Discover Top Posts Tagged with #happy slave

So I saw your post about marthe wells, j.k rowling, and the racist response and I had a question about the happy slave trope.

For context I haven't read anything by Martha wells and it's been awhile since I read anything by j.k rowling. ( I prefer fan fics). You're talking about the house elves in Harry Potter, specifically the way they 'want' to serve. I understand how that's bad as it's putting space between reality and now, allowing people to think better of the atrocities of the past (And allowing them to possibly repeat them).

All the fics I've read have dramatically changed the relationship between house elves and wizards, so I'm accustomed to something different. But how do you think the difference of before, during, and after Voldemort changed the way people see the trope/house elves in general?

Also can you drop links for your favorite articles on the affects/future affects of this trope (and j.k Rowling's influence if applicable)?

I am completely uninterested in making speculative headcanons for the slavery in Harry Potter. The existence of Voldemort as a villain doesn't actually change how JK Rowling chose to portray the Happy Slave trope, and speculating about completely hypothetical in-universe dynamics is not the point of what I'm talking about.

I'm sure articles discussing the ramifications of this pro-slavery propaanda exist but unfortunately I don't have any links off the top of my head.

I can tell you the basic logical conclusion, though: People who read and uncritically accept slavery apologism in their favorite books will continue repeating that slavery apologism in their lives, and in any art that they themselves make.

The more slavery apologism like this goes uncriticized in popular books, the more likely it is that another generation of popular books will include slavery apologism, thus training more and more generations of people into accepting and spreading slavery apologism.

See, for exibit A, the fact that Martha Wells fans have accepted the slavery apologism she has written so wholeheartedly that they are referring to slaves as literal feral animals that must be recaptured into slavery to keep them from "wreaking havoc on the ecosystem".