The fatphobia is real, but I've never bought the bit about the books being against Hermione's anti-slavery stance (I assume that's what you mean by a woman who speaks up as well). My interpretation was that Hermione was always assumed to be in the right because slavery is almost universally condemned in modern society. But she's standing up against a system where even one of her two closest friends has been indoctrinated into it. Standing up to "others" is hard, but standing up to peer pressure is harder.

That said, the depiction of chattel slavery is of course inaccurate. Slave revolts were common, whereas the house elves want to be subservient to humans. I guess that could be marked up to house elves being a distinct species that may have been manipulated to be subservient, but that's never explained.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For the first part, sure you could be right. Still, once the books are over and they become adults, they don't do anything about it. I think Hermione goes on to become the minister of magic or something, but she doesn't try to change the system. This is presumably because Rowling thinks wanting to chang the system is childish and wrong, but that's just a guess.

As for the latter, no the house elves don't all want to be slaves. We know Doby at least didn't want to be. Just because Rowling wrote in a character after the complaints came it that is an elf who's entire purpose is about being owned doesn't undermine that at least some don't. It also doesn't even begin to discuss the indoctrination behind this and if that's acceptable.

The hero children also recognize the mistreatment of other intelligent magical creatures is wrong too, such as the centaurs or goblins. Again, they are made to not address this after the war, and also almost no one in the society seems to care. These themes are everywhere in the books, yet any time anyone tries to change the system they're mocked.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hermione got involved in house-elf welfare as an adult and was successful. I am not sure where that is covered, I think maybe Cursed Child? I don't know much about what happens after the series is over, so I can't speak to that in detail.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ah, OK. Yeah, I also don't know a whole lot about what happened, but I guess that's better than I expected. Still, not working to change the system like you would hope with how passionately she was against it. I don't really recall all that she does after, but just remember it wasn't radical.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Plenty of activists, even those with radical opinions, take that approach. They have a long term goal in mind, but to get to that goal they try to make incremental changes with the power they have.