Why don't the Weasleys have a House Elf?

Let's talk about House Elves for a moment. I'm currently re-reading The Goblet of Fire which, of course, has a distinct HE subplot, and it's gotten me thinking.

The main question that keeps popping into my mind is this one: Why don't the Weasleys have a House Elf?

There is a second question, which is also floating around in my mind, but perhaps I'll deal with that another time. The second question? If House Elves are generally solitary creatures (one per household -- both the Malfoys and the Crouches appear to have only one House Elf each, despite their great wealth), how do House Elves have children?

I mean, from what we've learned, House Elves can do nothing without first getting permission from their Masters. Further, House Elves appear to come in two biological sexes (male and female, Dobby and Winky) which would lead one to imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that it takes one House Elf of each sex to create a child.

So, if House Elves are generally allocated one per great house, and you need to have two House Elves (one of each sex) to make a baby House Elf, does a House Elf approach her Master and say, "Master, may I go visit the nearby great house to visit my partner House Elf for the purposes of making a baby House Elf so you have someone to replace me when I die?"

And, if that's the way it works, to which great house is the resulting baby Elf attached?

But more on that another time (perhaps).

My first question is, why don't the Weasleys, with all those children, have a House Elf?

Part of the answer appears to be provided in my consideration of the second question above: on several occasions in the early books, J.K. Rowling suggests that House Elves are attached to great houses, like those owned by the Malfoys and the Crouches, and the families that inhabit them.

We could argue that a House Elf can only live in a manor or other great building (such as Hogwarts). That would certainly help to explain why the Weasleys don't have an Elf -- the Burrow is simply not grand enough to host such a creature.

When you read that, did your mind go where mine went? But but but but... the Black family does not own a glorious manor house and they have enjoyed the services of Kreacher and his family for generations. The Blacks live in a row house in London, not tiny nor inexpensive by any means, but not a manor house.

So perhaps you don't have to own a magnificent home (or building) to have a House Elf.

Could it be that House Elves only serve great wizarding families with long, glorious histories? No matter where they live at the moment?

That's possible, but it doesn't explain why the Weasleys (or the Gaunts for that matter) don't have an Elf. The Weasleys are well-established as a pure-blood wizarding family and the Gaunts, for certain, are pure-blood with a glorious past.

My best explanation is that House Elves formed relationships with wizarding families long ago in the distant past. They naturally gravitated to families with large homes and lots of money. Once the bond was formed, it continued throughout history, no matter what happened to the wizarding family and its fortunes.

It could be broken only by three events:

1. The wizards freed the Elf for whatever reason;
2. The last Elf in its family died, without children, leaving the wizarding family without an Elf; or
3. The wizarding family died out completely, leaving the Elf in search of a new place.

In the case of 1 or 3, the Elf would either try to find a new family or end up at a place (like Hogwarts) where it could find work and a new role in life.

In the case of 2, the family either had to live without an Elf or find a new Elf that is looking for a new place.

Think about Dobby and Winky, who find themselves, by the middle of TGOF, without a place. Dobby has been accidentally freed by the Malfoys while Winky was let go by Barty Crouch Sr. Dobby goes out looking for work at other houses but ends up at Hogwarts while Winky falls into alcoholism as a result of her shame of being a House Elf without a proper place.

If those two stories are typical of what happens when an Elf becomes free, it is surprising to me that the Weasleys were never able to pick up a House Elf at any point in their history.

It can't be their poverty that stopped them: remember, House Elves normally don't want to be paid. So what was the problem? What happened?

Jedusor explained and questions on House Elf magic

First, if you haven't read the excellent comment just posted on my blog entry, "Tom Jedusor, give me a break" (posted August 31, 2011), please go back and read it. It's chalk full of really helpful information on the French translation of Voldemort's original name. Thanks so much, Ananse, for sharing this with us.

Second, I've been thinking a little bit about House Elf magic. I'm starting to read The Chamber of Secrets again, the book which introduces not only Dobby, our favourite house Elf, but also House Elves in general. Harry has certainly never heard of them before Dobby appears in his bedroom and, as this novel progresses, we learn more and more about them. Our understanding of House Elves is even further developed in later novels, culminating in Dobby's death and Kreacher's emergence as an ally in Book Seven.

We learn in The Chamber of Secrets that House Elves have a set of magical capabilities that are very powerful and greatly different from those of wizards and witches. In later books, we learn that House Elves, for example, can apparate in and out of Hogwarts, something no wand carrier can do. Further, we see that Kreacher is capable of escaping the Inferi in the lake in Voldemort's cave, an eventuality not even the Dark Lord himself had anticipated.

And Dobby holds his own in a battle against such powerful witches and wizards as Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy and Draco himself.

So my question at this point is this. As fascinating and different as the magic of House Elves seems to be, how is it that the Ministry of Magic mistakes Dobby's hover charm in the Dursley kitchen for an act of magic performed by Harry. As you will recall, Harry receives a letter of warning from the Ministry for performing an illegal charm outside of school.

We learn later, of course, that the Ministry's ability to sense illegal magical acts performed by underage students is quite limited, that a child can probably get away with performing magic outside of school if he is surrounded by adult witches and wizards at the time he casts his spell because the Ministry will naturally assume that one of the adults cast the spell.

So, when a hover charm is used in the Dursley kitchen, and the only wand carrier in the vicinity is an underage wizard, the Ministry assumes that the magic was performed by that underage wizard.

I get all that. But wouldn't House Elf magic be different enough for the Ministry to recognise that no wizard could have performed that particular charm? Or are there some spells and charms that are shared by both races such that they are indistinguishable to the Ministry?

Here's what I'm getting at: Dobby must have performed at least one other act of magic to get into Harry's bedroom in the first place (an apparition, perhaps) but the Ministry doesn't notice or address that. The hover charm, however, is noticed by the Ministry and attributed to Harry. How did they miss Dobby's apparition?

In order for this all to make sense, I guess, the following must be true:
1. House Elves enjoy completely different magical powers than do wand carriers, such that the Ministry does not track them;
2. Despite that, however, House Elves and wand carriers do share some spells and charms and, when such spells and charms are performed by a House Elf, the Ministry is unable to tell that an Elf, not a wand carrier, performed that bit of magic;
3. Either apparition is not a trackable magical act under normal circumstances (though the Ministry proves later that it can control the use of apparition as a means of travel) or, more likely, the form of apparition performed by House Elves is fundamentally different from a wand carrier's apparition.

What do you think? And, if all of this is true, how do you explain the fact that, in Book Seven, Kreacher leads the House Elves out of the Hogwarts kitchens to fight the Death Eaters with knives, rather than employing their own very powerful form of magic against the evil doers?

Sirius should look at himself before judging Crouch

Quick "Spotting Test". Read the following quotation from a Harry Potter novel and tell me who said it and in what context.

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

What do you think? What book? Who said it?

As you probably already know from reading this blog, I've been enjoying The Goblet of Fire again so it's no surprise that the quote is from that novel. But you might be surprised, based on what we learn of this character in later books, who actually says it.

It's Sirus Black. He's talking to Harry, Hermione and Ron in a cave outside Hogsmeade and the subject is Barty Crouch, Sr. Sirius is advising the hero trio to recognise that the manner in which Crouch treated his house elf, Winky, earlier in the novel is indicative of the evil within him.

Surprised? I was. Sirius' comments in this novel will come back to haunt him in The Order of the Phoenix when we see how poorly Black treats his family's own house elf, Kreacher.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if J.K. actually had a clear plan of what would happen in The Order of the Phoenix at the time she was writing this passage in The Goblet of Fire.

After all, Sirius is absolutely right when he tells the trio that Crouch's treatment of Winky is, in fact, a measure of him as a man. But would Rowling be putting these words into Sirius' mouth in the fourth book if she knew how she was going to portray his treatment of Kreacher in the fifth book?

Either Rowling had not planned her books to that level of detail or she really wanted to show us how lacking in self-awareness Sirius is.

What do you think?

Solving the House Elf mystery

A couple of days ago, I posted some thoughts on House Elves. In particular, I wondered why our hero trio didn't summon Kreacher or perhaps Dobby while they were on the run in The Deathly Hallows.

Special thanks to reader WilliamBurr who pointed me in the right direction for the answer and confirmed my own thought that, somewhere in the book, J.K. had given explanation for their failure to use the House Elves to help them more.

WB has helped me locate a useful passage in Chapter 15 ("The Thief") of the seventh book. Harry, Hermione and Ron have just escaped the Ministry with the locket but, in getting rid of Yaxley, they've been forced to abandon Grimmauld Place and flee to the wilderness. In the process, Ron has gotten splinched.

J.K. writes: Harry "and Hermione had already decided against trying to summon [Kreacher]; what if someone from the Ministry came too? They could not count on elfish Apparition being free from the same flaw that had taken Yaxley to Grimmauld Place on the hem of Hermione's sleeve."

A helpful passage, to be sure, and yet more proof that Rowling really thought things through and covered all her bases when she planned and wrote these books. But is it a complete answer to my question?

I think it answers the question with regard to Kreacher for certain. They didn't summon him because to do so would risk bringing trouble directly to them. But what about Dobby? He was safe in Hogwarts' kitchen. Surely he was safe.

Here's my answer to that question: they couldn't summon Dobby because Dobby is a free Elf. Harry doesn't own him so he can't summon him.

The connection between House Elf and Master is such that it makes summoning possible: the Master simply says the name of the Elf and the Elf then apparates directly to the Master, no matter where he or she is and even if the Elf doesn't know where the Master is.

We see this happen at the start of Book Six when Dumbledore decides to find out if ownership of Grimmauld Place has truly passed to Harry by telling Harry to summon Kreacher. Harry says Kreacher's name and Kreacher appears, apparently against his own will.

So, for Harry to call Dobby, he would have to have some way to communicate with him directly and to tell Dobby where Harry is. When Harry, trapped in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, sees Aberforth's blue eye in Sirius' mirror, Harry tells Aberforth that he's in the cellar at Malfoy Manor. Aberforth communicates this information to Dobby and Dobby then apparates to Harry.

I think, based on this reasoning, that we have a complete answer to my question. Harry and Hermione decide it's too risky to summon Kreacher and they can't summon Dobby because Harry doesn't own him. It's only when Harry can communicate (through Aberforth) to Dobby his own location that Dobby can come to help him.

Cool. I like resolving mysteries. And thanks WB!

Thinking about House Elves

I've been thinking about house elves lately, for some crazy reason. If my memory serves, we've met four of them directly in the Harry Potter novels: Dobby, Winky, Kreacher and Hokey (the House Elf owned by Hepzibah Smith, the woman who introduced Tom Riddle to Hufflepuff's Cup). We met several others in the kitchens of Hogwarts when Harry, Ron and Hermione went down to visit to see Dobby but they play little or no part in the stories.

And we've seen some of their powers:
1. they have magical powers that they can use without a wand;
2. those magical powers include the ability to apparate, even in places where witches and wizards cannot (such as Hogwarts, Voldermort's cave, and Malfoy Manor);
3. when they apparate, they can take a number of other people with them;
4. they are able to disarm witches and wizards at short distances;
5. they can hear their masters calling to them no matter where they are and immediately go to their masters;
6. they appear to be good at tracking people and are remarkably strong for their size.

Although it has never been directly discussed, I believe, however, that the magical powers of the House Elf are limited in many ways. They certainly have never been able to escape the servitude to wand carriers in which they have been placed. Although they seem to be able to combat wand carriers fairly effectively in brief encounters, it does not appear that they could openly revolt against them. They do not carry wands and do not appear to have made any attempt to expand their powers to include wand use or to rival the powers of the wand carriers.

Okay so far, right? So my question is this: if a House Elf's powers are limited but still very useful (note, Harry has Kreacher track down Mundungus, Regulus Black uses Kreacher to help steal the locket from Voldemort's cave, the hero trio certainly do owe their lives to Dobby, who saved them from Malfoy Manor), why does Harry not make more use of Dobby and Kreacher in Book Seven?

I will have to research the question because I think Harry makes some mention of the possibility of using the House Elves somewhere in the middle of The Deathly Hallows but I'm not sure. I would think, however, that they could at least have solved their hunger problems by having Dobby bring them food every day from Hogwarts.

I must be missing something.

Getting to know the Dark Lord

Ever since my online conversation with Anonymous, I've been thinking a lot about Voldemort, his life and his portrayal in both the books and movies in the Harry Potter series.

Just yesterday, I was reading the last part of Harry Potter et La Chambre des Secrets (the French translation of Rowling's second novel) and reviewed, once again, our first meeting with Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord's youthful self. What an interesting presentation that was!

Voldemort's shadow hangs over the early novels, even though his appearances in these books are brief. In The Philosopher's Stone, Harry learns of Voldemort at first from Hagrid and it is Hagrid's fearful, halting explanations of who the Dark Lord is and what he had done to Harry's parents that set the tone for Voldemort's influence on the rest of the series of books.

In the movie version of that first novel, Robbie Coltrane does a great job of capturing the fear and paranoia that continues to grip the magical world, even though ten years have passed since Voldemort disappeared. I am particularly fond of the way Coltrane spits out the word "Codswallop" in that scene. He's just so vehement about it: "Some people say he's dead. Codswallop, I say."

We catch our first glimpse of Voldemort at the end of that first book, a shrivelled face that emerges from the back of Quirrell's head in the final battle over the fabled Stone. But it is only when Harry plunges into the diary in The Chamber of Secrets that J.K. begins the wonderful process of serving up, in tantalising pieces, the story of Voldemort's younger years. The scene in the Chamber provides even more of these morsels.

The Tom Riddle of the second novel is a handsome, well-spoken, seemingly quiet young man. We learn he is an orphan, with a Muggle father and a magical mother, that he desperately hopes to escape the orphanage and that he is a remarkably brilliant student. We also learn that he is a Parselmouth and, oh yes, that he is the direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of the Hogwarts School.

This all seems very positive, especially if you can see the Slytherin relationship as merely a sign that Riddle is related to magical royalty rather than a sign that he is associated with a Muggle-hating bigot.

But then we meet the memory of Riddle in the Chamber. This Riddle is portrayed as self-centred, vindictive and judgmental. He brags about his ability to charm people in order to get his way. For the first time, we see his willingness to see others as pawns in his game, as tools to be used and cast aside. His ridicule of the 11-year-old Ginny Weasley for the childishness and banality of her diary entries, for her little girl hopes and fears, confirm him as a hateful, spiteful individual and his complete lack of concern or empathy over her impending death is a telling foreshadowing of his future behaviour.

We also get a glimpse of two weaknesses in Riddle that would continue to plague Voldemort in his adult life. The first is his fear of Dumbledore. Already as a 16 year old, Riddle struggles with the power Dumbledore seems to have over him, with his frustration over his inability to charm the brilliant wizard, to blind Dumbledore to his evil intentions. Even as he brags that Dumbledore was chased from Hogwarts by the mere memory of Voldemort, Riddle reveals his own inability to deal with Dumbledore's unique ability to stand up to him.

The second weakness we encounter is Voldemort's underestimation of the power of things that do not interest him or that he does not understand. It never occurred to Riddle that Lily Potter's decision to sacrifice herself out of love for her son would provide Harry with the protection he needed to survive Voldemort's attack. And when Harry points this fact out, Riddle both recognises and dismisses it, seeing it only as evidence that Harry alone could not have withstood him.

When Fawkes, the Phoenix, arrives to help Harry, bringing with him the Sorting Hat, Riddle mocks Harry and Dumbledore relentlessly. A song bird and a moth-eaten hat, he laughs. This is the help the great Dumbledore sends you? Even as a 16-year-old, Riddle understands only certain types of power, only certain kinds of magic. And he pays for it. The hat provides Harry with the Sword of Gryffindor, the weapon he needs to kill the Basilisk. Meanwhile, Fawkes proves invaluable, first blinding the great snake and then saving Harry from the Basilisk's venom with his healing tears.

We can't forget that one of Voldemort's greatest flaws is his inability to recognise power in forms he cannot or refuses to understand. He is all but destroyed by the power of Lily's love and sacrifice for Harry. He underestimates the power of house elves, never considering that an elf like Kreacher could infiltrate the cave and escape with the locket Horcrux. He dismisses the possibility that Snape's love for Lily Potter might be so strong that Snape would spend much of his adult life working to bring about the defeat of Lily's murderer.

That's a great deal of information to pack into what is, in fact, a relatively short scene in the second novel. It speaks volumes for J.K.'s abilities as a story teller but does it undermine Anonymous' criticism that Voldemort is flat and one-dimensional throughout the books?

I have to admit that I'm not sure it does. I may have to accept that Anonymous is right but credit Rowling with intentionally creating a single-minded, one-dimensionally evil character and leave it at that.

What are your thoughts?

The film sacrifices depth of meaning for cheap thrills

My first major issue with Part 2 is this: whereas J.K. was very careful to make sure that it was absolutely clear that most of the wizarding community was against Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the filmmakers took great pains to make us believe that it was only Harry, Hermione and Ron plus a small group of others who opposed the Dark Lord in the end.

In fact, in the novel, Harry's final duel with Voldemort occurs only after the Centaurs, House Elves and hundreds of witches and wizards from outside Hogwarts had arrived to turn the tide of the battle decisively against Voldemort's followers. The Death Eaters were losing badly when Molly Weasley killed Bellatrix Lestrange and Harry finally revealed that he was alive and ready to take on Voldemort personally.

And I think that this was a central theme throughout the novels and especially in the final two books: this was not just Harry's fight. The majority of witches and wizards opposed the Death Eaters but were forced by fear and intimidation to keep quiet. Once open warfare was declared, they came forward to join the fight.

It was important that Harry duel Voldemort on his own, true. That was his fight. But the rest of the magical world was right there with him and, in fact, had already won the battle before Voldemort finally died.

Filmmakers Stephen Kloves and David Yates clearly made a decision that the ending would be much more dramatic if the odds were stacked heavily against our heroes, right to the very end. So the film has no assault by the Centaurs, no rampage by hundreds of wand-carriers from Hogsmeade and beyond, no joyous entrance of House Elves, led by Kreacher, joining the fray.

It was just Harry, Hermione and Ron, plus a small group of students and staff from the school and an even smaller group of members of the Order of the Phoenix, taking on the massive army Voldemort had at his command.

Dramatic, sure. And the filmmakers did gesture toward a weakening of Voldemort's support by having a number of Death Eaters disapparate when Harry re-appeared, alive and well, outside the school.

But, in my opinion, the movie undermined one of the main and most important themes J.K. incorporated so carefully into her novels: that in the battle against evil, we are never alone.

They sacrificed a deep and meaningful message for cheap thrills. Not worth it, I say. Not worth it at all.

Ten days to go and ten things I like about The Deathly Hallows

Just ten more days to wait. And here is a list of ten small things I particularly like about J.K. Rowling's final novel:

1. I like the fact that Hedwig dies in an early scene, not because I have it in for the lovely owl but because her meaningless death sent a shiver through me when I first read the book as I understood fully that J.K. wasn't going to pull any punches in her final epic;
2. I like the fact that Harry, Hermione and Ron take off on their own for most of the book, giving us a chance to get to know them better, both individually and as a trio of courageous friends;
3. I like the fact that Neville keeps fighting at Hogwarts, at first with Ginny and Luna, and then after they are forced to leave;
4. I like the reception the trio gets when they enter the Room of Requirement near the end;
5. I like that Ron takes a bow when all of their classmates cheer them for escaping Gringott's on a dragon;
6. I like the fact that all of the other students refuse to let Harry keep them out of the fight;
7. I like J.K.'s description of the "Snape-shaped hole" in the window after Severus flees and the fact that she has McGonagall tell the school that Snape has "done a bunk";
8. I like how J.K. manages to make Voldemort's inability to recognise the value in others (like House Elves, for example) work against him in the end;
9. I like the redemption of Kreacher; and
10. I like the fact that J.K. slows the pace down and really makes us live Harry's experience of walking into the Forbidden Forest to die.