How does the christian baby keep getting into these situations

Updating this everytime I find a new Christian baby post on Quora:

To start with, the house-elves are a slight tweak on an authentic British folklore creature called a hob, house-brownie, urisk or gruagach. They perform housework in return for milk and honey, but leave in offence if given clothes. The physical appearance of Rowling’s version, and their very existence, was probably inspired by the work of Brian Froud:

Froud had produced a coffee-table book of elf drawings which was prominently displayed in the windows of Edinburgh shops while Rowling was working on the first couple of books.

They serve several functions in the books. They show the brutality of the wizarding world, which enslaves them and orders them about when it’s clear that all they really had to do was *ask*, since they actually like doing house-work.

They act as a kind of class distinction. The Malfoys, despite their wealth and vanity, act like nouveau riche rather than real aristocracy (one of their recent ancestors was a newspaper proprietor), and the fact that they ill-treat their house-elves shows this. The Blacks, however crazy, are the real deal and Regulus is willing to die to avenge a threat to Kreacher (the heads on the wall are probably meant as a reference to the weird Victorian habit of having their favourite pets stuffed).

They also make a comment on a certain kind of left-wing activist. Hermione is absolutely right to campaign for better rights for house-elves, and for them to be able to quit their employment if they wish to, but she never actually asks them what *they* want, and tries to force clothes on them against their will. It’s a version of the “white saviour complex”- she reckons she knows best for them.

It’s probably not a coincidence that SPEW was the acronym of a real British suffragette group called the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, established in 1859, as well as being similar to that of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The way I see it the house-elves are a comment on the position of women in the past. Their service is a kind of marriage between an elf family and a human family. They definitely should be able to divorce their human family if the relationship isn’t working out, but what Hermione is doing by hiding hats around the place is trying to force divorce on the happily married. And they don’t want to be paid a wage because they see that as like prostitution - it makes them paid employees, not family members. Instead, they ought to be entitled to a share of the family’s income, as home-making family members.