When I
was rereading the Harry Potter series
this past year, I made a mental note that at some point I was going to have to
do a post on S.P.E.W. It’s one aspect of the series where I think its exclusion
from the films was an instance of absence making the heart grow fonder. Because
I definitely remember finding the S.P.E.W. stuff annoying when I first read the
books, but after getting some distance from that plotline, I developed a rosier
view of it. Some time ago, when I did a write-up of Hermione, I brought up that
she was a House Elf abolitionist as yet another mark in her favor. But then I
reread the books and was like, “Oh yeah, that’s
how all the S.P.E.W. stuff went.”
First, of
course, there’s the name, Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. When
Hermione is confronted with the fact that House Elves are slaves and she
witnesses Winky’s cruel treatment at the hands of the Malfoys, she’s horrified
and immediately sets her not-inconsiderable brain to the task of thinking about
how she can help. What she comes up with, though, is the
unfortunately-acronymed S.P.E.W., and she’s somehow willfully ignorant to any
of Harry and Ron’s gentle prodding that that might not be an ideal name for a
social justice movement.
Right
from the start, this positions S.P.E.W. as two things. One, it’s little more
than a joke. No one would expect big accomplishments from an organization
called S.P.E.W., and Hermione’s efforts largely amount to trying to get people
to buy membership badges and knitting Elf-sized clothes to leave around the
Griffyndor common room for the House Elves to find when they’re cleaning (any
House Elf who’s presented with clothes is freed.) And two, it’s hugely annoying
to anyone who has to hear about it, chiefly Harry and Ron. They quickly get
sick of Hermione lecturing them on Elf rights and rattling her collection tin
at other students. The whole thing is basically an embarrassment.
Which, why should this be an embarrassment?
Even if we buy that Hermione, whose smarts admittedly extend more to books than
social savvy, thinks that this ridiculous name is a good idea, why isn’t anyone
interested in Elf rights who wants to help her come up with something more
palatable (or at least do their own thing if they don’t want to deal with
Hermione)? We know that Harry cares about House Elves, having arranged for
Dobby to be freed at the end of The
Chamber of Secrets. But instead of working with Hermione to go about her
newfound mission in a way that will
garner support, he just tries to avoid the issue. Meanwhile, Ron actively
argues that House Elves like serving wizards and don’t want to be freed (the
House Elves’ general dialect and the behavior of all the ones we meet who
aren’t Dobby lean pretty heavily into unpleasant “happy slave” tropes.)
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