CoS 2

[pauraque_bk]

*goggles at suddenly enhanced friends-of list* Hello! I assume most of you showed up for the CoS re-read. Good to have you aboard. Feel free to introduce yourselves, or just jump in whenever the mood strikes you.

For anyone who missed it, black_dog left a couple of great, long comments on Chapter 1 about the nature of second books in a series, and themes we should be watching out for in CoS. I'm sure I'll be looking back on them as we go on. Here and here.


CoS 2: Dobby's Warning

'Harry Potter!' said the creature, in a high-pitched voice Harry was sure would carry down the stairs. 'So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir ... Such an honour it is...' (15)

If he's truly "bound to serve one house and one family for ever" (16), where does he get the idea that Harry's a hero and Voldemort a villain? What's to stop him taking what he presumably hears from the Malfoys at face value?

It seems likely that there really is something "wrong" with Dobby, if one takes the other house-elves' brainwashed behavior as normal for their kind. He thinks for himself, which perhaps explains why the Malfoys would gratuitously abuse him as described in this chapter, frustrated with their defective servant.

For a darker take on it, you might theorize that the house-elves are naturally intelligent and free-thinking, but were magically "domesticated" for slave labor at some point in the past, and that Dobby is a throwback to their true normal state. (I don't have OotP with me, or I'd look up exactly what Dumbledore says about the statue at the Ministry.)

So, why does Dobby care so much about Harry? Voldemort's fall probably didn't have any appreciable impact on Dobby's everyday life, but he's decided the Malfoys are bad wizards and anything they want must therefore be bad. He hears Harry destroyed someone the Malfoys venerated, and fixates on him as a personal hero.

(Actually, I'm not sure how much the Malfoys truly *did* venerate him, but that just complicates matters even more.)

'And I thought I was hard-done-by staying here for another four weeks,' he said. 'This makes the Dursleys sound almost human. Can't anyone help you? Can't I?' (17)

At 12, Harry is more overtly compassionate than in the later books. One hopes we'll see this quality come to the fore again.

'Hang on -- this hasn't got anything to do with Vol -- sorry -- with You Know Who, has it? You could just shake or nod,' he added hastily, as Dobby's head tilted worryingly close to the wall again.

Slowly, Dobby shook his head.

'Not -- not He Who Must Not Be Named, sir.'

But Dobby's eyes were wide and he seemed to be trying to give Harry a hint. Harry, however, was completely at sea.

'He hasn't got a brother, has he?' (18)

Heh.

If Dobby is trying to give a hint here, it would seem he has a very good idea of what Lucius's plan is. The threat isn't Voldemort, but Tom Riddle -- before he gave up his name.

'Albus Dumbledore is the greatest Headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore's powers rival those of He Who Must Not Be Named at the height of his strength. But sir,' Dobby's voice dropped to an urgent whisper, 'there are powers Dumbledore doesn't ... powers no decent wizard...' (18)

Again, Dobby may have gotten this notion from hearing the Malfoys talk, and simply assuming that whatever they say, the opposite must be the case. Who in the Malfoy household could possibly have told him Dumbledore was a great Headmaster?

[Harry] jumped the last six stairs, landing catlike on the hall carpet, looking around for Dobby. (20)

Heh. Ninja!Harry.

Dear Mr Potter,
We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine[...] (21)

That was quick. It's possible that Harry is under close surveillance due to his exalted position, or Dobby may have alerted the authorities himself. I like the latter possibility, as it goes nicely with the systematic and rather brutal way Dobby plots to keep Harry out of school. Though he has a moral sense independent of the Malfoys, Dobby is Slytherin in his methodology.


Previous chapters will be saved here. (Oy, I need to re-do my memories.)

Comments

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Well, idlerat makes a clarifying point about Winky's division of loyalties. But when I think of Winky, there are two images I can't get out of my head:

"Winky the house-elf was fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; it was as though someone invisible were tying to hold her back. 'There is bad wizards about!' she squeaked . . . "(GoF US Paperback p. 124)

And then a little later, pp 134-139. when she is being interrogated by Crouch and Diggory and a dozen armed Ministry people, she sticks to her story, refusing to implicate Crouch Jr, even though she's trembling and "tears are pouring down her cheeks," and even after Crouch dismisses her with clothes.

I really do think there's evidence here of a very strong will battling a very strong compulsion, and I think it's even more complicated than a two-way conflict of loyalties. She's defying Crouch Sr. for the sake of Crouch Jr., but she also wants to be able to denounce "bad wizards" on her own account, even though she must have seen Jr. cast Morsmordre, and even though Jr. himself may have been holding her back from approaching Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the first scene above. Under what must have been an unbelievably intimidating interrogation, she tries to play her own game on her own terms: she tries to stick to the literal truth -- that she didn't cast the spell, that she doesn't know how, that she picked the wand up off the ground -- but finally tells a direct lie when asked if she saw anyone. So not only is there a conflict of obsessions here, there is I think a three- or four-cornered internal moral struggle where Winky is trying, perhaps not successfully, to assert her own voice and shape events according to her own judgment and choices, in a situation that clearly bewilders and pretty much overwhelms her. That takes some toughness and independence of mind, even if it's she's not entirely successful.

As for Kreacher, although the morality of the situation is perhaps reversed, the principle I think is the same as with Dobby. Under the terms of whatever enchantment is operating on House Elves, he's bound to the Master of Grimmauld Place, who happens to be Sirius, even though his loyalties and inclinations lie elsewhere. Sirius won't dismiss him, because then he'd be free to run off to the DE's with all the Order's secrets -- which suggests that as long as he remains bound to Grimmauld and to Sirius, he is not free to do that, or at least that it causes him the same kind of fearful internal conflict as Dobby's defiance of the Malfoys. Nevertheless, Kreacher asserts his own will as much as he can, and engages in limited conspiracy with Narcissa and Bellatrix, and runs to them as soon as he is free.

Interesting speculation on the curse's relation to Imperius. I confess I don't remember whether it's canon or fanon that Imperius works by eroding your will, by making you feel like you don't care, that resistance isn't worth the trouble, rather than by the electric-shock-dog-collar principle that seems to be the case with the House Elves' enchantment. But the parallels are very suggestive. I wonder if individual House Elves have differing abilities to throw off the curse, or even defy it completely?

As for the war-alliance question -- I wonder what kind of leadership or large-group cohesion the House Elves have? It's just like the imperial overclass of wizards to assume they're atomized, have no loyalty or connections beyond their immediate place of service. But do you suppose that, under the wizarding radar, they have clans and chiefs and leading families and articulated relations? I wonder if anyone has speculated about this in fanfic.

[pauraque]

I confess I don't remember whether it's canon or fanon that Imperius works by eroding your will, by making you feel like you don't care, that resistance isn't worth the trouble, rather than by the electric-shock-dog-collar principle that seems to be the case with the House Elves' enchantment.

It's canon. Before he learns to throw off the curse, Harry describes exactly what you say, feeling as though nothing matters, he doesn't care what happens. He takes "verbal" (though mental) commands from Crouch, but actually acts under his own steam; he isn't forced bodily.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Just one little comment -- Winky *doesn't* see Crouch Jr in the woods. He's under an invisibility cloak.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, nice point! So technically, she avoids a lie even on that question. I hadn't even thought of that!

Good for her, then -- her intention during the interrogation is to stick to the literal truth but not betray either of her masters, no matter what the cost. She's tough, Winky is. :)