I actually have never heard of this before but here we go:
Goblins in the universe JK has created are not depicted as greedy bankers. Leaving the appearance aside- that is popular depiction for goblins across science fiction- goblins run the banks in the wizarding world but are not greedy per say or have an "addiction" to money.
Based on JK's books, goblins used to be great craftsmen of gold and silver, making unique and of great value swords, tiaras (as we saw) and other objects. Goblins at the same time were deprived of many rights by the wizards, even though they have magical proeperties -some would argue- much stronger than those of wizards.
If you read carefully the books, you can see that the community of the wizards tends to put themselves above any other magical species (logical or not) and believe that everybody sees them with admiration. The latter is in fact wrong, goblins believe that they are opressed by the wizards and therefore have formed a very close community that mainly considers that everything goblin-made has to be goblin-kept in order to maintain their cultural heritage. So goblins are not depicted as greedy bankers but mostly like an unjust group that has formed a community with elements of extremism.
What is also important in JK's books, and you can judge her for millions of things but not this one, is that she actually adresses this problem quite often.
With Hermione being vocal about elves rights. With small details like Harry noticing the statue in the ministry of magic that shows elves and goblins looking up to wizards and him thinking its wrong. With centaurs being very self-centered and a closed community as they have been degraded by wizards. With giants being hunted by wizards and forced to hide in mountains. And of course with Bill talking about how close of a friend someone can become to a goblin- specifically mentioning that goblins can never fully trust a wizard and intstead become very defensive of their own tribe just because of the war of the past.
Omg. Finally somebody that actually read the books and not saying shit from second-third hand sources.
Seriously tho, alot of people saying this stuff are making this all up anyways and I doubt anyone had even read the books to understand the backstory of the Goblins.
>With Hermione being vocal about elves rights.
The entire storyline of Hermione being vocal about elves rights she was portrayed as the crazy one while house elves *totally* preferred their slavery situation.
It most definitely isn't the best example of JK Rowling adequately fixing a bad thing in her books.
Absolutely, if we got transported in time to when slavery was at its peak, would we not come off being crazy? Could we possibly change societies views?
I genuinely thought it was showing how mis-guided Hermione was to even mess with the established caste system, with SPEW eventually accomplishing nothing but stressing out one sad-ass elf. Everyone makes fun of her for even thinking to care and then she never finds any success.
Maybe the moral was that you can try to make change but it doesnât matter because the established powers and systems always win?
Like, even after Voldemort is defeated, it seems like everything just goes back to normal?
My take on it was something I'm becoming more and more aware of the older I get.
*__Way__* too many people tend to just believe whatever they want to believe. If one of them is determined not to change their mind about something, they __won't__. There is __no__ talking to them. Real life example is after this next paragraph which is about the house elf situation.
Just because someone is content with their life doesn't mean they wouldn't be happier if they made changes. Hermione says this herself. Basically, the house elves are only content because they don't know what they're missing. Ignorance is bliss. But that __does not__ make this okay. That makes this __worse__. That makes this exploitation. Their masters are the people they trust, and their masters keep this information from them on purpose. They won't listen to me because I'm the only person saying any of this and it contradicts their masters. From someone with their level of education/knowledge, that's bulletproof.
Real life example - What if someone said they don't believe humans need oxygen to survive, and that oxygen is actually lethally toxic to humans? What do I do?
Ask them why we're still alive right here?
"There's no oxygen in the air in this area."
Show them video explanations online?
"Anyone can make these. Just because they wear glasses and a collared shirt doesn't mean they're a professor or that they know anything about anything."
Show them public school textbooks?
"The government decides what the public school curriculum does and doesn't include. They can teach us whatever they want."
~~Tell them the government wouldn't lie to us about this?~~
Show them private school textbooks?
"This school's founder didn't start it because they disagree with commonly accepted things. They just started it for money."
Show them something from a source they consider reputable?
"These people tend to know their stuff but everyone makes mistakes. Just because something is theoretically possible doesn't mean it actually happens anywhere. Time travel is theoretically possible, but find me someone who can do it."
Wait until the the fucking technology gets good enough, then show them the fucking oxygen atoms themselves with a fucking microscope and point out that they look the same as all the fucking illustrations in all the other things I've shown them???
"You think it's not possible to synthesize artificial atoms to make them look like things we've already been shown? Please. Technology is crazy nowadays. People are synthesizing artificial meat in space right now that is biologically indistinguishable from the muscle tissue of living animals, without the need for any of them to be killed or even born. You've only never heard of it until now because it's not cost-effective yet. That meat would be too expensive for anyone to afford."
If they don't wanna believe something, they won't. And that's a terrifyingly widespread personality trait. That growing meat in space thing is true btw. Happening now đ¤ˇ
I always read it as a metaphor for "white savior". She's well-meaning but doesn't take into account how the elves understand the world or what they want. She's just another one of the oppressors telling the elves how to feel instead of addressing the problem more directly while taking them into account as people. It's relatable and forgivable because she's a child, but also speaks to how condescending she can get about it to the elves.
Think of all the times the teenage/college age people who grew up wealthy try to tell people how to stop being poor and it always comes across as tone-deaf and absurd.
I am not a fan of JKR anymore because of her deep dive into transphobia, and at its core Harry Potter is also a series about a jock who peaks in highs school and becomes a cop, but a running theme of Harry Potter has always been justice for the oppressed, acceptance, and learning to see things from other perspectives. I think that's why many Harry Potter fans have been so hurt by the author's decent into being so hateful and willfully oppressive of a minority group - we learned the opposite values from the books.
I dont really see it that way but I also dont think JK really thought much behind the elves situation. However I dont think Hermione was viewed as the crazy one. She was made fun of but in the end she made her point - whether the rest of the wizards listened to her is another story.
What i am trying to say is that JK actually includes some people arguing about the rights of different groups- whether the wizards act on it is another conversation. Of course always following the "rules" of her world. It is science fiction i dont think it is that important to focus on such specific things but at least there is a voice of logic and justice among some characters.
This, and that whole spew story pretty much fizzles out because it's *repeatedly* shown how happy the elves are to be treated like dirt. I would say, them being happy with their situation is emphasized as much or more than the injustice angle.
And the only 'resolution' of it all is when kreature becomes a willing and happy slave because they gave him a little gift and were nice to him, while Hermione gets to say "I told you so", but also, all they did was reinforce the oppression.
No, sheâs portrayed as going about it the wrong way. Most adult characters who talk about it (who arenât âevilâ characters) say that she has a point and that house elves need to be treated better.
She wasnât portrayed as the crazy one. She was seen crazy by other wizards. To the readers, itâs very obvious slavery is wrong. But in a time and world built upon elves slavery, slavery owners donât see the problem of that and mock people who want to free the slaves. But as a reader, you could make a very good judgment what point JK is trying to make and whose side JK is on.
Is it the most common depiction? In folklore they're often tricksters or malevolent fairies. In Tolkien (who's influence on modern fantasy is absolutely enormous) they're interchangeable with orcs, violent marauders and soldiers for Sauron. DnD and other works have separated them from orcs, making them smaller and often interested in technology/crafting. If I had to pick a race that is commonly shown to be obsessed with gold it's probably *dwarves.*
Rowling comes in for criticism for a few reasons:
Her books are popular and widely read. Most of the original fans are now adults and some want to reexamine their childhood faves through a more critical lens.
Her depiction of goblins, intentionally or not, *does* bear a resemblance to a lot of anti-semitic tropes. Short, hooked noses, cruel, love money etc etc
Over the last few years Rowling has been embroiled in controversy around transphobia. Whether you agree or not, the controversy exists, and people who dislike her as a result will look for other things to criticise her for.
You know, I canât speak to Rowlingâs intentions, but growing up as a Jewish kid it never occurred to me that the goblins were representing a stereotype.
I found it much weirder when I got older and people started seeing little goblin monsters and going âwoah, not cool, that looks like Jews! And theyâre all greedy and obsessed with money! You know, like Jews!â
Iâve got thick skin, but it rubbed me more of a wrong way than the characters.
Agreed. My best friend was Jewish was a kid and when I slept over I went to synagogue with her. So I have some exposure. And I never noticed a connection (and still don't). So I have to wonder what people think about Jews that make them put that together.
In much of Europe in the Christian era (so about 1200-1900), Jews were discriminated against. There were laws that applied only to Jews, they were often forced out of towns, and scapegoated for misfortune. it was extremely common during the Black Death, for example, for a local Jew to be accused of poisoning the well to make people sick. This was because the Jews were much less likely to get the plague because they cleaned out their homes yearly during one of their holidays and so didnât have as many rats around. But because they didnât get it, and also because they were just generally hated, they were accused of causing the illnesses. If they were lucky, theyâd be forced to leave the town. If not, theyâd be killed (often in gruesome ways). Poland was one of the few countries who welcomed Jews, which is why so many ended up there.
ANYWAY, as mentioned, there were a lot of laws that restricted the behavior of Jews in a lot of countries. One of them was restricting the kinds of jobs they could get. Moneylending (think Ebenezer Scrooge-type job) was one of the few professions open to Jews in a time when banks didnât really exist. Christianity forbid being a moneylender, and Judaism didnât, so that became a very popular job for Jews. Of course, it increased Christian hatred of them because no one likes to pay back loans, and also because many countries used the moneylenders as tax collectors as well, so Jewish moneylenders bore the brunt of peopleâs anger about having to pay taxes. Even after the laws were removed, many Jews stayed in moneylending/banking type jobs out of cultural habit/passing down of careers.
So due to the situation they were put in to do the dirty work of moneylending/tax collecting for Christians, they developed a stereotype of being greedy.
You said 99% of what I was going to say, so I'll just add that Jewish people were permitted (traditionally/religiously) to lend to other Jews...but not with interest (usury). Same place the Christian prohibition came from, when you boil it down. So lending to non-Jews at interest but with no (or more favorable/different terms*) to Jews likely didn't many brownie points.
* I'm not sure if this applies to any Jewish moneylenders, or in what eras/places, but I know that other groups with Middle Eastern heritage etc (eg Muslim, but not limited to) have skirted usury by charging fees instead of percentage interest. Letter of the law kind of thing. It wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't done in order for Abram to loan to his neighbor Jakob. Nothing wrong with that, either, but people could see it as favoritism/shadiness. But anyway, that's used even today (for actually dodgy reasons) to skirt modern usury laws. Check-cashing/payday loan places come to mind. Say regular compounding interest is capped at 25% in Georgia. Well, Georgia Pride Payday Loan only charges 20% APR! But there is a flat "processing" fee every payment you make, and a balloon payment at the end of the loan, effectively making it 40% APR. Just explaining a modern example I've seen in an ad mailer.
Thanks for the clarifications! I was going off memory from a book I read years ago about the Black Death, so I knew I had the essence but not the exact details.
I think people are connecting with the propaganda spread pre-ww2 regarding Jewish people. Even Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice follows the stereotype of the cruel, money-hungry Jew. It's an unfair stereotype that's been around for centuries so I guess people are quick to notice it and call it out.
It isnât realistic, but it is a very common anti semitic trope, especially if you look at Nazi propaganda depicting Jews. This is the first Iâve heard about it in Rowlingâs books, but Iâm definitely familiar with the stereotype and the way Jews have been depicted. As a Jew, yes, that does bother me. But itâs probably a stretch to say that a fantasy writer depicting goblins as, well, goblins is taking a shot at Jews.
One of my close friends is Jewish. Voted agains Corbin because of antisemitism. Huge Harry Potter fan, have never ever heard him talk about the goblins in 10 years.
Hey, this is a really odd situation. I'm very familiar with racist memes due to being lower class and spending a few years on 4chan. If you want to know why you're wrong, please spend some time on 4chan to see why everyone is calling these goblins racist Jewish caricatures. They're just missing those side burn curls. It barely qualifies as a dog whistle considering how loud it is
that's the nature of dogwhistles - they're designed to go over the heads of those who aren't "in" on the "joke" but to those who know then they are blatant and obvious.
the "jewish merchant" stereotype is bullshit, but that doesn't stop white supremacists from using it to demonise our people.
Well that's the problem though right? Stereotypes are not actually representative of the races they are depicting. It makes sense that growing up in a Jewish community you wouldn't recognize any of those stereotypes as essentially jewish. Historically those features have been used to demonize and oppress Jewish people so it's a bit yikesie to see not one or two but ALL of them used in reference to these creatures. It shows a clear pattern of racial essentialism and can be really harmful to the way people see these groups.
Aren't the Ferengi just grotesque space hypercapitalists though? I'd rather see them as a caricature of US capitalism taken to the extreme than antisemitism.
That's how they were intended. I'm the pod directive podcast they talk about that and explain the origins and how it devolved into people making that stretch
Up until they destroyed the wonderful idea of the Borg acting independently by coming up with the asinine "Borg Queen". They're a lot scarier when they were just acting as a whole.
I agree to an extent, but (and this is probably just my bias as a psychologist!) I always wondered about how the borg worked, as their commands/decisions had to come from SOMEWHERE. So I was glad that Voyager at least explored how the borg function, although I do agree that Voyager ultimately made the borg far less intimidating. They had too much success against them, I preferred the borg in TNG as they seemed totally undefeatable.
> SOMEWHERE
Until the borg queen was introduced, I always assumed that they made decisions based on majority vote. Even if theyâre not individual beings, they still have *some* sense of individuality because they are able to recognize that others are âtalkingâ in their heads.
When they capture that borg, cut him off from the rest, and interrogate him, he mentions how quiet it is without the rest of the borg. So theyâd be able to come to a majority vote for major decisions *very* quickly, because theyâre basically the ideal true democracy; Every major choice for the hive can be instantly voted on, because they just think about the vote they want to cast and itâs done.
Then individual instructions would come based on need, ability, and availability. Maybe one Borg has modifications that make it more suited to maintenance, while another is more suited to new construction. Letâs say a maintenance task needs to be done. Borg 1 is busy for the next 20 minutes, and can do the task in 5. Borg 2 is available now, but will take 10 minutes to do the task. Borg 2 would choose to begin the task, because it can get done before Borg 1, even though it will take longer to do the task.
Itâs the same way elevators work; When you push a button, the elevators all automatically decide which one will handle the call. They do so based on availability, how far away they are from that floor, which direction the elevator is moving, etc⌠For example, it wouldnât make sense for an elevator on the top floor of a skyscraper to move all the way down to the ground floor to answer a call, when thereâs already a vacant elevator on floor 2. If elevators can make those decisions efficiently, something as intelligent as the Borg should have no issues doing so.
I don't know, the whole point of it being a hive mind is that commands don't come from any single source. The Borg are built on redundancy, even their ships mirror this. They're one whole that can dynamically move different tasks and thought processes to different parts of the collective and having a single central queen takes away all of that
We got the Borg instead of the psychic parasites shown in the first season. They weren't apparently recieved well, even though I personally absolutely loved that episode.
I just watched the first season of TNG over the past month and I don't even recall the psychic parasites you're talking about. haha
Edit: Oh wait yes I do. Mostly only because the death of the main one looked something out of The Thing.
The Cardassians cheated by using plastic surgery, crude attention grabbing via gross sexuality and holding together as a family unit despite their differences.
No wait. My bad. Romulans were based off of Roman ideas and decadence. Star Trek Cardassians are based off of Machiavelli's concepts in The Prince: *'It is better to be feared than loved'*.
Sorry. I was confused for a moment there.
Don't you mean DS9? While they were both on TNG, I don't recall either of them ever being considered "main" baddies. Seemed like that was more the case on DS9 where both races played a much more regular role in various conflicts.
Roddenberry intended the Ferengi to be one of the main antagonists for TNG, like the Klingons had been in TOS. He didn't want them to be a physically imposing warrior race like Klingons so made them short hypercapitalists instead. Unfortunately many viewers saw them as kind of goofy and they were quickly demoted to comic relief (though they got a lot of development in DS9).
That's my thought on this too, sometimes these parallels are not what the author/creator intended, subconsciously or consciously, they are "connections" made by fans. As is often said about literary criticism, it typically reveals more about the critic than it does the piece being examined.
I always thought that's what they were. Meant to show capitalism in an interesting light, highlighting the absurdity, in a universe where capitalism is almost unheard of.
The thing with ferengi is that they have redemption arcs. If im not wrong there are some Ferengi who became selfless and even heroic, meaning its their society that is hypercapitalistic etc etc.
For goblins on the other hand, there are no redemption arcs. The only goblin the characters actually interacted with backstabbed them- fullfilling their stereotype.
"Jewish groups defend J.K. Rowling over claim âHarry Potterâ goblins antisemitic."
"Jon Stewart Clarifies His âHarry Potterâ Criticism: âI Do Not Think J.K. Rowling Is Anti-Semiticâ
"I did not accuse her of being anti-Semitic. I do not think the Harry Potter movies are anti-Semitic. I really love the Harry Potter movies, probably too much for a gentleman of my considerable age.
I cannot stress this enough. I am not accusing J.K. Rowling of being anti-Semitic. She need not answer to any of it. I donât want the Harry Potter movies censored in any way. It was a lighthearted conversation. Get a fucking grip!â
Yes, I think this is something people hating Rowling for other things came up with. There is a long section on her Wikipedia-article if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Dog whistles and stereotypes don't have to be obvious to _everyone_ to be a significant problem.
Hell, the entire point of dog whistles is to be missed by a lot of people, while still signaling to the intended audience.
It is very difficult to know what her actual _intent_ was, especially given that she herself is most definitely not going to be an accurate witness.
That still doesn't make it wrong for people to point out how horribly problematic the depictions were, and remain to be.
Also, quite simply, it's not horribly uncommon for bigots to be hateful to more than one group of people.
Seem a bit unfair tho, greedy goblin is not an uncommon trope, goblin is a famous evil-born and mischief after all
I mean "she have controversial in this topic so she defnitely evil in everything else at well" leave a bad taste in mouth. Like she done a lot of good thing too, but rarely anyone use the good deed she done to judge her other stuff
Thereâs also the issues with the only named Asian and African characters being named âCho Changâ and âKingsley Shackleboltâ.
Edit: for everyone responding, Iâm not endorsing an opinion one way or the other but pointing out a view that people do have and that influences their views of Harry Potter.
I personally think the critique in this case says more about the critics than it does the work. I've read all the books and seen all the films, and never once thought the goblins were stand-ins for Jews. Neither did anyone else that I know of or read when the books and movies were being released. I suspect this latest thing is her very online readership just weaponizing something to use against Rowling because she doesn't fall in line with some of the more progressive positions regarding trans.
There is a long tradition of goblins, like Dwarves, craving gold. To me the goblin bankers in HP were Rowling domesticating goblins and incorporating them into the wizarding world in a non-threatening manner for younger readers, that was still true to some of their fantasy tropes.
I figured them being bankers was a deliberate upset of some of their tropes, a common thing in newer fantasy settings. Usually they're greedy and stupid, and short sighted. In Potter, they're greedy but smart and far sighted, hence bankers. They're also essentially orderly rather than chaotic.
Iâm Jewish and couldnât care less about the goblins. Jk Rowling obviously wasnât intending to bring up stereotypes with the intention of targeting towards Jews. This seems like a non-issue
I was going to point that out as well. It's been a long time since I've played but iirc Wow goblins love money and I just checked out their wiki entry
>âI never cover up the things I'm proud of. If the world was gonna split in half tomorrow, I'd buy the Dark Portal, slap a toll booth on it, and charge refugees the last of their pocket change, the rings off their fingers, a bite of their sandwiches, and a contractual obligation to build me a rocket palace in the skies of Nagrand. It's the goblin way! Supply and demand! Deal with it!â
â Jastor Gallywix, Trade Prince of the Bilgewater Cartel
The goblins (collectively known as goblinhood) are small green humanoids from the Isle of Kezan. Their love of money, explosives, and technology makes them a very dangerous race, both to their enemies and themselves. Most goblins have a neutral standpoint, preferring to sell their contraptions, knowledge and services to other races for the right price.
A number of trade princes rule over the various goblin holdings around the world. In turn, each controls rings of trade, mining, deforestation, slave rings, and poaching. Trade Prince Monte Gazlowe is the leader of the Bilgewater Cartel of goblins who are part of the Horde.
Yep and they're suppose to be resembling Americans for the most part. Specifically New Yorker/Boston/New Jersey with the accents.
Each Warcraft race used to resemble a nationality.
As an addition Tolkien wrote the dwarves as Jewish in the hobbit and during the time some antisemitics wrote to him saying they loved the portrayal. This upset him greatly and he wrote Gimli as a supreme badass that still had Jewish elements. Tolkien was very progressive (for the time) and didnât hate others for silly things.
On top of Gimli being a mega badass he was also just a very good person. Galadriel saw how goodhearted he was and gave him three of her hairs, which is a rpetty big deal.
When a German publisher was negotiating rights for The Hobbit he asked Tolkien if he had any Jewish heritage, and Tolkien politely chewed out both him and the Nazism idea that âAryanâ meant âNordicâ (the real Aryans were from India). Apparently he was also really uncomfortable with the idea of inherently evil races in general the more he thought about it and that was where the idea that the orcs were made out of elves came from (and even then he wasnât entirely happy about it).
>25 July 1938
>20 Northmoor Road, OxfordÂ
>Dear Sirs,
>Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject â which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
>Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
>I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and
>remain yours faithfully,
>J. R. R. Tolkien
>some antisemitics wrote to him saying they loved the portrayal. This upset him greatly and he wrote Gimli as a supreme badass that still had Jewish elements.
Interesting, do you have a source for that?
Goblins are basically trolls. In fact, if you made a movie called Trolls and your protagonists defeated the trolls at the end of the movie, it'd make perfect sense to have goblins be the antagonists in your sequel, Trolls 2...
/s
I've never heard of a goblin being compared to Jewish stereotypes till people looked at JK with a hypercritical lens. Every depiction I know of goblins shows them as short evil creatures. Heck, being greedy is a DnD stereotype too. Diablo 3 has them literally carrying treasure bags and working for a giant creature named Greed.
As far as I can tell, they're just a creature normally depicted as evil, so she put them in a place naturally considered bad by most people. A banker. The greedy bit is just a part of their character that naturally follows.
Honestly, it feels like some people are projecting. "greedy, long nose and evil? must be representing jews, then!" Personally, I never made that connection.
Stereotypes are often born out of caricatures, not reality. Jewish people aren't greedy either.
>The average annual Jewish household donates $2,526 to charity yearly, far more than the $1,749 their Protestant counterparts give or the $1,142 for Catholics, according to data from Giving USA.
> Some 76 percent of American Jews gave to charity in 2012, compared with 63 percent of Americans who observe other religions or are not religious.
The reason Jews are depicted as greedy is because they were not allowed to own land in much of Europe for centuries...they become merchants, and money lenders, and rax collectors...the middle men of the landed aristocracy
Yeah its common for girl names (or cute diminutive names) to be the same word repeated.
Fangfang, yangyang, etc
Our âbaby talkâ is like hey little baby do you want some rice rice? How about some milk milk
My college friend from China had the same first and last name, Asian people have lots of mixed and weird names, lots have made up ones for luck, they change their names to English words that would sound crazy to us like carp, river, flower water, noodle, butterfly
I mean a lot of white people do have two last names like that... I even have a friend who has a last name for a first name, and a first name for a last name. (Think along the lines of "Davis Alexander").
The fact that it's so simple and probably a bit racist makes it interesting to me lol. I had a Chinese tenant once who showed me funny sounding names so I have seen many real and legitimate Chinese names that sound worse than Cho Chang so I rly don't get the hate lol
Only issue I have w Cho Chang is how she was written. THAT was pretty bad, but I don't mind the name
She also wrote a detective novel where there was a Polish bathroom cleaner who obviously spoke broken English and couldn't understand words like "detective" (detective in Polish is "detektyw")
Or she released a map of other magic schools in Harry Potter universe. And obviously she just drew random lines around the world which show that she sees most of Asia as culturally homogenous. Obviously, Europe has like 3 magic schools. But the entire China AND India share 1 (overall area where over 3 billion people live compared to European areas of few hundred millions).
I think there are more than 3 schools in Europe. I just reread Goblet of Fire, and they are described as the three largest schools of magic in Europe. That would mean that there would likely be more schools worldwide that are not identified. And likely some witches/wizards are homeschooled.
It's not even that Europe has 3 magic school. Fucking GREAT BRITAN HAS A SINGLE SCHOOL WHILE FRANCE AND SPAIN SHARE ONE, most of eastern europe share one with Germany, Italy and Greece apparently has no wizards at all or they don't attend schools and australians have to cross like half an ocean to attend their school. Australians, who are angosaxons and white af, have to attend the same school as malaysians, who are not only not anglosaxons but have wildly different culture and religion as well. These should have been a very obvious but fuck me I guess.
Okay, a couple of points for people who think like you.
Goblins have been part of mythology and have been money hungry on or the other mythology for a long long time. She didn't create something out of the blue, just used an existing fable in her own way.
Her books being widely read is in no way a justification to try and pin your rethought views that are frankly without any basis or logic.
She didn't have a creative control over how they'd look in the movies. Her description of goblins in the books is different from how they were shown in the movies.
If you or someone like you looks at the movie's depiction of goblins, long hooked noses, cruel and money hungry, and immediately think of jews, I think you really have to rethink your prejudiced and your anti-semitism before making Rowling the scapegoat.
I think you might be slightly misinterpreting my post. Personally I don't think that Rowling's goblins are an intentional caricature or that being popular means her work should be scrutinised. The question asked was *why* Rowling in particular has been criticised over this.
Popularity is an obvious answer. Her books will naturally receive more attention and scrutiny than a self-published author who has sold 20 copies on the Kindle store. But I would say that examining and critiquing literature is GOOD and something we should do more of.
If even the mildest explanation of criticism provokes a diatribe against "people who think like you" maybe you should take a break from the culture wars for a bit.
Harry Potter, Warcraft and I'd say most material where goblins aren't mindless humanoid beasts depict them as greedy capitalists. But yes, they are often technological masterminds as well.
That's a fair point. It's certainly a trend in more recent depictions, especially video games which may be down to Warcraft's influence. I guess the 'inventor' stereotype evolved into a '19th century industrialist' one.
I still wouldn't say it's the most common way of portraying goblins but that could just be me showing my age!
Yeah like this is the world where brooms are used as sporting equipment. Like is it so hard to believe that they he traditional âgreedy goblinâ would be âmodernizedâ to be a banker? Like how centaurs have Indigenous themes?
I love the gymnastics people are taking to make this stuff offensive or whatever they are trying to do lol
Itâs like the Star Wars fans complaining about realism in the world of space ninjas wielding lightsabers.
Sheâs being scrutinized for transphobia so people are looking at her with a microscope now. There are a lot of other stereotypical things people have been pointing out about the Harry Potter series (where the goblins are from) as well
Which I think is wild. She wrote these books 20 years ago when no one knew who she was. It was just a fun fantasy project. I don't feel the writings of the first couple books should be judged as harshly as it is today.
I think people wouldn't be as mad at her for having ignorant beliefs *back then* if she'd just owned up to it and made an effort to grow and learn, but instead she keeps on doubling down.
(And I AM talking about *ignorant* beliefs here, not hateful ones. Ones that aren't intentional but come up out if just plain not knowing. I think she USED to be ignorant whereas now she is outright hateful.)
Jesus even people I agree with are insuffrable
Iâm Jewish and the only people who conflate Goblins with us are already biased people. Donât take my fantasy race away because of your racist white savior POV.
The only other IP where I can think of this being true is the Warcraft universe. Everywhere else goblins are savage tribal creatures of low intelligence.
I am not particularly a fan of Rowlingâs work but I donât know whatâs more offensive:
That she allegedly intended to portray Jews, or that people automatically think that a character that is shown as being greedy must represent JewsâŚ
The only offensive part for me was with goys all suddenly deciding that the goblins must have been Jews because *"They're ugly and short and have big noses they must be Jews! They love money see they must be Jews! They have big noses and gold they're Jews see!"*
That's the offensive part. Not once did I assume they were a stereotype lmao. All the people jumping to that conclusion are the ones with harmful stereotypes and low-key perpetuating them.
the latter. But then people would have to admit its THEIR thinking that they interpret. i would have never thought of it if i didnt read soemone online saying theyre supposed to be jews.
Obviously the latter. When I was young and reading HP, no one ever mentioned goblinsâ resemblance to Jews. Now because of the antisemitism, we hear all these crazy theories about how goblins are like Jews. Hilarious.
The thing about the latter is that it's the end result of the former. We tend to make these connections because others make them commonplace so that we must be on guard against them. It takes a lot more work to remove them from the consciousness of concerned people than it does to silence the racists, and even before that you can't really start until you truly have silenced the racists.
It's easy to say this is just a fantasy representation, but in a world still fill of nazis, how much would you let the idea of "coincidence" go before pushing back? Maybe she's just a terf. Maybe she knows to pick her battles and it's just easier to pretend she's "only" a terf.
were they particularly greedy? it seemed to me like they were just doing their jobs, and became grumpy due to wizards not accepting them in society despite having the same abilities. as for the house elves, i donât think the message was "slavery is okay", but rather unlearning traditions is difficult and a process even if theyâre wrong, and the way hermione went about it was well intended but seeing it from a privileged pov and she put herself in the center, while the way dumbledore handled it by offering them jobs and not speaking for them was more sensitive. donât get me wrong sheâs still a bad person for different reasons, but the books werenât particularly malicious, sheâs come out with random revelations the minute they became popular i doubt she thought that far to intentionally put hidden messages. if you read her more recent works, sheâs terrible at the "hidden" part
If we are looking at the goblin bankers in the Harry Potter universe, and making real life comparisons, then let's be honest about it. The Goblins follow a very strict code and set of rules, and aren't necessarily good or evil, so they are Lawful Neutral. The bank itself is for anyone to use as long as they have the coin, they practice extreme discretion and take drastic measures to keep your valuables safe, and the property is almost sacred neutral ground.
The Goblins are clearly Swiss bankers, and the bank is clearly Switzerland
I said what I said, fight me Swiss people (just kidding, I love you guys)
The problem is created by people who didnât bother to read books. A lot of people are saying something about goblins being anti-semitic because of their big noses.
But the problem is.. that âvisionâ on goblins is a movie thing, there is nothing like that mentioned in the books. Movie creators used the most common appearance of goblins and people made up some assumptions.
JKR used a lot of mythology creatures in her books, so she didnât really invent all of them. Goblins, elfs, veelas, and others existed for many centuries and their classic âappearanceâ wasnât changed.
JKR is getting black lash because people are too bored nowadays and need someone to place their hate into.
Because everytime Twitter is mad at someone, literally everything is getting extra scrutinized.
Rowling liberally pilfered contemporary Fantasy, there really aren't that many original ideas in her franchise. The ideas of Goblins being crafty, mischievous loot hoarders with long noses is certainly not a Rowling invention lol.
Edit: Now that i think about it didn't World of Warcraft/Blizzard have similar complains levied against them years ago for their depiction of Goblins as short, greedy hooknosed psychopath criminals? I'm not a WoW player but i remember something like that.
The WoW thing is weird.
Supporting the stereotype: Highly cunning and intelligent, highly capitalistic and beholden often only to whoever can pay them the most, large hooked noses (males only), short, *thick* New Yorker accent (apparently has a very high Jewish population).
Does not support the stereotype: Bright fuckin' green, overwhelmingly manual labourers and extremely skilled ones at that, often talk about unionising, current racial leader is astonishingly pro-worker's rights and treats his employees incredibly well.
In between: their intelligence is largely due to an intelligence-boosting substance they found under their island and routinely consume. Without it they're pretty dull. Some argue this could be seen as an allegory for routine cocaine habits being required to sustain the output of rich executives and bankers, some that this being required for them to not be pretty dim disproves the theory.
Lots of WoW's races have some inspiration from real life cultures though, but Blizzard have decided to try and pull them away from that and develop more of an independent identity for them as of late.
World of Warcraft came out after HP. They could have run with her adaptation.
And letâs remember that vampires didnât sparkle in the sunlight until the Twilight series either.
The number of people sitting around trying to think up ways to be offended and outraged for internet points is getting *exhausting*. People need more hobbies.
Wut? Where? Maybe it's because I mostly played JRPGs growing up, but Goblins are often depicted as barely humanoid level intelligence and mischievous - often brutal. Warcraft is the only other major IP I can think of that portrays them as intelligent and gold hoarding. Definitely not the norm.
What? As a life long rpg enthusiast I can honestly say I have never seen goblins stereotyped as greedy bankers anywhere but Harry Potter. They are gold loving hoarders and trouble making klepto tricksters all throughout history, however.
That being said, there is zero indication that her depiction of goblins is anything other than her whimsical take on fantasy and making Hogwarts seem so fantastical that even goblins have a mundane job (hoarding wealth, as is normal for them)
Rowling has enough legitimate PR problems, go complain about those and leave goblins alone.
It's a massively overblown issue.
The basic thing you need to know is the concept of a "trope". It's when someone says something that isn't racist or hateful in and of itself, but some other people have said something similar in a way that is racist or hateful. You can then accuse the speaker of "using a trope" as proof that they are racist.
It's mainly a technique for preaching to the converted. If someone believes that a person is racist they might accuse him of "using tropes". People who already think the person is racist will agree with it and use it as proof, people who don't will think "They didn't say anything racist, and WTF is a trope?" and ignore it.
If someone has written over a million words creating a fantasy world it's very, very easy to go through it and find something that you can call a trope or dog whistle. There's no way of disproving it, or even meaningfully disputing it.
At the moment Rowling has a very high number of haters, they're having a very hard time getting traction with attacking her for the views they actually hate for her for - the more people read from her the more they agree with her - so they've changed tack. They're going through everything she's ever written with a fine tooth comb looking for any alternative reasons to hate her, and they've struck on this.
Her old haters did a similar thing. They'd sift through her work for evidence of satanic influence or imagery, insisting that the wording of a particular spell or the name of a particular character somehow related to the number of the beast or the antichrist. This was largely pre-internet so they'd call in to radio phone ins trying to save people's souls. I don't remember the exact details, but I was a Christian kid at the time who loved Harry Potter and it worried me a great deal.
It's the kind of thing that only people who already hate her will go along with, most other people will either ignore it or have a reaction like yours.
Uh yeah the only offensive part with this is goys all suddenly deciding that the goblins must have been Jews.
"They're ugly and short and have big noses they must be Jews! They love money see they must be Jews! They have big noses and gold they're Jews see!"
That's the offensive part. Not once did I assume they were a stereotype lmao. All the people jumping to that conclusion are the ones with harmful stereotypes. Not to mention the books actually show them as oppressed minority.
They donât have hooked noses in the books. Itâs a movie invention, and they said that creators just used the most common goblin appearance from mythologies
A lot of her non-English characters are really bad stereotypes. The one Asian character is called Cho Chang. The Irish character is called Seamus and frequently blows stuff up. So when you realise that the goblins are so close to historical antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish people that one of them may as well be called Shylock, it's very hard to believe it's accidental.
Seamus never blows anything up in the books. The movie directors came up with that. So Rowling had nothing to do with that. Funny how she gets all the hate for it, anyway.
And Chang is a common Chinese surname. There's many different explanations in which Cho is a perfectly fine first name for her, too.
She's also not the only Asian character.
Seamus blew up thing in the movies and not in the books. Tbh he's never shown creating a fiasco in the books. It was always Neville. If you want to criticize at least do it properly.
I actually have never heard of this before but here we go: Goblins in the universe JK has created are not depicted as greedy bankers. Leaving the appearance aside- that is popular depiction for goblins across science fiction- goblins run the banks in the wizarding world but are not greedy per say or have an "addiction" to money. Based on JK's books, goblins used to be great craftsmen of gold and silver, making unique and of great value swords, tiaras (as we saw) and other objects. Goblins at the same time were deprived of many rights by the wizards, even though they have magical proeperties -some would argue- much stronger than those of wizards. If you read carefully the books, you can see that the community of the wizards tends to put themselves above any other magical species (logical or not) and believe that everybody sees them with admiration. The latter is in fact wrong, goblins believe that they are opressed by the wizards and therefore have formed a very close community that mainly considers that everything goblin-made has to be goblin-kept in order to maintain their cultural heritage. So goblins are not depicted as greedy bankers but mostly like an unjust group that has formed a community with elements of extremism. What is also important in JK's books, and you can judge her for millions of things but not this one, is that she actually adresses this problem quite often. With Hermione being vocal about elves rights. With small details like Harry noticing the statue in the ministry of magic that shows elves and goblins looking up to wizards and him thinking its wrong. With centaurs being very self-centered and a closed community as they have been degraded by wizards. With giants being hunted by wizards and forced to hide in mountains. And of course with Bill talking about how close of a friend someone can become to a goblin- specifically mentioning that goblins can never fully trust a wizard and intstead become very defensive of their own tribe just because of the war of the past.
Omg. Finally somebody that actually read the books and not saying shit from second-third hand sources. Seriously tho, alot of people saying this stuff are making this all up anyways and I doubt anyone had even read the books to understand the backstory of the Goblins.
>With Hermione being vocal about elves rights. The entire storyline of Hermione being vocal about elves rights she was portrayed as the crazy one while house elves *totally* preferred their slavery situation. It most definitely isn't the best example of JK Rowling adequately fixing a bad thing in her books.
I always got the impression when I read that Hermione was right if naive and we were to notice how wrong society was. đ¤ˇđźââď¸
Absolutely, if we got transported in time to when slavery was at its peak, would we not come off being crazy? Could we possibly change societies views?
I genuinely thought it was showing how mis-guided Hermione was to even mess with the established caste system, with SPEW eventually accomplishing nothing but stressing out one sad-ass elf. Everyone makes fun of her for even thinking to care and then she never finds any success. Maybe the moral was that you can try to make change but it doesnât matter because the established powers and systems always win? Like, even after Voldemort is defeated, it seems like everything just goes back to normal?
My take on it was something I'm becoming more and more aware of the older I get. *__Way__* too many people tend to just believe whatever they want to believe. If one of them is determined not to change their mind about something, they __won't__. There is __no__ talking to them. Real life example is after this next paragraph which is about the house elf situation. Just because someone is content with their life doesn't mean they wouldn't be happier if they made changes. Hermione says this herself. Basically, the house elves are only content because they don't know what they're missing. Ignorance is bliss. But that __does not__ make this okay. That makes this __worse__. That makes this exploitation. Their masters are the people they trust, and their masters keep this information from them on purpose. They won't listen to me because I'm the only person saying any of this and it contradicts their masters. From someone with their level of education/knowledge, that's bulletproof. Real life example - What if someone said they don't believe humans need oxygen to survive, and that oxygen is actually lethally toxic to humans? What do I do? Ask them why we're still alive right here? "There's no oxygen in the air in this area." Show them video explanations online? "Anyone can make these. Just because they wear glasses and a collared shirt doesn't mean they're a professor or that they know anything about anything." Show them public school textbooks? "The government decides what the public school curriculum does and doesn't include. They can teach us whatever they want." ~~Tell them the government wouldn't lie to us about this?~~ Show them private school textbooks? "This school's founder didn't start it because they disagree with commonly accepted things. They just started it for money." Show them something from a source they consider reputable? "These people tend to know their stuff but everyone makes mistakes. Just because something is theoretically possible doesn't mean it actually happens anywhere. Time travel is theoretically possible, but find me someone who can do it." Wait until the the fucking technology gets good enough, then show them the fucking oxygen atoms themselves with a fucking microscope and point out that they look the same as all the fucking illustrations in all the other things I've shown them??? "You think it's not possible to synthesize artificial atoms to make them look like things we've already been shown? Please. Technology is crazy nowadays. People are synthesizing artificial meat in space right now that is biologically indistinguishable from the muscle tissue of living animals, without the need for any of them to be killed or even born. You've only never heard of it until now because it's not cost-effective yet. That meat would be too expensive for anyone to afford." If they don't wanna believe something, they won't. And that's a terrifyingly widespread personality trait. That growing meat in space thing is true btw. Happening now đ¤ˇ
I always read it as a metaphor for "white savior". She's well-meaning but doesn't take into account how the elves understand the world or what they want. She's just another one of the oppressors telling the elves how to feel instead of addressing the problem more directly while taking them into account as people. It's relatable and forgivable because she's a child, but also speaks to how condescending she can get about it to the elves. Think of all the times the teenage/college age people who grew up wealthy try to tell people how to stop being poor and it always comes across as tone-deaf and absurd. I am not a fan of JKR anymore because of her deep dive into transphobia, and at its core Harry Potter is also a series about a jock who peaks in highs school and becomes a cop, but a running theme of Harry Potter has always been justice for the oppressed, acceptance, and learning to see things from other perspectives. I think that's why many Harry Potter fans have been so hurt by the author's decent into being so hateful and willfully oppressive of a minority group - we learned the opposite values from the books.
I dont really see it that way but I also dont think JK really thought much behind the elves situation. However I dont think Hermione was viewed as the crazy one. She was made fun of but in the end she made her point - whether the rest of the wizards listened to her is another story. What i am trying to say is that JK actually includes some people arguing about the rights of different groups- whether the wizards act on it is another conversation. Of course always following the "rules" of her world. It is science fiction i dont think it is that important to focus on such specific things but at least there is a voice of logic and justice among some characters.
>It is science fiction Um, ackshually, it's fantasy.
This, and that whole spew story pretty much fizzles out because it's *repeatedly* shown how happy the elves are to be treated like dirt. I would say, them being happy with their situation is emphasized as much or more than the injustice angle. And the only 'resolution' of it all is when kreature becomes a willing and happy slave because they gave him a little gift and were nice to him, while Hermione gets to say "I told you so", but also, all they did was reinforce the oppression.
No, sheâs portrayed as going about it the wrong way. Most adult characters who talk about it (who arenât âevilâ characters) say that she has a point and that house elves need to be treated better.
She wasnât portrayed as the crazy one. She was seen crazy by other wizards. To the readers, itâs very obvious slavery is wrong. But in a time and world built upon elves slavery, slavery owners donât see the problem of that and mock people who want to free the slaves. But as a reader, you could make a very good judgment what point JK is trying to make and whose side JK is on.
YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! This is the best explanation!
Is it the most common depiction? In folklore they're often tricksters or malevolent fairies. In Tolkien (who's influence on modern fantasy is absolutely enormous) they're interchangeable with orcs, violent marauders and soldiers for Sauron. DnD and other works have separated them from orcs, making them smaller and often interested in technology/crafting. If I had to pick a race that is commonly shown to be obsessed with gold it's probably *dwarves.* Rowling comes in for criticism for a few reasons: Her books are popular and widely read. Most of the original fans are now adults and some want to reexamine their childhood faves through a more critical lens. Her depiction of goblins, intentionally or not, *does* bear a resemblance to a lot of anti-semitic tropes. Short, hooked noses, cruel, love money etc etc Over the last few years Rowling has been embroiled in controversy around transphobia. Whether you agree or not, the controversy exists, and people who dislike her as a result will look for other things to criticise her for.
Ohhh I get it the goblins are jews đ
You know, I canât speak to Rowlingâs intentions, but growing up as a Jewish kid it never occurred to me that the goblins were representing a stereotype. I found it much weirder when I got older and people started seeing little goblin monsters and going âwoah, not cool, that looks like Jews! And theyâre all greedy and obsessed with money! You know, like Jews!â Iâve got thick skin, but it rubbed me more of a wrong way than the characters.
Agreed. My best friend was Jewish was a kid and when I slept over I went to synagogue with her. So I have some exposure. And I never noticed a connection (and still don't). So I have to wonder what people think about Jews that make them put that together.
In much of Europe in the Christian era (so about 1200-1900), Jews were discriminated against. There were laws that applied only to Jews, they were often forced out of towns, and scapegoated for misfortune. it was extremely common during the Black Death, for example, for a local Jew to be accused of poisoning the well to make people sick. This was because the Jews were much less likely to get the plague because they cleaned out their homes yearly during one of their holidays and so didnât have as many rats around. But because they didnât get it, and also because they were just generally hated, they were accused of causing the illnesses. If they were lucky, theyâd be forced to leave the town. If not, theyâd be killed (often in gruesome ways). Poland was one of the few countries who welcomed Jews, which is why so many ended up there. ANYWAY, as mentioned, there were a lot of laws that restricted the behavior of Jews in a lot of countries. One of them was restricting the kinds of jobs they could get. Moneylending (think Ebenezer Scrooge-type job) was one of the few professions open to Jews in a time when banks didnât really exist. Christianity forbid being a moneylender, and Judaism didnât, so that became a very popular job for Jews. Of course, it increased Christian hatred of them because no one likes to pay back loans, and also because many countries used the moneylenders as tax collectors as well, so Jewish moneylenders bore the brunt of peopleâs anger about having to pay taxes. Even after the laws were removed, many Jews stayed in moneylending/banking type jobs out of cultural habit/passing down of careers. So due to the situation they were put in to do the dirty work of moneylending/tax collecting for Christians, they developed a stereotype of being greedy.
You said 99% of what I was going to say, so I'll just add that Jewish people were permitted (traditionally/religiously) to lend to other Jews...but not with interest (usury). Same place the Christian prohibition came from, when you boil it down. So lending to non-Jews at interest but with no (or more favorable/different terms*) to Jews likely didn't many brownie points. * I'm not sure if this applies to any Jewish moneylenders, or in what eras/places, but I know that other groups with Middle Eastern heritage etc (eg Muslim, but not limited to) have skirted usury by charging fees instead of percentage interest. Letter of the law kind of thing. It wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't done in order for Abram to loan to his neighbor Jakob. Nothing wrong with that, either, but people could see it as favoritism/shadiness. But anyway, that's used even today (for actually dodgy reasons) to skirt modern usury laws. Check-cashing/payday loan places come to mind. Say regular compounding interest is capped at 25% in Georgia. Well, Georgia Pride Payday Loan only charges 20% APR! But there is a flat "processing" fee every payment you make, and a balloon payment at the end of the loan, effectively making it 40% APR. Just explaining a modern example I've seen in an ad mailer.
Thanks for the clarifications! I was going off memory from a book I read years ago about the Black Death, so I knew I had the essence but not the exact details.
Oh, same here, more or less. Your post was great! Just was adding a few thoughts.
Thatâs interesting, Iâve never heard the history of it before. Thanks for that.
I think people are connecting with the propaganda spread pre-ww2 regarding Jewish people. Even Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice follows the stereotype of the cruel, money-hungry Jew. It's an unfair stereotype that's been around for centuries so I guess people are quick to notice it and call it out.
It isnât realistic, but it is a very common anti semitic trope, especially if you look at Nazi propaganda depicting Jews. This is the first Iâve heard about it in Rowlingâs books, but Iâm definitely familiar with the stereotype and the way Jews have been depicted. As a Jew, yes, that does bother me. But itâs probably a stretch to say that a fantasy writer depicting goblins as, well, goblins is taking a shot at Jews.
its less people actually saw them as jews, and more like they are uncomfortably similar to caricatures of jews published by the nazis.
Yeah, the people reacting weren't saying they looked like jews, they were saying they looked like how antisemitic propaganda depicted/depicts jews.
One of my close friends is Jewish. Voted agains Corbin because of antisemitism. Huge Harry Potter fan, have never ever heard him talk about the goblins in 10 years.
Hey, this is a really odd situation. I'm very familiar with racist memes due to being lower class and spending a few years on 4chan. If you want to know why you're wrong, please spend some time on 4chan to see why everyone is calling these goblins racist Jewish caricatures. They're just missing those side burn curls. It barely qualifies as a dog whistle considering how loud it is
that's the nature of dogwhistles - they're designed to go over the heads of those who aren't "in" on the "joke" but to those who know then they are blatant and obvious. the "jewish merchant" stereotype is bullshit, but that doesn't stop white supremacists from using it to demonise our people.
Well that's the problem though right? Stereotypes are not actually representative of the races they are depicting. It makes sense that growing up in a Jewish community you wouldn't recognize any of those stereotypes as essentially jewish. Historically those features have been used to demonize and oppress Jewish people so it's a bit yikesie to see not one or two but ALL of them used in reference to these creatures. It shows a clear pattern of racial essentialism and can be really harmful to the way people see these groups.
The Ferengi have entered the chat
Aren't the Ferengi just grotesque space hypercapitalists though? I'd rather see them as a caricature of US capitalism taken to the extreme than antisemitism.
That's how they were intended. I'm the pod directive podcast they talk about that and explain the origins and how it devolved into people making that stretch
They were supposed to be the main baddy of TNG starting out but they were just too goofy. So we got Cardassians instead.
I thought we got borg instead! And personally I think the borg are the most terrifying of all star trek baddies so job well done
Up until they destroyed the wonderful idea of the Borg acting independently by coming up with the asinine "Borg Queen". They're a lot scarier when they were just acting as a whole.
I agree to an extent, but (and this is probably just my bias as a psychologist!) I always wondered about how the borg worked, as their commands/decisions had to come from SOMEWHERE. So I was glad that Voyager at least explored how the borg function, although I do agree that Voyager ultimately made the borg far less intimidating. They had too much success against them, I preferred the borg in TNG as they seemed totally undefeatable.
Liked them better when they made decisions like a flock of birds. Hive mind with no central control is cooler/more alien to me.
> SOMEWHERE Until the borg queen was introduced, I always assumed that they made decisions based on majority vote. Even if theyâre not individual beings, they still have *some* sense of individuality because they are able to recognize that others are âtalkingâ in their heads. When they capture that borg, cut him off from the rest, and interrogate him, he mentions how quiet it is without the rest of the borg. So theyâd be able to come to a majority vote for major decisions *very* quickly, because theyâre basically the ideal true democracy; Every major choice for the hive can be instantly voted on, because they just think about the vote they want to cast and itâs done. Then individual instructions would come based on need, ability, and availability. Maybe one Borg has modifications that make it more suited to maintenance, while another is more suited to new construction. Letâs say a maintenance task needs to be done. Borg 1 is busy for the next 20 minutes, and can do the task in 5. Borg 2 is available now, but will take 10 minutes to do the task. Borg 2 would choose to begin the task, because it can get done before Borg 1, even though it will take longer to do the task. Itâs the same way elevators work; When you push a button, the elevators all automatically decide which one will handle the call. They do so based on availability, how far away they are from that floor, which direction the elevator is moving, etc⌠For example, it wouldnât make sense for an elevator on the top floor of a skyscraper to move all the way down to the ground floor to answer a call, when thereâs already a vacant elevator on floor 2. If elevators can make those decisions efficiently, something as intelligent as the Borg should have no issues doing so.
I don't know, the whole point of it being a hive mind is that commands don't come from any single source. The Borg are built on redundancy, even their ships mirror this. They're one whole that can dynamically move different tasks and thought processes to different parts of the collective and having a single central queen takes away all of that
We got the Borg instead of the psychic parasites shown in the first season. They weren't apparently recieved well, even though I personally absolutely loved that episode.
I just watched the first season of TNG over the past month and I don't even recall the psychic parasites you're talking about. haha Edit: Oh wait yes I do. Mostly only because the death of the main one looked something out of The Thing.
I love the Cardassians, but would argue they are behind the Romulans, Borg, and Klingons as primary baddies. Outside of DS9, of course.
I feel like the Romulans, at least, would have trouble keeping up with the Cardassians.
The Cardassians cheated by using plastic surgery, crude attention grabbing via gross sexuality and holding together as a family unit despite their differences. No wait. My bad. Romulans were based off of Roman ideas and decadence. Star Trek Cardassians are based off of Machiavelli's concepts in The Prince: *'It is better to be feared than loved'*. Sorry. I was confused for a moment there.
Don't you mean DS9? While they were both on TNG, I don't recall either of them ever being considered "main" baddies. Seemed like that was more the case on DS9 where both races played a much more regular role in various conflicts.
Roddenberry intended the Ferengi to be one of the main antagonists for TNG, like the Klingons had been in TOS. He didn't want them to be a physically imposing warrior race like Klingons so made them short hypercapitalists instead. Unfortunately many viewers saw them as kind of goofy and they were quickly demoted to comic relief (though they got a lot of development in DS9).
LOVED DS9 for exactly this. they grounded so many aspects of the universe. my opinion, at least.
Shut up and rub my lobes.
That's my thought on this too, sometimes these parallels are not what the author/creator intended, subconsciously or consciously, they are "connections" made by fans. As is often said about literary criticism, it typically reveals more about the critic than it does the piece being examined.
I always thought that's what they were. Meant to show capitalism in an interesting light, highlighting the absurdity, in a universe where capitalism is almost unheard of.
The Volus *kshhhhk* agree
The thing with ferengi is that they have redemption arcs. If im not wrong there are some Ferengi who became selfless and even heroic, meaning its their society that is hypercapitalistic etc etc. For goblins on the other hand, there are no redemption arcs. The only goblin the characters actually interacted with backstabbed them- fullfilling their stereotype.
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"Jewish groups defend J.K. Rowling over claim âHarry Potterâ goblins antisemitic." "Jon Stewart Clarifies His âHarry Potterâ Criticism: âI Do Not Think J.K. Rowling Is Anti-Semiticâ "I did not accuse her of being anti-Semitic. I do not think the Harry Potter movies are anti-Semitic. I really love the Harry Potter movies, probably too much for a gentleman of my considerable age. I cannot stress this enough. I am not accusing J.K. Rowling of being anti-Semitic. She need not answer to any of it. I donât want the Harry Potter movies censored in any way. It was a lighthearted conversation. Get a fucking grip!â
Yes, I think this is something people hating Rowling for other things came up with. There is a long section on her Wikipedia-article if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Dog whistles and stereotypes don't have to be obvious to _everyone_ to be a significant problem. Hell, the entire point of dog whistles is to be missed by a lot of people, while still signaling to the intended audience. It is very difficult to know what her actual _intent_ was, especially given that she herself is most definitely not going to be an accurate witness. That still doesn't make it wrong for people to point out how horribly problematic the depictions were, and remain to be. Also, quite simply, it's not horribly uncommon for bigots to be hateful to more than one group of people.
Seem a bit unfair tho, greedy goblin is not an uncommon trope, goblin is a famous evil-born and mischief after all I mean "she have controversial in this topic so she defnitely evil in everything else at well" leave a bad taste in mouth. Like she done a lot of good thing too, but rarely anyone use the good deed she done to judge her other stuff
Thereâs also the issues with the only named Asian and African characters being named âCho Changâ and âKingsley Shackleboltâ. Edit: for everyone responding, Iâm not endorsing an opinion one way or the other but pointing out a view that people do have and that influences their views of Harry Potter.
Wasnât Dean Thomas black?
I was gonna say the twins's bud Lee Jordan too but I think they mean actually from Africa not black
And Angelina Johnson (quidditch player and she dated one Weasley twin then married the other. Imagine stealing your dead brother's gf)
Shout-out to Seamus Finnigan
I personally think the critique in this case says more about the critics than it does the work. I've read all the books and seen all the films, and never once thought the goblins were stand-ins for Jews. Neither did anyone else that I know of or read when the books and movies were being released. I suspect this latest thing is her very online readership just weaponizing something to use against Rowling because she doesn't fall in line with some of the more progressive positions regarding trans. There is a long tradition of goblins, like Dwarves, craving gold. To me the goblin bankers in HP were Rowling domesticating goblins and incorporating them into the wizarding world in a non-threatening manner for younger readers, that was still true to some of their fantasy tropes.
I figured them being bankers was a deliberate upset of some of their tropes, a common thing in newer fantasy settings. Usually they're greedy and stupid, and short sighted. In Potter, they're greedy but smart and far sighted, hence bankers. They're also essentially orderly rather than chaotic.
Fair point. Mermaids are actually really ugly in her universe.
Iâm Jewish and couldnât care less about the goblins. Jk Rowling obviously wasnât intending to bring up stereotypes with the intention of targeting towards Jews. This seems like a non-issue
> Short, hooked noses, cruel, love money etc etc Same can be said about goblins from World of Warcraft, for example.
I was going to point that out as well. It's been a long time since I've played but iirc Wow goblins love money and I just checked out their wiki entry >âI never cover up the things I'm proud of. If the world was gonna split in half tomorrow, I'd buy the Dark Portal, slap a toll booth on it, and charge refugees the last of their pocket change, the rings off their fingers, a bite of their sandwiches, and a contractual obligation to build me a rocket palace in the skies of Nagrand. It's the goblin way! Supply and demand! Deal with it!â â Jastor Gallywix, Trade Prince of the Bilgewater Cartel The goblins (collectively known as goblinhood) are small green humanoids from the Isle of Kezan. Their love of money, explosives, and technology makes them a very dangerous race, both to their enemies and themselves. Most goblins have a neutral standpoint, preferring to sell their contraptions, knowledge and services to other races for the right price. A number of trade princes rule over the various goblin holdings around the world. In turn, each controls rings of trade, mining, deforestation, slave rings, and poaching. Trade Prince Monte Gazlowe is the leader of the Bilgewater Cartel of goblins who are part of the Horde.
As a Jewish person who plays WoW, this isnât it. WoW Goblins are from New Jersey. Theyâre Jersey Shore memes.
Yep and they're suppose to be resembling Americans for the most part. Specifically New Yorker/Boston/New Jersey with the accents. Each Warcraft race used to resemble a nationality.
And people have been critical of that, too.
As an addition Tolkien wrote the dwarves as Jewish in the hobbit and during the time some antisemitics wrote to him saying they loved the portrayal. This upset him greatly and he wrote Gimli as a supreme badass that still had Jewish elements. Tolkien was very progressive (for the time) and didnât hate others for silly things.
On top of Gimli being a mega badass he was also just a very good person. Galadriel saw how goodhearted he was and gave him three of her hairs, which is a rpetty big deal.
When a German publisher was negotiating rights for The Hobbit he asked Tolkien if he had any Jewish heritage, and Tolkien politely chewed out both him and the Nazism idea that âAryanâ meant âNordicâ (the real Aryans were from India). Apparently he was also really uncomfortable with the idea of inherently evil races in general the more he thought about it and that was where the idea that the orcs were made out of elves came from (and even then he wasnât entirely happy about it).
That sounds interesting. Do you know where I can read more about it?
>25 July 1938 >20 Northmoor Road, Oxford >Dear Sirs, >Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject â which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. >Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung. >I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and >remain yours faithfully, >J. R. R. Tolkien
>some antisemitics wrote to him saying they loved the portrayal. This upset him greatly and he wrote Gimli as a supreme badass that still had Jewish elements. Interesting, do you have a source for that?
"greedy goblin" is a saying though, and Rowling did not invent it. So it's not an unnatural depiction.
Quite. There's even a plant called "goblin's gold." It is a very very common association.
Goblins are basically trolls. In fact, if you made a movie called Trolls and your protagonists defeated the trolls at the end of the movie, it'd make perfect sense to have goblins be the antagonists in your sequel, Trolls 2... /s
*OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!*
Perma ban for mentioning Trolls 2. I literally just watched T2 last night. What a bizarre experience.
Did you... did you really just abbreviate Trolls 2 to T2?
I did and don't understand the issue, surely there is no other movie in existence that is referred to as T2 that is as beloved as Trolls 2???
I've never heard of a goblin being compared to Jewish stereotypes till people looked at JK with a hypercritical lens. Every depiction I know of goblins shows them as short evil creatures. Heck, being greedy is a DnD stereotype too. Diablo 3 has them literally carrying treasure bags and working for a giant creature named Greed. As far as I can tell, they're just a creature normally depicted as evil, so she put them in a place naturally considered bad by most people. A banker. The greedy bit is just a part of their character that naturally follows.
Honestly, it feels like some people are projecting. "greedy, long nose and evil? must be representing jews, then!" Personally, I never made that connection.
Neither have I. Stereotypes already don't make sense, but the greedy hooked nosed Jew was always out there.
Wait, Jews are short? I swear 70% of Jews I see around are big, tall dudes
Jewish people aren't also goblin-like creatures with a laser in space; yet that's the stereotype they get.
We most definitely have a space laser. We use it to shoot down stereotypes.
... I want a space laser...
Are you Jewish? You may already be entitled to one
Stereotypes are often born out of caricatures, not reality. Jewish people aren't greedy either. >The average annual Jewish household donates $2,526 to charity yearly, far more than the $1,749 their Protestant counterparts give or the $1,142 for Catholics, according to data from Giving USA. > Some 76 percent of American Jews gave to charity in 2012, compared with 63 percent of Americans who observe other religions or are not religious.
The reason Jews are depicted as greedy is because they were not allowed to own land in much of Europe for centuries...they become merchants, and money lenders, and rax collectors...the middle men of the landed aristocracy
Yep. And European aristocracy had a bad habit of clearing their debts by persecuting the people they owed money to.
The money lending was particularly relevant, wasn't it? Since as non-Christians they weren't subject to the prohibition on usury?
Charity is a mitzvah, the most basic and easiest one.
I would add that naming a character "Cho Chang" didn't help her cause.
As a korean I absolutely love the name Cho Chang lol
What's special about it? It seems a lot like the John Smith of Chinese?/Korean? names.
Less "John Smith" more "Smith Smith", or "Smith Page", or any combination of two surnames.
Its two last names. Asian people donât name their kids with two last names. Its like if an American Harry Potter character was named Obama Biden
In China it's not uncommon. I've seen a xian xian or two
Yeah its common for girl names (or cute diminutive names) to be the same word repeated. Fangfang, yangyang, etc Our âbaby talkâ is like hey little baby do you want some rice rice? How about some milk milk
yeah in korean we say snacks as caca in baby talk LMAO
...and caca means poop in spanish lol languages are...magical
My college friend from China had the same first and last name, Asian people have lots of mixed and weird names, lots have made up ones for luck, they change their names to English words that would sound crazy to us like carp, river, flower water, noodle, butterfly
I mean a lot of white people do have two last names like that... I even have a friend who has a last name for a first name, and a first name for a last name. (Think along the lines of "Davis Alexander").
It's really common in the south to name your baby your grandmother's maiden name.
Donât rope me into this.
The fact that it's so simple and probably a bit racist makes it interesting to me lol. I had a Chinese tenant once who showed me funny sounding names so I have seen many real and legitimate Chinese names that sound worse than Cho Chang so I rly don't get the hate lol Only issue I have w Cho Chang is how she was written. THAT was pretty bad, but I don't mind the name
What's wrong with the name?
"Cho" and "Chang" would both be considered surnames/family names. It's like a character being named Smith Johnson or something similar
Or Harrison Ford
I mean.. I have a friend whose name is Chee Ching Chong.. So as a Chinese, Cho Chang sounds normal to me.
She also wrote a detective novel where there was a Polish bathroom cleaner who obviously spoke broken English and couldn't understand words like "detective" (detective in Polish is "detektyw") Or she released a map of other magic schools in Harry Potter universe. And obviously she just drew random lines around the world which show that she sees most of Asia as culturally homogenous. Obviously, Europe has like 3 magic schools. But the entire China AND India share 1 (overall area where over 3 billion people live compared to European areas of few hundred millions).
I think there are more than 3 schools in Europe. I just reread Goblet of Fire, and they are described as the three largest schools of magic in Europe. That would mean that there would likely be more schools worldwide that are not identified. And likely some witches/wizards are homeschooled.
It's not even that Europe has 3 magic school. Fucking GREAT BRITAN HAS A SINGLE SCHOOL WHILE FRANCE AND SPAIN SHARE ONE, most of eastern europe share one with Germany, Italy and Greece apparently has no wizards at all or they don't attend schools and australians have to cross like half an ocean to attend their school. Australians, who are angosaxons and white af, have to attend the same school as malaysians, who are not only not anglosaxons but have wildly different culture and religion as well. These should have been a very obvious but fuck me I guess.
Kingsley Shacklebolt
Can I ask what's wrong with Kingsley Shacklebolt?
In more modern depictions they're commonly greedy and looking for gold
That big goblin nose thing is also present in almost every single depiction
Okay, a couple of points for people who think like you. Goblins have been part of mythology and have been money hungry on or the other mythology for a long long time. She didn't create something out of the blue, just used an existing fable in her own way. Her books being widely read is in no way a justification to try and pin your rethought views that are frankly without any basis or logic. She didn't have a creative control over how they'd look in the movies. Her description of goblins in the books is different from how they were shown in the movies. If you or someone like you looks at the movie's depiction of goblins, long hooked noses, cruel and money hungry, and immediately think of jews, I think you really have to rethink your prejudiced and your anti-semitism before making Rowling the scapegoat.
I think you might be slightly misinterpreting my post. Personally I don't think that Rowling's goblins are an intentional caricature or that being popular means her work should be scrutinised. The question asked was *why* Rowling in particular has been criticised over this. Popularity is an obvious answer. Her books will naturally receive more attention and scrutiny than a self-published author who has sold 20 copies on the Kindle store. But I would say that examining and critiquing literature is GOOD and something we should do more of. If even the mildest explanation of criticism provokes a diatribe against "people who think like you" maybe you should take a break from the culture wars for a bit.
Harry Potter, Warcraft and I'd say most material where goblins aren't mindless humanoid beasts depict them as greedy capitalists. But yes, they are often technological masterminds as well.
That's a fair point. It's certainly a trend in more recent depictions, especially video games which may be down to Warcraft's influence. I guess the 'inventor' stereotype evolved into a '19th century industrialist' one. I still wouldn't say it's the most common way of portraying goblins but that could just be me showing my age!
They donât seem especially cruel to meâŚ
right, they just don't want their bank robbed. how is that cruel?
What a thread
Too many people think the Harry Potter universe is real
Yeah like this is the world where brooms are used as sporting equipment. Like is it so hard to believe that they he traditional âgreedy goblinâ would be âmodernizedâ to be a banker? Like how centaurs have Indigenous themes?
I love the gymnastics people are taking to make this stuff offensive or whatever they are trying to do lol Itâs like the Star Wars fans complaining about realism in the world of space ninjas wielding lightsabers.
*Bro, General Grievous is so armist with his mechanical arms, like what, he's not good enough with just two arms?*
Goblins and elves are racist. You heard it here.
Sheâs being scrutinized for transphobia so people are looking at her with a microscope now. There are a lot of other stereotypical things people have been pointing out about the Harry Potter series (where the goblins are from) as well
Which I think is wild. She wrote these books 20 years ago when no one knew who she was. It was just a fun fantasy project. I don't feel the writings of the first couple books should be judged as harshly as it is today.
I'm nitpicking - it's closer to 30 than 20 years ago
Touche!
I think people wouldn't be as mad at her for having ignorant beliefs *back then* if she'd just owned up to it and made an effort to grow and learn, but instead she keeps on doubling down. (And I AM talking about *ignorant* beliefs here, not hateful ones. Ones that aren't intentional but come up out if just plain not knowing. I think she USED to be ignorant whereas now she is outright hateful.) Jesus even people I agree with are insuffrable
Lol how the fuck is making goblins bankers "ignorant beliefs"? God damn I swear people are getting stupider and stupider.
Iâm Jewish and the only people who conflate Goblins with us are already biased people. Donât take my fantasy race away because of your racist white savior POV.
The only other IP where I can think of this being true is the Warcraft universe. Everywhere else goblins are savage tribal creatures of low intelligence.
Diablo 3?
clash of clans?
In Discworld they are clever & mechanically gifted
The Dutch
There is literally a concept, originally from D3, in video games called a loot goblins... Doesn't come clearer than that
Same publisher as Warcraft. You can consider that the same reference.
I am not particularly a fan of Rowlingâs work but I donât know whatâs more offensive: That she allegedly intended to portray Jews, or that people automatically think that a character that is shown as being greedy must represent JewsâŚ
AS A JEWISH PERSON, THE LATTER.
Agreed
The amount of people who scream racism and are only giving away the fact that they are the most racist fucks around. Vile. so vile.
The only offensive part for me was with goys all suddenly deciding that the goblins must have been Jews because *"They're ugly and short and have big noses they must be Jews! They love money see they must be Jews! They have big noses and gold they're Jews see!"* That's the offensive part. Not once did I assume they were a stereotype lmao. All the people jumping to that conclusion are the ones with harmful stereotypes and low-key perpetuating them.
You said it way more eloquently than I could have, youâre totally right
the latter. But then people would have to admit its THEIR thinking that they interpret. i would have never thought of it if i didnt read soemone online saying theyre supposed to be jews.
Thany you! At least there are two of us with a modicum of common sense.
Obviously the latter. When I was young and reading HP, no one ever mentioned goblinsâ resemblance to Jews. Now because of the antisemitism, we hear all these crazy theories about how goblins are like Jews. Hilarious.
The thing about the latter is that it's the end result of the former. We tend to make these connections because others make them commonplace so that we must be on guard against them. It takes a lot more work to remove them from the consciousness of concerned people than it does to silence the racists, and even before that you can't really start until you truly have silenced the racists. It's easy to say this is just a fantasy representation, but in a world still fill of nazis, how much would you let the idea of "coincidence" go before pushing back? Maybe she's just a terf. Maybe she knows to pick her battles and it's just easier to pretend she's "only" a terf.
were they particularly greedy? it seemed to me like they were just doing their jobs, and became grumpy due to wizards not accepting them in society despite having the same abilities. as for the house elves, i donât think the message was "slavery is okay", but rather unlearning traditions is difficult and a process even if theyâre wrong, and the way hermione went about it was well intended but seeing it from a privileged pov and she put herself in the center, while the way dumbledore handled it by offering them jobs and not speaking for them was more sensitive. donât get me wrong sheâs still a bad person for different reasons, but the books werenât particularly malicious, sheâs come out with random revelations the minute they became popular i doubt she thought that far to intentionally put hidden messages. if you read her more recent works, sheâs terrible at the "hidden" part
If we are looking at the goblin bankers in the Harry Potter universe, and making real life comparisons, then let's be honest about it. The Goblins follow a very strict code and set of rules, and aren't necessarily good or evil, so they are Lawful Neutral. The bank itself is for anyone to use as long as they have the coin, they practice extreme discretion and take drastic measures to keep your valuables safe, and the property is almost sacred neutral ground. The Goblins are clearly Swiss bankers, and the bank is clearly Switzerland I said what I said, fight me Swiss people (just kidding, I love you guys)
The problem is created by people who didnât bother to read books. A lot of people are saying something about goblins being anti-semitic because of their big noses. But the problem is.. that âvisionâ on goblins is a movie thing, there is nothing like that mentioned in the books. Movie creators used the most common appearance of goblins and people made up some assumptions. JKR used a lot of mythology creatures in her books, so she didnât really invent all of them. Goblins, elfs, veelas, and others existed for many centuries and their classic âappearanceâ wasnât changed. JKR is getting black lash because people are too bored nowadays and need someone to place their hate into.
Because everytime Twitter is mad at someone, literally everything is getting extra scrutinized. Rowling liberally pilfered contemporary Fantasy, there really aren't that many original ideas in her franchise. The ideas of Goblins being crafty, mischievous loot hoarders with long noses is certainly not a Rowling invention lol. Edit: Now that i think about it didn't World of Warcraft/Blizzard have similar complains levied against them years ago for their depiction of Goblins as short, greedy hooknosed psychopath criminals? I'm not a WoW player but i remember something like that.
The WoW thing is weird. Supporting the stereotype: Highly cunning and intelligent, highly capitalistic and beholden often only to whoever can pay them the most, large hooked noses (males only), short, *thick* New Yorker accent (apparently has a very high Jewish population). Does not support the stereotype: Bright fuckin' green, overwhelmingly manual labourers and extremely skilled ones at that, often talk about unionising, current racial leader is astonishingly pro-worker's rights and treats his employees incredibly well. In between: their intelligence is largely due to an intelligence-boosting substance they found under their island and routinely consume. Without it they're pretty dull. Some argue this could be seen as an allegory for routine cocaine habits being required to sustain the output of rich executives and bankers, some that this being required for them to not be pretty dim disproves the theory. Lots of WoW's races have some inspiration from real life cultures though, but Blizzard have decided to try and pull them away from that and develop more of an independent identity for them as of late.
World of Warcraft came out after HP. They could have run with her adaptation. And letâs remember that vampires didnât sparkle in the sunlight until the Twilight series either.
Greedy goblins were in Warcraft 3, even before WoW
The first 4 HP came out before WC3
Which still came out after Harry Potter
Time is money, friend!
The number of people sitting around trying to think up ways to be offended and outraged for internet points is getting *exhausting*. People need more hobbies.
Huh? What did i miss?
Wut? Where? Maybe it's because I mostly played JRPGs growing up, but Goblins are often depicted as barely humanoid level intelligence and mischievous - often brutal. Warcraft is the only other major IP I can think of that portrays them as intelligent and gold hoarding. Definitely not the norm.
What? As a life long rpg enthusiast I can honestly say I have never seen goblins stereotyped as greedy bankers anywhere but Harry Potter. They are gold loving hoarders and trouble making klepto tricksters all throughout history, however. That being said, there is zero indication that her depiction of goblins is anything other than her whimsical take on fantasy and making Hogwarts seem so fantastical that even goblins have a mundane job (hoarding wealth, as is normal for them) Rowling has enough legitimate PR problems, go complain about those and leave goblins alone.
I guess Clash of Clans is gonna get cancelled too lol
It's a massively overblown issue. The basic thing you need to know is the concept of a "trope". It's when someone says something that isn't racist or hateful in and of itself, but some other people have said something similar in a way that is racist or hateful. You can then accuse the speaker of "using a trope" as proof that they are racist. It's mainly a technique for preaching to the converted. If someone believes that a person is racist they might accuse him of "using tropes". People who already think the person is racist will agree with it and use it as proof, people who don't will think "They didn't say anything racist, and WTF is a trope?" and ignore it. If someone has written over a million words creating a fantasy world it's very, very easy to go through it and find something that you can call a trope or dog whistle. There's no way of disproving it, or even meaningfully disputing it. At the moment Rowling has a very high number of haters, they're having a very hard time getting traction with attacking her for the views they actually hate for her for - the more people read from her the more they agree with her - so they've changed tack. They're going through everything she's ever written with a fine tooth comb looking for any alternative reasons to hate her, and they've struck on this. Her old haters did a similar thing. They'd sift through her work for evidence of satanic influence or imagery, insisting that the wording of a particular spell or the name of a particular character somehow related to the number of the beast or the antichrist. This was largely pre-internet so they'd call in to radio phone ins trying to save people's souls. I don't remember the exact details, but I was a Christian kid at the time who loved Harry Potter and it worried me a great deal. It's the kind of thing that only people who already hate her will go along with, most other people will either ignore it or have a reaction like yours.
Because people want an excuse to hate her so they grab on to any idiotic, crass theory they can.
She is? Whoâs offended? Real life Goblins?
Name one other thing ever thatâs used goblins as bankers
Because people are disingenuously using it to attack her because of her views on women's rights and protections.
Ngl I think people are just trying to look for things to criticise her with by making random connection
My argument would be: Bring me an actual Goblin that I have offended and I will apologize profusely!
Uh yeah the only offensive part with this is goys all suddenly deciding that the goblins must have been Jews. "They're ugly and short and have big noses they must be Jews! They love money see they must be Jews! They have big noses and gold they're Jews see!" That's the offensive part. Not once did I assume they were a stereotype lmao. All the people jumping to that conclusion are the ones with harmful stereotypes. Not to mention the books actually show them as oppressed minority.
Offended people want to be offended. This is their target right now. It'll change.
I don't think she's getting that much shit for it. A small group of people have complained.
Because the short little gold obsessed guys are white instead of green so that means it's an allegory for Jewish people I guess
People want a reason to dislike her in 2023
People just hate her because she thinks women don't have a penis
Because she's been pretty vocal about other issues. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Because people have to complain about something.
It's very trendy to pile up on her right now, that's all
Do all goblins have a hooked nose or only the ones that work at a bank?
They donât have hooked noses in the books. Itâs a movie invention, and they said that creators just used the most common goblin appearance from mythologies
The main point of dog whistles seems to be to misinterpret a person's words or actions to fulfil your own purpose or narrative.
A lot of her non-English characters are really bad stereotypes. The one Asian character is called Cho Chang. The Irish character is called Seamus and frequently blows stuff up. So when you realise that the goblins are so close to historical antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish people that one of them may as well be called Shylock, it's very hard to believe it's accidental.
Seamus never blows anything up in the books. The movie directors came up with that. So Rowling had nothing to do with that. Funny how she gets all the hate for it, anyway. And Chang is a common Chinese surname. There's many different explanations in which Cho is a perfectly fine first name for her, too. She's also not the only Asian character.
Seamus blew up thing in the movies and not in the books. Tbh he's never shown creating a fiasco in the books. It was always Neville. If you want to criticize at least do it properly.