"I have never spoken to a giant, but I expect that if they could understand the question at least some of them would be happy to have their own planets. I have spoken to centaurs, and they would unquestionably prefer to have their own planets and nothing to do with human governments."

"Yeah, in that case I'm leaning goblin. I bet they would make awesome magical construct bodies."

"What are we going to do about house-elves, though?"

"I have no idea. I have negative six ideas." Bruce looks plaintively at McGonagall.

"I see no reason why they shouldn't have our world as an afterlife like everyone else. And stronger legal protections."

"There isn't any reason anyone has to be the same species in the new universe," the angel points out, "which is good, because Wizards and magical non-humans are bizarrely interfertile and if we start putting species on different planets that's going to prevent some of the crosses that have, historically, happened, in your world."

McGonagall looks Concerned. "If we don't keep everyone the same species, how will it be determined? Is there some method of surveying people apart from ourselves? And how much mental change would there be?"

(She is trying to imagine a house elf mind in a giant's body and vice versa, and mostly succeeding, and kind of wishing she had failed.)

"That's...a complicated question...but--if I say that a median human would most likely end up as a median goblin, but still recognizably themselves to someone who understood both human and goblin psychology, would that answer your question?"

"So a me who was a goblin would be about as weird for a goblin as I am for a human, and in the same, uh, directions?"

"That implies rather a lot of distortion for some pairs and I continue to think there should be a strong default in favor of people keeping their original species. Present company excepted, of course, though I intend to remain human."

"Sure, a strong default wouldn't hedge out any hybrids that don't happen to happen in the new world. And I'm not sure having house-elves as a species that exists is ethical when we could instead not."

"Were it a matter of creating new species I would agree with you, but I expect that if we could interview deceased house elves and ask how they wanted to be reborn, a supermajority would prefer to remain physically and mentally unchanged."

"Based on my notes, they would probably also overwhelmingly prefer to end up with the reincarnations of the families they're currently bound to, regardless of how abusive those familes are."

Bruce can imagine how much this would suck if he had to do this alone without anyone who had ever met a house elf.

"I am--not entirely pessimistic--that stronger legal protections and a new set of social norms will help. Nonetheless, I am more willing to separate some elves from families they already won't remember than I am to alter their psychology."

"What if we created a new species," she proposes, "psychologically similar to house elves in most ways, but somewhat more willing to stand up for themselves."

"That would still be modifying people's minds in a way they would refuse, but at least after the modification they would probably be accepting of it. Nonetheless, it feels like crossing a line."

"I think--I mean, you're the expert here, I know that, but in the general case--sometimes you really do have to do things that feel wrong if they make people better off? I just wish we could talk to them . . . "

"It seems relevant that we're already making everyone immortal and not needing to sleep without asking permission? Those aren't mental changes, as much, so it's definitely different, but I do think it can be okay to decide things for someone if they really can't decide for themselves because they aren't here. And to--do that based on your own ideas of what seems good."

"But those are things people would pick if they had the option. Just because we can't know someone's preferences exactly doesn't mean we can just pretend they would be what's convenient for us instead of using our actual best guess."

"But if we're wrong one way a bunch of people will get their minds modified in a way they won't remember ever being different and if we're wrong the other way a bunch of people will get beaten and abused! . . . I don't actually know which side that's an argument for."

"There is another consideration. I have also met people who grew up with house elves, and while correlation does not imply causation, I do not think growing up expecting someone to obey one's every command is good for one's character."

Margaret finds that pretty persuasive! It would be nice if she had found it persuasive out of high-minded concern for the moral health of society, but actually she just internalized that if there are house elves around in the new world she might end up in a house with one and she would really prefer Not That.

"That's--a good argument."

"Would it help if the magic system provided a convenient way to alter one's own psychology, if one quested to recover ones memories and then wished to change anything about how their mind worked back to how it had been then, they could," the angel proposes. 

"That would help a lot, yeah. I feel like--my real counterargument was imagining a house elf getting their memories back and being angry at me and wanting me to justify myself to their face and not being able to, and that gives them an option to fix it instead of just being justifiably mad."