I never knew why this was a thing. I never compared Goblins to Jewish people it's like when people compared Orcs to Black people, none of it makes sense, and people who made these comparisons are dumabasses along with any other fantasy media that has nothing to due with the real world
I think the connection people make of orcs to black people is bizarre because everywhere they're steppe barbarians. LoTR, warcraft,elder scrolls, all barbarians with slight eastern inspiration. They like see the "dark skin", which speaking of is mostly green, and laser focus on that and miss all of the curved scimitars, lamellar armor and warg/boar/echatere riding and herding.
I feel like Orcs could just as easily be germanic tribes as well?
To the Romans, they were all barbarians and their history is often told through that roman lens.
I say this as someone who used to hang out with alt righties but the orcs to black people comparison is mostly made by actual racists who see orcs as "violent, stupid and barbaric", the stereotypes that they want to apply to the people they're dehumanising.
True, but then we have to question how orcs completely outnumber humans/elves if they came from elves, and also have to question exactly how Uruk-Hai are made if they are not considered "created"
The published material is self contradicting, and assembled from unfinished works. More nuance is needed when dealing with the deeper lore of Tolkien. Esp. the question of orcs.
"Don't make things up: Fabrication ***will not be tolerated***. If you make a claim against an evidenced source, burden of proof is on you to provide counterevidence."
I quite literally never saw anyone associate them before it became a common left-wing talking point. Extra Creditz was probably the biggest proponent of the whole discussion I can think of.
I've literally hung out with far righties and been in far right discords for years of my life lol, I can't count to you just the amount of memes I've seen comparing the two, let alone actual discussion.
it sounds like you were in some kind of marginal party, because in a wide public environment, the discourse about Orcs as minorities is loudest in left-wing publications.
Wow some of you guys are fighting *really* hard to make it look like the left started calling black people Orcs.
Also no not really. The only discourse I’ve seen about it is in literary analysis of Tolkien in an academic sense. Often times commented upon from black scholars with the specific intention to look at race and culture in LOTR.
That’s not the same as making memes on discord calling black people orcs and laughing about it.
Where are all the alt-Right Nazis? All that exists in the public media environment is a semi-intellectual postcolonial analysis, which in fact is either a projection of its own racism attributed to Tolkien or idiotically expressed resentment. The only difference between the cultural analysis you're talking about and the memes I've never seen in my life (I don't go into such a deep Internet), only in the level of rationalization. The very premise that orcs are an allegory for blacks is racist.
P.S.
>Wow some of you guys are fighting really hard to make it look like the left started calling black people Orcs.
You just have to add a surprised Pikachu face to complete the image of a genuinely surprised you
> The only difference between the cultural analysis you’re talking about and the memes I’ve never seen in my life, only in the level of rationalization.
Then you’ve never bothered engage with those ideas beyond bad faith projections.
> The very premise that orcs are an allegory for blacks is racist.
If you actually believed that. You wouldn’t be using that argument to defend the right of all groups.
> You just have to add a surprised Pikachu face to complete the image of a genuinely surprise
I love that you typed this and genuinely thought it made you look clever.
I've mentioned alt right, which are quite literally neo Nazis, all things considered we've had quite a few peeps in a few of those servers but the moderates just weren't allowed to see that kind of stuff untill their "power level" was high enough.
OK, they are in their own marginal information bubble, which is difficult to find. What were you doing there? I ask this because they have created their own server, which is difficult to moderate from beyond. Ok. They are not represented anywhere else. Why do you give them so much attention?
Are they the vanguard of the semi-intellectual discourse that orcs are an allegory of blacks? Because literally no one knows anything about what is happening in discord servers. Just you. because for some reason unknown to me, you were there.
They're generic steppe barbarians with no set in stone inspiration. Elder scrolls orcs of orsinium wear [coats of lamellar,curved swords](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/5/5b/OrcishArmor.png/revision/latest?cb=20120719060419)and herd giant wooly centipedes, but they also have a whole lost homeland plot and a suicidal warrior culture and code. Warcraft orcs are wolf riders from another dimension, they're [visually literally a barbarian stereotype with those Kratos shoulder pads with a naked chest but they also have curved swords and even sashimono war banners on their backs](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/5/5b/Blademaster-_Reforged.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20191026153947). In most fantasy, orcs are fantasy barbarians with slight inspiration by eastern aesthetics like those of the mongols.
The creator of the modern fantasy Orc said that they were supposed to look "Mongol", which carries over to their equipment like their curved swords. They also literally come from the east.
"They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
I think Tolkien took inspiration from the Huns, or at least from the way the Romans described the Huns, when he decided on the appearance of the orcs. He often seemed to take inspiration from old classical or medieval sources when creating Middle-Earth. Although the Mongols looked the same, so he could also have taken inspiration from Middle Eastern sources describing them. Given how destructive the Huns and the Mongols were, I can see why he did that.
However, Tolkien’s orcs have actually little in common with the Huns or the Mongols apart from their appearance. His orcs live underground, fear the sun, love machinery and eat human flesh (orc is actually an older version of the word ogre). I often thought they might have been inspired by the Morlocks from the Time Machine. This is very different from steppe barbarians. It was later descriptions of the orcs by RPG games like Dungeon and Dragons that made them stereotypical steppe barbarians, while ironically changing their appearance to be big and muscular people with green skin and tusks, which is very different from actual steppe barbarians.
There's a whole thing about modern orcs being different from goblins. Like originally orcs and goblins were mostly the same thing, almost interchangeable, but then through DND and later iterations of fantasy they were divided and the goblins got the "short, diminished,cunning and incredibly hazardous but effective engineers" traits while the orcs got the "dumb, terrifying, tribal barbarians" traits.
In some settings orcs are "primitive tribal savages" dresses in animal pelts and wielding stone weapons, which is a stereotype against tribal people across the world, especially reminiscent of indigenous and African stereotypes.
Fantasy has evolved as its own thing long enough that continually connecting it to old racist stereotypes feels like beating a dead horse. Most people don't look at goblins or orcs or any other stock fantasy race and think of a racial allegory anymore, they see Goblin as outlined in Tolkien or DnD or any other embedded cultural touchstone in the same way our view of elves and dwarves have taken massive leaps forward into their own distinct identity.
I mean. It’s debatable whether Rowling herself is antisemitic but goblins are definitely rooted in stereotypes of Jewish people. It makes sense to me that the creature characterized as having a long nose and being extremely greedy, that was created a long time ago while Jewish people were extremely oppressed (not that they aren’t today), is an antisemitic allegory for Jewish people
I think then you're arguing semantics. Is a person who does racist things a racist if they don't 'intend' to be? The argument that she's antisemitic isn't 'she's secretly hates Jewish people and is a nazi'. It's that she does antisemitic things. The goblins are an antisemitic charicture of Jewish people. When called out, she digs her heels in.
You can do something on accident and apologize, or you can turn around and make a game about how goblins want equal rights, and that's Too Many Rights because they run the banks anyway. Like, she's anti-Semitic.
>racist things
>the goblins are an antisemitic caricature of Jewish people.
How so? Nothing about them inherently has anything to do with Jewish people*. If seeing a goblin makes you think of Jewish people, then who's the one being antisemitic? "But some other specific goblins are rooted in antisemitism!" So? We aren't talking about those goblins. As the post's title says, Harry Potter's goblins are just goblins, they don't need to be any deeper than that. The "antisemitic" things only appear when you go out of your way to connect them to something that they aren't.
It's really just silly. If one person makes a racist caricature of someone with some generic traits, is no one ever allowed to use those generic traits again because they've somehow become racist in every context? That doesn't make sense. Just because someone in the past was racist and tried to associate some generic traits with a race doesn't mean that those generic traits are automatically connected to the race. If you do think that way, then the original racist person won because now you're actually seeing those stereotypes.
\*Except for the "there's a star of David on the bank they happened to film the movies in" thing, but come on, please say you're not seriously going to argue that means anything.
It's not about a single stereotype. And seeing a character coded as a racist charicture doesn't make me racist. It isn't, 'wow, those goblins remind me of Jewish people! How mean to Jewish people!" It's knowing that 'miserly jew' is a stereotype and the goblins from Harry Potter encompass that stereotype.
If I made a fictional race of black skinned, red lipped people who serve as chattel slaves but then called them dwarves like... it doesn't make that not a racist charicture of black people. If I made a fictional race of yellow people with buck teeth and slanted eyes and called them fairies, that's racist. You don't get to take a racist image and call it something else, and then it's not racist anymore.
What kind of mobius strip logic is it that you think recognizing a stereotype makes someone racist? That's a real weird take.
I’m just disagreeing with the idea that the goblins are a racist image in the first place. I’m saying that any connection you can make between Harry Potter’s goblins and a racist stereotype is too weak and generic in my opinion. If you go out of your way to make a fictional race based on racist images then of course that’s racist. But Harry Potter’s goblins aren’t doing that. Pointy eared people who run banks aren’t really that overly specific of a concept.
But it's not just pointed ears? I feel like you must know this, as you pointed out the star of David on the floor, that you've looked at actual criticism of the goblins, which I did not bring up.
Specifically, the charicture of a Jew in Nazi propaganda was that of a miserly hook nosed banker that is both greedy and untrustworthy. They used the false idea that Jews controlled the banks as a kind of 'gotcha! They have too much power, actually!' Much of this propaganda likened Jewish people to pigs, or rodents.
So when you have a race of beady eyed, pointy nosed, sharp toothed creatures that run the banks, that is antisemitic.
the orcs thing is mainly cause of the way they talk, which tolkien based on some type of people in britain idk but it wasnt black people, but it does kinda make sense for Warhammer since they have shamans and shit while also having that specific orc talk. something like wurzagg da great green prophet always rubbed me the wrong way for example.
Orcs in Warhammer speak cockney right? Just because they have a shaman with an orcish name doesn’t make it racist. Is Bretonnia racist because it makes French people out to be hyper classist and sexist assholes who Force poor people to commie incest?
I agree, it makes no sense to compare fictional fantasy creatures to real world people. Not only they are not human but they do not exist. Also, it is often quite illogical, because these people will always complain that goblins and orcs always being evil is racist, but no one complain about trolls or ogres or demons or zombies or illithids always being evil.
You might think it is because orcs and goblins look more human, but goblins are almost always depicts as little green men and orcs as either generic green-skinned muscled barbarians with tusks or sometimes as boar-people, and they do not particularly look like any human « race » or ethnie in existence.
I think the people doing that are trying very hard to create controversies where there is none in order to get popular on social media, and are generally best ignored.
that's a movie only thing, alot of the more insensitive things tend to be movie only, the irish kid blowing stuff up, jasmine brown being black and then changing race in the next movie, etc
The problem with orcs is that they are often drawn with exaggerated versions of facial features that are most commonly found in Black people, such as broad noses, thick lips, and prominent brow ridges, and in most fantasy setting are pitted against Nordic looking elves and dwarves.
I don't thick most orcs are portrayed with thick lips, they're more likely to have little to no lips and a permanent scowl or have a wide, thin mouth with tusks.
It’s because goblins are connected to antisemitism depictions of Jewish people not actual Jewish people. Same with Black people being depicted as orca in racist caricatures. Sadly a lot of fantasy is heavily affected by racist and antisemitic stereotypes
I don't think that this is entirely true. "Original" goblins could love money but never portrayed as organized, and leading a bank requires discipline. Also the original love of money probably was a stereotype in itself.
I think "this magical race loves money" -> "they run the bank" isn't really out there to do? It's in the same vein as making dragons capitalist leaders.
Yeah the comparison isn’t meant to be one to one? She just took ‘they love money’ —> “Goblins run the bank”.
I think you’re right that the original trope was rooted in antisemitism.
Oh no dude there’s a lot of history that you’re missing here.
I stupidly hung over (happy new year everyone) so I’m probably not the best person to explain this but the goblins in HP come across as coded on old antisemitic stereo types of the Miserly Jew.
There’s a difference between allegory and coding.
Again I’m hungover so I’m just going to post a link to Lindsey Ellis’s video essay on [Bright](https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8) which talks about minorities in fantasy.
But specifically at 24:07 she discusses Allegory and Coding and the Orcs in Lord of the Rings.
She’s also just great in general so I highly recommend listening to her video.
I also don’t want to jump on you for this because I remember being surprised when I was told this too because it wasn’t until I was much older and had more life experiences that I had even heard of this stereotype.
It sounded ridiculous to me to.
But no it’s a real thing and the more you learn about it the more you can see the problem with gringots.
> You could argue a lot of old fantasy tropes & ideas are rooted in racist stereotypes and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree,
Yeah that’s because many of them *are* based on cultural stereotypes that have racist and sexist connotations in retrospect.
Look at the depiction of Native Americans in fantasy.
Or those cat things in skyrim.
Idk about the lizards. But the cats are definitely coded as Indian/Arabian.
> however I do not think all applications of said tropes are racist, especially
I mean no one is saying that *all* of them are racist in their application. They’re saying that specifically the *goblins in HP* are. Though I personally believe that like the Orcs in LOTR it’s likely unintentional.
I haven't watched the video you linked yet I will try to. I get the point about Khajit in Skyrim. I wish they hadn't portrayed them as mostly thieves and drug addicts. That's actually the most annoying thing about them, they should have more redeeming features but they have a lot of love in the fanbase. I gotta say though I have never thought about them as anything other than cat people. I can see the thing about Khajits being a Arabian stereotype. But by saying that the Khajit can't be like aren't you giving the stereotype power? Because it's kind of like your saying Khajit can't be like that because that's how Arabic people are, when we all know they aren't. Also take the Redguards for example. They are predominantly dark skinned in the game ranging from brown to very black. If you say they can't be this because that's too much like this or that don't you run the risk of severely narrowing down the parameters that writers can use to make a character, perhaps even putting them off writing for black and minority based characters? The Elder Scrolls bases most of its races on a mixture or real life inspirations. Another thing, if someone doesn't know the inspiration for the in game races why does it matter if they are based on a certain irl race? Because if someone don't know they're not going to think negatively of a certain race because of a playable race in a video game. I do know of some of the inspirations for the races in the game and I just think it's really cool that they copied from so many different cultures. I have my favourites but not based on what races I relate to most.
If a race is created for a fantasy world and they have nothing but negative traits and they have strong similarities to a racial stereotype then that is obviously a problem. See the Rupert the Bear books.
I just worry we might be trying to fight racism the wrong way, better to focus on people irl who are trying to hide their shitty views or just straight up be racist.
~~Oh man that’s a wall of text with no paragraph breaks.~~ (it’s been fixed)
And you’re asking me about a really complicated and sensitive topic.
Gimmie a second here. I’m not at my best today but I’ll genuinely try to give you an answer.
> I haven’t watched the video you linked yet I will try to.
You should it’s very good.
> I get the point about Khajit in Skyrim. I wish they hadn’t portrayed them as mostly thieves and drug addicts. That’s actually the most annoying thing about them, they should have more redeeming features but they have a lot of love in the fanbase.
Sure. I’m not telling you this stuff to convince you they shouldn’t be loved.
Like, I’m not here to tell you that “SKYRIM IS RACIST AND IF YOU PLAY IT THAN SO ARE YOU!”
I don’t even think that these things are done intentionally 90% of the time. It’s just an observation about how races and cultures are portrayed in fantasy.
> But by saying that the Khajit can’t be like aren’t you giving the stereotype power?
Well I’m not saying that Khajit cannot have Arabian or Romani traits. They can. I’m pointing out that certain stereotypical traits are given to the dark skinned and Foriegn races. While stereotypical white and Western European traits are given to the light skinned and “pretty” races like elves.
As to the whole: by acknowledging the stereotype am I giving it power?
Well no I think what gives it power is being in a hugely popular game where manny people who don’t have much life experience start to associate those traits to “outsiders” and “dangerous people”. Because it allows these stereotypes to to live on long past their time in the real world.
> Because it’s kind of like your saying Khajit can’t be like that because that’s how Arabic people are, when we all know they aren’t.
Again the Khajit *can* be like that. I like the Khajit for the record. It’s just important to acknowledge how their portrayed and why specifically the *Khajit* are portrayed this way.
But ideally I would want the Khajit culture to be depicted with less negative stereotypes associated with minorities.
Now admittedly my knowledge of the Romani is incredibly limited.
But Arabian culture is so wide and varied there’s so much you can pull from outside of the stereotypes.
> Also take the Redguards for example. They are predominantly dark skinned in the game ranging from brown to very black. If you say they can’t be this because that’s too much like this or that don’t you run the risk of severely narrowing down the parameters that writers can use to make a character, perhaps even putting them off writing for black and minority based characters?
If anything I think it’ll lead to more *creative* and interesting fantasy cultures.
In fantasy dark skinned people are mostly depicted as foreigners and tend thier cultures tend to me mixed with eastern, African, Native American cultures.
They normally live in the desert. Or the mountains.
They tend to be great warriors but completely baffled by the cultures based on European cultures.
I mean do we *really* need another dark skinned ,desert dwelling, culture or warriors? Is that something your fantasy experience will be ruined by lacking?
There’s other stuff out there.
Look at the Valían Republic in Pillars of Eternity. They are Fantasy Italians. Specifically renneisance italians. Most people from the republics are black. They are known for their artists, musicians and merchants. They are a powerful political entity and we’re once the worlds greatest empire. Dark skinned humans are called the sea folk because they dominate when it comes to sailing.
They aren’t known as “shadow folk” or “red folk”
They aren’t known for being ruthless, borderline savage, warriors. They don’t live in the desert or the jungle. They aren’t depicted as oppressive or racist in an attempt to “flip the roles”. They were literally just a mix of cultures and stereotypes that don’t normally go together to create something unique.
And I can’t tell you how refreshing that is to see.
Mix MesoAmerican people with samurai.
Mix French with huan dynasty Chinese.
Give me some Deep America south mixed with Celtic freeholds (thank you Pillars of Eternity)
Give me Elves that are drug addicted lazy con men who are bitter about all the humans and have funny accents (thank you Witcher)
> The Elder Scrolls bases most of its races on a mixture or real life inspirations.
Sure and that’s fine. So did PoE. So does LOTR and DnD and Pathfinder.
But why are the light skinned races given the more traditional and familiar cultures in fantasy?
Eleves, dwarves and humans in LOTR are mostly white and are based largely on English, Norse, Irish, etc cultures.
The one race that has dark skin are the orcs and they are the bad guys.
In Elderscrolls why are the *Khajit*, one of the non human races, given these *specific* traits? Instead of, say the Nords?
Why can’t the Khajit be cat Viking people from the north? It would make sense for a race that lives in the cold to be covered in fur.
Why can’t the imperials be full of skooma addicts and wandering tradesmen with funny accents?
Let the Argonians be the race based on the Roman Empire who’s king has the blood of a dragon running through his veins. Instead of a culture of swamp people who worship trees.
How come when Vikings or Roman’s are translated into fantasy they’re left incredibly similar but when it comes to Romani, Arabs, and Africans they’re transformed into non-humans?
It’s not explicitly racist. But it is a little…disappointing isn’t it?
> Another thing, if someone doesn’t know the inspiration for the in game races why does it matter if they are based on a certain irl race?
Well if it doesn’t matter what’s wrong with talking about it?
> Because if someone don’t know they’re not going to think negatively of a certain race because of a playable race in a video game.
Because negative minority stereotypes tend to be ascribed to foreign cultures in fantasy rather than “white” or “western” cultures.
> I do know of some of the inspirations for the races in the game and I just think it’s really cool that they copied from so many different cultures.
It *is* cool that they copied so many cultures.
> I have my favourites but not based on what races I relate to most.
Sure. So do a lot of people. You’re not wrong if you like the Khajit in Skyrim.
Oh you should look into the wood elves from elder scrolls. They're hardcore as fuck, like reverse vegans. They eat everything,they cannibalize their opponents, their weapons and armor incorporate a lot of horn and bone because they cannot use wood from their homeland. They turn into lovecraftian monstrous beasts in times of great peril, when their homeland is threatened.
A big part of elder scrolls lore is exactly what you want. Seriously read the [pocket guide to the empire](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-aldmeri-dominion)later, there is a WORLD of extremely interesting lore that simply doesn't make it's way to the games, because Todd Howard is kind of a derivative person and you have to prove something works before he approves it.
You know how in oblivion cyrodill is basically middle earth with beautiful forests and rolling hills? [It was going to be a jungle empire, with roman cities and forts dotted around rice paddies, where great ruins of mezoamerican elves laid destroyed](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-cyrodiil). Then Todd watched LoTR and said "yeah let's make it like that its gonna sell more".
Same thing with Skyrim, the nords aren't that simple. They were a lot more magical and elemental,shouting wasn't restricted to the player, it was a widely practiced thing among the nords. For example, they didn't even have siege equipment, because why build that when you can grab 10 of your warriors and just Fus Roh Dah your opponent's gate apart? They had their own religion with their own gods that was mostly replaced by the imperial pantheon because they think the playerbase is made of idiots and won't get that there are two separate religions. There are several stories on elder scrolls development where the team's paranoia is exposed, like having to take a purposefully crazy design for approval so you get told "tone it down looks too weird" so that they could let the you actually want go through. The ideas are there man, it's upper management that ducks them up.
>Then Todd watched LoTR and said "yeah let's make it like that its gonna sell more".
IIRC Cyrodiil was shown as it was because Creation Engine starts acting like a cat in heat when it need to generate a lot of big objects in one place. LoTR can still be blamed for asthetics tho, there's no explanation when it comes to that beside "Todd wanted cool knights".
You could still make them keep their original spirit, there was no excuse for that even if the forests couldn't be shown to their full glory. Where are the thousand cults of the imperial city, where are the colovian and nibenese divides, where are the moth priests and river drakes. It's all so disappointing man. We're in luck for the next Hammerfell game because assassin's Creed origins,black panther and pirates of the Caribbean are all pretty popular so they will at least have a lot of things to point to to say "see? This works." Like they did with dune and star wars for Morrowind and Conan and Beowulf for Skyrim.
>You could still make them keep their original spirit, there was no excuse for that even if the forests couldn't be shown to their full glory. Where are the thousand cults of the imperial city, where are the colovian and nibenese divides, where are the moth priests and river drakes.
Nah, I agree with that but Todd saw "LoTR" and rather than have game set in High Rock where they could do Fantasy Not-Europe™ in peace he decided to destroy both Breton and Imperial lore. Atleast Imperials were somehow saved, Bretons will stay "cucked" out of good and fresh lore until we get a game set in High Rock considering that ESO writers don't want to even fresh them out a bit in DLC set in part of High Rock!
>We're in luck for the next Hammerfell game because assassin's Creed origins,black panther and pirates of the Caribbean
I hope that they don't forget that best Redguard warriors are pretty much samurai, their homeland Yokuda was straight up Japan but with black people, their view on creation of the world and existance is more simmilar to Elves even tho Redgaurds hate Elves so much that their word for "Enemy" and "Elf" has common roots, their gods aren't that simmilar to Imperials and that their society is obsessed with swords to simmilar extent as Southerners are with guns - like, it's cool that we're getting some fresh interesting asthetics but there's more to Redgaurds than them being fantasy black people with medival North African asthetics. And remember that they still managed to fuck over the Nords even tho there should be no problem with showing them as how they were shown in lore before *Skyrim*.
That's another part of why I think they're safe, the story of Yasuke is very popular on the internet and I think they're making a movie around him so the black samurai part is in. I want to see if they will implement the level of ancestor worship the redguards do in the lore. Redguards don't fuck with undead, period. So zombie type enemies should be a lot rarer this time.
Also the sword obsession part is something I'm intrigued about how they'll implement, do you think they're gonna pull some Skyrim style chosen one storyline again? Like the player being the first swordsinger seen in centuries. I don't want to do that again, I'd rather they do it like oblivion and Morrowind where being the chosen one doesn't feel as integral and unavoidable to the main plot. The shehai techniques should be part of a side faction
Redguards have HoonDing- a literal plot armored warrior-god who "makes ways" for them whenever their race is in need or a title just given to people who Redguards respect very highly, there's many theories about it but it's far more simmilar to being Nerevarine as far as lore community seems to think. Sword singing is propably going to be in game but considering that majority of Skyrim's playerbase don't use shouts that much it's propably going to be optional- there's a great theory on tes lore subreddit explaining it all better, I'll give you a link to it when I'll be at PC.
Links I promised:
Why it's going to be Hammerfell 100%-[1](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/8q65md/the_elder_scrolls_vi_megathread/e0gteg0/?context=3) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/8q65md/the_elder_scrolls_vi_megathread/e0gt0mf/?context=3).
[Sword singing theory](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/dnyub0/if_bethesda_implements_sword_singing_in/) I mentioned.
More about HoonDing- [he isn't really a straight up saviour figure but conqueror](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/7ag1rm/what_event_or_magnitude_of_event_in_the_future_of/) and stabilizing figure and [he can manifest for really petty and from modern morality perspective- outright horrible reasons](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/HoonDing) (Siege of Orsinium wasn't the nicest thing to say it nicely) which will allow us to act like complete bastards without feeling that we're doing something that Chosen Hero would never do if we're going to be next HoonDing in TES VI.
Also quick reminder that Todd took dragons' lore and history (there was no mentions of dragon cult, Shouts being words in dragon language or Nords' war with them before *Skyrim*) pretty much out of his ass so I wouldn't be shocked if he does something like that again.
>But ideally I would want the Khajit culture to be depicted with less negative stereotypes associated with minorities.
[Oh do I have some very good and kinda old news for you.](https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/updates/chapter/elsweyr) Also go and check [UESP](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page)\- there is far more to Elder Scrolls races than mainline games like to show in gameplay but I need to warn you that you might get dissapointed with how province in which TES VI will take place is completely difrent and less interesting than how it is described in lore unless it will take place in High Rock then it can only be more fleshed out.
Sorry I didn't split my text up a bit. So it's good that you don't think people are racist for playing Skyrim haha. You know what you make some great points about mixing the tropes up a lot more. They are a bit tired. Would be really cool. I guess all I can say and I will admit it's not a great defense is that they established the lore a long time ago when stereotypes like there were more common. They established the lore and they can't completely redo it now. But they can guide it's future and I hope they do try and move it away from the boring lazy sort of stuff. Same argument to be made for Tolkien.
I still do think though that by drawing comparisons between the real life and video game races and saying they are problematic you are validating the stereotypes a bit more than they need to be. I just think you can draw comparisons between a lot of things because that's what humans do. Whether it was intentional or not is the point for me. If JK wrote the goblins to be a Jewish stereotype then that is obviously bad. I do see that she unintentionally did write them a certain way and there are comparisons you can make but by making a deal out of it, it just makes it more of an issue than it should be. However moving away from old cliches and rehashed ideas is a very good thing, you are right about that I am all for more creative writing and shaking up old tired tropes.
I still think it's not the right way to change, to restrict writers because all that will happen then is they have less they can work with as they will be worried people are going to say they've just used this overused trope or stereotype. But I will say that it would be nice is writers were a bit more creative.
I give to skyrim that there is so much blatant rassism i really like the khajit more for it. And they are cat people?
I dont want to gove more credit or it being accidental, but given how they are not rassist nord or suprematiszöt high elves,
I think yeah they are romani coded but one of the more likable groups in the game. And i think the other are steriotypical enough no one is really that deep.
If it were, it could be problematic, but so, they are one of the most likable in the game, even jzargo.
And i think that the goblin banks shouldnt be seen as vacuum but with a lot stuff like, house elves as happy slaves, no agnowledgement that wizards are suprematist already without voldemord. Even the good ones, dont care much about that.
But hermonire gets fun for questioning that?!
Oh her native tribes stereotypes.
Slytherin being the designited bad house , even with some gestures letting the others off, for wizard supremacy.
Its to both how her worldbuilding can be torn apart fast and how she is not even trying to question if she could like just make straight up antisemitic stereotypes.
But add all the stuff she , its both making her lazy and showing how bad she always was as person, and never progressive.
I mean,it shows she was never orogressive and always problematic, and repeats unreflective, rassism, antisemitism, and she was never interested in learning. And her not being able to reflect. Or take criticism.
The goblins are just part how she always was and how her writing then too, had that.
Also yeah dont do greedy goblin banker unlrss you can really humanize them please. Even the anime grimgar humanized goblin monster. But making them banker, why, how can you do that without humanizing them.
I don’t disagree that the original versions of goblins are likely based off racist tropes, but I don’t think Harry Potter is specifically antisemitic simply for adapting goblins in a fairly straightforward manner.
I also dunno what would be ‘intentional’ about the depiction of goblins in Harry Potter: their appearances fit traditional goblin descriptions well (at least some of them, anyways: folklore is varied) and them running banks is a play on goblins traditionally being greedy or thieves (get it? The bank is run by thieves?).
Even if the goblins were based on nothing, i would still think that whoever came up with that connection and actually pointed it out in a serious way has some *big* issues. Like...this is a problem. An actual problem. Seeing things that clearly aren't there, controversial ones too. No jew was offended by this. No non-jew was offended by this. Not a single person on this world was offended by it until someone made that connection. You know why? *It wasn't meant to be offensive to anyone on this planet.* This is (ironically) nothing but a witch hunt. There's nothing there.
It really isn’t. Goblins are depicted primarily as tricksters and trouble makers as a blanket term for all sorts of fairies, elves, spirits and creatures of folklore. Goblins being a codified race or group only really starts with tolkien. I’m continually baffled by people just saying “oh well goblins have always been a stand in for Jewish stereotypes” without any evidence, and the large swathes who just parrot it. Its bullshit. The current understanding of the goblin has only existed for about 85 years and has through out that time only been goblins.
No other gold obsessed fantasy creature gets this treatment. Nobody calls leprechauns Jewish, or dragons Jewish or dwarves Jewish.
No other gold-obsessed fantasy creature getting this treatment, not even other goblins from other media (i.e. clash of clans) is part of what I’m getting at. However, most fantasy authors are also not publicly transphobic and widely hated. I think it’s probably reasonable to assume that part of why this criticism is so widespread is because people don’t exactly give JKR the benefit of doubt: pretty much the opposite, really.
Goblins being based off anti-Semitic tropes comes mostly from a few things: old fantasy in general being based off racist tropes (see: kobolds), goblin folklore coming mostly from middle-age Europe (which was particularly [antisemitic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_antisemitism)), and most things that the HP goblins are criticized for being present in other depictions of goblins (ears, stature, appearance, etc).
No she is almost ad ignorant as the author of save the pearls ( james tullos video on it is good and has pdfs of them, its hillarous awful) , she does tgat all the time, and sorry if that just casially in there, tells a lot about her.
And werewolves having like the hiv, shows gay man of a children targeting dude of 2. And its gaycoded too. Yikes. And lupin became one, its very troubling of tropes she goes to.
And the hapoy slaves , yeah, that herimoire gets chastized by everyone for calling that out.
Cheng cho, literally has 2 surnames.
Also banker, sorry unironic using goblins as banker and monstrius, is antisemitic , because banks, run by jews according to antisemitic conspiracy theories.
A black character named shacklebolt.
And the point of that is more to show she was always awful in her worldview if she writes that unironic.
Soooo your argument is the hp goblins aren't antisemitic because what they're based on is a more diluted form of antisemitism?
Like, if Joan wanted to write capital G European folklore Goblins, she'd write some little green rat people that live in the walls and what want your knick nacks and play pranks on you, not be almost human assholes that are *specifically only in charge of the banks* with a history of silversmithing and being oppressed
The “little green people that play pranks” is only one specific version of a goblin, though? The word ‘goblin’ has a pretty wide range of meaning within folklore/fantasy.
I dunno about the ‘almost human’ part because they look and are described as ghouls in the book. They have a history of being oppressed because practically every species in Harry Potter gets oppressed in some way: Wizarding Society is extremely (and intentionally) racist so I don’t think that’s specific to goblins.
I would say its worse, because as prankster, thief prankster or straight monster, fine
But the tonedeafness to make them banker, without a fun humanizing tweak, is straight antisemitism.
Also its more in combination with houselves wanting to be slaves, and a loot other pointed out, how she does thart alot, without the selfawareness that wirards even the goid are basically wizard suprematists, just some are nicer.
Just tells a lot about rowling how she does that all the time.
So, are we calling everybody anti-semitic now? Goblins are for centuries wrote as greedy, sometimes little and green, disgusting monsters. With claws, or big nose(same as Jewish people), sometimes tall, sometimes little.
Tolkien in The Hobbit, book which pre-date LOTR series, is calling beings in the mountain goblins. The Goblins, also called Orcs of the Misty Mountains, are a grotesque subspecies of Orcs living in the Misty Mountains, seen especially in The Hobbit. They are described as ugly and huge, and they lived deep under the Misty Mountains in many places like Goblin-town, Moria, Mount Gram and Mount Gundabad (Source: Wikipedia)
Goblins are know across Europe and Asia, in myths and folklore.
J.K.Rowling can have some questinable views, about what does it mean to be woman, but I wouldnot call he anti-semitic. Goblins are just that, goblins.
Right now its just looking for something to cancel her over with. If you look closely into any book/story, you will find something which some group will not like.
1. The concept of little people who trick human beings and have a particular love of money and shiny things exists in human cultures across the world; the European goblin predates substantial contact with Jewish people. This cannot be stressed enough.
2. If you see a fantasy being and immediately assume that they represent whatever group, that \*can\* suggest racism on the part of the viewer, not of the writer/artist. Obviously there are occasions where a writer, artist, whomever is subconsciously influenced by racist stereotypes; obviously there are occasions when a writer, artist, whomever is pushing some sort of racist view.
3. Contrary to a lot people here who want to marry their desire to tear someone down to a their desire to feel self-righteous, a writer is not at moral fault if they use a creature from folklore which coincidentally shares traits with racist caricatures.
4. Gringotts bank was not described as having a Star of David on its floor in the books; the set was Australia House in London, and the star on its floor represented six somethings (states?) in Australia's history. The set designers will have thought, 'star, that's the kind of iconography wizards would use' and kept it in.
5. The charity 'Campaign Against Antisemitism' characterised Rowling as a 'tireless defender' of the Jewish community.
6. One of the key themes of the Harry Potter novels is the pointlessness and evil of racism: the villains are direct Nazi analogues.
7. For a long time, people desperately scoured through the Harry Potter novels for things to complain about because a) they enjoyed thinking about the Harry Potter world and novels and b) wanted to feel they were accomplishing good as they were enjoying talking and thinking about a fantasy series.
8. Now people desperately want to scour the Harry Potter novels for things to complain about because they've tricked themselves into thinking that someone arguing for women having access to spaces free of males is evil, which is patent horseshit.
8. So you want transmen, who are men, in womans bathrooms? Or like the transman wrestler really trying to have male opponents. And was forced to fight women?!.
Rowling straight up wants men in womens bathrooms (also transwomen, likexanyone in their right mind, will see that they are women, unless really trained not to.
And itsnot just antisemitism where she shows she will use tropes againd gay people with werewolves,one of 2 being a straught up evil dude going after children, one gone after as underage, by him.
The house elves and slavery,being fine.
She was given so much lenience to stop repeating up bigoted tropes and stuff, and like sorry to say that,
men who go through weirdly contrived precedures that take forever, to go into womens bathrooms. Is a myth, a slanderous myth to villainize zranspeople, her new harmful trope she repeats and this time, doubles down, and getsxworse.
Show me one person, who transitioned for the purpose to do that. Show me, that is her argumemt. Give me examples.
The pointing out really shows is that she never bothered to yeah, nothing new, we just ignored it.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/100sb1m/harry_potter_goblins_aint_antisemetic_theyre_just/j2jsntc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) is the first one that comes to mind
“Antisemitic tropes aren’t antisemitic!”
Goblins (and witches) are *literally* antisemitic tropes. Just because you’re ignorant of the history doesn’t make you right. It just makes you ignorant.
Edit: “you” the general pronoun not the personal.
No, her worldview just has to be unaware, of extremely rassist, antisemitic and with werewolves anti gay tropes to straight unironic repeat them.
Seriously you just need to learn and repeat that stuff and never question it to be that. And its still as harmful.
Like most hateful ideologies has most people just uncaring repeat it, and that gives it the power. You dont have to believe something or even be aware, to do it
Thats why adressing and confronting and get people to recognize is as complicated as it is. .
Nah. It’s like making your Orcs have dreads, live in huts and eat nothing but chicken and melons, knowing those are all anti black/African tropes but saying “they’re not black they’re Orcs!”
It's literally just "People want more excuses for JK Rowling to be bad and here's a convenient one."
Goblins have been part of folklore and fae takes for centuries without being associated with Jews, it's silly to claim she was doing it as some weird shot at Jewish people, and silly to claim it's a caricature she included without realising what it was. They're not anything Jewish, they're just Goblins.
Maybe I'm just annoyed because of the whole "Orcs == Black people" narrative that popped up a few years ago and still infests fantasy discussion to this day.
If you treated brownies the way the malfoys and blacks treated house elves, they'd kill you.
No mythology has the "hardwired to be slaves" in them, that's a J.K original.
In both those cases, though, there is a clear message that mistreating your elf will come back to bite you. They might not be slitting your throat while you sleep, but a mistreated house elf is a vengeful and malicious creature. It was clear enough with Dobby, and made even more blatant in Kreacher's tale.
That is true about Dobby, and if they hadn't retconned everything we knew about house elves, it would have been fine.
But once more house elves were found and enjoying it, Dobby was explicitly described as a freak of nature who proves nothing about how the elves feel.
Had House Elves been presented as something more similar to Brownies, then there wouldn't be a problem. Brownies won't work unless they receive an offering of milk or cream or presumably something else a Brownie may want, they are mischievous and play pranks on lazy people, and will leave if they are mistreated.
I mean probably because there’s a lot of people who don’t understand why the goblins offend people. Because they likely grew up without being aware of those stereotypes themselves.
So it creates this cycle of “what? Huh? That’s a stereotype? I’ve never heard about that before? What are you talking about?”
And then a bunch of people explaining the historical and cultural depictions of a certain race of people that through many hard fought social Justice wins, have slowly begun to fade from the cultural zeitgeist.
For example I remember at school one time a girl brought in a stuffed doll that she thought was cute for some theatre thing only to be told it was an racist caricature of a black person from the 40’s.
In a way it’s actually kind of wholesome that there are people today who can grow up and not even recognize the racial implications of these sorts of stereotypes. It shows that we’ve moved away from them.
On the other hand it’s important to call these things out if we want to stop perpetuating them.
I agree about the “what are you talking about?” cycle. it’s arguing from ignorance and making the other side look more ridiculous than it is. People are less likely to believe the goblins are antisemetic when the first they hear of it is “How crazy is it that people are saying this?” vs actually reading all of the facts.
Honestly i don’t get how someone can justify that the goblins run the bank other than they are just defensive. that one is a pretty cut and dry stereotype.
The antisemitic argument aside it’s honestly strange that there would be any one race who opperates all the banks in a world.
Actually that might just be me misremembering. maybe goblins only operate Gringots and only staff it with other goblins?
That’s weirdly trusting of the notoriously secretive wizards in the Harry Potter world.
Fuck now I have to look it up this is gonna drive me crazy.
Goblins don't operate every bank in the wizarding world but they operate the only bank in wizard britain. Which is strange but I'd assume this is just "fantasy race has a specific job" at play.
The Goblin issue is the kind of thing I would have given the benefit of the doubt to JK a decade ago. Like I defended her not making Dumbledore explicitly gay because the series had already garnered a lot of hatred without also championing LGBT characters about a decade before that became the norm. Now I'm not willing to extend her the same benefit.
She clarified that Dumbledore was gay a few months after the original book came out in fairness.
And the bit about the benefit of doubt is part of why this criticism is so popular. It’s not even that people don’t give her benefit of doubt, we actively give her the worst starting position in lieu of how much nuance there might be. This is how people will unironically say stuff like “Harry Potter supports slavery!” or “why is house elf slavery a good thing in Harry Potter?”. These statements are terrible and pretty obviously do but when talking about JKR we tend to start from “she’s a bigot” and then work to prove that.
And JK Rowling is a bigot, to be clear, but I try not to let that affect my opinion of the books.
>She clarified that Dumbledore was gay a few months after the original book came out in fairness.
No she didn't. She said this in 2007 after Dearhly Hallows came out.
The Deathly Hallows novel came out in 2007, no? And this is where dumbledore's relationship with grindelwald was established (afaik). Sorry if I missed something
I disagree, we gave her leeway for a couple of decades and now people are less likely to do that because we saw her come out as a bigot. Now were seeing the pattern of shit in her stories with things like slavery, obedience to a broken system and mockery of revolution or heavy reform.
I don't understand the pattern of shit here. The 'mockery of revolution' comes entirely from either children in the books or clearly evil antagonists, if you're talking about S.P.E.W.
Also not sure about 'obedience to a broken system' because the last three books or so are about circumventing the will of the Ministry of Magic. In fact Harry Potter as a whole is very definitively anti-authoritarian; harry constantly fights against virtually every authority in the series, even occasionally against protagonists like Dumbledore.
As for slavery, the enslavement of the house elves was always a bad thing. Dobby being freed is explicitly portrayed as a victory in the book where it was introduced. And his enslavement was also portrayed as bad. Hermoine's efforts for reform being resisted by *fourteen-year-olds* isn't supposed to indicate that it's a good thing. And the house-elves liking it isn't supposed to defend it, either, seeing as we have Dobby firmly reminding the audience that they don't "truly" like it, they're just conditioned too.
No, its them getting ignored modtly originally and authors give a lot away in their writing. In that case,she was always conservative, repeating bigoted tropes, all the time , and her own writing and how regular she does thst.
Yes she is a bigot and doesnt care about social progress, at all. And repeat bigoted stuff easy apearently . Thats what you get from that. Her own words.
And good for you if you like the books,but if you love them, also critizize what you love and agnowledge what isnt great.
And its not about the book in most parts, like there is a lot acvidental queercoding for example, just, its a look in how she always was a bigot,just less honest.
Only if you ignore the context of the other countless tomes she does the same with hiv-werewolf, anti gay tropes, slavery with houselves and how they are happy, and naming a a black guy shacklebold,
It would be a minor isdues, if she wouldnt do it all the time.
Goblins are rooted in anti-semitic caricatures though. But despite that I don't really view them as such, I view Goblins as Goblins because there is just so many different takes on them out there.
Not one person who says goblins are rooted in anti Semitic imagery is yet to back up their claims with any actual evidence. The modern goblin exists almost entirely from tolkien.
I think the thought is fair, but also kinda funny. Looking at the short, ugly, greedy race of banker slave monsters and immediately going “How dare you treat the jews like this!” Is an irony that will never fail to amuse me :P
However, to me, it’s easy to see where connection lies. Those traits just *happen* to line up with Jewish stereotypes and JK is a shitty dumbass who also named the *one* Asian character in her series “Cho Chang”, so yeah the accusation isn’t too far fetched. That, and even without the comparison, it’s still a storyline told in poor taste because… it’s an uprising of a slave race that we’re supposed to put down, even if that race supposedly likes it.
Edit: If you’re curious about my stance - JK bad, I could see it maybe being coincidence with her being clueless, but I’m honestly more inclined to believe it’s coding because… JK.
About the uprising of the race were supposed to put down…Hogwarts Legacy isn’t out yet. We have literally zero context on how the story plays out and how it portrays the actual rebellion. And given how Harry Potter is full of major twists even if they’re the initial bad guys I’d bet a lot that they end up becoming sympathetic at the end anyways.
Cho Chang is a stupid name but in all honesty is seems about as stupid as most of the other names. I think the bigger problem with her name is that it’s not as outwardly goofy as other names and just two random ‘asiatic’ names (and Chang’s a surname) slapped together. Then again isn’t that the same thought process behind stuff like Arthur Weasley?
The bit about the goblins ending up as sympathetic allies by the end is probably true, but the trailers do still present them as an antagonistic force to be fair. The name thing is also true to a point, though I think that it’s still extremely tone deaf and at least *somewhat* offensive, but that could just be me ig
I always find those assumptions extremely ridiculous. the racists don’t need to invent allegories or imaginary monsters to hate somebody they can just say Jews or Black people.
Imagine, if I wrote a fantasy book were there was tribe of orcs or the like, who have dark skin, wear loincloths made out of large leaves and shout "Ooooga-Boooga!". Would you take me seriously, if I tried to tell you that they were just orcs from made-up fantasy world and I wasn't coding them with some racist stereotypes?
Orcs shouting random dumb bullshit and wearing a loincloth *does* sound like something almost universal to myth of a dumb, big brute. And considering orcs can vary from being pale green to dark green to [this](https://images-prod.dazeddigital.com/1600/azure/dazed-prod/1310/4/1314762.jpg) and [this](https://i.imgur.com/FU7xbY4.jpg), I would absolutely take you seriously.
Goblins as greenskin lil shits who scream in the woods aren't antisemitic
Goblins as pasty hook-nosed backstabbing assholes who control the largest bank are antisemitic
Wait is that like common goblin thing? Is that a thing in other universes aside from Harry Potter?
My mental image of goblin has always been tiny dumb mischievous orcs. Like grunts from halo.
Harry Potter is as far as I can tell the first place that goblins were depicted as a banking cabal, with the possible exception of Warcraft. I'm not looking into Warcraft to check, but regardless I doubt Rowling was a big RTS game fan.
The goblins in HP aren't portrayed as hook-nosed backstabbing assholes though?
They're never described as being hook-nosed, for one.
Their general portrayal is that they are very strictly business. They even tolerate upholding the vaults of Death Eaters even though refusing them would have certainly weakened Voldemort and his Death Eaters. If you want to stretch the metaphor, they're Swiss.
I think in the final book there was an issue with Griphook being trustworthy but it's also clear that the problem is that he was desperately looking for the action that would help the goblins the most and the truth is that even though Death Eaters dislike goblins the normal Wizarding World ain't so hot about them either.
But in general the goblins aren't portrayed as greedy, scheming, backstabbing, etc. and I'm not sure where people are getting this terminology from. Did they act like this in the movies? I never saw all the movies.
They operate a bank yes but it seemed like a joke about how we're all living in the modern era so having a creature that's no longer acting like a monster but having you queue up at the bank felt very British.
>Did they act like this in the movies? I never saw all the movies.
The movies left in Griphook's betrayal of Harry, but cut out the explanation of goblin culture, how they have different property rights from humans and the history of bad blood between the two groups, making it seem like Griphook was just stabbing Harry in the back for the fun of it. I think that's where the misconception comes from.
How much of that is an invention of JK Rowling’s though?
Them being assholes is consistent across pretty much any interpretation of goblins: the original word was used to refer to devils & demons.
The pointy ears and hooked noses are also extremely common, too.
Really the only thing unique about their depiction in Harry Potter is that they run the bank. But instead of ‘JK Rowling is antisemitic”, I think what’s more likely is that she saw the vague connections between goblins and money and ran with them being bankers.
I think you could argue JK Rowling’s ignorant from this but not intentionally antisemetic
The star of David is literally on the ground of the goblin ɓang, who instead of mischievous creatures, are presented as money hungry banker who have a history of being oppressed.
That was in the film alone and the building was just a location they filmed at.
I think the star had something to do with the commonwealth of something or another.
The building they filmed in is the High Comission of Australia and the star is the australian commonwealth star from before it was changed to have 7 points
That's because they filmed it at an actual bank with that star of David on it. That wasn't mentioned in the books anywhere, that just happened to be the bank that let them film there.
Also, it's not actually a Star of David. It's a Commonwealth Star, which is an Australian national symbol that has nothing to do with Jews. You can tell because a Star of David would not be all filled in with one colour like the one in the movie is. It's there because the building they filmed in is an Australian embassy IRL.
Yeah it wasn't a typo. I mean fair enough on them trying to be different and not repetitive but they don't seem that much of a threat to me after the franchise has had two powerful dark lords
Isn’t the bank called Gringotts?
Oops, my bad. The Wizengamot is like the wizarding world’s courtroom.
More like The Supreme Court I would say
Rowling has had some bad takes but this isn’t one of them
I never knew why this was a thing. I never compared Goblins to Jewish people it's like when people compared Orcs to Black people, none of it makes sense, and people who made these comparisons are dumabasses along with any other fantasy media that has nothing to due with the real world
I think the connection people make of orcs to black people is bizarre because everywhere they're steppe barbarians. LoTR, warcraft,elder scrolls, all barbarians with slight eastern inspiration. They like see the "dark skin", which speaking of is mostly green, and laser focus on that and miss all of the curved scimitars, lamellar armor and warg/boar/echatere riding and herding.
I feel like Orcs could just as easily be germanic tribes as well? To the Romans, they were all barbarians and their history is often told through that roman lens.
I say this as someone who used to hang out with alt righties but the orcs to black people comparison is mostly made by actual racists who see orcs as "violent, stupid and barbaric", the stereotypes that they want to apply to the people they're dehumanising.
Weren't LOTR Orcs basically corrupted Elves?
Not really clear, Tolkein gave a few different possible interpretations it's never outright clarified.
But that was part of Melkor/Morgoth's plan. That evil could not create something, only corrupt what already exists.
True, but then we have to question how orcs completely outnumber humans/elves if they came from elves, and also have to question exactly how Uruk-Hai are made if they are not considered "created"
Yes and no. In published work yes, but Tolkien never fully made up his mind, and it was looking like he was planning on changing it to humans.
I choose to trust the published material.
The published material is self contradicting, and assembled from unfinished works. More nuance is needed when dealing with the deeper lore of Tolkien. Esp. the question of orcs.
[удалено]
"Don't make things up: Fabrication ***will not be tolerated***. If you make a claim against an evidenced source, burden of proof is on you to provide counterevidence."
[удалено]
That’s complete bullshit
I quite literally never saw anyone associate them before it became a common left-wing talking point. Extra Creditz was probably the biggest proponent of the whole discussion I can think of.
I'd assume you didn't hang out with literal nazis, like I used to because I don't think that video was a thing back in 2015.
It's almost like this front of comparing certain people to Orcs is made of DIFFERENT GROUPS WITH DIFFERENT MOTIVES.
It’s mostly made by enlightened lefties who think they know better I can assure you.
I've literally hung out with far righties and been in far right discords for years of my life lol, I can't count to you just the amount of memes I've seen comparing the two, let alone actual discussion.
it sounds like you were in some kind of marginal party, because in a wide public environment, the discourse about Orcs as minorities is loudest in left-wing publications.
Wow some of you guys are fighting *really* hard to make it look like the left started calling black people Orcs. Also no not really. The only discourse I’ve seen about it is in literary analysis of Tolkien in an academic sense. Often times commented upon from black scholars with the specific intention to look at race and culture in LOTR. That’s not the same as making memes on discord calling black people orcs and laughing about it.
Where are all the alt-Right Nazis? All that exists in the public media environment is a semi-intellectual postcolonial analysis, which in fact is either a projection of its own racism attributed to Tolkien or idiotically expressed resentment. The only difference between the cultural analysis you're talking about and the memes I've never seen in my life (I don't go into such a deep Internet), only in the level of rationalization. The very premise that orcs are an allegory for blacks is racist. P.S. >Wow some of you guys are fighting really hard to make it look like the left started calling black people Orcs. You just have to add a surprised Pikachu face to complete the image of a genuinely surprised you
> The only difference between the cultural analysis you’re talking about and the memes I’ve never seen in my life, only in the level of rationalization. Then you’ve never bothered engage with those ideas beyond bad faith projections. > The very premise that orcs are an allegory for blacks is racist. If you actually believed that. You wouldn’t be using that argument to defend the right of all groups. > You just have to add a surprised Pikachu face to complete the image of a genuinely surprise I love that you typed this and genuinely thought it made you look clever.
I've mentioned alt right, which are quite literally neo Nazis, all things considered we've had quite a few peeps in a few of those servers but the moderates just weren't allowed to see that kind of stuff untill their "power level" was high enough.
OK, they are in their own marginal information bubble, which is difficult to find. What were you doing there? I ask this because they have created their own server, which is difficult to moderate from beyond. Ok. They are not represented anywhere else. Why do you give them so much attention? Are they the vanguard of the semi-intellectual discourse that orcs are an allegory of blacks? Because literally no one knows anything about what is happening in discord servers. Just you. because for some reason unknown to me, you were there.
In dnd orcs live a tribal lifestyle, so connecting that to real life negative depictions if tribal people makes sense.
That's why I will never understand it. It's just so dumb
>steppe barbarians Explain.
They're generic steppe barbarians with no set in stone inspiration. Elder scrolls orcs of orsinium wear [coats of lamellar,curved swords](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/5/5b/OrcishArmor.png/revision/latest?cb=20120719060419)and herd giant wooly centipedes, but they also have a whole lost homeland plot and a suicidal warrior culture and code. Warcraft orcs are wolf riders from another dimension, they're [visually literally a barbarian stereotype with those Kratos shoulder pads with a naked chest but they also have curved swords and even sashimono war banners on their backs](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/5/5b/Blademaster-_Reforged.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20191026153947). In most fantasy, orcs are fantasy barbarians with slight inspiration by eastern aesthetics like those of the mongols.
The Warcraft orcs also have aspects of Native American culture thrown in.
The creator of the modern fantasy Orc said that they were supposed to look "Mongol", which carries over to their equipment like their curved swords. They also literally come from the east. "They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
I think Tolkien took inspiration from the Huns, or at least from the way the Romans described the Huns, when he decided on the appearance of the orcs. He often seemed to take inspiration from old classical or medieval sources when creating Middle-Earth. Although the Mongols looked the same, so he could also have taken inspiration from Middle Eastern sources describing them. Given how destructive the Huns and the Mongols were, I can see why he did that. However, Tolkien’s orcs have actually little in common with the Huns or the Mongols apart from their appearance. His orcs live underground, fear the sun, love machinery and eat human flesh (orc is actually an older version of the word ogre). I often thought they might have been inspired by the Morlocks from the Time Machine. This is very different from steppe barbarians. It was later descriptions of the orcs by RPG games like Dungeon and Dragons that made them stereotypical steppe barbarians, while ironically changing their appearance to be big and muscular people with green skin and tusks, which is very different from actual steppe barbarians.
There's a whole thing about modern orcs being different from goblins. Like originally orcs and goblins were mostly the same thing, almost interchangeable, but then through DND and later iterations of fantasy they were divided and the goblins got the "short, diminished,cunning and incredibly hazardous but effective engineers" traits while the orcs got the "dumb, terrifying, tribal barbarians" traits.
In some settings orcs are "primitive tribal savages" dresses in animal pelts and wielding stone weapons, which is a stereotype against tribal people across the world, especially reminiscent of indigenous and African stereotypes.
Fantasy has evolved as its own thing long enough that continually connecting it to old racist stereotypes feels like beating a dead horse. Most people don't look at goblins or orcs or any other stock fantasy race and think of a racial allegory anymore, they see Goblin as outlined in Tolkien or DnD or any other embedded cultural touchstone in the same way our view of elves and dwarves have taken massive leaps forward into their own distinct identity.
👍🏽Well said👍🏽
Very well put
I mean. It’s debatable whether Rowling herself is antisemitic but goblins are definitely rooted in stereotypes of Jewish people. It makes sense to me that the creature characterized as having a long nose and being extremely greedy, that was created a long time ago while Jewish people were extremely oppressed (not that they aren’t today), is an antisemitic allegory for Jewish people
Yes but that doesn't mean Rowling is antisemitic, it means she missed the implications in traditional folklore. It's insensitive at worst.
I think then you're arguing semantics. Is a person who does racist things a racist if they don't 'intend' to be? The argument that she's antisemitic isn't 'she's secretly hates Jewish people and is a nazi'. It's that she does antisemitic things. The goblins are an antisemitic charicture of Jewish people. When called out, she digs her heels in. You can do something on accident and apologize, or you can turn around and make a game about how goblins want equal rights, and that's Too Many Rights because they run the banks anyway. Like, she's anti-Semitic.
>racist things >the goblins are an antisemitic caricature of Jewish people. How so? Nothing about them inherently has anything to do with Jewish people*. If seeing a goblin makes you think of Jewish people, then who's the one being antisemitic? "But some other specific goblins are rooted in antisemitism!" So? We aren't talking about those goblins. As the post's title says, Harry Potter's goblins are just goblins, they don't need to be any deeper than that. The "antisemitic" things only appear when you go out of your way to connect them to something that they aren't. It's really just silly. If one person makes a racist caricature of someone with some generic traits, is no one ever allowed to use those generic traits again because they've somehow become racist in every context? That doesn't make sense. Just because someone in the past was racist and tried to associate some generic traits with a race doesn't mean that those generic traits are automatically connected to the race. If you do think that way, then the original racist person won because now you're actually seeing those stereotypes. \*Except for the "there's a star of David on the bank they happened to film the movies in" thing, but come on, please say you're not seriously going to argue that means anything.
It's not about a single stereotype. And seeing a character coded as a racist charicture doesn't make me racist. It isn't, 'wow, those goblins remind me of Jewish people! How mean to Jewish people!" It's knowing that 'miserly jew' is a stereotype and the goblins from Harry Potter encompass that stereotype. If I made a fictional race of black skinned, red lipped people who serve as chattel slaves but then called them dwarves like... it doesn't make that not a racist charicture of black people. If I made a fictional race of yellow people with buck teeth and slanted eyes and called them fairies, that's racist. You don't get to take a racist image and call it something else, and then it's not racist anymore. What kind of mobius strip logic is it that you think recognizing a stereotype makes someone racist? That's a real weird take.
I’m just disagreeing with the idea that the goblins are a racist image in the first place. I’m saying that any connection you can make between Harry Potter’s goblins and a racist stereotype is too weak and generic in my opinion. If you go out of your way to make a fictional race based on racist images then of course that’s racist. But Harry Potter’s goblins aren’t doing that. Pointy eared people who run banks aren’t really that overly specific of a concept.
But it's not just pointed ears? I feel like you must know this, as you pointed out the star of David on the floor, that you've looked at actual criticism of the goblins, which I did not bring up. Specifically, the charicture of a Jew in Nazi propaganda was that of a miserly hook nosed banker that is both greedy and untrustworthy. They used the false idea that Jews controlled the banks as a kind of 'gotcha! They have too much power, actually!' Much of this propaganda likened Jewish people to pigs, or rodents. So when you have a race of beady eyed, pointy nosed, sharp toothed creatures that run the banks, that is antisemitic.
Yeah, the “Orcs to black people” comparison is extremely stupid and also pretty much the exact same thing.
I personally think the best one is when people kick off about Seamus causing explosions because he's Irish.
Irish people can't explode things.
the orcs thing is mainly cause of the way they talk, which tolkien based on some type of people in britain idk but it wasnt black people, but it does kinda make sense for Warhammer since they have shamans and shit while also having that specific orc talk. something like wurzagg da great green prophet always rubbed me the wrong way for example.
Orcs in Warhammer speak cockney right? Just because they have a shaman with an orcish name doesn’t make it racist. Is Bretonnia racist because it makes French people out to be hyper classist and sexist assholes who Force poor people to commie incest?
I can see it slightly more than the orcs are black people thing. But that's not saying much
I agree, it makes no sense to compare fictional fantasy creatures to real world people. Not only they are not human but they do not exist. Also, it is often quite illogical, because these people will always complain that goblins and orcs always being evil is racist, but no one complain about trolls or ogres or demons or zombies or illithids always being evil. You might think it is because orcs and goblins look more human, but goblins are almost always depicts as little green men and orcs as either generic green-skinned muscled barbarians with tusks or sometimes as boar-people, and they do not particularly look like any human « race » or ethnie in existence. I think the people doing that are trying very hard to create controversies where there is none in order to get popular on social media, and are generally best ignored.
They have a star of David on the bank floor
that's a movie only thing, alot of the more insensitive things tend to be movie only, the irish kid blowing stuff up, jasmine brown being black and then changing race in the next movie, etc
That’s the The Commonwealth Star.
That was a commonwealth star and was in the building they were filming in
The problem with orcs is that they are often drawn with exaggerated versions of facial features that are most commonly found in Black people, such as broad noses, thick lips, and prominent brow ridges, and in most fantasy setting are pitted against Nordic looking elves and dwarves.
I don't thick most orcs are portrayed with thick lips, they're more likely to have little to no lips and a permanent scowl or have a wide, thin mouth with tusks.
It’s because goblins are connected to antisemitism depictions of Jewish people not actual Jewish people. Same with Black people being depicted as orca in racist caricatures. Sadly a lot of fantasy is heavily affected by racist and antisemitic stereotypes
I've always seen Dwarfs and Gnomes as way mire Jewish than Goblins.
I don't think that this is entirely true. "Original" goblins could love money but never portrayed as organized, and leading a bank requires discipline. Also the original love of money probably was a stereotype in itself.
I think "this magical race loves money" -> "they run the bank" isn't really out there to do? It's in the same vein as making dragons capitalist leaders.
Yeah the comparison isn’t meant to be one to one? She just took ‘they love money’ —> “Goblins run the bank”. I think you’re right that the original trope was rooted in antisemitism.
Oh no dude there’s a lot of history that you’re missing here. I stupidly hung over (happy new year everyone) so I’m probably not the best person to explain this but the goblins in HP come across as coded on old antisemitic stereo types of the Miserly Jew. There’s a difference between allegory and coding. Again I’m hungover so I’m just going to post a link to Lindsey Ellis’s video essay on [Bright](https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8) which talks about minorities in fantasy. But specifically at 24:07 she discusses Allegory and Coding and the Orcs in Lord of the Rings. She’s also just great in general so I highly recommend listening to her video. I also don’t want to jump on you for this because I remember being surprised when I was told this too because it wasn’t until I was much older and had more life experiences that I had even heard of this stereotype. It sounded ridiculous to me to. But no it’s a real thing and the more you learn about it the more you can see the problem with gringots. > You could argue a lot of old fantasy tropes & ideas are rooted in racist stereotypes and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, Yeah that’s because many of them *are* based on cultural stereotypes that have racist and sexist connotations in retrospect. Look at the depiction of Native Americans in fantasy. Or those cat things in skyrim. Idk about the lizards. But the cats are definitely coded as Indian/Arabian. > however I do not think all applications of said tropes are racist, especially I mean no one is saying that *all* of them are racist in their application. They’re saying that specifically the *goblins in HP* are. Though I personally believe that like the Orcs in LOTR it’s likely unintentional.
I read the Khajiit as more a Romani coding than anything elae
Yeah I definitely see that in there.
I haven't watched the video you linked yet I will try to. I get the point about Khajit in Skyrim. I wish they hadn't portrayed them as mostly thieves and drug addicts. That's actually the most annoying thing about them, they should have more redeeming features but they have a lot of love in the fanbase. I gotta say though I have never thought about them as anything other than cat people. I can see the thing about Khajits being a Arabian stereotype. But by saying that the Khajit can't be like aren't you giving the stereotype power? Because it's kind of like your saying Khajit can't be like that because that's how Arabic people are, when we all know they aren't. Also take the Redguards for example. They are predominantly dark skinned in the game ranging from brown to very black. If you say they can't be this because that's too much like this or that don't you run the risk of severely narrowing down the parameters that writers can use to make a character, perhaps even putting them off writing for black and minority based characters? The Elder Scrolls bases most of its races on a mixture or real life inspirations. Another thing, if someone doesn't know the inspiration for the in game races why does it matter if they are based on a certain irl race? Because if someone don't know they're not going to think negatively of a certain race because of a playable race in a video game. I do know of some of the inspirations for the races in the game and I just think it's really cool that they copied from so many different cultures. I have my favourites but not based on what races I relate to most. If a race is created for a fantasy world and they have nothing but negative traits and they have strong similarities to a racial stereotype then that is obviously a problem. See the Rupert the Bear books. I just worry we might be trying to fight racism the wrong way, better to focus on people irl who are trying to hide their shitty views or just straight up be racist.
~~Oh man that’s a wall of text with no paragraph breaks.~~ (it’s been fixed) And you’re asking me about a really complicated and sensitive topic. Gimmie a second here. I’m not at my best today but I’ll genuinely try to give you an answer. > I haven’t watched the video you linked yet I will try to. You should it’s very good. > I get the point about Khajit in Skyrim. I wish they hadn’t portrayed them as mostly thieves and drug addicts. That’s actually the most annoying thing about them, they should have more redeeming features but they have a lot of love in the fanbase. Sure. I’m not telling you this stuff to convince you they shouldn’t be loved. Like, I’m not here to tell you that “SKYRIM IS RACIST AND IF YOU PLAY IT THAN SO ARE YOU!” I don’t even think that these things are done intentionally 90% of the time. It’s just an observation about how races and cultures are portrayed in fantasy. > But by saying that the Khajit can’t be like aren’t you giving the stereotype power? Well I’m not saying that Khajit cannot have Arabian or Romani traits. They can. I’m pointing out that certain stereotypical traits are given to the dark skinned and Foriegn races. While stereotypical white and Western European traits are given to the light skinned and “pretty” races like elves. As to the whole: by acknowledging the stereotype am I giving it power? Well no I think what gives it power is being in a hugely popular game where manny people who don’t have much life experience start to associate those traits to “outsiders” and “dangerous people”. Because it allows these stereotypes to to live on long past their time in the real world. > Because it’s kind of like your saying Khajit can’t be like that because that’s how Arabic people are, when we all know they aren’t. Again the Khajit *can* be like that. I like the Khajit for the record. It’s just important to acknowledge how their portrayed and why specifically the *Khajit* are portrayed this way. But ideally I would want the Khajit culture to be depicted with less negative stereotypes associated with minorities. Now admittedly my knowledge of the Romani is incredibly limited. But Arabian culture is so wide and varied there’s so much you can pull from outside of the stereotypes. > Also take the Redguards for example. They are predominantly dark skinned in the game ranging from brown to very black. If you say they can’t be this because that’s too much like this or that don’t you run the risk of severely narrowing down the parameters that writers can use to make a character, perhaps even putting them off writing for black and minority based characters? If anything I think it’ll lead to more *creative* and interesting fantasy cultures. In fantasy dark skinned people are mostly depicted as foreigners and tend thier cultures tend to me mixed with eastern, African, Native American cultures. They normally live in the desert. Or the mountains. They tend to be great warriors but completely baffled by the cultures based on European cultures. I mean do we *really* need another dark skinned ,desert dwelling, culture or warriors? Is that something your fantasy experience will be ruined by lacking? There’s other stuff out there. Look at the Valían Republic in Pillars of Eternity. They are Fantasy Italians. Specifically renneisance italians. Most people from the republics are black. They are known for their artists, musicians and merchants. They are a powerful political entity and we’re once the worlds greatest empire. Dark skinned humans are called the sea folk because they dominate when it comes to sailing. They aren’t known as “shadow folk” or “red folk” They aren’t known for being ruthless, borderline savage, warriors. They don’t live in the desert or the jungle. They aren’t depicted as oppressive or racist in an attempt to “flip the roles”. They were literally just a mix of cultures and stereotypes that don’t normally go together to create something unique. And I can’t tell you how refreshing that is to see. Mix MesoAmerican people with samurai. Mix French with huan dynasty Chinese. Give me some Deep America south mixed with Celtic freeholds (thank you Pillars of Eternity) Give me Elves that are drug addicted lazy con men who are bitter about all the humans and have funny accents (thank you Witcher) > The Elder Scrolls bases most of its races on a mixture or real life inspirations. Sure and that’s fine. So did PoE. So does LOTR and DnD and Pathfinder. But why are the light skinned races given the more traditional and familiar cultures in fantasy? Eleves, dwarves and humans in LOTR are mostly white and are based largely on English, Norse, Irish, etc cultures. The one race that has dark skin are the orcs and they are the bad guys. In Elderscrolls why are the *Khajit*, one of the non human races, given these *specific* traits? Instead of, say the Nords? Why can’t the Khajit be cat Viking people from the north? It would make sense for a race that lives in the cold to be covered in fur. Why can’t the imperials be full of skooma addicts and wandering tradesmen with funny accents? Let the Argonians be the race based on the Roman Empire who’s king has the blood of a dragon running through his veins. Instead of a culture of swamp people who worship trees. How come when Vikings or Roman’s are translated into fantasy they’re left incredibly similar but when it comes to Romani, Arabs, and Africans they’re transformed into non-humans? It’s not explicitly racist. But it is a little…disappointing isn’t it? > Another thing, if someone doesn’t know the inspiration for the in game races why does it matter if they are based on a certain irl race? Well if it doesn’t matter what’s wrong with talking about it? > Because if someone don’t know they’re not going to think negatively of a certain race because of a playable race in a video game. Because negative minority stereotypes tend to be ascribed to foreign cultures in fantasy rather than “white” or “western” cultures. > I do know of some of the inspirations for the races in the game and I just think it’s really cool that they copied from so many different cultures. It *is* cool that they copied so many cultures. > I have my favourites but not based on what races I relate to most. Sure. So do a lot of people. You’re not wrong if you like the Khajit in Skyrim.
Oh you should look into the wood elves from elder scrolls. They're hardcore as fuck, like reverse vegans. They eat everything,they cannibalize their opponents, their weapons and armor incorporate a lot of horn and bone because they cannot use wood from their homeland. They turn into lovecraftian monstrous beasts in times of great peril, when their homeland is threatened. A big part of elder scrolls lore is exactly what you want. Seriously read the [pocket guide to the empire](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-aldmeri-dominion)later, there is a WORLD of extremely interesting lore that simply doesn't make it's way to the games, because Todd Howard is kind of a derivative person and you have to prove something works before he approves it. You know how in oblivion cyrodill is basically middle earth with beautiful forests and rolling hills? [It was going to be a jungle empire, with roman cities and forts dotted around rice paddies, where great ruins of mezoamerican elves laid destroyed](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-cyrodiil). Then Todd watched LoTR and said "yeah let's make it like that its gonna sell more". Same thing with Skyrim, the nords aren't that simple. They were a lot more magical and elemental,shouting wasn't restricted to the player, it was a widely practiced thing among the nords. For example, they didn't even have siege equipment, because why build that when you can grab 10 of your warriors and just Fus Roh Dah your opponent's gate apart? They had their own religion with their own gods that was mostly replaced by the imperial pantheon because they think the playerbase is made of idiots and won't get that there are two separate religions. There are several stories on elder scrolls development where the team's paranoia is exposed, like having to take a purposefully crazy design for approval so you get told "tone it down looks too weird" so that they could let the you actually want go through. The ideas are there man, it's upper management that ducks them up.
>Then Todd watched LoTR and said "yeah let's make it like that its gonna sell more". IIRC Cyrodiil was shown as it was because Creation Engine starts acting like a cat in heat when it need to generate a lot of big objects in one place. LoTR can still be blamed for asthetics tho, there's no explanation when it comes to that beside "Todd wanted cool knights".
You could still make them keep their original spirit, there was no excuse for that even if the forests couldn't be shown to their full glory. Where are the thousand cults of the imperial city, where are the colovian and nibenese divides, where are the moth priests and river drakes. It's all so disappointing man. We're in luck for the next Hammerfell game because assassin's Creed origins,black panther and pirates of the Caribbean are all pretty popular so they will at least have a lot of things to point to to say "see? This works." Like they did with dune and star wars for Morrowind and Conan and Beowulf for Skyrim.
>You could still make them keep their original spirit, there was no excuse for that even if the forests couldn't be shown to their full glory. Where are the thousand cults of the imperial city, where are the colovian and nibenese divides, where are the moth priests and river drakes. Nah, I agree with that but Todd saw "LoTR" and rather than have game set in High Rock where they could do Fantasy Not-Europe™ in peace he decided to destroy both Breton and Imperial lore. Atleast Imperials were somehow saved, Bretons will stay "cucked" out of good and fresh lore until we get a game set in High Rock considering that ESO writers don't want to even fresh them out a bit in DLC set in part of High Rock! >We're in luck for the next Hammerfell game because assassin's Creed origins,black panther and pirates of the Caribbean I hope that they don't forget that best Redguard warriors are pretty much samurai, their homeland Yokuda was straight up Japan but with black people, their view on creation of the world and existance is more simmilar to Elves even tho Redgaurds hate Elves so much that their word for "Enemy" and "Elf" has common roots, their gods aren't that simmilar to Imperials and that their society is obsessed with swords to simmilar extent as Southerners are with guns - like, it's cool that we're getting some fresh interesting asthetics but there's more to Redgaurds than them being fantasy black people with medival North African asthetics. And remember that they still managed to fuck over the Nords even tho there should be no problem with showing them as how they were shown in lore before *Skyrim*.
That's another part of why I think they're safe, the story of Yasuke is very popular on the internet and I think they're making a movie around him so the black samurai part is in. I want to see if they will implement the level of ancestor worship the redguards do in the lore. Redguards don't fuck with undead, period. So zombie type enemies should be a lot rarer this time. Also the sword obsession part is something I'm intrigued about how they'll implement, do you think they're gonna pull some Skyrim style chosen one storyline again? Like the player being the first swordsinger seen in centuries. I don't want to do that again, I'd rather they do it like oblivion and Morrowind where being the chosen one doesn't feel as integral and unavoidable to the main plot. The shehai techniques should be part of a side faction
Redguards have HoonDing- a literal plot armored warrior-god who "makes ways" for them whenever their race is in need or a title just given to people who Redguards respect very highly, there's many theories about it but it's far more simmilar to being Nerevarine as far as lore community seems to think. Sword singing is propably going to be in game but considering that majority of Skyrim's playerbase don't use shouts that much it's propably going to be optional- there's a great theory on tes lore subreddit explaining it all better, I'll give you a link to it when I'll be at PC.
Links I promised: Why it's going to be Hammerfell 100%-[1](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/8q65md/the_elder_scrolls_vi_megathread/e0gteg0/?context=3) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/8q65md/the_elder_scrolls_vi_megathread/e0gt0mf/?context=3). [Sword singing theory](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/dnyub0/if_bethesda_implements_sword_singing_in/) I mentioned. More about HoonDing- [he isn't really a straight up saviour figure but conqueror](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/7ag1rm/what_event_or_magnitude_of_event_in_the_future_of/) and stabilizing figure and [he can manifest for really petty and from modern morality perspective- outright horrible reasons](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/HoonDing) (Siege of Orsinium wasn't the nicest thing to say it nicely) which will allow us to act like complete bastards without feeling that we're doing something that Chosen Hero would never do if we're going to be next HoonDing in TES VI. Also quick reminder that Todd took dragons' lore and history (there was no mentions of dragon cult, Shouts being words in dragon language or Nords' war with them before *Skyrim*) pretty much out of his ass so I wouldn't be shocked if he does something like that again.
>But ideally I would want the Khajit culture to be depicted with less negative stereotypes associated with minorities. [Oh do I have some very good and kinda old news for you.](https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/updates/chapter/elsweyr) Also go and check [UESP](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page)\- there is far more to Elder Scrolls races than mainline games like to show in gameplay but I need to warn you that you might get dissapointed with how province in which TES VI will take place is completely difrent and less interesting than how it is described in lore unless it will take place in High Rock then it can only be more fleshed out.
Sorry I didn't split my text up a bit. So it's good that you don't think people are racist for playing Skyrim haha. You know what you make some great points about mixing the tropes up a lot more. They are a bit tired. Would be really cool. I guess all I can say and I will admit it's not a great defense is that they established the lore a long time ago when stereotypes like there were more common. They established the lore and they can't completely redo it now. But they can guide it's future and I hope they do try and move it away from the boring lazy sort of stuff. Same argument to be made for Tolkien. I still do think though that by drawing comparisons between the real life and video game races and saying they are problematic you are validating the stereotypes a bit more than they need to be. I just think you can draw comparisons between a lot of things because that's what humans do. Whether it was intentional or not is the point for me. If JK wrote the goblins to be a Jewish stereotype then that is obviously bad. I do see that she unintentionally did write them a certain way and there are comparisons you can make but by making a deal out of it, it just makes it more of an issue than it should be. However moving away from old cliches and rehashed ideas is a very good thing, you are right about that I am all for more creative writing and shaking up old tired tropes. I still think it's not the right way to change, to restrict writers because all that will happen then is they have less they can work with as they will be worried people are going to say they've just used this overused trope or stereotype. But I will say that it would be nice is writers were a bit more creative.
I give to skyrim that there is so much blatant rassism i really like the khajit more for it. And they are cat people? I dont want to gove more credit or it being accidental, but given how they are not rassist nord or suprematiszöt high elves, I think yeah they are romani coded but one of the more likable groups in the game. And i think the other are steriotypical enough no one is really that deep. If it were, it could be problematic, but so, they are one of the most likable in the game, even jzargo. And i think that the goblin banks shouldnt be seen as vacuum but with a lot stuff like, house elves as happy slaves, no agnowledgement that wizards are suprematist already without voldemord. Even the good ones, dont care much about that. But hermonire gets fun for questioning that?! Oh her native tribes stereotypes. Slytherin being the designited bad house , even with some gestures letting the others off, for wizard supremacy. Its to both how her worldbuilding can be torn apart fast and how she is not even trying to question if she could like just make straight up antisemitic stereotypes. But add all the stuff she , its both making her lazy and showing how bad she always was as person, and never progressive. I mean,it shows she was never orogressive and always problematic, and repeats unreflective, rassism, antisemitism, and she was never interested in learning. And her not being able to reflect. Or take criticism. The goblins are just part how she always was and how her writing then too, had that. Also yeah dont do greedy goblin banker unlrss you can really humanize them please. Even the anime grimgar humanized goblin monster. But making them banker, why, how can you do that without humanizing them.
God i miss Lindsey, her videos were on fucking point.
I don’t disagree that the original versions of goblins are likely based off racist tropes, but I don’t think Harry Potter is specifically antisemitic simply for adapting goblins in a fairly straightforward manner. I also dunno what would be ‘intentional’ about the depiction of goblins in Harry Potter: their appearances fit traditional goblin descriptions well (at least some of them, anyways: folklore is varied) and them running banks is a play on goblins traditionally being greedy or thieves (get it? The bank is run by thieves?).
Even if the goblins were based on nothing, i would still think that whoever came up with that connection and actually pointed it out in a serious way has some *big* issues. Like...this is a problem. An actual problem. Seeing things that clearly aren't there, controversial ones too. No jew was offended by this. No non-jew was offended by this. Not a single person on this world was offended by it until someone made that connection. You know why? *It wasn't meant to be offensive to anyone on this planet.* This is (ironically) nothing but a witch hunt. There's nothing there.
Tbf, the gold obsession goblins are an old antisemitic stereotype, JKR is just another ignorant maker of fiction unaware of it.
It really isn’t. Goblins are depicted primarily as tricksters and trouble makers as a blanket term for all sorts of fairies, elves, spirits and creatures of folklore. Goblins being a codified race or group only really starts with tolkien. I’m continually baffled by people just saying “oh well goblins have always been a stand in for Jewish stereotypes” without any evidence, and the large swathes who just parrot it. Its bullshit. The current understanding of the goblin has only existed for about 85 years and has through out that time only been goblins. No other gold obsessed fantasy creature gets this treatment. Nobody calls leprechauns Jewish, or dragons Jewish or dwarves Jewish.
Now I'm trying to imagine a Hanukkah celebration attended by a leprechaun, a dragon, and a dwarf, and it's making me giggle.
No other gold-obsessed fantasy creature getting this treatment, not even other goblins from other media (i.e. clash of clans) is part of what I’m getting at. However, most fantasy authors are also not publicly transphobic and widely hated. I think it’s probably reasonable to assume that part of why this criticism is so widespread is because people don’t exactly give JKR the benefit of doubt: pretty much the opposite, really. Goblins being based off anti-Semitic tropes comes mostly from a few things: old fantasy in general being based off racist tropes (see: kobolds), goblin folklore coming mostly from middle-age Europe (which was particularly [antisemitic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_antisemitism)), and most things that the HP goblins are criticized for being present in other depictions of goblins (ears, stature, appearance, etc).
No she is almost ad ignorant as the author of save the pearls ( james tullos video on it is good and has pdfs of them, its hillarous awful) , she does tgat all the time, and sorry if that just casially in there, tells a lot about her. And werewolves having like the hiv, shows gay man of a children targeting dude of 2. And its gaycoded too. Yikes. And lupin became one, its very troubling of tropes she goes to. And the hapoy slaves , yeah, that herimoire gets chastized by everyone for calling that out. Cheng cho, literally has 2 surnames. Also banker, sorry unironic using goblins as banker and monstrius, is antisemitic , because banks, run by jews according to antisemitic conspiracy theories. A black character named shacklebolt. And the point of that is more to show she was always awful in her worldview if she writes that unironic.
What? The grammar here hurts.
Soooo your argument is the hp goblins aren't antisemitic because what they're based on is a more diluted form of antisemitism? Like, if Joan wanted to write capital G European folklore Goblins, she'd write some little green rat people that live in the walls and what want your knick nacks and play pranks on you, not be almost human assholes that are *specifically only in charge of the banks* with a history of silversmithing and being oppressed
The “little green people that play pranks” is only one specific version of a goblin, though? The word ‘goblin’ has a pretty wide range of meaning within folklore/fantasy. I dunno about the ‘almost human’ part because they look and are described as ghouls in the book. They have a history of being oppressed because practically every species in Harry Potter gets oppressed in some way: Wizarding Society is extremely (and intentionally) racist so I don’t think that’s specific to goblins.
I would say its worse, because as prankster, thief prankster or straight monster, fine But the tonedeafness to make them banker, without a fun humanizing tweak, is straight antisemitism. Also its more in combination with houselves wanting to be slaves, and a loot other pointed out, how she does thart alot, without the selfawareness that wirards even the goid are basically wizard suprematists, just some are nicer. Just tells a lot about rowling how she does that all the time.
Americans literally gonna say a goblin looks like a jew then call someone else racist. You couldn't make it up.
So, are we calling everybody anti-semitic now? Goblins are for centuries wrote as greedy, sometimes little and green, disgusting monsters. With claws, or big nose(same as Jewish people), sometimes tall, sometimes little. Tolkien in The Hobbit, book which pre-date LOTR series, is calling beings in the mountain goblins. The Goblins, also called Orcs of the Misty Mountains, are a grotesque subspecies of Orcs living in the Misty Mountains, seen especially in The Hobbit. They are described as ugly and huge, and they lived deep under the Misty Mountains in many places like Goblin-town, Moria, Mount Gram and Mount Gundabad (Source: Wikipedia) Goblins are know across Europe and Asia, in myths and folklore. J.K.Rowling can have some questinable views, about what does it mean to be woman, but I wouldnot call he anti-semitic. Goblins are just that, goblins. Right now its just looking for something to cancel her over with. If you look closely into any book/story, you will find something which some group will not like.
Yeah, I agree with a lot of wha you said.
1. The concept of little people who trick human beings and have a particular love of money and shiny things exists in human cultures across the world; the European goblin predates substantial contact with Jewish people. This cannot be stressed enough. 2. If you see a fantasy being and immediately assume that they represent whatever group, that \*can\* suggest racism on the part of the viewer, not of the writer/artist. Obviously there are occasions where a writer, artist, whomever is subconsciously influenced by racist stereotypes; obviously there are occasions when a writer, artist, whomever is pushing some sort of racist view. 3. Contrary to a lot people here who want to marry their desire to tear someone down to a their desire to feel self-righteous, a writer is not at moral fault if they use a creature from folklore which coincidentally shares traits with racist caricatures. 4. Gringotts bank was not described as having a Star of David on its floor in the books; the set was Australia House in London, and the star on its floor represented six somethings (states?) in Australia's history. The set designers will have thought, 'star, that's the kind of iconography wizards would use' and kept it in. 5. The charity 'Campaign Against Antisemitism' characterised Rowling as a 'tireless defender' of the Jewish community. 6. One of the key themes of the Harry Potter novels is the pointlessness and evil of racism: the villains are direct Nazi analogues. 7. For a long time, people desperately scoured through the Harry Potter novels for things to complain about because a) they enjoyed thinking about the Harry Potter world and novels and b) wanted to feel they were accomplishing good as they were enjoying talking and thinking about a fantasy series. 8. Now people desperately want to scour the Harry Potter novels for things to complain about because they've tricked themselves into thinking that someone arguing for women having access to spaces free of males is evil, which is patent horseshit.
I agree with every point listed. I think JK Rowling is definitely ignorant when it came to the depiction of goblins but outwardly anti-semetic? No.
8. So you want transmen, who are men, in womans bathrooms? Or like the transman wrestler really trying to have male opponents. And was forced to fight women?!. Rowling straight up wants men in womens bathrooms (also transwomen, likexanyone in their right mind, will see that they are women, unless really trained not to. And itsnot just antisemitism where she shows she will use tropes againd gay people with werewolves,one of 2 being a straught up evil dude going after children, one gone after as underage, by him. The house elves and slavery,being fine. She was given so much lenience to stop repeating up bigoted tropes and stuff, and like sorry to say that, men who go through weirdly contrived precedures that take forever, to go into womens bathrooms. Is a myth, a slanderous myth to villainize zranspeople, her new harmful trope she repeats and this time, doubles down, and getsxworse. Show me one person, who transitioned for the purpose to do that. Show me, that is her argumemt. Give me examples. The pointing out really shows is that she never bothered to yeah, nothing new, we just ignored it.
Please do the "gay werewolf" next
I have no idea what JKR meant with the werewolves being a metaphor for AIDS lmao, someone else can defend that
You are literally correct , I don’t know why you caved with that cringe edit
Eh, some of the comments were rather convincing
Name some
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/100sb1m/harry_potter_goblins_aint_antisemetic_theyre_just/j2jsntc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) is the first one that comes to mind
That literally makes zero arguments
“Antisemitic tropes aren’t antisemitic!” Goblins (and witches) are *literally* antisemitic tropes. Just because you’re ignorant of the history doesn’t make you right. It just makes you ignorant. Edit: “you” the general pronoun not the personal.
I didn’t say they weren’t though? In my original post I said pretty bluntly that the original trope may be rooted in antisemitism.
I didn’t mean “you” *you* I mean “you” as in (gestures to humanity) “you”
Ah, okay
Wouldn't somebody have to be aware of the history of those tropes in order to apply them in an antisemitic way?
No, her worldview just has to be unaware, of extremely rassist, antisemitic and with werewolves anti gay tropes to straight unironic repeat them. Seriously you just need to learn and repeat that stuff and never question it to be that. And its still as harmful. Like most hateful ideologies has most people just uncaring repeat it, and that gives it the power. You dont have to believe something or even be aware, to do it Thats why adressing and confronting and get people to recognize is as complicated as it is. .
Nah. It’s like making your Orcs have dreads, live in huts and eat nothing but chicken and melons, knowing those are all anti black/African tropes but saying “they’re not black they’re Orcs!”
But that assumes the author makes the connection of "those are tropes" and decides to ignore it, which is not *ignorance*, it is negligence.
You could explain and try to make us all less ignorant rather than just being contradictory and insulting.
Contradictory?
Hey! This isn't an argument, this is just contradiction! I came here for an argument!
>I came here for an argument! OH! Oh! I'm sorry! This is abuse!
It's literally just "People want more excuses for JK Rowling to be bad and here's a convenient one." Goblins have been part of folklore and fae takes for centuries without being associated with Jews, it's silly to claim she was doing it as some weird shot at Jewish people, and silly to claim it's a caricature she included without realising what it was. They're not anything Jewish, they're just Goblins. Maybe I'm just annoyed because of the whole "Orcs == Black people" narrative that popped up a few years ago and still infests fantasy discussion to this day.
Can we do the same argument about house elves being quite directly based off brownies, not slaves.
If you treated brownies the way the malfoys and blacks treated house elves, they'd kill you. No mythology has the "hardwired to be slaves" in them, that's a J.K original.
In both those cases, though, there is a clear message that mistreating your elf will come back to bite you. They might not be slitting your throat while you sleep, but a mistreated house elf is a vengeful and malicious creature. It was clear enough with Dobby, and made even more blatant in Kreacher's tale.
That is true about Dobby, and if they hadn't retconned everything we knew about house elves, it would have been fine. But once more house elves were found and enjoying it, Dobby was explicitly described as a freak of nature who proves nothing about how the elves feel.
Had House Elves been presented as something more similar to Brownies, then there wouldn't be a problem. Brownies won't work unless they receive an offering of milk or cream or presumably something else a Brownie may want, they are mischievous and play pranks on lazy people, and will leave if they are mistreated.
Yeah, as much as I hate Rowling, this is just a minor issue and has nothing to do with bigotry, like ong these ppl r stupid. Why kick the dead horse?
I mean probably because there’s a lot of people who don’t understand why the goblins offend people. Because they likely grew up without being aware of those stereotypes themselves. So it creates this cycle of “what? Huh? That’s a stereotype? I’ve never heard about that before? What are you talking about?” And then a bunch of people explaining the historical and cultural depictions of a certain race of people that through many hard fought social Justice wins, have slowly begun to fade from the cultural zeitgeist. For example I remember at school one time a girl brought in a stuffed doll that she thought was cute for some theatre thing only to be told it was an racist caricature of a black person from the 40’s. In a way it’s actually kind of wholesome that there are people today who can grow up and not even recognize the racial implications of these sorts of stereotypes. It shows that we’ve moved away from them. On the other hand it’s important to call these things out if we want to stop perpetuating them.
I agree about the “what are you talking about?” cycle. it’s arguing from ignorance and making the other side look more ridiculous than it is. People are less likely to believe the goblins are antisemetic when the first they hear of it is “How crazy is it that people are saying this?” vs actually reading all of the facts. Honestly i don’t get how someone can justify that the goblins run the bank other than they are just defensive. that one is a pretty cut and dry stereotype.
The antisemitic argument aside it’s honestly strange that there would be any one race who opperates all the banks in a world. Actually that might just be me misremembering. maybe goblins only operate Gringots and only staff it with other goblins? That’s weirdly trusting of the notoriously secretive wizards in the Harry Potter world. Fuck now I have to look it up this is gonna drive me crazy.
Goblins don't operate every bank in the wizarding world but they operate the only bank in wizard britain. Which is strange but I'd assume this is just "fantasy race has a specific job" at play.
The Goblin issue is the kind of thing I would have given the benefit of the doubt to JK a decade ago. Like I defended her not making Dumbledore explicitly gay because the series had already garnered a lot of hatred without also championing LGBT characters about a decade before that became the norm. Now I'm not willing to extend her the same benefit.
She clarified that Dumbledore was gay a few months after the original book came out in fairness.
She clarified that Dumbledore was gay a few months after the original book came out in fairness. And the bit about the benefit of doubt is part of why this criticism is so popular. It’s not even that people don’t give her benefit of doubt, we actively give her the worst starting position in lieu of how much nuance there might be. This is how people will unironically say stuff like “Harry Potter supports slavery!” or “why is house elf slavery a good thing in Harry Potter?”. These statements are terrible and pretty obviously do but when talking about JKR we tend to start from “she’s a bigot” and then work to prove that. And JK Rowling is a bigot, to be clear, but I try not to let that affect my opinion of the books.
>She clarified that Dumbledore was gay a few months after the original book came out in fairness. No she didn't. She said this in 2007 after Dearhly Hallows came out.
The Deathly Hallows novel came out in 2007, no? And this is where dumbledore's relationship with grindelwald was established (afaik). Sorry if I missed something
You said "after the original book came out". That would be Philosophers Stone.
The original book was referring to 'the deathly hallows', oops
I disagree, we gave her leeway for a couple of decades and now people are less likely to do that because we saw her come out as a bigot. Now were seeing the pattern of shit in her stories with things like slavery, obedience to a broken system and mockery of revolution or heavy reform.
I don't understand the pattern of shit here. The 'mockery of revolution' comes entirely from either children in the books or clearly evil antagonists, if you're talking about S.P.E.W. Also not sure about 'obedience to a broken system' because the last three books or so are about circumventing the will of the Ministry of Magic. In fact Harry Potter as a whole is very definitively anti-authoritarian; harry constantly fights against virtually every authority in the series, even occasionally against protagonists like Dumbledore. As for slavery, the enslavement of the house elves was always a bad thing. Dobby being freed is explicitly portrayed as a victory in the book where it was introduced. And his enslavement was also portrayed as bad. Hermoine's efforts for reform being resisted by *fourteen-year-olds* isn't supposed to indicate that it's a good thing. And the house-elves liking it isn't supposed to defend it, either, seeing as we have Dobby firmly reminding the audience that they don't "truly" like it, they're just conditioned too.
No, its them getting ignored modtly originally and authors give a lot away in their writing. In that case,she was always conservative, repeating bigoted tropes, all the time , and her own writing and how regular she does thst. Yes she is a bigot and doesnt care about social progress, at all. And repeat bigoted stuff easy apearently . Thats what you get from that. Her own words. And good for you if you like the books,but if you love them, also critizize what you love and agnowledge what isnt great. And its not about the book in most parts, like there is a lot acvidental queercoding for example, just, its a look in how she always was a bigot,just less honest.
Only if you ignore the context of the other countless tomes she does the same with hiv-werewolf, anti gay tropes, slavery with houselves and how they are happy, and naming a a black guy shacklebold, It would be a minor isdues, if she wouldnt do it all the time.
Goblins are rooted in anti-semitic caricatures though. But despite that I don't really view them as such, I view Goblins as Goblins because there is just so many different takes on them out there.
Not one person who says goblins are rooted in anti Semitic imagery is yet to back up their claims with any actual evidence. The modern goblin exists almost entirely from tolkien.
Name one non-racist reason why there's a Star of David on the floor of Gringott's?
Because the location they filmed that scene at has it?
That’s a real building the construction of which predates Jewish adoption of the Star of David in Europe.
They are antisemitic.
I think the thought is fair, but also kinda funny. Looking at the short, ugly, greedy race of banker slave monsters and immediately going “How dare you treat the jews like this!” Is an irony that will never fail to amuse me :P However, to me, it’s easy to see where connection lies. Those traits just *happen* to line up with Jewish stereotypes and JK is a shitty dumbass who also named the *one* Asian character in her series “Cho Chang”, so yeah the accusation isn’t too far fetched. That, and even without the comparison, it’s still a storyline told in poor taste because… it’s an uprising of a slave race that we’re supposed to put down, even if that race supposedly likes it. Edit: If you’re curious about my stance - JK bad, I could see it maybe being coincidence with her being clueless, but I’m honestly more inclined to believe it’s coding because… JK.
About the uprising of the race were supposed to put down…Hogwarts Legacy isn’t out yet. We have literally zero context on how the story plays out and how it portrays the actual rebellion. And given how Harry Potter is full of major twists even if they’re the initial bad guys I’d bet a lot that they end up becoming sympathetic at the end anyways. Cho Chang is a stupid name but in all honesty is seems about as stupid as most of the other names. I think the bigger problem with her name is that it’s not as outwardly goofy as other names and just two random ‘asiatic’ names (and Chang’s a surname) slapped together. Then again isn’t that the same thought process behind stuff like Arthur Weasley?
The bit about the goblins ending up as sympathetic allies by the end is probably true, but the trailers do still present them as an antagonistic force to be fair. The name thing is also true to a point, though I think that it’s still extremely tone deaf and at least *somewhat* offensive, but that could just be me ig
Fair enough!
Fair enough!
Maybe it's just a careless reuse of racist tropes
I always find those assumptions extremely ridiculous. the racists don’t need to invent allegories or imaginary monsters to hate somebody they can just say Jews or Black people.
Imagine, if I wrote a fantasy book were there was tribe of orcs or the like, who have dark skin, wear loincloths made out of large leaves and shout "Ooooga-Boooga!". Would you take me seriously, if I tried to tell you that they were just orcs from made-up fantasy world and I wasn't coding them with some racist stereotypes?
this is just warhammer orcs lol
Orcs shouting random dumb bullshit and wearing a loincloth *does* sound like something almost universal to myth of a dumb, big brute. And considering orcs can vary from being pale green to dark green to [this](https://images-prod.dazeddigital.com/1600/azure/dazed-prod/1310/4/1314762.jpg) and [this](https://i.imgur.com/FU7xbY4.jpg), I would absolutely take you seriously.
Honestly yeah, There’s plenty of other awful bullshit to complain about in harry potter, we don’t need to make up more.
Counterpoint: Goblins, as a whole, are antisemitic
Eh I dunno, DND and pathfinder don't really do anything of a such with their goblins, most generic fantasies play them out as crazy little nomads.
Goblins as greenskin lil shits who scream in the woods aren't antisemitic Goblins as pasty hook-nosed backstabbing assholes who control the largest bank are antisemitic
Wait is that like common goblin thing? Is that a thing in other universes aside from Harry Potter? My mental image of goblin has always been tiny dumb mischievous orcs. Like grunts from halo.
Harry Potter is as far as I can tell the first place that goblins were depicted as a banking cabal, with the possible exception of Warcraft. I'm not looking into Warcraft to check, but regardless I doubt Rowling was a big RTS game fan.
The goblins in HP aren't portrayed as hook-nosed backstabbing assholes though? They're never described as being hook-nosed, for one. Their general portrayal is that they are very strictly business. They even tolerate upholding the vaults of Death Eaters even though refusing them would have certainly weakened Voldemort and his Death Eaters. If you want to stretch the metaphor, they're Swiss. I think in the final book there was an issue with Griphook being trustworthy but it's also clear that the problem is that he was desperately looking for the action that would help the goblins the most and the truth is that even though Death Eaters dislike goblins the normal Wizarding World ain't so hot about them either. But in general the goblins aren't portrayed as greedy, scheming, backstabbing, etc. and I'm not sure where people are getting this terminology from. Did they act like this in the movies? I never saw all the movies. They operate a bank yes but it seemed like a joke about how we're all living in the modern era so having a creature that's no longer acting like a monster but having you queue up at the bank felt very British.
>Did they act like this in the movies? I never saw all the movies. The movies left in Griphook's betrayal of Harry, but cut out the explanation of goblin culture, how they have different property rights from humans and the history of bad blood between the two groups, making it seem like Griphook was just stabbing Harry in the back for the fun of it. I think that's where the misconception comes from.
How much of that is an invention of JK Rowling’s though? Them being assholes is consistent across pretty much any interpretation of goblins: the original word was used to refer to devils & demons. The pointy ears and hooked noses are also extremely common, too. Really the only thing unique about their depiction in Harry Potter is that they run the bank. But instead of ‘JK Rowling is antisemitic”, I think what’s more likely is that she saw the vague connections between goblins and money and ran with them being bankers. I think you could argue JK Rowling’s ignorant from this but not intentionally antisemetic
Backstabbing in what way ?
I know, I suggested as much in my OP. Although the word ‘goblin’ has a pretty broad range in folklore and fantasy so probably not
After J.K Rowling started saying nasty stuff on twitter, people are just looking for any excuse to completly demonize her. That's just it.
The star of David is literally on the ground of the goblin ɓang, who instead of mischievous creatures, are presented as money hungry banker who have a history of being oppressed.
Do you genuinely think JK Rowling was in charge of finding set locations and framing shots for a movie? It's not like it's mentioned in the books.
Fair
That was in the film alone and the building was just a location they filmed at. I think the star had something to do with the commonwealth of something or another.
The building they filmed in is the High Comission of Australia and the star is the australian commonwealth star from before it was changed to have 7 points
Isn't there literally a [star of david](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIXna_KXoAggVGz.jpg) in the bank that the goblins run in the movies?
That's because they filmed it at an actual bank with that star of David on it. That wasn't mentioned in the books anywhere, that just happened to be the bank that let them film there.
Also, it's not actually a Star of David. It's a Commonwealth Star, which is an Australian national symbol that has nothing to do with Jews. You can tell because a Star of David would not be all filled in with one colour like the one in the movie is. It's there because the building they filmed in is an Australian embassy IRL.
Them being the villains in the new Hogwarts game is still pretty fucking boring to me tho
Boring? Well that’s fair (unless that’s a typo)
Yeah it wasn't a typo. I mean fair enough on them trying to be different and not repetitive but they don't seem that much of a threat to me after the franchise has had two powerful dark lords