But even if you don't take JKR's views as pro-slavery, it's still pretty ironic that the rhetoric of happy slaves is taken from literal slavers from history.
You might also be interested to know that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was made as a Christian propaganda story. Aslan is Jesus.
I can believe that the origins of this trope are antisemetic, but I don't see very much reason to think that any antisemitic mindset was in JK Rowling's head when she wrote it.
I loved the books as much as anyone, but Azkaban struck me as utter barbarism even then. You're telling me that prisoners, regardless of what they were actually sentenced for, get psychologically tortured through the magical induction of deep despair until they develop a form of dementia? And this happens whether you're a murderous dark wizard or you do a bit of magical petty theft or fraud? The Ministry using Dementors for law enforcement would morally justify rebellion against it in my view, not only are they slavers they're also torturers on a scale that would make many dictatorships blush.
It's obvious that the Ministry a wicked institution, but it's also an incompetent one since the Dementors aren't even really loyal to them; they jump ship to the Death Eaters as soon as they get the chance to.
But there are things you can't unsee once you revisit the series as an adult, like all the harmful tropes that's casually littered throughout the series. From unpleasant people almost always being portrayed as fat and ugly to house elves who have a frightened reaction to the idea of being freed from enslavement, and cunning, greedy creatures with long, hooked noses that run the wizarding bank. If that weren't too on the nose, that bank even had a seven pointed star on the floor in the movies. Oh, and Kingsley Shacklebolt is quite an interesting name to give a fictional black person. And that's barely scratching the surface.
> Oh, and Kingsley Shacklebolt is quite an interesting name to give a fictional black person.
I'll be honest this one sailed over my head when I was a kid, I always assumed because he's a magical policeman the Shacklebolt referred to handcuffs. There's a lot of things named along those lines.
I don't think they're portrayed as greedy? Although I'm willing to be proven wrong if anyone has textual evidence otherwise. They are also mistreated by wizards in the books, which I think portrayed them sympathetically. I remember scenes where Harry notices their mistreatment and thinks it's wrong
Also, notice how real world tropes are just portrayed as facts in the Harry Potter world.
Not to mention the whole "muggles are basically subhuman" thing.