(Hated Trope) "Kind" slave owners

[u/KusanagiGundam]

Speaking as an American who has studied the civil war all throughout my school years, this trope infuriates me to no end. There is no such thing as a kind slave master because slavery itself is cruel and inhumane. PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY!

Naofumi (Shield Hero): Prime example of this trope. He enslaves multiple (underage) girls and an whole village and the fans still say he's a hero.

Rudeus (Jobless Reincarnation): As if being a pedo wasn't bad enough he had to buy a slave in season 2. Worse is that people still defend his actions.

Song of The South (Disney): Possibly the OG example of this trope. And the reason why Disney will never release it again.

[u/crescentmoonrising]

House Elves are pretty clearly based on Brownies (including the clothes thing) but if you tried to mistreat Brownies they would wreak your house, then leave.

Everything in the Harry Potter books is either folklore, mythology or British stuff (particularly boarding school culture).

[u/A_Town_Called_Malus → u/crescentmoonrising]

And if she had just kept the folklore as it was, it would actually make the story with Dobby better.

Because then you have the Malfoys trapping and enslaving a magical creature via some curse, which is highlighting that the slavery itself, regardless of any other abuse, is still evil and unnatural.

So the change that Rowling explicitly made to the elves compared to their inspiration weakened her story right from the beginning.

[u/Temeraire64 → u/A_Town_Called_Malus]

And then you could have Lucius get away with it because the Ministry won’t take the testimony of a house elf seriously.

[u/A_Town_Called_Malus → u/Temeraire64]

Yep. It would be saying slavery is wrong, the Malfoys own slaves and so are immoral for that (on top of their other stuff), and there is a problem in the wizarding world where they can get away with it because money, power, magical creatures having less rights etc. Whereas with how it is actually written, the Malfoys aren't immoral for owning a slave, only for abusing it as if the very concept of owning a living, sapient, sentient being is not inherently abuse in the first place.

Then our heroes can point out that the mindset of "people with magic who are born to non-magical parents are lesser than those with one or two magical parents" is an obvious extension of the mindset that "non-human magical beings are lesser, literally sub-human" that already exists in the law of the wizarding world. Blood supremacists are just taking the existing framework and moving one group of people from the human to the sub-human group. The underlying belief isn't really any different to anyone who thinks that house elfs and goblins should not be allowed to use wands, the blood supremacists just have a smaller definition of who fits the legal criteria of "allowed wand".

[u/Temeraire64 → u/A_Town_Called_Malus]

Although I like to imagine in this universe the Malfoys would still suffer a little, because the house elves hear Dobby's story and refuse to work for them (maybe even harass them a little, like brownies in folklore did to those who disrespected them). Meaning they have to learn how to do their own housework.

Also if Draco took part in Dobby's abuse, he may not have a great time at Hogwarts considering all the many, many house elves there.

[u/Pecuthegreat → u/crescentmoonrising]

Which makes it weirder that she made them slaves instead of like, hired maids.

[u/crescentmoonrising → u/Pecuthegreat]

Yeah, part of the folklore is that you have to leave the brownies some sort of offering (often food or milk) as payment. You never want to upset/offend Fey creatures.

[u/Egathentale → u/Pecuthegreat]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't house elves essentially co-dependent on wizards? As in wizards giving them some of their nebulous "magic" for services rendered, and since it has been going on for generations, they are so dependent on the system that they don't even consider any alternatives, and it's why most of them are so hostile to shaking the status quo.

[u/lolajet → u/Egathentale]

Except there's nothing in the series that indicates that house elves get anything out of working for wizards outside of apparently liking being slaves

[u/Egathentale → u/crescentmoonrising]

Maybe this is just fanon, or I'm misremembering, but aren't House Elves explicity brownies that effectively developed an unhealthy co-dependence with wizards over the centuries?

[u/nowTHATSakatana1999 → u/Egathentale]

I’m not that deep in Potter lore, at worst they’ve got an alien mindset and it’s offensive to project human morals and ideals onto them.