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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Imperialism and Racism in Fantasy Novels?
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Picking up on Laurelin's excellent points about the houses at Hogwarts. Suppose you have a way to identify all the kids who have major behavioural issues - are you really going to put them all in one house? And then, on the last day of term, let them think they've won the School Cup, only to snatch it from their grasp at the last minute? Is that going to help them?
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I'm not that convinced that wizards are superior. Differently abled, maybe, as are Olympian athletes. I tend to think of superiority in terms of what a person is like rather than the skills they have. I can't quite see Tom Riddle as a superior being. Powerful and destructive doesn't say superior in my book.
Well, neither am I. I am looking at what the text says.
OK, I actually agree with you on most points. (Can't think of any off hand I don't.)
I tend to read uncritically, getting immersed in story, and Rowling is pretty good at making a world it is possible to do that with. Only on coming out of the world do I start to notice things that grate. I've been reading Ana Mardoll and her commenters on Narnia, and although I recognise a lot of her points, they didn't bother me as a child - I don't know how often I read those books. I'm not sure that being picky with story is a good thing, unless it is with things which are glaring, as in Goodkind or Stephen Donaldson, and break the reading process. (I was recently made aware of a college secret record which said that I was widely read, but not deeply. No-one at the time did anything to direct me deeper, but I think it is a fair comment.)
Were I doing the writing, I would have the wizards deeply involved in elfin safety in the dangerous employments, like mining and oil rigs and other heavy engineering, as well as the health service, and developing techniques to disable illegally held guns and knives on the street... they have arisen from the generality, as Hermione shows, and should get involved in the general good. Diana Wynne Jones has greater involvement of magic workers in Chrestomanci's world, not simply controlling the wilder behaviours of dominant mages.
But I don't think like that while I'm reading and enjoying the books for the first time, I really prefer to just follow the story. And I don't remember the details of things as closely as some do. There are threads on the net about Dr Who where people know everything about all the series right back to the very first (and probably didn't see that off air as I did).
[ 29. October 2012, 19:29: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm not particularly convinced - in that, yes, there are times when an author can get away with it (Stephenson and Le Guin being two of the few), but generally the insertion of Author Avatars and Mary Sues end badly. I'd much rather read the characters' opinions rather than the authors, especially when I'm reading say, Larry Niven or Orson Scott Card. Or Lovecraft, for that matter..
Kim Stanley Robinson has a tendency to let you know his political views. There is a scene in his Antartica book where the protagonist has a sort of political epiphany on realising that he is in fact working class and is being exploited by the owners of property - almost out of Ragged Trousered Philanthropist! And in the Mars books there is an entire chapter at least of a constitutional convention for Mars - and its pretty obvious how the author feels about it. Yet its one of my favourite chapters ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Yet you are quite happy for the talking animals of Narnia to have just such an origin.
Am I happy for the talking animals to have evolved directly from Boxen? Boxen animals are what Lewis called dressed animals, animals that wear clothes and behave like human beings, as in Beatrix Potter or Wind in the Willows. Narnian animals, even the beavers, feel different to me. They're closer to folklore and fable.
Again, I'd want an argument that Lewis' imagination had stayed where it was when he was a child.
Also, I don't think that identifying the Calormenes with Hindus rather than Muslims makes it any better. Rather the opposite.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm not particularly convinced - in that, yes, there are times when an author can get away with it (Stephenson and Le Guin being two of the few), but generally the insertion of Author Avatars and Mary Sues end badly. I'd much rather read the characters' opinions rather than the authors, especially when I'm reading say, Larry Niven or Orson Scott Card. Or Lovecraft, for that matter..
Kim Stanley Robinson has a tendency to let you know his political views. There is a scene in his Antartica book where the protagonist has a sort of political epiphany on realising that he is in fact working class and is being exploited by the owners of property - almost out of Ragged Trousered Philanthropist! And in the Mars books there is an entire chapter at least of a constitutional convention for Mars - and its pretty obvious how the author feels about it. Yet its one of my favourite chapters
It loses an author readers. Some of the reviews I've had (especially of Degrees of Freedom) have made it quite clear that they'll never touch one of my books again. And within the context of the book, nothing that happens is extraordinary.
I have no idea what they'll make of the next one. Or rather, I have a pretty good idea and am battening down the hatches.
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Forward the New Republic
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
KA, I'm eternally grateful that you didn't want to be a pacifist in the days when I was a DM; all ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) to the DM who coped with you!
Ok... what do you think of a chaotic-good orc? Nobody's weighed in on that yet. And isn't that more the point of the thread than pacifism?
I played a lawful-good Orc once, a long time ago, back in the 1970s. Out-of-play backstory was that he was a Southern Baptist, he'd been converted listening to a American radio evangelist (how we got the radio into D&D is another thing entirely, but basically we played a set of loosely-linked scenarios in which each player was also a GM of different bit of the world, and each had their own private rules, some of us mixing fantasy and SF elements - so a character might be in a world with time-travel and so on in it, then end up in someone else's purely mediaeval or straight D&D system). Anyway the character worked well. If he had heard the phrase "Kill them all, God will know his own" he'd have made it his motto.
And yes, entirely pacifist player characters can work, as can characters who choose not to fight for their own self-preservation. Even the healing-only cleric who wants to save the monsters.
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
]You also forget that, in D&D, the real enemy is not the orcs, undead, or other characters, but the DM, the rules, and whatever plans your DM had for you. If they're not pulling out their hair and calling you awful names by the end of the night, you're not doing it right. I knew a few people in college who deliberately played broken characters, and, what they couldn't break through the rules, the destroyed in role playing. Everyone but their DM loved it.
Not always, not even mostly. The best RPG sessions are often when the GM and players are co-operating to make a good story.
And the GM often has most fun when winging it, making things up as they go along, reacting to what the players do.
If characters just start destroying everything (which can be fun in a sort of gory way) and the GM wants to mov e on to something different, they can always get the scenario back. They are in charge of the rules, and the interpretation of the rules, and the NPCs, and they know where the bodies are buried. Never mind the treasure.
And whatever the players try you can pull a rabbit out of a hat. "OK folks, can everyone tell me what their character is looking at right now?" "Thanks, OK, there is a blinding flash in the sky - I mean blinding... no-one can see... you are all blind..." That was part of a scenario, not improvised. The players had the sense to fall on the ground and cover their ears before the shockwave hit.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The rule from both Gygax and Arneson was 1XP for 1GP - which meant you gained many times more XP from the loot than from the kills - and in order to prevent you forting up, wandering monsters didn't carry treasure so you just gained the kill XP from them. This was always a controversial if not downright unpopular rule (mostly because Gygax didn't actually explain it anywhere in the DMG) and therefore 2e turned it into an optional rule that was and 3e removed it entirely. 4e didn't add it back but had its own alternatives. (For the record, Gygax gave you the XP when you gained the loot, Arneson when you spent it on something not directly for adventuring)..
But, seriously, whoever followed the rules to the letter? Part of the fun was making your own rules. Making up one-off rules for special circumstances is a vital part of the game, as well as great fun. But developing your own version or interpretation of published rules is important too - and inevitable. If you tried to follow what's printed in published rule-books to the letter there would be so many inconsistencies and absurdities you could hardly play. You have to modify the rules. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. That's not because the rule sets are broken, that's how RPG works. Its part of the game.
Sometimes people tried playing NPCs as clever, prepared, intelligent characters with their own agendas, who make plans, lay traps, run away when they think they can't win, and don't just sit in rooms off dungeon corridors waiting for the player's party to open the door. A friend of mine had NPC "commando orcs" in his scenarios. Level 1 fighters, but they caused no end of trouble to player parties simply by using their heads - and the same kind of tactics and equipment ordinary mediaeval or early modern soldiers might have used in a real siege or a battle in a mine. Very often the players never even saw them. And afterwards found it hard to believe that they had done nothing not available to low-level characters.
Also years ago - I guess in the first version of the Monster Manual - if you played straight from the book various demons and undead creatures had the ability to gate in other kinds of evil creatures from some unpleasant world somewhere. And so did the new arrivals, so you could get an exponentially increasing number of high-level evil characters arriving. So if a player character foolishly uttered the wrong name and then lost a dice roll - demon apocalypse! Unless the DM deliberately chose for the NPCs to choose not to exploit their end-of-the-world powers. Or was flexible with the rules. We did that once as well. Sort of just for the fun of it at the end of a campaign at the end of a university year, taking the piss almost, see what happens if we really play the rules as written? The only reason that the player characters (or the planet they were on ) survived is that some of the Monster Manual lawful good monsters had, on paper, access to spells that could be used the same way. I can't entirely remember but I think the Good cascade started with a Ki-Rin that "just happened" to be flying by when the demons turned up. So the next half hour was pretty spectacular - but the player characters were more or less spectators.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
the usual meaning of 'race' is about different groups of humans. When we get into the realm of fantasy and SF, we're sometimes talking about different species.
And the question of whether different 'races' are inherently different is completely separate from the question of whether different species are inherently different.
Whether it's sci-fi aliens or High Elves, the whole point is that they are non-human, different.
Whereas for those who are fixated on the issue of racism, it is an article of faith that all the different types of human are essentially the same underneath, and they can't help but see such fictional difference as a threat, unless the story ends in a way that affirms their underlying worldview.
Similarly, it seems to me entirely possible to disapprove of slavery and yet read a book set among the upper classes of ancient Rome in which slavery is unquestioned even by the sympathetic characters. The author is and should be free to tell the story they want to tell, without needing to defend themselves against accusations that anything in the story represents their personal view.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Whereas for those who are fixated on the issue of racism...
You know, I am fixated on the idea that there is an inherent dignity to being a person, and that slavery is an offense to that dignity. Call me narrow minded.
quote:
Similarly, it seems to me entirely possible to disapprove of slavery and yet read a book set among the upper classes of ancient Rome...
You know that Harry Potter and his world ain't real, right? The "impartial depiction" argument just doesn't hold if Rowling made her world that way on purpose to serve a plot point.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
KA, I'm eternally grateful that you didn't want to be a pacifist in the days when I was a DM; all to the DM who coped with you!
Ok... what do you think of a chaotic-good orc? Nobody's weighed in on that yet. And isn't that more the point of the thread than pacifism?
From the purely D&D perspective, I've long moved on to the later editions that relax the alignment rules for races. From the perspective of the thread, I agree that this can be an issue - but the reality is that some cultures (which approximate to races) do have moralities which we would describe as evil. One of my favourite stories is of the Marxists who turn up on Fiji to try to convince the residents that there is no good. They are told, somewhat unsubtly, that they should be grateful that the residents do believe in God, because otherwise they would currently be being cooked. For Fijians, conversion for Christianity was a major change in culture; their tradition of killing and eating their enemies was now no longer the case. Similarly we can offer Peter Tatchell's evidence about paedophilia being usual.
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
But, seriously, whoever followed the rules to the letter?
Someone who's used to a ruleset that works. I'll play a game like Marvel Heroic, Dread, or even Dogs in the Vineyard straight down the line, rules as written. For tht matter you can play 4e D&D straight down the line rules as written - and my houserules when I DM fit onto one side of a single index card in fairly large type. That said, the design is explicitely exception based in both 4e and MHRP, so giving NPCs or monsters the ability to do [whatever] is within the rules, and there's good guidance for evaluating stunts.
quote:
Making up one-off rules for special circumstances is a vital part of the game, as well as great fun.
It is - but those are rulings rather than rules. They fit within the framework of the existing rules and are entirely in line with them, and won't come up again under normal circumstances.
quote:
If you tried to follow what's printed in published rule-books to the letter there would be so many inconsistencies and absurdities you could hardly play. You have to modify the rules. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. That's not because the rule sets are broken, that's how RPG works. Its part of the game.
For almost any game published before about 2002, yes you are probably right. This is at least in part because most classical RPGs are hacked tabletop wargames or designed heavily in that mold, in the case of such games as the Vampire the Masquerade or Feng Shui. In the last decade we've had a lot more good narrative games (such as the list I mentioned and the brilliant Spirit of the Century. Of course these games are a lot more narrativist and less gamist; more about collaboratively creating a story and less about player skill to overcome impossible odds. (If you're interested in how this can work, my recommendation would be to look at Marvel Heroic).
quote:
Sometimes people tried playing NPCs as clever, prepared, intelligent characters with their own agendas, who make plans, lay traps, run away when they think they can't win, and don't just sit in rooms off dungeon corridors waiting for the player's party to open the door. A friend of mine had NPC "commando orcs" in his scenarios.
Kobolds are notorious for this. But this is more or less how the original players played anyway.
quote:
Also years ago - I guess in the first version of the Monster Manual - if you played straight from the book various demons and undead creatures had the ability to gate in other kinds of evil creatures from some unpleasant world somewhere. And so did the new arrivals,
3E had to have an explicit rule that summoned creatures can not summon more creatures. 4e just has very few creatures that summon creatures. And we don't know what 5e will do.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
(Yeah, I supposed I need to mention that my gaming heyday was in the 2E era.)
My husband carried a beeper at the time, and I beat out the laundry on rocks at the creek.)
[ 29. October 2012, 23:36: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
No, I think you are seeing a subtlty that isn't there. The Harry Potter books are not, I think, thought through so as to make wizarding society realistic or workable in any way at all.
I am not sure "Rowling is actually just a sloppy writer" is going to be a satisfactory explanation to our fellows here that see a very subtle social criticism in it all.
See, I wouldn't regard this as sloppiness. I would regard this as an author having certain goals that aren't the goals you're asking the author to meet.
I've had similar conversations recently in the realms of music and film. I don't think it makes sense to critique a piece of art on the basis of things it wasn't actually trying to do in the first place. Because no piece of art can actually deal with every single possible topic/genre simultaneously.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I am not criticizing her for not writing a story about the indignities of slavery. I am looking at what she has put in her finished work. She has inserted a race of happy slaves into this work, and gone out of her way to treat the moral scruples of the only person that sees something amiss about it with contempt. If she didn't want people drawing the conclusion that, in the world of Harry Potter, slavery is AOK so long as the slaves like it, then she shouldn't have written it that way.
I imagine she probably didn't mean to say that. But if she didn't expect people to draw that conclusion, she is indeed a sloppy writer.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I forgot the other bit of evidence. The other house elf wastes away without servitude. Freedom, even freedom from a fairly abusive master, is literally the worst possible fate for her.
Really J.K.?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
For goodness'sake. Rowling has more subtlety than that, whatever you think f her politics. Wasn't that the family with the cruel father who turns out to have been right, the sacrificial mother whose death turns out to have set free Voldemort's greatest supporter--and led directly to his reembodiment--and the poo r abused young son who winds up unmasked as that supporter? Why should Winky be the only one-sided character in that family?
She was far from stable with the burden of the secrets she carried in the Crouch family. I'd be far more inclined to attribute her breakdown to having been placed in impossible position of responsibility for such a loyal creature, despite her limits--and then kicked away for what she couldn't help. She seems to me to be pining for the value her family never gave her, not for servitude itself. ( otherwise why not just re-enslave her and solve all her problems instantly? On your hypothesis this would have been the no brainer solution, with everybody too thick to think of it.)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Picking up on Laurelin's excellent points about the houses at Hogwarts. Suppose you have a way to identify all the kids who have major behavioural issues - are you really going to put them all in one house? And then, on the last day of term, let them think they've won the School Cup, only to snatch it from their grasp at the last minute? Is that going to help them?
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) Quite. Dumbledore's blatant favouritism towards Harry and Gryffindor House honestly makes me squirm in that scene. (No so subtle subtext: The Slytherins deserve it! They're so meeeeaaaaaaaaaan!)
I dislike Dumbledore. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) I went more and more off him as the series progressed, and was not disappointed by the revelations in DH that he really WAS the manipulative git I had suspected him of being all along. ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
She has inserted a race of happy slaves into this work, and gone out of her way to treat the moral scruples of the only person that sees something amiss about it with contempt.
Whoa, hang on! JKR totally vindicates Hermione's position in the final book, when Ron finally Sees the Light and Hermione's POV about the House-elves (and earns himself a victory snog. )
Arguably, Harry wanting Kreacher to fetch him a sandwich at the end of the book somewhat undermines the whole 'House elves are now free, yay' thing. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
quote:
I imagine she probably didn't mean to say that. But if she didn't expect people to draw that conclusion, she is indeed a sloppy writer.
Rowling is neither as bad as her detractors make her out to be, nor as amazing as her most ardent fans make her out to be.
I think she is an EXCELLENT storyteller. I found all the HP books to be real page-turners, and I do adore many of her characters. I personally find the world-building lacking in some ways. The magic is very well written, of course but the Wizarding World is not a fully developed imaginary world in many ways. IMO.
P.S. I haven't yet read The Casual Vacancy because it sounds about as cheerful as Jude the Obscure ...
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I suppose we could encourage the use of a general disclaimer? Such as
"The opinions, overt or implied, of the characters in this book should not be seen as a reflection of the opinions of the author".
Then I suppose we might be able to cut through to the more general questions of literary merit and social utility.
Any novel which reflects the times I have lived (from the 1940s to today) would not be accurate if it did not also reflect the prevalence of imperialist, racist, sexist and homophobic beliefs during that time. That may be embarrassing, but it is true.
It is also true, and may be embarrassingly inconvenient to simple views of the world, that folks with imperialist, racist, sexist and homophobic beliefs were also capable of great acts of personal kindness and courage in circumstances where those beliefs didn't get in the way. In this context, I'm not theorising. I know very well quite a few survivors from "the generation above" who are at best partly reformed, at worst stuck with the blindnesses which used to be "respectable" and, quite rightly, no longer are.
Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
If she didn't want people drawing the conclusion that, in the world of Harry Potter, slavery is AOK so long as the slaves like it, then she shouldn't have written it that way.
Actually, if the slaves do like it, and would freely choose to be in servitude were they to be offered the choice - indeed, in the world of HP if it the whole purpose of their species' existence - then why not?
You talk of the dignity of personhood, but surely part of that dignity is the ability to decide one's own path in the world. Sounds to me like you'd try to deny the house elves that dignity by seeking to force them to be something they don't want to be. And isn't that just as bad when the thing they don't want to be is "free" as it is when that thing is "a slave"?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
If you tried to follow what's printed in published rule-books to the letter there would be so many inconsistencies and absurdities you could hardly play. You have to modify the rules. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. That's not because the rule sets are broken, that's how RPG works. Its part of the game.
For almost any game published before about 2002, yes you are probably right. This is at least in part because most classical RPGs are hacked tabletop wargames or designed heavily in that mold, in the case of such games as the Vampire the Masquerade or Feng Shui.
As I was playing tabletop wargames in the 1960s and RPGs in the very early 1970s I probably resemble that remark..
But like I said, making up rules is part of the fun, Why would I want someone else to do it all for me?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I suppose we could encourage the use of a general disclaimer? Such as
"The opinions, overt or implied, of the characters in this book should not be seen as a reflection of the opinions of the author".
To be honest, it frightens me that we live in a world where such things are not understood without being written down.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Actually, if the slaves do like it...
Oh Lord. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Actually, if the slaves do like it...
Oh Lord.
What is more important - that someone (yes, even a fictional magical elf) should be allowed to do what they want or that our patronising western imperialist attitude that we know what's best for them even if they disagree should be indulged?
Slavery is bad because it does not allow people to be free to be whatever they want to be and do whatever they want to do. Your stated position on this thread is bad for exactly the same reason.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
quote:
I suspect that if we found a nearby planet of house-elves of the usual sort (not Dobby, then), we'd be horrified. Would probably do our best in fact to convince them that a life of service was NOT what they wanted, that they were mad-brained for thinking so, and generally done everything we could to change their psychology into a form we could tolerate. Which would be just as morally wrong as the reverse.
Maybe that's what Rowling was playing with.
Exactly. When 'Free' elves get their chance they are EXTREMELY powerful magical beings and easily a match for any Wizards they come across.
The servitude is seen as an ancient agreement rather than a forced subjugation (although almost all the Wizards see it practically as the latter).
JK is making a point out of the 'normality' of the house elves servitude in the wizarding world.
But its not 'strictly' slavery as the house elves choose to accept this as the status quo, despite being able, in terms of power, to emancipate themselves.
For the elves the way out is in terms of the agreement itself re: recieving clothing.
ie by Legal means not Revolution.
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
"Oh Lord" because you actually see some credibility to the vicious, ridiculous "happy slave" myth.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
"Oh Lord" because you actually see some credibility to the vicious, ridiculous "happy slave" myth.
Because everything else in the HP universe is so believable.
And I'm not talking about the obvious things like dragons, wands and flying broomsticks.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
"Oh Lord" because you actually see some credibility to the vicious, ridiculous "happy slave" myth.
Zach, I can point you to a range of NSFW web sites that are filled with people whose sexual gratification derives from being someone else's "slave". It's what they want, at least in that part of their lives.
[ 30. October 2012, 13:02: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
"Oh Lord" because you actually see some credibility to the vicious, ridiculous "happy slave" myth.
Excuse me? I thought we were talking about a species of magical elves in a work of fiction.
Would you have the same objection if we were talking about the droids in Star Wars, which are also sentient and which are bought and sold purely in order to serve their organic masters?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
"Oh Lord" because you actually see some credibility to the vicious, ridiculous "happy slave" myth.
A while ago I saw a book of ethical dilemmas with the title: 'The pig that wants to be eaten'.
I'm pretty sure JK Rowling was experimenting with the same idea.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
A while ago I saw a book of ethical dilemmas with the title: 'The pig that wants to be eaten'.
I'm pretty sure JK Rowling was experimenting with the same idea.
Perhaps, but I don't see where she actually questions the idea. It looks like she threw in the idea for plot purposes and didn't expect people to think about it too much. Or, more likely, she just didn't think about it very much herself.
And really, asking me to not think about her work too much is pretty demanding of her, isn't it?
[ 30. October 2012, 13:14: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Excuse me? I thought we were talking about a species of magical elves in a work of fiction.
Would you have the same objection if we were talking about the droids in Star Wars, which are also sentient and which are bought and sold purely in order to serve their organic masters?
I don't like Star Wars, so I haven't really thought about the movies very much, but I would not be the first person to ask those same questions. The droids sure seem like thinking, feeling people from what I remember.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I don't like Star Wars, so I haven't really thought about the movies very much, but I would not be the first person to ask those same questions. The droids sure seem like thinking, feeling people from what I remember.
Yes, but the additional fun element with the Star Wars droids is that we know why they were created, which means we know what their purpose in life is. It takes all those "how can we say what the purpose of a life is?" questions out of the equation, and forces us to face up to the fact that, despite their sentience and independence of thought, they were created specifically in order to serve their organic masters.
Which makes the question "is it right to keep droid slaves" a whole lot easier to answer: viz. yes it is. That's why they exist in the first place. That's what they're for.
Now, let's go back to the HP world. JK Rowling has, basically, stated that slavery is why the house elves exist in the first place. It's what they're for, it's why they exist. And since JK Rowling created the whole universe in which they have their existence, we should probably take her word for it. It's not a moral problem, any more than the droids in Star Wars are.
None of which says anything about whether real-world humans should keep other real-world humans as slaves. But if we ever get to the stage of being able to build droids of our very own, it'll be a very different (and interesting) situation...
[ 30. October 2012, 13:31: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Which makes the question "is it right to keep droid slaves" a whole lot easier to answer: viz. yes it is. That's why they exist in the first place. That's what they're for.
Maybe it's easier for you, but it doesn't seem obviously easy to me. Once a machine becomes a thinking, feeling person, then all talk about what it is for are ceded to the machine itself.
And to say they would all happily choose to continue being slaves is to gloss over what the institution of slavery actually is.
quote:
Now, let's go back to the HP world. JK Rowling has, basically, stated that slavery is why the house elves exist in the first place. It's what they're for, it's why they exist. And since JK Rowling created the whole universe in which they have their existence, we should probably take her word for it. It's not a moral problem, any more than the droids in Star Wars are.
None of which says anything about whether real-world humans should keep other real-world humans as slaves....
Rowling has made a world where slavery is OK and the happy slave myth is true. If she didn't want people asking questions about that, she shouldn't have written it.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Zach - she might have been thinking about motherhood and the acceptability or not of being a full time stay at home mother when she was thinking about the house elves.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Zach - she might have been thinking about motherhood and the acceptability or not of being a full time stay at home mother when she was thinking about the house elves.
I am not sure what you expect me to make of this. That her travails as a single mother are reflected in her work? Single motherhood drove her to make a world where the happy slave myth was true? Because she was a single mother we can't ask questions of her work?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
I did a little googling and came across this essay on the subject of house elves and the Hogwarts houses: House-Elves, Hogwarts, and Friendship: Casting Away the Institutions which Made Voldemort’s Rise Possible. As indicated by the title, the essay suggests that both the "institution" of house elves and the House system at Hogwarts -- which perhaps influences what students will become and creates divisions among them as much as it sorts them based on pre-existing traits -- laid fertile ground for Voldemort's rise.
The essay also notes that while at the end of the last book we're told that Hermione "greatly improved life for house-elves after her graduation," and while it is clear from Harry's conversation with his son that house differences have been lessened, the institutions are still there. The essay ends this way:
quote:
Recall that prejudice against centaurs (Firenze) and werewolves (Remus Lupin) and giants (Hagrid) led parents of some students at Hogwarts to protest and seek any chance to get non-fully-human staff discharged from their posts. The purge that Dolores Umbridge and her ilk brought to bear against all non-pure-blood families had its seeds in these accepted hierarchies of power. Failure to recognize differences among magical folk and across sentient beings as valuable lay the groundwork for Voldemort’s vicious persecutions and purges of non-pure-bloods. If the world post-Voldemort is to be rebuilt in a way that prevents the return of another like him, equality and celebration of difference must be its new groundwork. A new fountain in the Ministry of Magic must show muggles, witches, wizards, giants, goblins, house-elves, centaurs, and all living beings as dignified each in her or his own right.
Instead, the Harry Potter series ends on an ambivalent note: while progress has been made, it’s not clear that either the institution of house-elf slavery or Hogwarts’ exclusionary house system has been fully dismantled. And so remains the possibility that a future tyrant will return to exploit those differences. Perhaps this is why, in the limbo of Harry’s King’s Cross experience, Voldemort continues to exist in the form of a small, flayed-looking child. Until the institutions which give rise to racism are abolished, Voldemort can never die.
It's an interesting read.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Which makes the question "is it right to keep droid slaves" a whole lot easier to answer: viz. yes it is. That's why they exist in the first place. That's what they're for.
Maybe it's easier for you, but it doesn't seem obviously easy to me. Once a machine becomes a thinking, feeling person, then all talk about what it is for are ceded to the machine itself.
Ah, but that's exactly what you're denying with regards to the house elves. You're saying they shouldn't serve others at all. You're saying the "happy slaves", as you call them, should be taught in no uncertain terms that they're not happy and that they ought to want to be free. Whether they like it or not.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
A while ago I saw a book of ethical dilemmas with the title: 'The pig that wants to be eaten'.
I'm pretty sure JK Rowling was experimenting with the same idea.
Perhaps, but I don't see where she actually questions the idea. It looks like she threw in the idea for plot purposes and didn't expect people to think about it too much. Or, more likely, she just didn't think about it very much herself.
And really, asking me to not think about her work too much is pretty demanding of her, isn't it?
Where did 'asking you not to think about her work' come from? I'm saying she's presenting it as an ethical dilemma - i.e., something you think about.
No, there isn't an authorial voice inserted into any scene saying: 'The position of the house-elves is morally questionable.' We see divided opinions among the characters who react to the house-elves. The fact that we are having this conversation would suggest there's enough ambivalence built into the text without the need for authorial asides.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Ah, but that's exactly what you're denying with regards to the house elves. You're saying they shouldn't serve others at all. You're saying the "happy slaves", as you call them, should be taught in no uncertain terms that they're not happy and that they ought to want to be free. Whether they like it or not.
I shouldn't need to say this so many times, but house elves aren't real. Rowling made them up, and only she can claim responsibility for making them as they are. Why did she make happy slaves? If, that is, we the readers are allowed to ask questions at all, and it seems not everyone here believes we have that right.
If she is saying "Well, let's just accept the credibility of happy slavery in this world," then she is asking me to forget how unambiguously terrible the institution of slavery really is. Expecting the reader to drop his or her history once he or she opens the book is also, I hate to say, bad writing.
I gotta another question. In a world where wizards can summon food or clean a whole room with a mere flick of a wand, why do they need slaves at all?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Zach - she might have been thinking about motherhood and the acceptability or not of being a full time stay at home mother when she was thinking about the house elves.
I am not sure what you expect me to make of this. That her travails as a single mother are reflected in her work? Single motherhood drove her to make a world where the happy slave myth was true? Because she was a single mother we can't ask questions of her work?
No. Mothering of children could be seen as a form of slavery. A mother is tied to the child, caring for them and looking after their every whim, trapped at home, not able to escape. And some people love it and choose to be full time parents.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
No. Mothering of children could be seen as a form of slavery....
This would be a profoundly cynical thing for Rowling to say, but given her love of torturing children in the series...
I didn't really get that impression though. Is there anything in particular that makes you think "Ah, she's talking about motherhood here?"
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm not very familiar with Harry Potter, but this discussion reminds me a lot of the Doozers in Jim Henson's series Fraggle Rock.
The Doozers always work, building elaborate constructions that the Fraggles eat. In one episode, a Fraggle tries to liberate the Doozers, causing much grief among them. It's brilliant!
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I shouldn't need to say this so many times, but house elves aren't real.
Then why are you so worked up about their situation?
Seriously. Either you can take the line that they're not real, and therefore their status or nature has no implications in the real world about "happy slaves". Or you can take the line that people shouldn't introduce the notion that slaves are "happy" because of its real life connotations, in which case the fact that house elves aren't real is utterly irrelevant.
But you can't have both at once without making your argument look like something that August Moebius would be thrilled with.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm not very familiar with Harry Potter, but this discussion reminds me a lot of the Doozers in Jim Henson's series Fraggle Rock.
The Doozers always work, building elaborate constructions that the Fraggles eat. In one episode, a Fraggle tries to liberate the Doozers, causing much grief among them. It's brilliant!
You're not the first to bring up examples like this. It seems the point is that abolition is a silly cause for people who don't really know what's good for the slaves.
Certainly that is what Rowling seems to imply when Hermione's activism. Is that your argument here?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Then why are you so worked up about their situation?
Seriously. Either you can take the line that they're not real, and therefore their status or nature has no implications in the real world about "happy slaves". Or you can take the line that people shouldn't introduce the notion that slaves are "happy" because of its real life connotations, in which case the fact that house elves aren't real is utterly irrelevant.
But you can't have both at once without making your argument look like something that August Moebius would be thrilled with.
House elves aren't real, but the proposition "slavery is OK so long as the slaves like it" is a very real one, and has been used over and over again throughout history to justify unjust exploitation.
Are you saying real world issues are completely irrelevant in literature? I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still basically like ours. It doesn't seem SO different that our own moral scruples become basically irrelevant. Especially when the whole moral of the series seems to be the inherent dignity of our fellow humans. At least, I think that is the point, as much as Rowling undercuts it again and again.
I actually like asking questions of my literature, even literature I like. You don't have to participate, but please don't act like I don't have a right to ask. I don't owe Rowling that much.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
House elves aren't real, but the proposition "slavery is OK so long as the slaves like it" is a very real one, and has been used over and over again throughout history to justify unjust exploitation.
Generally by people who hadn't actually taken the time to ask the slaves themselves. Which is kinda the point, isn't it?
If you're going to say "people should decide what they want to do for themselves rather than us forcing them to do what we want them to do", then you have to allow for the possibility - even if only theoretical - that what they want is to serve us. Otherwise you're just heading right back into "forcing them to do what we want them to do" territory.
quote:
Especially when the whole moral of the series seems to be the inherent dignity of our fellow humans.
House elves aren't human.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I know I keep double posting, but I like literary criticism. I almost went to graduate school to study it.
Jane Austen is a genuinely good writer. Yet there is this brazen fact that the lifestyles of her protagonists rest of the exploitation of servants who are subjected to low pay and appalling workplace conditions. Austen can avoid awkward questions about this fact more easily because servants hardly appear at all in her series. Certainly the exploitation of servants isn't a major plot point like in Harry Potter. The exploitation is there, but Austen never holds it up and expects us to accept it.
This doesn't, however, mean we cannot ask these questions. The fact that the family of Mansfield Park is probably supported by slavery on its sugar plantations is indeed an issue of critical discussion. And I find it interesting, even if the story is really about a slightly-less-wealthy girl trying to find a place in a much wealthier family.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Then why are you so worked up about their situation?
Seriously. Either you can take the line that they're not real, and therefore their status or nature has no implications in the real world about "happy slaves". Or you can take the line that people shouldn't introduce the notion that slaves are "happy" because of its real life connotations, in which case the fact that house elves aren't real is utterly irrelevant.
But you can't have both at once without making your argument look like something that August Moebius would be thrilled with.
House elves aren't real, but the proposition "slavery is OK so long as the slaves like it" is a very real one, and has been used over and over again throughout history to justify unjust exploitation.
Are you saying real world issues are completely irrelevant in literature? I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still basically like ours. It doesn't seem SO different that our own moral scruples become basically irrelevant. Especially when the whole moral of the series seems to be the inherent dignity of our fellow humans. At least, I think that is the point, as much as Rowling undercuts it again and again.
I actually like asking questions of my literature, even literature I like. You don't have to participate, but please don't act like I don't have a right to ask. I don't owe Rowling that much.
No, I'm not saying you don't have a right to ask. How you got that out of what I said is beyond me.
What I'm saying is that your questions have to make sense. And in fact you've clarified fairly well.
Am I saying real world issues are irrelevant in literature? Not quite. But I'm saying I find them a lot LESS relevant than you appear to, and indeed than many others appear to. I have to confess, some of the essays that 'scholarly' people manage to create out of works of art, in a variety of fields, completely bemuse me. I think people are capable of reading implications into literature, music, painting etc that the creator of the art didn't consciously put there.
Our own moral scruples are relevant insofar as they fuel our reaction to situations or characters in a novel, play or film. But some of the most interesting situations/characters are the ones where we don't all have the same reactions. And it's fairly difficult to assign a particular 'view' to an author in a case where we don't actually all react to what we're presented with in the same fashion.
Now let me emphasise that I actually don't have a terribly good knowledge of the specifics of the Harry Potter books. I've only ever read bits and pieces (something I keep meaning to rectify) and seen some of the films. So I don't know, for instance, whether the house elves are actually described as "slaves" at any point or whether that's a term that's being projected onto their situation. If the word 'slave' is actually used, I would agree that's designed to provoke a particular kind of reaction.
Whereas if the word 'slave' isn't actually ever used, a considerable amount of projection is required to identify the house elves as examples of 'happy slaves'.
[ 30. October 2012, 15:21: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
House elves aren't human.
But they are people, and that is what really matters. She depicts muggles as hardly human too, so there's that.
The happy slave myth is a vicious, self serving fantasy in our world. For it to be realistic, it requires the institution of slavery itself to be nice.
I can't see that Rowling has done the groundwork to make that credible, and once again, I would still ask WHY she is going through the effort necessary to make slavery OK.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
House elves aren't human.
But they are people, and that is what really matters
But it means that projecting our thoughts onto them is illogical. I scarcely want to live in the mountains the way the giants do, in that world. Are the giants being abused? Perhaps, if they have been chased into the mountains, I don't remember, but not by definition yes. If the giants want to live in the mountains, then they are not abused even if no human would ever find the mountains hospitable. Why can that kind of thinking not apply to other non-humans?
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
House elves aren't human.
But they are people
Can you expand, please?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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