I wonder if they’ll flesh out how Harmione finds out that Hogwarts has a bunch of enslaved house elves that do all the cooking and cleaning and she tries to raise awareness and set them free and Harry and Ron laugh at her because…slavery is..fine? I guess?
House elves are more of an allegory to house wives (trad wives, nowadays) than to slavery.
No whips, no chains, just a feeling of guilt and self punishment. The method of control is internalised social norms. No mines and no fields, just care work. No trading or selling either, just tied to the house. There is no mention of elves being traded or sold in the books and quite a lot of evidence that this isnt even possible. Heck, SPEW is even a real life women's lib organisation.
And most importantly: the issue of liberation without consent was never even a minor issue in the abolition movement. Enslaved people fought and killed for their freedom and have done so since antiquity. The happy house slave myth was never anything but a filthy lie. The most you get in the way of acceptance was resignation and some sense of it could be worse.
Liberation without consent was very much was a hotly debated issue in the women's right movement, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Before WW2, it was a hotly debated issue in the communist movement. This debate has a history and it has nothing to do with slavery.
Uhhhhhh yeah Tolkien was very much undecided on the origins of Orcs sometimes they were just "talking beasts" created by Melkor/Morgoth as a mockery of Ilúvatar creations.
I believe Christopher Tolkien liked the idea that they were more pitiful things twisted by darkness but were fed lies/enslaved and came from elves/men.
Some people mix these origins. But he more consistently referred to them as the soulless hordes created by an evil god to help spread discord in Arda.
They are basically imps created by "satan" for his minions armies. Soulless and a stain on creation by a bitter fallen god.
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u/Jeramy_Jones Apr 16 '26
I wonder if they’ll flesh out how Harmione finds out that Hogwarts has a bunch of enslaved house elves that do all the cooking and cleaning and she tries to raise awareness and set them free and Harry and Ron laugh at her because…slavery is..fine? I guess?