That new Potter game looks like it's just magical blood libel except they want you to burn the Jewish village down.
Okay for real though, Rowling's whole "antisemitic goblin" thing is actually WAY worse than a lot of people think.
Like even outside of Jowling Kowling Rowling being a piece of shit anyway, the blatant antisemitism in these Goblin characters is getting less and less excusable as an "honest mistake." Rowling's antisemitism is blatant at this point people's excuses don't work for her- here's why. It's one thing to let your unconscious biases influence your world-building, nobody is immune to that risk, but it's another to have it pointed out and double down on it. Rowling is notorious for retconning details into her story, adding "inclusivity" after the fact (oh boy, we got "at least one Jewish wizard at Hogwarts" a few years ago!) but nothing was ever done to address the goblins. The house elves got an attempt at least with "they like being enslaved so it isn't bad!" (Which arguably makes it even worse but like... at least she recognized a problem existed in the first place I guess? I'm being very generous here.)
It's also way more than just "they own banks and have hooked noses." That said, that's notable enough on its own. When we say they look like a stereotype that is extremely literal, here's a piece of nazi propaganda side-by-side I saw:
Anyway, the books also establish that goblins can use magic but aren't allowed to carry wands. (So like, obvious systemic oppression that's never rationalized, we're supposed to just accept it and assume it's because they're untrustworthy or something.) Even Hagrid, who deals with magical creatures for a living and also tends to be much more With It than the rest of the cast, calls them "not the friendliest of beasts." Idk about y'all but it's a little disturbing to see even Hagrid call them "beasts" even though they're considered intelligent and "civilized" enough to run their whole banking system. Not to mention this is Hagrid, the guy that gave a Terrifying Giant Spider Everyone Hated a chance. The new game makes it even more clear that goblins are exceptionally greedy and don't understand (or abide by) wizard customs. They're considered at fault for their own oppression and the current rebellion must be stopped to put them back "in their place."
ALSO THEY ARE LITERALLY TRYING TO KIDNAP CHILDREN. That specifically has a HUGE and extremely direct history to a thing called blood libel, the leading excuse for pogroms for centuries. Christians love the idea that we are very literally kidnapping Pure Christian Children™ and using their blood to make matzah on Passover. That's not even kosher. The most recent example I could find of this exact myth was in the United States in 1928, though the idea of Jews luring away children was a good way to teach stranger danger in Nazi Germany. Nowadays blood libel sentiment fuels things like QAnon (where we're kidnapping children to use their blood for Satanic stuff I guess?) Antisemitism has a LONG history of painting Jews out to be predatory towards children in particular.
Okay, now for the main excuses for her I hear:
"But she visited a Holocaust museum and said she based Voldemort off of Hitler!" Anyone can visit a Holocaust museum. They're buildings. Holocaust museums are not machines that suck in antisemites and spit out allies, yet in the public eye, it seems all a celebrity needs to do to remove accusations of antisemitism is visit a holocaust museum and make a statement about how horrified and inspired they were. Visiting a museum doesn't mean shit. Neither does writing a metaphor for Hitler or racism, that's literally the most low-hanging fruit possible. Or everyone's biggest "gotcha:"
"But Rowling wasn't in charge of making the games OR the movie design!"
Y'all really think they didn't ask her to sign off on this? You really think she wasn't in the room when people pitched their ideas for the entire plot? You think she'd hand over the rights to her cash cow and then never look at the product?
Yeah, Rowling is probably not maliciously thinking about how she can make it worse. But at the very least, she wrote enough into her work to inspire people to make harmful stories like this, and a literal billionaire can't be bothered to hire people who give a shit (about any of her many issues) to screen things on her behalf. In the age we live in, I think it's telling that she doesn't even try. o
