IIRC, Anubhav thought it might be the penalty—to serve House Malfoy forever (bwa ha ha ha). And might explain why House Elves are so rare etc despite their apparent power.
In retrospect, I was putting far too much weight on Dumbledore’s prognostication that Azkaban was out of the question. My model of Dumbledore didn’t make mistakes like that.
Also, if the Wizengamut went around house-elfing people, that’s pretty much guaranteed to make Harry declare war on them, which seemed like an obvious goal of the story arc even back then.
But I doubt it will come up in the story again, so unless EY weighs in, I’m not sure if we’ll know one way or the other.
IIRC, Anubhav thought it might be the penalty—to serve House Malfoy forever (bwa ha ha ha). And might explain why House Elves are so rare etc despite their apparent power.
Aw, I thought I was the first to suggest it—http://lesswrong.com/lw/ams/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/61e9
Maybe he got it from you? I know I sure didn’t consider it likely enough to be worth recording.
In retrospect, I was putting far too much weight on Dumbledore’s prognostication that Azkaban was out of the question. My model of Dumbledore didn’t make mistakes like that.
Also, if the Wizengamut went around house-elfing people, that’s pretty much guaranteed to make Harry declare war on them, which seemed like an obvious goal of the story arc even back then.
But I doubt it will come up in the story again, so unless EY weighs in, I’m not sure if we’ll know one way or the other.
That is correct.
Seems like it’s privlidging the hypothesis just a bit, don’t you think?