For a little while, this discussion has been reminding me of this :
And maybe a Roiland thing is somehow fitting for a Rowling discussion. But that aside, one could go "hey rick and morty is all about edgy social commentary so does this mean that it's okay to torture people because sometimes they like it".
Fantasy creatures are not humans, they are, as I said, "thought experiments". What ifs. They are built around a narrative function and of course, as artificial creations and abstract ideas on legs, they only make sense -and only need to make sense- on a surface level. Any further digging leads to "unfortunate implications" (the clip above makes no sense on a biological evolutionist level and that's not the point). And yes we're back to Tokien's evil orks and "unfortunate implications about free will". Or, again, any fantasy race/species and "unfortunate implications on essenialism and biological determinism". It could be a game in itself to seek the unfortunate implication of all fictions, especially the least realistic ones, even the most deliberately metaphorical and well-meaning ones, because they are never "thought through" enough (just like all metaphors fall apart if you push them too far). Like any oversymplification, allegory, parable or joke idea, they aren't made for that.
So imagine you want to make a cautionary/funny tale about cultural projection and misplaced messianism. Again, examples abound (from clearcut ones like "oh these natives they need to discover clothing, and also to sedentarize, and also to stop endocannibalism, to pray the true god and to embrace efficient productivism" to more complicated ones like "we have to forbid the muslim veil, the excision, the witchcraft trials, etc", there a wide array of legitimate, illegitimate, understandable or patronizing concerns that lead of catastrophies is not nuanced -at the very least- by cultural knowledge). You want the reader to strongly empathize with the concern (cannot be a "let's forbid ramadan to save the poor muslims from hunger during the day") yet not go too far as to making the alien culture too abject (maybe not go the excision route). Willing servants could be a good middle ground. Let's invent (or pick from folklore and adapt) a species that enjoy serving in a way that we wouldn't. It's an okay set up, provided that (as for the rest of the universe) no one goes digging on wait what why how come and also does it mean.
Now of course, you can construct the same device in order to deride the struggles for social rights. Except that the real life political line of defense would be "actually workers are overjoyed to be underpaid, it's part of their ethos" (sometimes semi-perversely true in the complicated world of humanitarian work, and in my own life, but that's another layer). It's not really a viable angle for capitalist rationalization. The closest I can find is "in those countries, they're happy if they get a penny per month instead of nothing, so don't tell me we're exploiting them", but it's not quite claiming they'd be distressed if paid more.
And again, such fantasies (and various implications) are always open to interpretations, and to projections. It's unavoidable in a world where people idolize Gordon Gecko, Tony Montana and the Starship Troopers, while murdering each others over differing interpretations of the Bible. People will see what they want, be it positively or negatively. Let's not exaggerate the accountability of authors when it comes to "unfortunate implications".
And also let's
not indulge in The Worst Interpretation Possible. Because that's a sterile approach to everything.
I cannot stress enough that the books go out of their way to say that wizard society is and has been screwed up. The goblins are not happy, the centaurs are not happy, the giants are not happy, the merfolk are not happy, the house elves with bad owners are not happy, the werewolves are not happy, etc, etc, etc. Even a good chunk of the wizards are not happy, for a wide variety of reasons. The status quo of the wizarding world is making nobody happy, but only the bad guys are trying to shake up the status quo (and a lot of the non-wizards, but they don't have enough of a narrative arc to count)
That's interesting. It reminds me of the MCU('s reliably godawful plotlines), where the baddie kind of has a point, and is defeated in the end for the preservation of status quo. Actually it happens an awful lot in action adventures where they try to get us to empathize with the baddies, to give them believable motivations, and end up pointing out real societal issues that the good guys end up ignoring. At least (YES I WILL HARRASS EVERYONE WITH BOB MORANE NOVELS FOREVER) in Bob Morane novels, the big Fu-Manchu-inspired baddie has a very valid ecological point about western industrial civilization consuming the world, and Bob Morane, being the hero (HE IS THE HERO) completely agrees with him. The validity of the baddie's reasons to fight the status quo isn't masked or derided. AND NOW THIS DISCUSSION IS ABOUT BOB MORANE, DO YOUR HOMEWORKS AND COME BACK AFTER HAVING READ THEM ALL
while I'm busy not reading harry potter and discussing it.
But usually, in novels that depict the world as unavoidibly stuck in unfairness, the tragic failing hothead subcharacters that try to change it aren't mocked or morally delegitimized (only burned to death and mourned). It usually denounces the atrocious immutability of society, to which the jaded hero is "wisely" resigned. So indeed, if that Rowling deliberately depicts a world of injustice and unhappiness, it's odd -and dumb- of her to disqualify the very object of one attempt at change. That is, to offer one example of unappropriate social crusade without offering an appropriate counter-example.
So, you mention other characters challenging the status quo. They aren't the focus of the story, Rowling has no interest in them. But how are they described ? Hopeless and ridicule ? Whiny or legitimate ? Are judgements expressed on them, by the narrator of the main characters ?
