Winky got fired from her job as a slave and became an alcoholic. That’s what slave owners said would happen to black people when abolition came. The books are evil.
I loathe the part in the fourth book where Hermione tries to advocate for freeing the elves working in Hogwarts kitchen and everyone else just doesn’t give a shit. Even Harry who didn’t grow up believing that the elves wanted to be slaves just couldn’t have cared less. Hermione just eventually gave up. The best thing about the movie is that, that part didn’t make it in.
The house elves are the single most fucked up parts of the books for a number of reasons. And Winky is a particularly unfortunate example.
But devil’s advocate, Winky didn’t become an alcoholic because she as no longer a slave, per se, and definitely not because she was lazy or whatever stereotype slavers would suggest of black people. She became an alcoholic because she was extremely depressed. A) She grew up indoctrinated into this service role and felt like she had failed her mother’s memory by being removed from serving the family like she had. B) She was separated from her surrogate child that she’d single-handedly cared for for over a decade (who turned out to be a murderer and a wizard nazi, but she didn’t know that) and couldn’t even tell anyone about it. Not saying the situation isn’t fucked and more than a little gross. But I don’t see the alcohol use a problematic aspect with any deeper racial meaning here. It isn’t a character failing to fall into depression in this situation, given the character’s background.
Also, for what it is worth, after the initial shock of finding out what Barty Couch Jr had done and that he’d been kissed by the dementors, she did eventually accept things and come out of her depression. And she was among the elve’s that fought in the Battle Of Hogwarts, making her a hero as well. It’s a mixed bag, man.
I’m not sure it’s the most fucked up. There’s also the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione were staying at Grimmauld Place over Christmas, and when they decorated the those, they put little Santa hats and beards on the severed slave heads by the door.
Winky got fired from her job as a slave and became an alcoholic. That’s what slave owners said would happen to black people when abolition came. The books are evil.
I loathe the part in the fourth book where Hermione tries to advocate for freeing the elves working in Hogwarts kitchen and everyone else just doesn’t give a shit. Even Harry who didn’t grow up believing that the elves wanted to be slaves just couldn’t have cared less. Hermione just eventually gave up. The best thing about the movie is that, that part didn’t make it in.
Those books are really mean to Hermione and the other women for no reason. We all thought Hermione was the self insert, but it’s Harry.
The house elves are the single most fucked up parts of the books for a number of reasons. And Winky is a particularly unfortunate example.
But devil’s advocate, Winky didn’t become an alcoholic because she as no longer a slave, per se, and definitely not because she was lazy or whatever stereotype slavers would suggest of black people. She became an alcoholic because she was extremely depressed. A) She grew up indoctrinated into this service role and felt like she had failed her mother’s memory by being removed from serving the family like she had. B) She was separated from her surrogate child that she’d single-handedly cared for for over a decade (who turned out to be a murderer and a wizard nazi, but she didn’t know that) and couldn’t even tell anyone about it. Not saying the situation isn’t fucked and more than a little gross. But I don’t see the alcohol use a problematic aspect with any deeper racial meaning here. It isn’t a character failing to fall into depression in this situation, given the character’s background.
Also, for what it is worth, after the initial shock of finding out what Barty Couch Jr had done and that he’d been kissed by the dementors, she did eventually accept things and come out of her depression. And she was among the elve’s that fought in the Battle Of Hogwarts, making her a hero as well. It’s a mixed bag, man.
I’m not sure it’s the most fucked up. There’s also the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione were staying at Grimmauld Place over Christmas, and when they decorated the those, they put little Santa hats and beards on the severed slave heads by the door.