#welfare society

[ifoughttime]

You folks would be happy to know that the Government of Karnataka, a state in India made all their public bus fare free for ALL women residents of the state. The upside of this was they saw a surge of women travellers, especially rural women to tourist places they never had access to before! The program has been launched for nearly 8 months and the number of women passengers has not gone down.

They witnessed it was easier for more women to take up job opportunities outside of their hometowns because they have access to travel without spending a chunk of their paychecks on travel fares.

THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I think I saw you talking about Harry enjoying some luxury. Do you think he would be comfortable having a house elf, servant, or any kind of assistant to help him with chores, or would he prefer doing it himself?

(The post anon is referring to is here)

Harry's outlook on house elves is pretty interesting actually, because while he pities elves like Dobby and Winkey, he doesn't go out of his way to free them or work toward their welfare the way Hermione does. Harry sees issues with house elves that are mistreated, but he doesn't see an issue with the institution of house elves — that is, he doesn't really care about the slavory bit, just when their masters mistreat them, which is, yeah...

Harry doesn't make a big deal out of house elves the way everyone around him does:

“House-elves is not paid, sir!” she said in a muffled squeak. “No, no, no. I says to Dobby, I says, go find yourself a nice family and settle down, Dobby. He is getting up to all sorts of high jinks, sir, what is unbecoming to a house-elf. You goes racketing around like this, Dobby, I says, and next thing I hear you’s up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, like some common goblin.” “Well, it’s about time he had a bit of fun,” said Harry. “House-elves is not supposed to have fun, Harry Potter,” said Winky firmly [...] “So that’s a house-elf?” Ron muttered. “Weird things, aren’t they?” “Dobby was weirder,” said Harry fervently.

(GoF, Ch8)

In the above conversation he didn't even react to Winky not getting paid. He doesn't seem to conceptualise what house elves' position means and that they are slaves. Ron and everyone treats it as normal, and Harry does too.

Some fans say that JKR retconned Harry's opinion on house elves, but that is false. Even back in CoS, he frees Dobby because he pities him and Dobby tried to help him, but he doesn't see the inherent problem in the house elves' slavery. He treats elves and their masters on a case-by-case basis:

“A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never set Dobby free . . . Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir. . . .” Harry stared. “And I thought I had it bad staying here for another four weeks,” he said. “This makes the Dursleys sound almost human. Can’t anyone help you? Can’t I?”

(CoS, Ch2)

Harry wants to help becouse Dobby's situation is familiar to him. Dobby is being mistreated by the family he serves like Harry — but unlike Harry, he can't run away. Harry isn't thinking about the systems in place that cause it, he's thinking about Dobby and his family as a specific case, not a symptom of something bigger. He wants to help because he's a kind person, but he isn't thinking big the way Hermione does. He's not an idealist.

He doesn't seem to care about grand injustices. He cares about personal injustice to people he cares about. He cares Sirius not getting a trial, but would he care as much if Snape was thrown into Azkaban without a trial? Because I don't think he would. He cares about werewolf rights because Remus is a werewolf, if he didn't know him, he probably wouldn't care as much.

“Harry Potter freed Dobby!” said the elf shrilly, gazing up at Harry, moonlight from the nearest window reflected in his orb-like eyes. “Harry Potter set Dobby free!” “Least I could do, Dobby,” said Harry, grinning. “Just promise never to try and save my life again.”

(CoS, Ch18)

He freed Dobby out of personal gratitude, not a general anti-slavery idea. Like I said, it was personal, not ideological.

When Ron and Hermione are arguing about house elf slavery, Harry just keeps himself out of it because he doesn't want to take a side and disappoint either of his friends:

“You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!” said Hermione indignantly. “It’s slavery, that’s what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he’s got her bewitched so she can’t even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn’t anyone do something about it?” “Well, the elves are happy, aren’t they?” Ron said. “You heard old Winky back at the match . . . ‘House-elves is not supposed to have fun’ . . . that’s what she likes, being bossed around. . . .”

(GoF, Ch8)

But Harry clearly doesn't really care about the house elf issue either way.

I will say, at first, he is more open to Hermione's SPEW ideas than Ron (and most wizards) is:

“Our short-term aims,” said Hermione, speaking even more loudly than Ron, and acting as though she hadn’t heard a word, “are to secure house-elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law about non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they’re shockingly underrepresented.” “And how do we do all this?” Harry asked

(GoF, Ch14)

But he doesn't actually want to do anything Hermione plans (I think it has more to do with Hermione's initial plans for SPEW being crap, honestly):

There was a pause in which Hermione beamed at the pair of them, and Harry sat, torn between exasperation at Hermione and amusement at the look on Ron’s face.

(GoF, Ch14)

And he and Ron mostly rolled with her to try and appease her:

Harry shook his head and applied himself to his scrambled eggs. His and Ron’s lack of enthusiasm had done nothing whatsoever to curb Hermione’s determination to pursue justice for house-elves. True, both of them had paid two Sickles for a S.P.E.W. badge, but they had only done it to keep her quiet.

(GoF, Ch15)

But by book 7, Ron is the one who understood SPEW, better than Harry:

“Hang on a moment!” said Ron sharply. “We’ve forgotten someone!” “Who?” asked Hermione. “The house-elves, they’ll all be down in the kitchen, won’t they?” “You mean we ought to get them fighting?” asked Harry. “No,” said Ron seriously, “I mean we should tell them to get out. We don’t want anymore Dobbies, do we? We can’t order them to die for us—“

(DH, Ch31)

Ron understands they can't order slaves to die for them, that it's messed up to do so, Harry is the one who offers getting the house elves to fight.

I don't think he really got the slavery thing and how it works, tbh. And he never really bothered to understand. Hermione explains it to him, and he pretty willfully ignores it (I think some of it has to do with how Hermione explains it, but that's a different matter).

Hary doesn't really care for house elves as a whole. He treats them as individuals. He would treat them differently based on his feelings regarding each specific elf. And you see it with his initial response to Kreacher:

“I forbid you to call anyone ’blood traitor’ or ’Mudblood,”’ growled Harry. He would have found Kreacher, with his snoutlike nose and bloodshot eyes, a distinctively unlovable object even if the elf had not betrayed Sirius to Voldemort. “I’ve got a question for you,” said Harry, his heart beating rather fast as he looked down at the elf, “and I order you to answer it truthfully. Understand?” “Yes, Master,” said Kreacher, bowing low again. Harry saw his lips moving soundlessly, undoubtedly framing the insults he was now forbidden to utter.

(DH, Ch10)

He doesn't have the pity Hermione (and Dumbledore in HBP) have towards house elves just due to their life situation. He doesn't see it as mitigating Kreacher's behaviour. He treats all of them like they have free will and can forge their own path, slaves or not, so any wrong an elf does, is that elf's fault.

I think this has to do with Harry's experiences growing up. He grew up with little to no freedoms, given chores, beaten, and generally mistreated — he's probably more familiar than any wizard could be with how house elves live. And that's why he treats them as individuals the way he does. Becouse to him, his childhood isn't an excuse for his behaviour, so their slavory shouldn't excuse theirs. (I don't think his childhood and house elf slavory is the same situation, it's quite different, I just think this is an element in the way Harry sees house elves and their slavery). Harry treats house elves like equals, like they are as capable as him to make choices and find ways to disobey their masters (the way Dobby and Kreacher show they are able to!)

Harry is one of the only characters who treats elves as being of their own, who are responsible for their own actions. Hermione looks down on them as beings who "don't know what's good for them, like I do," she sees them just as lesser than her as most wizards do. (I think Dumbledore also sees elves as individuals capable of free-will and reason).

So because Harry sees them as capable of agency, if an elf says they're happy being slaves (regardless of why they think that and the brainwashing that was involved in that), Harry would take them at their word, and let them remain as they are. He doesn't presume he knows what they feel better than they do. Harry freed Dobby because Dobby wanted to be free — it was Dobby's choice.

It's why Harry doesn't free Kreacher, becouse he knows Kreacher would be insulted by it. He won't want it. It's why Harry is exasperated with Hermione when she's bothering elves who don't want her help. It's why he offers to ask the elves to fight, he doesn't see it as ordering them, he sees it as legitimate because it would be their choice to fight and stay at Hogwarts. Not saying house elves choosing to remain slaves isn't super messed up and something Harry should be chill with, but I'm explaining how a kind person who sees house elves as beings with agency could behave the way Harry does.

In DH, he clearly enjoys the pleasures and luxuries of having a house elf:

Kreacher came bustling to the table with a large tureen in his hands, and ladled out soup into pristine bowls, whistling between his teeth as he did so. “Thanks, Kreacher,” said Harry, flipping over the Prophet so as not to have to look at Snape’s face. “Well, at least we know exactly where Snape is now.” He began to spoon soup into his mouth. The quality of Kreacher’s cooking had improved dramatically ever since he had been given Regulus’s locket: Today’s French onion was as good as Harry had ever tasted

(DH, Ch12)

And, well, by the end of the series:

“That wand’s more trouble than it’s worth,” said Harry. “And quite honestly,” he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the fourposter bead lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.”

(DH, Ch36)

He clearly feels fine with asking Kreacher (a house elf bound to serve and obey him) to make him a sandwich. Is Harry gonna be a decent master for Kreacher? Probably, yeah, I can't see him being cruel. But, Kreacher still isn't free by the end of the book and it doesn't look like Harry is planning to free him (or any other elf) either.

So, with all of my love to Harry, I have to say the guy is chill with house elf slavory and isn't very enthusiastic about working to free them. He might help Hermione with future SPEW endeavors if she nags him enough, but he doesn't really care about this cause himself. I do think he cares about the abuse or mistreatment of elves though and would probably work to free these elves. But, again, he's not addressing the larger problem, which is the slavery.

So, yeah, I think Harry would feel comfortable having a house elf and commanding them as long as the elf is happy being there and doesn't say they want to be free. He seems to have no problem doing so with Kreacher, and the end note of the series implies he feels no guilt about it.

As for doing chores himself, while he could, and I don't think he'd mind doing so, I think if he has Kreacher around he'd be more than happy to let Kreacher cook and clean, as he does in DH.

[thenotebonthepiano]

rip regulus black you would definitely join the S.P.E.W.

[misty-memories09]

I've been thinking about S.P.E.W and it's failure alot.

Well, where she went wrong was with her approach. The idea was totally nice, no one deserves to be a slave and house elves were treated miserably. The problem came with her attitude about it, she's pretty close minded it's something I briefly talked about in this post. In it I mentioned about S.P.E.W in the second paragraph, this is the specific line I'm talking about :

She's quick at thinking that others are wrong and generally does not like to think from other perspectives.

This was her biggest mistake that lead to S.P.E.W being totally useless and unfruitful. The truth is, house elves are treated so horribly that they themselves do not recognise/realise that what is happening to the is wrong. Hermione created S.P.E.W. to promote the liberation and rights of house-elves, who are treated as enslaved workers in the wizarding world. She believed that house-elves should receive wages, pensions, and other benefits similar to those of regular workers.

What she did not do was communicate, the flow of ideas only happen when you communicate, if the house elves themselves do not realise that what's happening to them is absolutely disgusting then how do you expect them to support your cause? And how do you expect for your cause to be fruitful if the people who you're trying to work for do not promote this?

An argument used against her by other characters is generally that house elves want to be treated like this. How does she solve this? Arguing back even louder. Not trying to improve the root of the cause or just ignore the people saying this because they are objectively wrong to say this, not in a way that house elves do not like being enslaved but the fact that it is absolutely disgusting to say this.

She tries to free them against will, by knitting hats for them and tricking them into being freed instead of...you know? Trying to talk to them and also listen to their views because this idea is actually pinned down in their brains that it's in their nature to submit to their masters. If you do NOT communicate with the community your trying improve the living standards of, if said community is not educated due to a viscious cycle, you can not expect them to be on your side.

She had also been completely impatient and forced Ron, Harry and Neville — people who do not quite agree with her — to join her. Which, is just stupid. If you're making an organisation you should be recruiting people who are willing for it to be more effective. On top of that Hermione is not a good leader, she's too bossy, she does not believe that there is a ‘right’ opinion except her own, forcibly tries to recruit people, does not know how to actually work effectively about her cause.

let's be real here, change doesn't happen overnight as she expected it too, she disbanded it but that's a mistake, the fact she gave up on it is a mistake, the fact she did not try to go further with a different approach is a mistake. These kinds of things take time and her impatience and unwillingness to listen to others became the downfall of S.P.E.W all this without a greater effort to gain a deeper understanding of the issue.

Aside from this, I decided to look online to see others view on this and...

Despite this, I believe that the way Hermione Granger made and promoted SPEW goes against her character and the way she would really behave. If Hermione did her research well, she would have easily realized that the majority of house-elves are happy and that SPEW would have offended them. The way she put out the hats in the Gryffindor common room was stupid of her, and Hermione – being the cleverest of the trio – should have realized that the house-elves wouldn’t take the hats. If I was Hermione, when she was promoting this organization for protecting house-elves, I would have focused more on stopping house-elf abuse, not attempting to free them.

This is...a take, to say the least. My intentions are not to start any fights or anything but this is crediting Hermione way too much. I s'pose this is a stan, because all I ever see is stans just overlooking the character's flaw and honestly, S.P.E.W. could be seen as a way to show her flaws. Also, saying that she shouldn't have attempted to free the house elves...feels really really gross.

Yes, the person said that they would've focused more on stopping the house-elf abuse but...this is basically saying that house elves should stay enslaved, not directly but the meaning is right there. And no, the house elves living conditions would not improve if they're still enslaved because they do not have a say in anything, their masters can still abuse their powers over them AND you can never guarantee that they are actually getting treated wrong, so the last statement is objectively wrong.

I personally believe that if Hermione had been more sensetive, communicated with the community she is trying to work for and recruited people who believe in her cause, she would've reached atleast one point. It's obvious freeing the house elves would be a long drawn process, had she been more patient with everything i just stated, I believe S.P.E.W could have not been such a great failure.

Tl;dr : It was not the idea but her approach that was flawed, and it is related with her flaws as a person itself. The idea was great but the execution? Not so much.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Sometimes I think about how when I was a little kid, I got an advertisement in the mail from HSUS asking people to write their state congresspeople about banning horse slaughter in the United States. Had a beautiful picture of a horse running wild and free on the envelope and provided a template to follow.

Little me wrote my representative, and I even got a response assuring me that they would support the bill. It ended up passing, and yay we saved the horsies!

Then I grew up and got a job in vet medicine, and was told by an experienced equine vet how because of that bill, horses whose owners either can’t or won’t have them euthanized will be sold to slaughter operations in Canada or Mexico, necessitating them to be transported sometimes hundreds of miles by trailer instead of being granted a swift, merciful death—which they often desperately need. One they would have if humane slaughter of horses was still legal in the United States.

So when I think about the HSUS backing the SWIMS Act, I get scared. Because somewhere out there, there’s going to be a sweet little kid who just loves animals writing their representative, asking them to save the whales. Without realizing they’re only making things worse.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

To me, Stan Rogers' The Idiot sounds like it was written by the bossman trying to convince his workers that they actually like being exploited on the oil fields.

Sure, you'll miss your hometown, your friends, your family, and the majesty of nature... Sure, the air out west is filthy, all the vegetation is dead and brown, and it's back-breaking labor that'll probably give you cancer... But you know what, it's better than being a welfare bum! Real men oughta work! Unemployment will rot your soul. It's no paradise, but there's self-respect and a steady check at this refinery. Nothing feels better than a job well done with your own two hands, am I right fellas? Back there, you'd be a slave to the state, but out here, you're FREE! Just make sure the foreman doesn't catch you reminiscing about your choices on the edge of company property. Now GET BACK TO WORK!

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Is there a single developed country that hasn't seen a deterioration in the quality of their healthcare system in the last 10-20 years?

I've seen people discussing the declining healthcare systems in the UK, Canada, France, Germany, the US, and so many other countries it feels like it's a problem all across the "West". I don't think I've ever seen anyone say "yeah our healthcare system is in a good place right now actually"

[georgefairbrother]

A confronting story of pensioner poverty, isolation and loneliness in the UK, first broadcast in 1970, from the Thames Television Archive.

Some statistics on the situation around this time:

In 1966, 59% of elderly people living alone 'had particular difficulty in paying for either food, clothing, rates or fuel'.

At least 30% of elderly people were showing 'clinical evidence of undernutrition'.

During the winter prior to this broadcast, 60 000 elderly people died as a result of 'diseases associated with cold'.

39% of pensioners eligible for Supplementary Benefit did not claim it, through pride or a lack of awareness of the available support.

[nando161mando]

We live in a society marked by injustice..

[mrkmciver]

#Predatory Capitalism

[looking-at-the-deiwos]

Aryomḗn

Or as I write it Aryomén. Also found as Háryomēn (with a hard h like the ch in loch) or H₂eryo-men. His name means something like "the God of how we do things"

Aryomén is the god of peace, law, contracts, trade, roads, marriage, healing and social order. He is the god of the Dhḗtis, the norms that society has put in place in order for harmony to exist between humans. This stands in contrast to Dyéus, who presides over the Ártus, the cosmic natural law of the universe.

Aryomén enforces justice, contracts and oaths. He presides over the orderly and successful continuation of society. He is a special patron of lawyers, but also of all those others who contribute to the infrastructure of society: road workers, sewage cleaners, bus drivers, etc.

Áryomen also is a patron of roads, marriage and healing, as institutions helpful in restoring and fostering welfare in society.

Offerings

taken from here

Hoberman sphere

other structures of individual parts with connections, especially flexible ones

stone circle

grove or personal seal

braid of white, red, and black cords (three functions: white - priestly, red - warrior, black - producers)

symbols of law, like the scales held by the goddess Justice.

White, red, and black beads

Devotional acts

Speak your mind and be honest in all your dealings

Help to solve conflicts, either of yourself or others

Learn about the laws of your country

Vote if you can

Stay up to date on local politics

Support local activism groups

Volunteer in or support welfare programs

Associations

White, red and black

Gold (UPG)

Justice

Marriage

Healing

Roads

Infrastructure

September

Thursday

Descendants in later pantheons

Aryaman (Vedic)

Airyaman (Iranic)

Érimón (Celtic)

Ariomanus (Celtic)

[isawthismeme]

[fluoritegalaxy]

Everything wrong with America today is Ronald Reagan's fault, and here's why. (Yes, this video has a couple cringey moments when they try to crack a joke, but the rest is highly informative.)

Trickledown economics was his idea. He applied the same thought process was applied to healthcare-- "competition will breed efficiency!" Not realizing that corners will be cut to keep costs down.

Cutting funding to social welfare programs and funding the police instead? His idea. He's also the creator of the horribly racist, "Welfare Queen," and the mentality that social welfare programs, like food stamps, would only encourage people to feed off of the system.

The AIDS epidemic was his fault-- he failed to adequately handle it, and didn't speak about it for four years. Imagine if Covid or even H1N1 had gone on that long before anyone did anything about it! He ignored it because he genuinely believed it was an act of God to wipe out gay people.

The student loan crisis? Reagan believed that higher education should be a luxury for the rich. He believed colleges shouldn't offer free education, saying they should instead offer student loans, and passed state tax cuts designed to subsidize higher education.

He tried to get rid of the Pell Grant-- designed to help students based on their financial standing.

Academic advisor to Reagan, Roger Freeman, is quoted as saying, "we are in danger of producing an educated proletariat... We have to be selective on who we allow to go through higher education."

We have Reagan to thank for the return of union busting after he fired over 11,000 air traffic control workers while on strike.

We need to start acknowledging all of the mistakes Reagan made if we *ever* want this country to change properly.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

I'm so sick of the cetacean community right now. A Bigg's orca (I believe T109A3 Spong) stranded & passed away yesterday, leaving her two year old calf behind. I got into an argument with the Orca Behavior Institute over whether the calf should be rescued & rehabbed by humans, but they said that it could risk permanently spending the rest of its life "in captivity." Frustrated, I called them out on preferring to let a baby whale starve to death than live in human care & I literally got harassed by their followers. One even called me a troll. The point is that I'm fed up with them & I was wondering if there are other organizations out there that I can support who work to protect & study wild orcas without having such a radical bias against captivity?

I hear you. I have not commented on this situation yet because it truly appalls me. To be clear, I don't think there's a need yet for human intervention beyond getting the calf into open water so it can reunite with its mother's pod. At two years old, this isn't a Toa situation, and the little one should theoretically be able to survive if extended family members adopt it. If worst comes to worst, a temporary sea pen (as was done with A73 Springer) would be a better solution than permanent captivity, since this calf is healthy and is from a known pod (unlike Morgan, who was neither).

Keeping wild animals wild is everyone's priority, and marine parks aren't just sitting around greedily rubbing their hands together waiting to swoop in and make a quick buck. In fact, taking the calf into human care would be the opposite of a quick buck, but that's not the conversation here. If the calf fails to reunite with its pod in time or its condition deteriorates, more extreme human intervention may be necessary for its survival. Again, I don't think that will happen, but if it did... certain groups will advocate for the calf to be left to starve. Because any whale is "better dead than fed" (yes, people unironically say this). And they're proud of that belief.

My favorite Salish Sea organization is SR3 (Sealife Response + Rehab + Research), and I highly recommend checking them out. Another good one is the SeaDoc Society, which is actually affiliated with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

[misty-memories09]

Hello, everyone, I once again offer an analysis on S.P.E.W. Previously I had commented on it's failure but this time it's more on the slavery itself and why it's weird, gross and every aligning adjective when I see ‘it was fine because they wanted to be enslaved’

If you see this post before you see the failure of S.P.E.W one, you can check it out here if you wish. In that post I do only speak of where I believe Hermione had gone wrong in her approach.

With all of that out there, let's start —

There are two possibilities when we look at house-elf enslavement. 1) they are magically engineered creatures, 2) mass brainwash.

Now see, I do not think the first option is too likely. Although it is the wizarding world, speaking realistically magically engineered creatures are a cheap cop-out.

If we look at the possibility no.2 imagine the things they'd have done to reach the point of mass brainwashing of house elves. It's something really gross whenever I see the book characters or fandom say that the house elves are happy to be enslaved.

Which at first you could say is absolutely correct but then you're completely ignoring how issues aren't black and white and never will be. It's incorrect to say such a thing as enslavement will never be in anyone's nature everyone strives to be free. Freedom is by default something precious to every creature out there.

But there's also this one thing, this one VERY important thing which I don't know if I should state or not but these agruements have been continuously used by slave owners, and it is actually very important to the analysis I have made.

It's natural that some people are slaves. This argument says that some people are slaves as part of the natural order of the universe, or as part of God's plan, and it is wrong to interfere with this by abolishing slavery - nobody nowadays regards slavery as a natural thing.

Source

I recommend going through this whole article as it contains multiple agruements used by slave owners which are used in the books alike. I also recommend going out to look for articles for credible sources to get a better grasp on this topic if you want.

This is the essence of the arguement for slavery used by our fictional pureblood wizards and actual slave owners historically. Which is why the house-elf deal sits so wrong.

It's because of what it represents. It represents pure oppression to the point where the oppressed class itself feels that it was meant to be opressed — as if it was born for the need of slaves. This idea has been drilled down the minds of house elves for ages. The oppressed class in our case is the house elves.

Now pardon me for involving Indian history here which might not seem related but I will make the connection quickly —

In India, you may or may not know that the major religion is hinduism. The system I am talking about was officially abolished in 1950 but even still, many people still practice this especially in rural areas.

Namely, it is the caste system — at the top are the Brahmanas, these are the priests of our temples and are regarded as ‘holy’. Then comes the kshatriyas (this is a hard to pronounce word if you can not speak Hindi, I suggest not trying lol because the k sound is there but it is also simultaneously silent), these are the ruling powers, the authority. Then comes the shudras, these are at the second lowest, still not marginalised even though they have faced atrocities, these are the farmers and artisans.

The caste we will be looking at is ati-shudras, the lowest of the low, the marginalised and the 'untouchables'. These are the workers that cleaned streets and did the so-called dirty work, they also are ones that would burn the corpses.

Now, I do not intend to credit jkr as a genius, honestly, I'm not so sure where she was going with this because it was just hanging there and the topic wasn't talked about enough, it was gone in book five. No more. Genuinely, I think she just wasted a very complicated and very interesting sub-plot set up but all we see is kreacher and then dobby die.

In our case of the fictional world of Harry Potter we can look at the house elves as the ati-shudras. When we look at this caste system, we must also consider that it has been deeply ingraved in the minds of many Hindus. There are many recent news of 'honour killing' for the simple reason that there daughters liked a man that was not from a desirable caste or well, an acceptable caste.

I do not mean to ramble, but the connection I wish to make here is that it is very possible to have a massive brain wash, and for someone so-called 'dirty' to feel dirty as well as if they were born dirty and are meant to be treated as low level garbage.

It's all because it is a heavily agreed idea upon. There are so many instances of characters agreeing upon this idea that house elves are dirty, below them, meant to be enslaved — Ron, Percy, literally every single pureblood, half-blood and even muggle borns that it is hard for even the house elves themselves to believe that they are not dirty, untouchable and that there validation as a creature is only there as long as their masters are pleased with their work.

This is why winky has such a hard time coming to terms with the fact she had been sacked. It wasn't just a job it was her life. I believe getting 'sacked' used to be much much more violent in the start of house-elf slavery. There's also a gross aspect which is totally possible during the times of early house elf enslavement — killing the ones that do not follow through their terms. Take this and there could also be the aspect of the idea starting out as a 'movement' as in, the wizards at the time had this idea mass agreed upon and treated every single house elf as below them.

The point is, the wizards are the upper, better, cleaner ones than the house elves. They are the Brahmanas, Kyshatriyas and the Shudras (this actually kind of checks out because Shudras were also treated poorly just better than the ati-shudras) while the House elves are the untouchables. The ones above them in this unjust caste system feel superior to them while they feel inferior which was purposefully crafted by the so-called superiors.

Now think about this, the concept of caste system has been officially abolished in 1950, it has completed seventy-five years since then but it is still deeply rooted into society, still has an effect on how many people live there lives. House elf slavery hadn't even been abolished. This problem still would've been there because this is, unfortunately, how people work. This is how people have been working when it really shouldn't be.

Yeesh, that was much that I just unpacked! I still have more thoughts on this topic which I would possibly post in the coming future.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

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