, as even well-intentioned people could fall into them. A pity this
didn’t go anywhere, really.

Well, Hermione did become what she was fighting, only Rowling didn't realize she did.

Pretty much all of the extra-curricular spells he
knows were taught to him by Hermione

But he practiced them more times. And used them on actual monsters in the maze. At this point Harry's advantage in DADA is that he can cast a Patronus and has done so successfully against real dementors on two occasions, he practiced stunning and other combat spells intensively for a month in 4th year, he fought some creatures in the maze (though thanks to Barty he had fewer monsters to fight than Cedric did) and he was rather quick with the Expeliarmus against Voldemort.

This whole idea of needing lessons “to prepare
ourselves for what’s out there” is just daft, really. Stupefy, Expelliarmus and
Protego are all you really need in a
fight.

Impedimenta seems to be a good one too. As well as spells like Reducto for general destruction if you don't have line-of-sight with your enemy. Add Incarcerous to keep the enemy you stunned from getting up once they regain consciousness.

"(It is actually chapter 15, :) )"

Whoops! Thanks for that. *goes off and fixes*

"But he practiced them more times."

I suppose this is probably true (although we don't know how much Hermione practises her spellwork, so it's hard to be sure), but then again Hermione's the one with the actual experience of teaching them to somebody.

Yes, Hermioone has the experience of teaching, though only one-on-one. Harry has his fame and at times (when the plot demands it) charisma. He also has some context for using some of the spells in RL situations. They should have probably taught jointly.

However we shouldn't make all that much from Harry's combat experience. The only relevant experience he had so far is the third task and the last face-off with Voldemort. On his recaps Mike Smith claimed Harry has more combat experience than Remus - this I seriously doubt, even if the Order in the first war was just barely more active than in the second.

BTW how much experience does Harry have with schoolground hexing at this point? I think it is down to - dueling club (2nd year), dueling Draco before Potions (4th year, when their spells clashed) and hexing Draco and his friends on the train. (He also slung mud at Draco from under the invisibility cloak in third year.)

Where did Harry learn the spells he used at the dueling club? From Quirrell? From other Gryffindors in the common room? The kids practiced disarming on the train ride home in COS, but other than that we don't see them practicing combat spells until Harry starts preparing for the third task.

Yupp, and half of what Harry uses, including his "signature spell", stems directly from being demonstrated by Snape, at imtes when he wasn't even DADA-instructor. Not Hermione, Remus, or Dumbledore who never taught anything useful to Harry - but then he wouldn't need to, did he? All Harry needed to able to do for ~him~ was suicide without question via Voldemort....

uh, sorry - *times*

* This whole idea of needing lessons “to prepare
ourselves for what’s out there” is just daft, really. Stupefy, Expelliarmus and
Protego are all you really need in a
fight.

You also need to be able to run, aim and dodge, although they don't seem to practise it all that much.

For 7 years of schooling seems like the kids should know a lot more spells than they do. And correct me if I'm wrong but Expelliarmus, was that even taught in class? Didn't Harry learn that from Snape indirectly?

If you were a well traveled person with a good memory all ya really need is Apparate - you can practically pop anywhere in the world you were familar with.

Does it seem weird to anybody else that Harry learns his signature spell from somebody he hates? Also, why is a signature for him anyways? Has everybody else been prohibited from using it or something? He shouldn't be able to be identified by it alone (like in the 7 Potters battle). It would be like someone being identified by the fact they are using a tazer.

I know, it's completely bizarre. There's the whole Seven Potters battle, and the DEs are supposedly able to identify Harry by his use of Expelliarmus. Even when I read it the first time and was still a fairly big fan, I though to myself, "WTF? So Harry's apparently the only person in the WW who thinks that disarming an opponent might be a good idea in a fight?"

They also show so little imagination in their use of spells. As do the adults. Because everything is so compartmentalized. In battle - use spells you learned in DADA. Why didn't any of the DEs at the Ministry think of transfiguring Harry into a tortoise? He wouldn't have been able to hold the prophecy, nor would he have been able to escape. And they know about disarming each other but I have never seen anyone attempt to Vanish an opponent's wand.

Heck, why not use a memory charm or confundus in a fight? Your opponent might forget why s/he is there.

You also need to be able to run, aim and dodge, although they don't seem to practise it all that much.

Taking this into account, I'm kind of surprised that DADA doesn't have more of a Phys Ed or even book camp feel to it. It seems like that would be just as important as knowing the right spells.

That's true. The Duelling Club (or something like it) should have been a standard part of their lessons. The closest anyone comes to it is some of Lupin's lessons and Snape's first lesson on non-verbal disarming.

Barty also taught them hex-deflection (once he was done teaching Harry to resist Imperius). We don't know what else Barty and Severus taught. (We only see Severus in 2 lessons as DADA teacher.)

"...whereas DD seems to be able to do virtually whatever he wants in Hogwarts with practically no oversight or scrutiny. (He's theoretically accountable to the Board of Governors, but they don't seem to do anything except in emergencies – we never get any indication that they look over the day-to-day running of the school, for example.)"

I think the control mechanisms are there in canon. Why else would there be a Board? They just don't work because Dumbledore deliberately sabotages them - and apparently there's no one with the guts to call him on it.
He treats the school as his own personal fiefdom. And he informs nobody about ~anything~, no matter how entitled or warranted, if he can avoid it. Which sadly he usually can....

Which is why AD clearly didn't inform or ~gasp~ ask permission! from the Ministry, Magical Creature Department etc. or the Board before letting a young werewolf into the school on his own. As an interesting social experiment and without ensuring adequate security.... (The Ministry and Board clearly weren't aware either then nor when he hired Lupin in PoA where he *again* nearly killed students about his being a dark creature: Lupin's condition would have been much more widely known otherwise. You can bet even moderate Gryffindor- or Muggleborn-parents would have protested with their children very realistically endangered.).
Or why he deliberately put a priceless magical artifact ~as bait~ for a dark wizarding villain into a school full of children.
Or why apparently parents aren't informed when their children come to harm at the school (especially not Muggleborns or those living outside of wizarding society: after all how should they learn about anything untoward happening? Unlike the established, inter-related Purebloods or normal wizarding families: too risky to leave them in the dark, they will learn from other sources).
Or why he recruits among his staff and pupils for his own private vigilante organization.
Or why Potter-hanger-ons get timeturners for mastering their course load (and still being overwhelmed!) - when other pupils with the same or bigger number of subjects taken have to cope on their own. Percy with his full 12 OWLs apparently didn't warrant a time turner....

I wasn't an Umbridge-fan by any means. But I did cheer internally when she ousted AD! That was the only good thing coming from her reign. If only the Ministry and Board then had looked closer at the running of the school....

I'm glad that vacation will make it easier for you to complete more chapters- this series can always use more sporks.

But note how JKR’s named the position in such a way as to
conjure up images of unfair, cruel and intrusive enforcement of rigid dogma.
Subtlety never was her strong suit, was it? At least Umbridge actually was a convincing villain though, probably because she didn't fall back on cliches as much. Even as a kid I was never frightened of Voldemort, no matter how many times I was told he was evil.

If Hermione’s already read Chapter Two, there’d be
no harm in reading it again to pick up information she’d missed the first time. Surely a bright, bookish kid should know this?
Logically, this ought to come back and bite her in the butt when she goes to class and finds that she can't remember the stuff that she read at the beginning of the semester because she was too cocky to bother rereading it. Now that I think of it, has Hermione ever given a wrong or not well thought out answer? I can't remember any.

I wonder if that’s supposed to remind us of Hitler or
Mussolini?
Definitely Mussolini. Fudge isn't competent or charismatic enough to pretend to be Hitler. Besides, that's Voldemort's job. Or Umbridge's. Or something. I guess everybody gets to be Hitler?

For God’s sake, Harry, shut up. I might be more
sympathetic to you for your treatment by Umbridge if you didn’t constantly give her reasons to put you in detentions.
This pretty much sums up the entire book.

Apparently trying to put a stop to slavery is a
“far-fetched scheme”. You can tell how much JKR wanted to fight bigotry, can’t you?
That is creepy on so many levels, especially since JKR seems to have been entirely oblivious to it.

Also, as a muggleborn, Hermione probably ought to pointed out how stupid the "He who should not be named" thing is. I mean, Hitler was much more frightening than Voldemort and even in the darkest hours of WWII nobody hesitated to say *his* name.

"Definitely Mussolini. Fudge isn't competent or charismatic enough to pretend to be Hitler. Besides, that's Voldemort's job. Or Umbridge's. Or something. I guess everybody gets to be Hitler?"

You would think everyone got to be Hitler, wouldn't you, given the way Rowling goes on about it. Certainly, it's not as though she paints a very convincing picture of a villain based on him; obviously she'll call anyone Hitler it she thinks it'll make them sound eviler.

I thought Fudge was supposed to be Chamberlain - ignoring and appeasing the enemy. Though no umbrella, nor 'peace in our times' reference.

----Also, the word “decree” – does that mean that the Minister just comes up with an idea and it’s implemented, without any need to pass it through a legislative body?

Yes, I believe so.

----Do the wizards even have such a body?

Not sure. As you say, there's really no evidence of there being one in the books.

----We hear in PS that “they” wanted to give to job of Minister to
Dumbledore, but he refused and Cornelius Fudge was appointed instead. Do “they” also have the power to remove Ministers whom they think are doing a bad job?

I believe that "they" are the Wizengamot, and they select the Minister and Heads of Departments from among their own membership. They also have the power to remove a Minister, as they removed Fudge in HBP.

How you become a member of the Wizengamot, however, is rather a mystery to me. It doesn't seem that members are elected by the general populace. Nor is it clear that the seats are inherited---if the older pureblood families were already in charge of the Wizengamot, then they wouldn't need to form separate terrorist groups like the Death Eaters.

Swythyv speculated that Nicholas Flamel was some kind of monarch who had the power to appoint members to the Wizengamot. (See her essays The Invisible King (http://hp-essays.livejournal.com/205121.html) and The Rule of Men (http://hp-essays.livejournal.com/209001.html)). Even if she was wrong about Flamel being in charge, her idea of a there being a wizarding monarch somewhere might have some merit.

Perhaps it's the case that the Wizengamot chooses its own members, meaning that it's something like a fraternal organization, or like the Roman Catholic Church and other churches with episcopal polity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_polity), where the bishops choose whom the other bishops will be.

/But in case any of us were in danger of agreeing with the Ministry, up pops Lucius Malfoy to support the idea./

Yes, why would Lucius Malfoy want to improve the school, specifically its hiring standards? It's not like his son was hurt in class while his unqualified teacher did nothing and even had the nerve to put all of the blame on him, rather than take responsibility.

/For God’s sake, Harry, shut up. I might be more sympathetic to you for your treatment by Umbridge if you didn’t constantly give her reasons to put you in detentions./

That's why whatever sympathy I have for him is limited. I *should* feel sorry for him, given that Umbridge is such a sadist and all, but he just won't shut up. He just doesn't seem to recognize when it's not a good time to shoot his mouth off. He just blows up all over the place in this book. One thing is defiance, another is being an obnoxious blowhard.

/Apparently trying to put a stop to slavery is a “far-fetched scheme”. You can tell how much JKR wanted to fight bigotry, can’t you?/

I just don't know *what* she had in mind when she created the house elves. Seriously, was she just trying to have it both ways? You can't be mean to your slaves, but you can't free them either because it's "bad for them?" As long as you're a "nice" slave-owner, everything will be fine? Yeah, that excuse didn't cut it for American and European slave-owners. That's why slavery is illegal.

I mean, if house elves just *have* to bound to a house and the family who lives there, why didn't JKR at least write that they got legal protections and payments at the end, so that what happened to Dobby with the Malfoys, Winky with Mr. Crouch, and Hokey with Tom Riddle didn't happen to anybody else? Are house elves just supposed to rely on good faith that their masters won't hurt them? Is that all that they can hope for, in terms of protection?

/Also, simply being good at something doesn’t necessarily make you qualified to teach it,/

Tell that to Hagrid.

/Hermione saying Voldemort’s name is apparently such a big deal, even though she only found out about him aged eleven, one of her favourite wizards goes on about how everyone should use the name, and she doesn’t seem like the sort to now say it for no good reason. JKR really should have made her a Pureblood: her characterisation would have made a good deal more sense, and it would explain why she knows so much about the wizarding world./

It'd be one thing if she wanted to assimilate so badly that she even adopted the practice of refusing to say the name, but yes, Hermione shouldn't have had any reservations about using the name. In DH, she proudly calls herself a "Mudblood" to show that the word is meaningless to her, so why couldn't she have done the same thing with "Voldemort?"

And yes, it's really ridiculous how Hermione, a Muggle-born, frequently lectures Ron, a pureblood, about the wizarding world. There's only so much that you can learn through books.

----I just don't know *what* she had in mind when she created the house elves.

I think what happened is that she defined the problems of slavery as: 1. Masters abuse their slaves, 2. Slaves have to do menial labor, and 3. Slaves don't get paid for their work.

Therefore: If a master doesn't abuse his slave, and if the slave wants to do the work, and if the slave doesn't want to be paid, then there isn't a problem.

::headdesk::

Yeah, she basically totally missed the fact that the biggest reason that slavery is wrong is because a slave has next to no power over her own life or that of her family. Slaves don't get to choose where they live or whom they work for or whether they go to school or whom they marry or even have sex with. They have no power to keep their family together if a master wants to separate them. That's the real sin of slavery.

It's even more fundamental than that, actually, imo. A (so-called) benevolent master might grant hir slaves choice over such things, but the person is still a slave and it is still wrong. The root of the evil is the idea that anyone can *own* another sentient being. That's where the control stems from (the idea of ownership), where the denial of self-agency and of the validity of the other person's will are rooted.

Er, what I'm trying to say is that the evil of slavery doesn't inhere in any contingent circumstances or accidental (in the sense of not essential) unpleasantness. It inheres in the fundamental structure of slavery: denial of equal status as beings combined with the notion of ownership of the other.

THAT is why JKR's house elves are simply an appalling feature of a book supposedly devoted to messages of equality: the way they are constructed in the narrative says it's OK to own other beings as long as you are nice to them and as long as they claim to want it. (Why elves are the way they are is not gone into at all - an explanation of their cultural and magical circumstances and needs might make the situation better - see Jodel's take on it - but it'd still be icky imho. But we don't even get that much.) But then again, we are talking about books where the bad guys are painted as Nazi-wannabes while being characterized with classic anti-semitic stereotypes and where the main conflict is supposedly about fighting for equal rights for all humans regardless of heritage, but it's ok to patronize, abuse, coerce and mess with the minds of Muggles, just not to kill them. Cognitive dissonance, is can haz.

----A (so-called) benevolent master might grant hir slaves choice over such things, but the person is still a slave and it is still wrong.

Right, I was assuming that any "choices" a master might give a slave aren't really true choices because the master still ultimately has power and control.

----The root of the evil is the idea that anyone can *own* another sentient being.

Hmmm, see, I feel like the basic definition of slavery is "one person owns another person." So, if somebody asks, "Why is slavery wrong?" they're basically asking the same thing as "Why is owning person wrong?"

The answer may be self-evident to us, but it obviously isn't to JKR and many of her readers.

So, I don't think we can just say, "Owning another sentient being is evil." We have to explain why it's evil.

"Why is owning another person wrong?" I mean.

I hear what you are saying, but I don't think that the answer to your question 'why is it evil' really is, at the very end, 'because this person is not in control of their own life.' That is a part of the evil, but it is a later manifestation of it, a subcomponent of the whole, a particular branching out of the evil after it has already poked through the soil and is growing. It is not the root. Its very wrongness is made possible by a more fundamental wrongness - because following your logic we would then have to ask 'why is not letting another person control their own life wrong?' The existence of this implicit question points us deeper, I mean. The root of the evil of slavery and other forms of oppression (such as sexism or racism) is the fundamental notion that one person is unworthy of the status of another, inherently. The root of the evil of slavery *in particular* lies in the fact that this hierarchicization is put in terms of ownership: that there are people who may own and people who may be owned. The ultimate root is hierarchy, the root is that fundamental sense of inequality that allows another person to *accept* the notion that people are ownable - and controllable; slavery as a particular form of oppression is structured by the idea of ownership; and the justification for taking away control comes from that fact of ownership being accepted. The master's ability to control hir slaves' lives comes directly from hir role as owner; it is not a separate thing. Slaveowners don't get the 'right' to control just anyone's lives, they get the 'right' to control their slaves' lives *because they (legally and in the eyes of society) own them.*

To get at what I mean: let us seriously consider for a moment the question, 'why is not allowing another person control over their own life due to an inherent trait evil?' In a hypothetical world in which there were, literally, inferior and superior people who actually possessed, not only some given, inherent characteristic like race, but a characteristic that made them objectively inferior/superior to other people, ontologically - that is, people who literally, in their being, were inherently worth less or more than other beings - why would the superior beings not allowing the inferior beings control over their lives necessarily be evil? They're inferior, by nature; they are not worth the same consideration, the same rights, the same status, as superior people. Perhaps the trait for inferiority is hypothetically something that even makes inferior people unable to govern their lives well, for their own and everyone's best interests? In that hypothetical world, then, controlling the lives of inferior people for them would actually be beneficial.

The utter ickiness of the entire model (which I hope is apparent) lies in the fact that there ARE no such inferior/superior people, in the fact that all sentient beings are fundamentally EQUAL, EQUALLY worthy. Objectively superior and inferior people do not actually exist, despite all of the millions of attempts to claim otherwise. All sentient beings are fundamentally, ontologically, equal, all equally worthy and possessing fundamental rights. Since we live in a world in which all sentient beings are also, to our knowledge, homo sapiens, we simply speak of human rights; the ground of our equality is our shared humanity. (Thus the reason that many of the attempts to legitimize slavery held that people who were to be enslaved - black people, for example - officially counted as less human than their white oppressors.) In the Potterverse there are non-human sentient beings, which is why I make the distinction here. But it should be obvious that I for one consider 'sentient' a similar ground for equality to the one we call 'human.'

Seeing control over one's life as a right not to be taken away is dependent upon recognizing that all people are equal on a fundamental level. (I'm trying to lay out all my thoughts, not suggest you're utterly ignorant of this, sorry if it comes across that way, it's late here.) The structure of slavery denies this equality in the very notion that one being can own/be owned by another. This ownership being put into practice is what then *enables* the control you talk about, and their wrongness is a product of the fact that a superiority/inferiority model of being is being applied to people who are actually equal (as we all are). It's a chain, I mean, one thing enables and gives rise to another, and I am trying to follow it back to the beginning. Bah, longwinded, sorry. In short, I guess, my view is: if you have to explain to the person that the idea of owning another person is wrong and fucked up, your problems are not going to be solved by saying, 'well, isn't denying control of one's life to another wrong?' Because the problem in that person's understanding is far, far more basic and far, far more severe that that attempt to explain would really acknowledge or alleviate. The answer to both questions is "because people are not ownable and are not yours to control; they are ontologically your equals, not your property."

Anyway, back to the Potterverse: a special part imho of the ickiness arising from the notion that it's ok to own sentient beings as long as they like it/you're nice/they're house elves - that is, the notion that house elves are ontologically inferior beings - inheres precisely in that benevolent superiority model I just mentioned. A similar thing is reflected in the attitude towards muggles, which is *never* challenged in the text (raisin-gal has a very pointed critique of precisely this problem).

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I also like Terry Pratchett's fantasy slave-race, the golems. They are beings designe to serve, but they insist on their own dignity. For example, if one doesn't let them take some time off to attend their community gatherings on a regular basis they stop working, or sometimes cause damage by working too much or by taking orders too literally. Because while they are designed to serve they insist on being on a different level than a hammer.

And when the first golem is freed he doesn't become a depressed mess like Winky or a sycophant like Dobby, but goes on and designs his own moral code of behavior, because as one with the experience of being forced to act he sees the ability to act on his own choices his greatest privilege and his greatest responsibility. (And then he designs his own scheme to free other golems by keeping a paying job.)

::puts on pedant hat::

Technically you mean "sapient beings" rather than sentient - sentience is the property of awareness, shared with most animals, whereas sapience is (as far as we know) the uniquely human quality you're talking about.

Yeah.

OK, I think I see what you're saying. I'm sorry I needed such a detailed explanation. Thank you for your patience...

I think my main problem is that I'm struggling to wrap my mind around the concept of "ownership," what it means for one person to own another person. Or at least I'm having trouble seeing how "one person owns another person" is conceptually distinct from "one person has absolute power and control over another person."

But I think you're saying that "one person owns another person" means "one person considers another person to be property." And it's evil to consider another person to be property because all people have the same worth.

So, I think your reasoning is: We're all equal, therefore we're all worth the same and have the same value, therefore one person can't own another person.

But what if we weren't all equal? Would that make it ok for one person to own another? Because it's really very easy to believe that we aren't all equal. Some people are smarter; some people are better educated; some people are wealthier; some people are more politically powerful; some people are physically stronger, and some people are more beautiful. It gets even trickier in the the Potterverse, where some people are magical and others aren't, and some people are not even of the same species.

So my starting point, instead, is that, by nature of being a person, you have basic, fundamental rights, and one of those rights is the right to self-determination. Equality and worth aren't even really factors. Rather, simply because you are a person, you have the right to be free and in control of your own life.

In our world, we (hopefully) define "person" as anyone who is of the species homo sapiens. In the Potterverse, the definition of "person" would be extended to anyone who is a sapient being. It doesn't matter whether wizards and elves are "equal." Even if wizards are superior to elves, elves still have the right to determine their own lives because they are sapient beings.

Does that make sense?

You're basically saying what I was trying to say. By 'equality' I was not speaking of measurable levels of achievement or ability in any trait or field, I was speaking of that fundamental level on which all people are equally worthy of the same basic regard from other people and therefore possess equal rights. All people are ONTOLOGICALLY equal. (The problem with the Potterverse is in fact that they confuse ontological equality with equality of ability and thus do not see Muggles as fully human.) Superiority in ability, looks, etc. or any other single inherent trait does not confer ontological superiority, because such superiority does not exist; but bigots who claim that there are "inferior" races and the like CLAIM that there is such a thing as ontological superiority, sometimes with the excuse of superior ability (for example, the Nazi attitude towards people with disabilities.)

And ownership as property vs ownership as fundamental control are not distinct. One has complete control over another 'owned' being BECAUSE of that fiction of ownership. One is PERMITTED by society to control another's life without interference if and when society has agreed that you OWN that person. The two are not separate, they are fundamentally related, but the fiction of ownership is antecedent to and makes possible the control aspect. And ownership is made possible by ITS antecedent, which is the fiction of ontological superiority - the fiction that some people are inherently more worthy of life, liberty, self-determination, etc. than others. I hope that is clearer?

Yeah, I think we're on the same page. :)

I just don't know *what* she had in mind when she created the house elves.
Maybe the solution lies in the fact that the elves never were the point of the whole thing. Rowling didn't introduce them because she wanted to tell us about the elves, let alone come up with anything resembling a sociological, psychological or historical background concerning their slave status. They were there as a means to show how good the goodies are - at which she failed spectacularly.
Like in the Middle Ages, the Church didn't want to stop the poor from being poor because they were the means for good Christians to get Brownie points by giving alms to them. They were not the persons that mattered - just like the elves - but a means to an end.

The House Elves are a device, not an actual issue of the story and Dobby is a manifestation of the god in the machine. Frankly, Rowling was being lazy when she incorporated them, and they are pretty much a direct unmodified import from folklore -- which she admits.

Much of the problem is that Rowling seems not to really realize how secondary worlds actually work, and she really had no business setting her story in one if she wasn't going to take it seriously. What comes across is an impression (accurate or not) of lazy planning, throwing in folkloreic elements to get out of the drudgery of having to research anything. She does not follow through with any awareness that having incorporated a given element, that element's existence now colors *everything* in that world. And the fact that the element does not exist in *our* world, does not mean that it is not "real" there. You never get the feeling from anything that Rowling has ever said about anything in the series, that anything about Harry Potter or his world are actually *real* to Rowling. They are *familiar* certainly, but the very fact that they shift their personalities, their knowledge, and their abilities at the whim of the scene, implies that they were never more than game pieces that she was pushing around on a board.

There is some talent there. But hype is not talent, and the farther into the story arc, the less talent and more hype the series's composition contained. And once she started "writing for the movies" the whole thing disintegrated. You can find some effective scenes in the 2nd half of the series. But you won't really find an effective *story*.

Actually, I take some of that back. The model for the House ELves are creatures who are not slaves, but a form of household/nature spirit, which humans need to negotiate with, and appease or they get all kinds of trouble.

The "enslavement" of the House Elves was another of her "use once and discard" story elements. Only, the way in which she had used it meant that she *couldn't* discard it, so she kept trying to either ignore it, make a joke of it, or make a complication of it, but tended to forget about whenever it could have actually been used for some real purpose.

I don't know. I think she could have discarded it after CoS, if she wanted to. After all, Dobby was free, and it had been established that most people didn't have house elves. She could have left us with the implication that only people she *intended* to be evil had house elves; she could even have brought in Kreacher briefly, if she really needed to.

The problems came in with Hogwarts having house elves. Because Hogwarts had house elves, Dumbledore had to be pretty much okay with house elf enslavement. Hermione didn't get involved in the issue until she found out that she was one of the people benefitting from house elf labor.

Dobby could still have come to Hogwarts to work, ensuring that he'd be around. He'd be paid, just like he wanted. Winky would have had to be left out, but JKR *could* have written her as a human servant for all of the stuff at the World Cup, and still made it work. The stuff with Harry's wand might have been trickier, but it'd still be doable.

Once JKR included house elves in GoF, I think she was stuck. Before that, though... I think if she'd *really* used that idea just once and discarded it, it would've been better.

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OOTP Chapter Fifteen: "The Hogwarts High Inquisitor"

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