#Elves in HP

[wisteria-lodge]

Guys who Cry in the Harry Potter Books (and Why)

Men do 30% of the crying in the Harry Potter books, even though they represent 66% of the characters (and that's pretty much as expected).* I’m interested in why the crying happens though, and what it says about the characters. For the ladies, crying is neutral - they all cry, and for all sorts of reasons (tired, frustrated, stressed, emotionally overwrought...) Bellatrix, Augusta Longbottom, Ginny, Tonks… all cry. *Hermione* cries thirty separate times over the course of the books. 

Male crying though, that's something that gets mocked (usually by Slytherins.) Pansy calls Neville a “fat little cry baby,” and after Rita’s article (falsely) describes Harry crying, Draco comes in with “Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?” Of course there’s also “D’you think [Hagrid]’ll cry when they cut off his hippogriff’s - ” right before Hermione slaps him. So making fun of guys for crying is bad right? 

Let’s get into it. 

1 : Crying because of a death

The most “acceptable” reason for male crying. This happens a lot, we are definitely not supposed to think any less of the guys who do it. Mostly it happens *right* at the moment of death, or maybe at the funeral. The exception is Harry, who cries in Book 3 after talking about hearing his parents dying (although the narrative voice DOES let us know that he’s kind of embarrassed about this...)

“Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.” 

Then he cries again in Book 7, while visiting his parents' graves. But it’s definitely still crying over a death. Just one that Harry takes a little bit longer to process. 

Crying over a Death: Full Breakdown: 

Amos Diggory: 1 (Cedric’s death) 

Arthur Weasley: 1 (Fred’s death)

Harry Potter: 3 (Hedwig, Lily, James)

Rubeus Hagrid: 4 (Dumbledore, Buckbeak, Aragog, Harry) 

Argus Filtch: 1 (thinks Mrs. Norris is dead) 

Xenophillius Lovegood: 1 (thinks Luna is dead) 

Fillius Flitwick: (thinks Ginny is dead) 

Ron Weasley: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral) 

Elphias Doge: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral

2: Crying because of Pain

You’d think this one would also be acceptable. But… it really isn’t? Dudley cries when Vernon hits him (but Harry doesn’t.) Peter Pettigrew cries when he cuts off his own hand, Saw style, but it gets framed as blubbering weakness. Pettigrew framed SO pathetically for the entire resurrection scene - and honestly, for the entire rest of the series.

(Which is strange when you think about it. Like objectively, Pettigrew did GOOD. Sure he only likes Voldemort because he’s powerful, but so do most of the Death Eaters, that’s nothing special. Peter found Voldemort, resurrected him single-handedly (ha.) Found Bertha Jorkins,  i.e. the reason Voldemort was able to plan his comeback. Obviously he has god-tier bluffing and lying abilities, as well as enough willpower to cut off a limb. Being able to turn into a rat would make him a really useful spy. Also his spell, the one that killed thirteen muggles and destroyed a street? Most magic we see does not have a blast radius like that. Peter’s formidable. But somehow his job is to hang out and be Snape’s servant? (Is it because he’s not cute?  Is this JKR’s fatphobia rearing its ugly head? Unclear.)

Our last guy crying in pain is Book 1 Neville, after he breaks his wrist during flying lessons. He also “sniffs,” while walking into the Forbidden Forest for detention, which *might* count as crying? But really, Neville cries surprisingly little. We get a lot of “looked as though he might cry” and “on the verge of tears”... but that's not actually crying. And I think that’s because… early-books Neville, yes we’re supposed to see him as a little pathetic. But definitely not as pathetic as Dudley or Pettigrew. 

3: “Childlike” Crying

Sometimes the people who cry are literally little boys. This is also okay. No one is going to judge infant Harry for crying when Voldemort is in the house, or little Severus for crying when his parents are fighting. Interestingly, when Myrtle is talking about Draco crying in her bathroom, Harry assumes she’s talking about someone much younger: 

“There’s been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young boy?” 

But of course, when an adult is crying in a childlike way, it immediately becomes… pathetic. Again we have Pettigrew, who “burst into tears. It was horrible to watch: He looked like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor.” In the Horcrux cave, crying Dumbledore is described “like a child dying of thirst.” Which is also meant to be pathetic, but in more of a ‘Harry has to be the adult now’ sort of way. Also, the potion seems to have made Dumbledore mentally regress back to his youth, so it’s *closer* to a literal “child crying” moment. 

(I considered putting Dumbledore drinking the potion in the ‘pain’ section, but at least in the book I think it’s clear he’s mostly in emotional rather than physical pain.)

Where this gets messy is with the house-elves. House-elves are not children, but they are presented as childlike. They are small and in-your-face, direct even though their problem-solving tends to be very convoluted/not especially logical. I like the present-tense, no pronouns way they speak, but I can’t deny it is kind of baby-talk adjacent. And… house elves are *really* emotional. Dobby, Kreacher (and Winky) cry a LOT. If I had to guess, I would say JKR likes treating house-elves as childlike so it’s more of a surprise when it turns out that one of them was behind everything. But considering that they are slaves, it is gross - considering that one of the main real-world justifications for slavery was ‘slaves are childlike, and unable to take care of themselves.'

There’s also Hagrid. With seventeen separate instances of crying, Hagrid easily cries more than any other guy in the Harry Potter books. And… well… he’s also presented as oddly childlike. He seems much more like Harry and Ron’s contemporary than a peer of the other professors - which is weird, since  if he went to school with Voldemort fifty years ago, he’s in his sixties now. But still, he’s helpless in the face of criticism, he’s comically out of his depth whenever he deals with the Ministry, he’s constantly letting things slip or drastically misjudging danger levels. The first three books all use “Hagrid gets in trouble, the gang has to bail him out” as a plot point, and in Book 4 his sideplot with Madame Maxime gets treated like a schoolboy’s first crush, with all these jokes about him wearing suits that don’t quite fit, and trying and failing to style his hair. Not to mention, we know she’s flattering him because she wants insider info on the Tournament. But he doesn’t know that. 

4. Crying because of Sports

Oliver Wood cries when Gryffindor wins the Quidditch cup. That's all.

And that brings us to our stragglers. The only non-childlike guys who cry for reasons other than death, pain, or sports are as follows: 

Harry Potter: 1 instance of crying

Draco Malfoy: 2 instances of crying

Severus Snape: 2 instances of crying

Albus Dumbledore: 4 instances of crying

Horace Slughorn: 1 instance of crying

Let’s see what’s going on here. 

Harry Potter

Dumbledore had weakened himself by drinking that terrible potion for nothing. Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him. Fang began to howl. He clutched the cold locket in his hand so tightly that it hurt, but he could not prevent hot tears spilling from his eyes

There’s a lot going on in this moment: Harry is tired, frustrated, disappointed, overwhelmed. But even though it is a complex moment, probably the main emotion is still Harry’s attempt to process Dumbledore’s death, now that he finally has a second to do so. So this honestly could have gone in the “Crying because of a death” category. It’s just different enough that I want to specially call it out. 

Draco Malfoy

We hear about Draco crying once from Myrtle, and then see it first hand: 

Malfoy was crying — actually crying — tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.

The narrative takes a second to let us know that he was ACTUALLY CRYING, just to hammer in that this is something unexpected and not-normal. I think I want to attribute Draco’s tendency to cry - and cry because he’s overwhelmed, scared, lonely - to the character’s slight femme coding. What can I say, he cries for ""girly"" reasons. And so does Snape!

Severus Snape 

“Snivellus” is clearly a nickname meant to evoke the idea of “crybaby,” since “sniveling” is a synonym for crying. We also get this: 

Snape was kneeling in Sirius’s old bedroom. Tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily. 

Crying over Lily’s letter could count as crying over a death… but since he’s crying over a letter, not over a grave or her body (like in the movie), I’m going to say that he’s probably crying because of guilt, emotional overload, or love (especially because he rips the ‘love Lily’ off the end of that letter.) Like Draco, Snape might be getting little bit of femme-coding here. He’s the mean-girl type of bully (versus the mean boy) He cries, he threatens to poison people - which is something we only see women (and Draco) actually doing in these books. Idk, he’s an odd one who JKR clearly has very complicated feelings about. 

Albus Dumbledore 

I was actually really surprised that Dumbledore cries as much as he does, and at such unusual times! He cries when he sees Snape���s doe patronus - because of love or just because he’s emotionally overwhelmed. He cries all through the Horcrux cave, primarily because of guilt. He cries twice during the King’s Cross Station vision-quest, once because of his complicated feelings about Harry while he asks for forgiveness, and once over … Grindlewald.

“They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .”  “. . . or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.

And okay. JKR announced that Dumbledore was gay just a few months after book seven was published, and I think she was folding in deliberate queer-coding as early Book 6. My proof of that is Dumbledore's increased emotionality - as we can see, it’s pretty unusual for men to cry in the Harry Potter books because of “softer” emotions like love, regret, stress etc. It’s something she associates with femininity, and I’m sure she associates gay guys with femininity as well (I mean, that’s a very common thing to do.)

There’s also this interesting passage from Book 6: 

This younger Albus Dumbledore’s long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing. “Nice suit, sir,” said Harry, before he could stop himself, but Dumbledore merely chuckled.

Now, this is subtle. Wizards out and about in the muggle world often wear unusual colors like purple and emerald green. However. That adjective flamboyantly is only used one other time in the entire series, to describe Fudge’s hand gestures. But here, it is used to describe an outfit, a purple velvet suit which is honestly more than a little bit Oscar Wilde. And “flamboyantly gay” … those are two words often heard together. 

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure this is the only opinion about clothing Harry ever expresses aloud. And, I think @niche-pastiche hit the nail right on the head, saying that Harry's "Nice suit, sir" is "SO the response of a young adhd boy in the early 2000s trying not to say "thats gay." 

Horace Slughorn

Horace Slughorn cries at Aragog’s funeral, not really out of grief for Aragog, but mostly out of a maudlin sense of togetherness, nostalgia, and camaraderie. And… I do think we have one more slightly morally ambiguous femme-coded guy on our hands? Like Dumbledore, Slughorn is very much a flashy dresser, with shiny hair and gold buttons on his waistcoat. He loves treats and candies (hey… so does Dumbledore. They’re the only adults with a sweet tooth like that.) He loves fancy dinner parties, and is well-connected without being ambitious the way Lucius is. He also (like Draco) is aligned with pureblood-supremacy, but hyper avoidant of violence and confrontation. Except for the Harry example, I think I’d be comfortable with calling all of these last few instances “Femme-Coded Crying.” 

* Methodology - My list of 208 Harry Potter characters comes from TV Tropes, which had the most complete list. I am excluding characters from Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts Films. 

In order to find instances of crying, I searched for the words “cried/cry/crying” “tears” “sob” and “sniff.” I counted each crying episode as one, even if crying was brought up multiple times throughout the scene. I made the fairest call I could whenever I hit a “the crying intensified” or the “the tears restarted,” but I mostly judge pretty conservatively when I’m ringing up data.

[futurequibblerjournalist]

So I'm researching house elf names and it's noted that in canon Kreacher is the only house elf without a name ending in "y" and a reason for that is possibly that he was never actually named but that the Black family just called him Creature when calling for him and I just jvnfjbngj. I made it worse for myself too cause now I'm picturing Regulus being the reason it's spelled Kreacher instead of Creature because he was the first one to write it down but he didn't know how to spell it properly

[marauderstars]

Ways J.K Rowling did poc dirty in canon:

Making the last name of one of her most powerful black characters “Shacklebolt” - a crude af reference to slavery and just in very poor taste.

Naming her only east Asian character “Cho Chang” - a Korean surname as a first name for a Chinese character - proving she did no research whatsoever into Chinese naming traditions.

Cho’s characterization also leans in to the trope of tragic Asian female characters being defined by their romantic connections to white men, as in “Miss Saigon” or “A Quiet American.” Cho’s storyline centers on her romantic involvement with Cedric, Harry and Roger Davies. She gets no meaningful arc of her own.

The sidekick-ification of Lee Jordan.

Michael Corner being referred to as “the dark one” which is bad enough, and then him being whitewashed in the films.

Pansy Parkinson’s comment about Angelina Johnson’s braided hair looking like “worms” goes completely unpunished. Rowling treats this as standard bullying instead of a racially-charged comment. Rowling clearly didn’t understand the serious implications of this comment and its rooting in deeply-ingrained discrimination against black hairstyles, or she would have written a similar reaction to this as she did to that of Hermione being called a “Mudblood.”

House Elves as a metaphor for slaves is highly problematic because they are depicted as “liking” their enslavement and being complicit in it, much like the black slaves in “Gone With The Wind.” Despite Dobby being a beloved character, he is also seen as an anomaly for desiring freedom, and many other House Elves are depicted as grotesque, fawning, ridiculous or sinister. Pretty garbage metaphor for black slaves.

In Goblet of Fire Rowling describes a group of “African” wizards wearing “long white robes” and “roasting what looked like a rabbit on a bright purple fire.” This is just… *sigh* The way this is worded is very clearly just token exoticism and includes no genuine detail about their clothing, cultural food or nationality. It’s just “wow those zany rabbit-eating Africans and their purple fire.” Once again black characters are being used as examples of otherness rather than shown as human beings.

Rowling has openly admitted that she created a detailed backstory for Dean Thomas, one of the series’ few black characters, but did not include it in the books and included the backstory of Neville Longbottom, a white character, instead.

Approving the casting of a white actress in the role of Lavender Brown in the films, a character the majority of readers assumed was black.

The portrayal of Blaise Zabini’s “famously beautiful” black mother who was known for offing her husbands and taking their money. Like. Come on. Tbh she sounds like a queen but violent woc gold digger is still a shit trope.

Just the entire treatment of the Patil twins at the Yule Ball, the way Harry and Ron treated them and Rowling’s garbage attempt at describing their traditional clothing.

Padma Patil’s portrayal in Cursed Child as the stereotypical controlling Indian wife. The idea of ending up with her instead of Hermione being positioned as some kind of horrible alternate reality for Ron had very xenophobic undertones, and while Hermione is portrayed as black in the play, I don’t believe that Rowling originally intended her to be a black character nor that casting directors deliberately set out to cast a black actress as Hermione in Cursed Child initially.

[malwaredykes]

ive said it before i think but the fo4 prologue being what it is and what it says about your player character i find honestly kind of repulsive... it's not that i couldn't technically make it work for me in SOME way, i mean i would be inclined to make it a "woman with a really really shady past pulls a breaking bad vacuum store new identity thing and spends years living with a Normal Husband in a Normal Home secretly yearning for something to happen so she can break free of this bleak existence without the feds finding her. hang on whats that bright flash on the horizon" type thing. i do find that compelling i could make it work for me. it's just that there's only this one route i could possibly take that would work for me. very little wiggle room in terms of morals and personality.

because, like, there are just some choices and implications here there is no way for you to avoid that inevitably say so much about your character. and i'm actually mainly talking about codsworth, i feel like many overlook this but its the part that rly makes the whole thing Be What It Is to me--and hes a major enough character that if i ignore it and ignore his existence then i might as well just ignore the whole backstory and the main quest and a lot of dialogue later on, which like, Yes, i could do that, but that just kind of highlights the problem doesnt it. i have to Think The Whole Thing Away to engage with the game on remotely satisfying terms unless i accept what im given here.

because with codsworth being there, no matter what kind of person my player character may be internally, they had a house servant. a slave, i'm sorry to say. in fo4 mr handies are not just alexas with arms, they aren't task-specialized chat-gpt inside a chassis, they are people, clearly self-aware and sapient, with a free will and feelings and opinions about things, reacting emotionally to the events around them, and in fact codsworth is the first most stark example of it when you meet him again after escaping the vault.

so, like. my character owned this person. had to be okay with the idea of owning this person. and you can say what you want about the notion being culturally normalized, but there are limits to that, and it feels strange to even have to say this but no amount of social conventions are going to make Owning A Person As Property acceptable to a compassionate, reasonable person. soon-to-be sole survivor and their spouse had to go out of their way to purchase a mr handy, nobody forced them to. there's being part of a class whose existence relies on the exploitation of others to live in comfort and luxury, there's being the sort of person who gets to have a spot in an exclusive vault, but then there's going out of your way to buy a sentient being to be your servant.

like, damn man. and i'm not saying the default state of the main character should be Goody Two Shoes, not at all, not my point. i'm saying that this is, like, a significant thing that SAYS something about the sole survivor, and you have to reckon with it if you accept the terms the game gives you. and it just severely limits what kind of character you want to play as. oh you're super not okay with the subjugation of synths? that's great, but you had a house servant though. and so on and so forth

[eggmacguffin]

so so so sorry for talking about harry potter

but my brain has been chewing through each and every flaw with that series this past week (in a series of Slumdog millionaire type flashbacks) and what they say about the maniac who wrote it

and listen.

Azkaban.

Azkaban, the only wizard prison (they don't even appear to have, like, holding, it's just Azkaban for everyone) and how very little criticism the concept of torture-forever-prison received within the text despite 50% of named characters who end up sent there being completely innocent. Are there sentences to Azkaban that aren't life? it seems insane if there aren't but also insane if there are, because of how incredibly vindictive and punitive the wizarding legal system is.

Prison in the real world does not succeed in being rehabilitative, of course.

but it is blatantly obvious that harming people who "deserve" it is the primary function of the wizarding legal system. AND how readily acceptable this is to a narrative style very childishly eager to inform you what is right and what is wrong says a lot of things about JKR and like. the concept of prison abolition

a story about a grand revolution that safely returns you to the status quo is one very lazy bad thing. But the blithe acceptance of "offending the wrong politician or a bungled trial or a very casually, comfortably corrupt government can get you sentenced to naked in a cave w/ all your happy memories stolen forever"?

And our brave hero not only doesn't question this, but dedicates his post-series life to supporting it?

what the fuck was she thinking???

[betrayalandbetrayed]

I've been reading a lot of time travel fics, and most of them have Harry or Voldemort or Sirius time traveling.

I say let's have a fic with Ginny

Give me a 1st year Ginny who has enough confidence in herself to go talk to somebody about the voice in her head.

Who resists far longer because she doesn't need Tom for confidence and can recognize hes grooming her. Who already did this once and has built up a tolerance.

Give me a Ginny who works to make Harry's life easier from the sidelines, not caught up in hero worship like she was the 1st time, but also recognizing that the love she had with him might not happen this time and letting it go.

Give me a Ginny who speaks up about the rumors, tells off people when they talk behind peoples backs and listens when someone rants.

Give me a Ginny who notices when Draco starts slipping away, because that happened to her too and she won't let it happen to him.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

What's your theory on what the deal is with house elves? Where did they come from? How'd they end up enslaved. They are hella powerful even without wands - to the point that they can even disarm a wizard who has a wand and apparate/disapparate thru powerful wards. seems awfully convenient that such powerful creatures ended up magically bound to wizards...

Honestly, this is something I was really struggling to explain. Like, if I had to invent house elves, I'd probably make them more similar to domovoi from Slavic folklore. I won't go too deep into it, but a Domovoi is a sort of house spirits that help around the house in exchange for offerings by the household. Their magic is tied to the household as well, so outside, Domovoi isn't too powerful but they are practically all-powerful within the house they are bonded to. But they aren't slaves, they are respected or they curse the household and they gain something from their arrangement.

House-elves aren't like that, though, they don't seem to gain anything from their arrangement with wizards. But, their bond to their masters is definitely magical. Not only in how you free them but in how it affects their capabilities:

The house-elf’s highest law is his Master’s bidding,” intoned Kreacher. “Kreacher was told to come home, so Kreacher came home. . . . “

(DH, 170)

I also mentioned here, how the existence of half-elves suggests elves descended from the same humanoid magical race as wizards, veela, goblins, and giants. As such, I think what happens to goblins and elves is somewhat similar. I mean, both (plus the other magical humanoids to a degree) have the same magical capabilities as wizards in addition to their own unique magic, that in the case of elves, can sometimes circumvent wizard magic, and yet we see wizards are the dominant species.

We see wizards control the magical world, and the other creatures fall in line or try to rebel. Or, in the case of centaurs, keep as far as they can, for the most part. We also see wands are one of the main points of contention, and I have a theory/headcanon as to why.

So, what I'm thinking is that wands gave wizards the magical edge they needed to beat the other magical races. Like, I think there was some ancient war between the magical species, and that war was when wizards invented wands. These wands meant they could send weaker, less trained wizards and have them do very powerful magic. Essentially, they make sure they have a stronger and larger army since now they barely need to train wizards. After this war, the wizards kept wandlore close since its what got them their victory.

Said victory, caused centaurs and giants to draw away from humans, started the bitter relationship with the goblins, and was the origin of house elf enslavement. I think. Like, I don't really have much of details on this ancient war since it's a headcanon based of some of the canon evidence we see.

But, house elves, as magically powerful as they are when we see them, were probably a major concern at the end of that really ancient war. This is why they were enslaved magically when others weren't, the ancient wizards probably considered them the biggest risk. We also know from the extended canon about Yumboes, who are essentially African house elves. They aren't in servitude of wizards the way European house elves are, further suggesting some more regional cause, like a war.

I think the apparition and disapparation through powerful wards is not a testament to the elves' magic, but to wizards' stupidity. The wards are probably set up to ignore house-elves on purpose. They want their slaves to be able to move around to serve them best, and they are arrogant enough to not consider it a threat. I actually think most wizards aren't aware that anti-apparition wards don't effect house elves because that's how they were designed from the get-go. Most wizards don't even think about this or it's implications. We saw how Ron treated house-elves, they're just there in the way they are and no one really thinks about it.

So, basically, I think the house elves we see are the result of a violent enslavement kept by a magical bond the modern wizards probably don't fully understand. Then, through the years due to wizards breeding the elves selectively and the magical enslavement effecting their species, we get the "happy to serve" attitude many of them have. I think their attitude isn't something magical, as much as thought and bred on purpose. I mean, wizards probably make sure the best, most obedient house-elves are the ones whose genes continue on. Due to this selective breeding, it's also possible the house elves we see are on average, more powerful than they were back during their enslavement, after all, you would want to have the best possible slaves, so wizards would make sure to get the more powerful and obedient ones.

[seriousbrat]

gobbledegook and notes on goblins (part 1 of 2)

So I have a google doc full of HP goblin lore that I developed for a fic and then never really ended up using most of it rip. But I thought it would be interesting to share, in case anyone needs to include a line of Gobbledegook in their own writing or something! I know next to nothing about linguistics so I'm sure from that perspective it's probably full of errors but anyway, I had fun.

PART ONE: GOBLIN LANGUAGE

BASIC INFO:

Gravakeluk, or Gobbledegook (a human bastardisation) is the standard language used by most of the goblin population worldwide. (more on this in part 2)

The language is based heavily on compound words— short sounds can be interpreted in a variety of ways to transmit a specific meaning. 

For instance, the only word we're given in canon is 'bladvak,' meaning pickaxe. This can be broken down into "blad" (blood, ore) + "vak" (axe), so "bladvak" is translated as "ore axe." "Blad" + "vak" + "den" (carrier/wielder) means "miner" or, literally, "pickaxe-carrier."

For a more complex example, "Rravk" can be translated as "sword" but also "power/might." The word Vvargdenrravkrak is broken down as: "Vvarg" (wand) + "den" (carrier) + "rravk" (power) + "rak" (place), and means Ministry of Magic. Literally, "wand carrier power place."

Pronunciation: Gobbledegook sounds harsh and aggressive to many humans. The language is guttural and consonants are created from the back of the throat, producing a rasping effect that almost sounds like the words are being spat at you. This is just how Goblins talk, however, and many phrases that were not intended as especially aggressive have been interpreted as such over the years by wizards.

Writing: Goblins use a runic semi-syllabic script—  partially behaving as a syllabary and as an alphabet, similar to Paleohispanic scripts from the Iberian peninsula. Some characters represent syllables, while others represent specific phonemes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-syllabary

 A note— “uk” is often spelt “ook” by wizards, but there is no distinction in Gobbledegook, as there is one character for the sound “uk”. This is why something like Griphuk is often spelt as Griphook in English.

GLOSSARY:

Ak – The, or A. Usually to give importance or emphasis to the subject at hand, as it’s not grammatically necessary. “Ak Varld Vvargden” is a well-known publication that translates to “A World of Wizards”

-ak – a pluralising suffix. This is only used for certain words as many nouns (such as the words for goblin or wizard) can be used both as a plural and a singular noun. Rravk (sword) becomes Rravkak (swords). Since the “ak” sound is so common in the goblin language, it can sometimes be tricky for the untrained ear to distinguish it as a plural, an ability that is gained with time and familiarity.

Blad – ore, blood (ore is analogous blood in goblin culture)

Bladrak - mine, literally “ore place”

Bladvak – pickaxe (ore axe)

Bladvakden – miner, literally "pickaxe carrier"

Braz – whereupon, or “and then.” Used frequently to describe a connected sequence of events, where in English “and” might simply be used. “I went to the bank whereupon I took out a loan.”

Brun – bronze

-den – suffix meaning "carrier" or “wielder of”. For instance, bladvakden means “pickaxe carrier” or “miner”. More famously, “Vvargden” meaning wizard, translates literally as “wand-carrier”

Ek – on, in

Eluk –  tongue, language

Eskarr – thank you. Humans don’t typically hear this word.

Euskaldunak – the Basque people (see Vvargdeneluk below)

Fell – city

Gorak – loan/transaction (Goblins view the sale of any items to wizards as the object simply being on loan, but really belonging to its makers.)

Gra – people, often used to mean goblins in general, “the people”. Not used for non-goblin people.

Grauld – Elder, member or members of the Council of Elders.

Gravak – Goblin

Gravakeluk- the goblin tongue, once misinterpreted rather carelessly and condescendingly by wizards as “gobbledegook,” which then stuck and simply became the English word for the goblin language.

Gravakrak – Goblin place, anywhere goblins dwell or control

Gu – our, us, we

Ka – I, mine, my

Kagra – return

Kavktta – death/die

Kuld – gold/money

Kuldden - banker (literally “gold carrier”)

Kuldrak – bank (literally “gold place”)

Leshak – liberation, freedom

Nad – nothing

Nadden - Muggle, literally “nothing-carrier”

Rak – place. Can be added as a suffix to mean “place of”, as in “kuldrak” (gold place, bank)

Rifa – silver

Rrantz – foul, rancid

Rravk – sword, might/power

Shor – hammer

Shorden – smith, “hammer carrier”, artisan

Shorrak - forge, literally “hammer place”

Uld – old

Vak – axe

Varld - world

Vvarg – wand

Vvargden – “wand-carrier”, or wizard.

Vvargdeneluk –  any language spoken by humans. In general Goblins believe it is not worth differentiating between them. In the case of British goblins, English is only spoken by the few goblins who have regular dealings with wizards. The only known exception are goblins living in the Basque Country, who have assimilated words from Euskera (the Basque language) into their own parlance. Some of these words have even filtered over time into Standard Gobbledegook. In general, goblins like the sound of Basque and some wizarding historians theorise that Basque wizards and goblins once enjoyed a better relationship than in other parts of the world. Therefore, there does exist a word for this particular human language:

Euskaldunakeluk – the Basque language

Vvargdenrak – anywhere inhabited or controlled by wizards, literally “wizard place”

Vvargdenrravkrak – The Ministry of Magic, literally "wizard power place"

-----------------------

Example sentence:

English: “Return our swords to us, foul wizards, and then die upon them” Gobbledegook: “Gu Rravkak kagra, rrantz vvargden, braz kavktta ek.” Literal translation: “Our swords return(to), rancid wand-carrier, whereupon die on(it).”

part two here, covering goblin naming conventions and some notes on goblin society. I also talked a bit about gender in goblin society in this reply.

[iamnmbr3]

House elves joining the fighting in book 7 is treated as an almost cute little moment but actually it should be a huge, tide-turning event. houselves are probably some of the most op creatures in the hp universe. they can perform wandless magic so powerful they can disarm a wizard carrying a wand.

goblins resent that they are reduced to second class citizens because they don't have wands but house elves don't need them. when they're free to use their powers they are able to overpower armed wizards. kreacher captured mundungus. dobby defeated lucius in book 2 and then disarmed and held at bay multiple wizards in book 7. and army of house elves would wreck the Death Eaters lol.

tldr: Kreacher deserved more credit for rallying all the house elves and probably singlehandedly turning the tide of the battle

[solarisburns]

there's a world out there where Regulus did tell the others about the horcrux's, that between all of them they would manage to hit them all at once. Most people went in pairs but Regulus knew what was waiting for him, knew no one would let a singular person drink the poison on their own, knew that Voldemort had spelled the the poison to keep multiplying until every wizard there had drank enough to be killed. He knew that if they both drank the poison neither would survive, so he made them let him go alone, saying he would have kreacher fro company. He knew what was going to happen but he had made his peace with it. His life for his friends was a price he would pay any day of the week.

Regulus may never make it home, but the others do. the others celebrate for each successful mission, but as the hours tick on they start to worry because Regulus isn't back yet. when kreacher comes back, locket in hand, they know. And when sirius demands an explanation and kreacher, his true master dead, explains. Regulus may have told them the secret to end the war but he would not be there to see it. he died a stupid selfless hero and they all hate him for it, just a little. but then again grief has always been good at hiding in the most unexpected places.

[wisteria-lodge]

wait there are no house elves in malfoy manor? i mean it's possible that during the time voldemort and the others where there the house elves could just be in prison or they are there and jkr just didn't mention them

because let's say there aren't house elves and voldemort and the death eaters are there, who would have prepared the meals or whatever things guest needs when they visit or stay in someone's house

In Harry Potter, we see a few other strategies for maintaining and running a magical house. Let’s break it down.

OPTION ONE: NON-MAGIC PEOPLE vs HOUSE ELVES

Yep, we are going to be dropping some Filtch lore today.

So in canon, it’s really hard to explain why that man (who isn’t able to do magic) has that job (caretaking an entire magical castle.) But I’m going to do my best to make it work. Because pre Statute of Secrecy, it actually makes a lot of sense that old medieval buildings like Hogwarts and Malfoy Manor would have been staffed by muggles. 

I mean, the only reason you build castles (big, easily defensible fortresses) is so they can be the last line of defense if anything happens to the serfs who are renting/farming your land. The peasants supply food/clothes/weapons/luxury products to the Lord of the manor/castle, and in return they are protected (in theory.) That’s feudalism. If anything, being a wizard would just make you a better Lord. There’s no way the Malfoys or the Founders would have been sitting at the center of a community of only wizards, there aren’t enough wizards. Also, if you want someone to run/maintain your house and you’re choosing between Muggles and house-elves… in a lot of cases, muggles are actually better.

Like okay, house-elves are slaves, which means they would be cheaper than Muggle peasants, but like… not a lot cheaper. Also, there’s got to be some upfront cost of time/money/effort in order to catch a house-elf and bind them to your house. Once you start getting generations of house-elves that’s not a problem, but when you’re setting up a household… yeah I think getting in a staff of muggles would be quicker and easier.

The other thing house elves do have in their favor is that they’re really really powerful. A single house-elf is much more effective than a single human servant. But… they’re also kind of too powerful? If you have a human servant who betrays you, does a bad job, or that you just don’t like… you can fire them, imprison them, and (if you’re a wizard) oblivate them so they can’t tell anyone your secrets. 

None of that works with house-elves. Unlike a human you can’t bribe them (because they have a culture that doesn’t value money.) You can’t imprison them (because whatever magic prevents wizards from apparating doesn’t work on them. Dobby gets in and out the Malfoy dungeons just fine.) I’m also assuming you can't obviate them, because if you COULD then oh my god, Barty Crouch Senior would have 1000000% obviated Winky. 

Until house-elves are freed they do seem to have some magical compulsion that prevents them from speaking ill of their masters…  but they can clearly still mess their masters up pretty bad if they want to. Dobby spends all of Book 2 undermining Lucius. Kreacher spends all of Book 5 undermining Sirius (and honestly is the catalyst for the Battle of the Department of Mysteries.) This doesn’t even seem out of the ordinary: Tom Riddle framed Hokey for Hepzibah Smith’s murder, and apparently everyone bought it. That's another reason a muggle would be a solid choice: even if they wanted to kill a wizard, it would be nearly impossible. But Kreacher and the Hogwarts house-elves actively fight wizards during the Battle of Hogwarts.

So if you have a house-elf that you can’t trust, basically your only response is to free them. Which is bad, because they know all your secrets and can now talk to whoever they want (Dobby absolutely bad-mouths the Malfoys after he's freed. It’s super plausible that Winky could’ve said something about Barty Junior while she was smashed off Butterbeer.) So really… the only truly safe option is to kill them. And it seems like you have to kill them by hand, like with a sword. The Blacks did sign up for this, and we can see their wall of decapitated house-elf heads as proof. House elves do make more sense for the Blacks, because I'm thinking if they became powerful at around the same time as the Statute, they would have been setting up new muggle-less households, not adapting old ones to the new paradigm. But then, not everyone is as hard-core as the Blacks. The Malfoys, for example, actually seem quite squeamish about violence. Draco is also very happy to refer to what Hagrid does as "servant stuff," which means he's comfortable with that particular worldview.

Now, Hogwarts also has house-elves, and they certainly don’t seem to kill them. Of course it's a school rather than a house - if one of those elves went rouge, what damage could they really do? Compare that to Dobby who like, if had wanted to put Lucius Malfoy in Azkaban… he could give some really damning evidence. Lucius Malfoy’s defense was that he was under the Imperius curse. Dobby knows that’s not true. Dobby knows where all the contraband in that house is, Dobby knows that diary belonged to Voldemort, he knew Lucius was threatening Hogwarts on purpose. Maybe elves aren’t allowed to testify in front of the Wizangamot, but Dobby, bring that info to Arthur Weasley. Bring it to Dumbledore. If I were Lucius Malfoy, I would be terrified. Even if I had other house elves, I don’t know if I’d keep them around after second year. Definitely not after Kreacher went rouge and betrayed Sirius, which *Narcissa* knows all about.

Hogwarts also has Filch (and Hagrid, who *also* can't do magic, at least on paper.) And I guess I could see an interpretation where if Hogwarts was initially designed to be run by Muggles, then maybe there are certain functions of the castle that can only be performed by Muggles. Like, we all know there’s something weird going on with Mrs. Norris. She’s too smart, she’s the only animal who shows up on the Marauder’s map, she’s telepathically bonded with Filch. So, maybe she is the manifestation of some magical function that oversees the castle, and maybe you need someone without magic to properly access her magic. Like if a witch/wizard tried to bond with her, their magic gets in the way of the castle’s magic. I’ll buy that. 

Eventually though, Salazar Slytherin started becoming wary of Muggles, so maybe he started a process of phasing out any muggle servants working in the castle and replacing them with house-elves. That makes sense to me. And if the castle needed non-magic workers… squibs would be a good compromise. 

OPTION TWO: AUTOMATED MAGIC

So we know you can cast a spell on an object, and then that object will just sit and do nothing until the spell is triggered. Fred and George’s hats don’t do anything until you put them on - and then they turn your head invisible. You are not doing anything to cast the spell, it’s all in the hat.  Presumably their cloaks and gloves that deflect curses work the same way. 

We also see a lot of this kind of delayed-action magic when it comes to magical protections for locations. Dumbledore has spelled Grimauld Place to send specters at anyone who comes through the door. Muggle-repelling charms don’t do anything until a Muggle comes in proximity. Voldemort’s inferi trap in the cave is filled with magical objects that don’t activate until certain conditions are met. Also, these are not single-use protections that you need to replace every time they’re triggered. Once they're set up, it seems like they keep working until they're taken down.

We also know that there are plenty of spells to make running a household easier. We see Mrs. Weasley use spells to cook, to make clothes, she has whole books full of household magic. So my thought is - if you can bewitch the outside of a house to respond to certain conditions, then why not the inside of a house? How hard would it really be to bewitch a fireplace so it turns on every time someone walks into the room? I bet you could get beds that make themselves, carpets that clean themselves, make it so that certain meals are always cooked at certain times, and served in specific places. The house probably cycles through a set number of meals, and some of the food options would be slightly eccentric because that piece of food-magic was set in 1702. But it all seems very doable, in a programmable smart-house sort of way. Especially if you’re the Malfoys and have nothing but money, time, and a love of the ~*~*aesthetic*~*~ Because the aesthetic of a house like this would be absolutely peak. Very spooky fairytale, invisible servant, romantic Beauty-and-the-Beast castle vibes. 

I think this is the option that Malfoys would have chosen, when they no longer had access to Muggles to run their house for them. Apart from the heightened security and a cooler aesthetic, the Malfoys were very against the Statute of Secrecy, so I bet that (for a while at least) they were kind of hoping that it would be reversed and things would go back to the way they were. So, not as motivated to start building up a household staff of house-elves, which is a pretty irreversible decision. 

The Malfoy also like to keep secrets. In the present day of the book, we know they have contraband cursed objects, contraband poisons, a hidden room to keep all of their contraband in underneath the drawing room floor. I don’t think this is a particularly recent state of affairs. Going back to the 1700s, if the Malfoys were ordered to cut off all these very profitable ties with the muggle world… yeah they’re not doing that. They are definitely hiding income coming in from the muggle world, or muggle retainers that they were kind of supposed to obviate and didn’t. 

In the main timeline of the books, I think it makes a lot of sense that Dobby is a Black family house elf that came over with Narcissa when she and Lucius were first married. And I say that because… Dobby is a mess, and Lucius Malfoy puts a lot of stock in looking good while out in public. The Hogwarts house elves look neat and presentable. Winky’s tea-towel toga looks clean and neat. Dobby is shambling around a snot-stained torn pillowcase, is Lucius not embarrassed? 

My thought is that he kind of resents Dobby: he’s the Black family passive aggressively saying that Lucius can’t take care of Narcissa, or maybe he suspects that the Blacks are sending Dobby over as a spy, whatever. But whatever the reason he can’t get rid of him - first because he doesn’t want to offend his in-laws (Dobby is the equivalent of an ugly lamp that you keep in the closet unless the people who gave you the lamp are visiting.) Then Dobby witnesses the entire war, which makes him way, way too much of a liability to free. 

So that’s my answer. tl;dr - the Malfoys are a very private family with a long-standing distrust of the Ministry, with a house that was set up to be run by Muggles. It makes the most sense that they have retrofitted that house with automated magic, until it’s basically able to run itself. And then, whenever they’re throwing an event, or something a little too complicated for the house's magic to handle… just hire in a staff of wizards to work one or two nights.

[jewishvitya]

CW - talking about antisemitic depictions and about the house elves and the depiction of slavery in the books.

I'm having a frustrating day with a lot of physical pain, so I'm not the best at judging currently if I should be posting all of these thoughts. It's a response to multiple arguments by rude anons that I blocked (not for being rude, for being transphobic), but the arguments themselves stay on my mind and I just. Need this out. Ignore this, it will be all over the place, I'm basically venting. Hoping it'll be the last bit of HP criticism I post.

I'll tag it for you to block, as usual.

I've been asked what I expect of Rowling, since my criticism of the goblins included the books. She already wrote the books, they're printed and they're out there. She can't just change them, criticism does nothing because she has no path to correct her mistake.

First of all, with her transphobia - as far as I'm concerned she has blood on her hands at this point. The way she emboldens transphobia endangers lives and erodes queer rights. Anyone who contributes to the current push against trans people is complicit in trans genocide - and she made herself a symbol of that movement. Even if she did a 180 on her issues with Jewish stereotypes, she wouldn't redeem herself.

But she isn't the only one who wrote a story and then realized that her story has deep issues. What does it look like, if an author doesn't want to perpetuate those?

From what I know of Tolkien (and I know nothing LOTR or anything, just heard this from other Jewish creators who discussed this issue, treat this paragraph like I'm repeating a rumor) - Tolkien did stumble on an antisemitic depiction while writing his dwarves. Then he course-corrected by creating a more complex and nuanced picture of the society in his future works. Basically, he leaned into the idea of his dwarves as a Jewish allegory and made it a better and more respectful allegory. They have wonderful cultural details, like having foreign-language names used outside of their community - and names in their own native language that they call each other. Half of my family comes from France, and my mom was born there. She had a Hebrew name and a legal French name. That's extremely common among Jews in some areas of the world.

This response is what I would have expected if an author cares about being respectful of Jewish people. Acknowledge the issue, and try to do better.

But what if the issue was brought to your attention after you completely finished your story? In that case: "Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was writing an antisemitic narrative with my depiction of this fantasy race." Support the voices criticizing your work, and apologize. Let it be an example of tropes to avoid, and encourage others to be careful of the same pitfalls.

What you don't do, is act horrified and say "Oh, how could you, I never intended to make the goblins an antisemitic allegory! Surely if I don't mean it, it can't be hurtful!"

Also, if you truly care, you don't then abuse the memory of the holocaust when you write spin-offs of your original story, including its imagery to support a bigoted villain's argument.

Marginalized people understand that not everyone knows what we do. The stereotypes and the harmful ideas that weaved themselves into popular culture are about us. We know that it's invisible to people who aren't the target, and as a result aren't forced to learn these things. To many people, it's just a trope they're used to seeing. Like villains have hooked noses - it's practically a shorthand for an evil character.

All the stories we tell are based in some measure on stories we heard. Narratives and tropes feed off each other between different pieces of media. It's easy to pull together a harmful narrative without realizing, when the tropes that make it up usually go together, and are so common they're everywhere. So we know a person who means no harm can create something really hurtful, without knowing it.

That's why we criticize media: we want you to see and be aware.

In addition to this, I've been accused multiple times of ignoring the fact that these books discuss bigotry and condemn it. I'm not ignoring it, I know they do - or they try to. But Rowling wrote a story against racism without understanding it and without interrogating it in herself. She only knew to condemn it when it's rude and violent and outright hateful. Not the foundations of it.

So, sure, say she didn't mean to write something harmful. What does she do when she learns she did? Nothing. And not just about the issue of the goblins - about everything. I detailed the problems with her depiction of lycanthropy, but she did the same thing with the house elves.

There's lore about creatures called brownies. They'll perform chores for you, but they'd rather not be seen while they do. If you try to pay them, they'll get offended. If you give them clothes, they'll leave. This is a very partial description, but you can see the inspiration here.

And then she turned them into a slave race. They're bound to their enslavers, possessing powerful magic but using it in their service, forced to punish themselves for disobedience and endure extreme abuse. Kreacher actively wishes to have his head put on display when he's too old and weak to be of use.

To show the reader the horrors of freedom for an elf, JKR turned poor Winky into a depressed drunk with no purpose in her life. Winky's story is horrifying.

Only Dobby takes care of Winky for that whole year. She never recovers during it. Then she's made to witness the interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr., which upsets her and causes her distress. As a result, she hears about Crouch's death through a toneless forced confession - and the interrogation continues around her. That same day, she watches the last member of the household she loved have his soul taken by a dementor, and then she's left alone with the body while Dumbledore argues with Fudge. Only after, he sends Madam Pomfrey to do what she can for Winky, and take her to the kitchens where Dobby will take care of her again.

And Rowling wrote all of this. Did she think this is an example that even compliant house elves suffer and get neglected, even by the sympathetic wizards? Was this a lesson that even those who don't seek freedom suffer and lack agency in this system?

No. Rowling turned it into a cautionary tale against freeing slaves. Unless they're "weird" like Dobby.

Maybe she didn't try to be racist, but this fits disturbingly well with the arguments against ending slavery in reality. That enslaved people will turn into aimless drunks. That they need to be enslaved to have purpose. That those who want freedom have something wrong with them.

And I know this was criticized. What was the response to the criticism? Nothing direct as far as I know, but after all of this - there was an article published on Pottermore to argue that Winky's story is a warning against freeing the elves. It was taken down fortunately, but after this article the arguments against freedom are no longer the opinion of characters within the world - it's a message given to us by real people.

She doubles down. Every time. People keep yelling that she had nothing to do with Hogwarts Legacy, she's not responsible for the way it builds on her original canon. Well, she seems to approve of it. It continues painting the same line with the same brush - just bolder.

She doesn't care about the racism, she doesn't care about antisemitism - she just wanted to use the nazis as her easy villains. She doesn't have the imagination for any other kind.

[coldemergency]

Harry is really bad at naming things, so when he gets three new house elves, who beg Harry to give them names, Harry calls them Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Hermione can’t stop laughing long enough to explain why it’s so funny to Ron who thinks the names are odd but overall alright.

[meellia]

At the age of 8, after I liked the Harry Potter movies, my parents sat me down at the computer and turned on "The Lord of the Rings". after about half an hour of watching, I said I didn't like it and left

now I am both relieved and disappointed by this, because if I liked it, I would think that the elves definitely live in the nearest forest, which means that I should go there, finding a stick similar to a staff or sword along the way (the forest could be reached in 20-30 minutes, so I would definitely get there, but I would hardly have met elves...)

but it's a pity that after that moment I got to know this beautiful universe only 10 years later

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

It's honestly rly funny that I'm obsessed with elves despite the fact that I have always, and I mean always, been an Aragorn girlie even as a child. In fact, I haven't read the books, and I can't remember any other art I enjoyed as a child that had elves prominently in it. So like. What the fuck even happened. It can't have been Dragon Age? Was it Dragon Age? But I played it when I was a teenager, and I remember not liking BioWare's take on elves from the start. So like. Where did I get this idea of hot elves when I wasn't even a Legolas enjoyer? What the fuck, man?

[headcanonandburn]

HP headcanons from redit

Percy was undermining the Death Eater controlled Ministry from within. He forged documents to help Muggleborns and other victims of Death Eater persecution, and sometimes stole and destroyed other papers that ordered arrests.

Dobby and Kreacher were the first ever non-humans to be awarded the Order of Merlin. Harry places the medal at Dobby's grave.

Ginny didn't really have friends among the Gryffindor girls in her year, her female friends are from Quidditch as well as Hermione and Luna.

Harry, Ron and Hermione forgive Xenophilius Lovegood for trying to sell them to the Death Eaters. Out of respect to Xeno, they don't tell Luna the truth.

After the battle a prize for the best seventh year Potions student is set up, and it is named the Severus Snape Medal, in honour of Hogwarts' bravest Potions master.

Peeves was active in the Hogwarts resistance during Deathly Hallows, and helped create chaos for the Carrows.