Yeah, it’s Harry Potter. Social change is the enemy in the book. At no point does anyone try to improve anything in the book. They don’t even oppose evil that much. They just oppose it when the existing evil tries to go too far by the current standards of evil.
Hermione tries to raise awareness about elf mistreatment.
It’s implied that Dumbledore was trying to influence Fudge to improve things in their regular correspondence before the GoF/OotP story arc.
Then she gets to meet the slave race they keep in the basement and said slaves explain that their enslavement is a fundamental part of magic society and the only reason Dobby in particular had to be freed was because his owners were a bit too mean to him. The message becomes “slavery is fine as long as slaves are treated well.”. Then they drop that particular can of worms because addressing it would require societal change. It is one of few endeavours where the heroes of the story just fail to do what they want.
Fuck it. Some more rambles because the house elves drive me insane.
The correct response to a slave race that wants to be subjugated is to refuse. You can see in the books that the existance of slave races has made the Wizards worse people and it makes them used to treating other races, that are free and sentient, as slaves. Tons of sentient races we meet in the story are either service staff or set dressing for wizards amusement.
What the fuck, you’re right. Owning slaves is detrimental to how even the owners see the world. If we tolerate slavery even if we’re on the benefitting side, it alters our worldview to include better and lesser peoples.
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