[HPforGrownups] Compassionate hero & karmic justice (WAS Re: Appeal of the story to the reader)

[random832 at fastmail.us]

No: HPFGUIDX 175986


On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:23:07 -0000, "rowena_grunnionffitch"
<G3_Princess at MailCity.com> said:
> > Nita:
> > 
> > > Well, I don't know what you think about interviews, but JKR did say
> > > "Griphook was wrong - Gryffindor did not 'steal' the sword, not 
> unless
> > > you are a goblin fanatic and believe that all goblin-made objects
> > > really belong to the maker." (
> > > http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html )
> > 
> > lizzyben:
> > 
> > I can't believe she said that! God forbid we might think good
> > Gryffindor could ever do something wrong. So, someone from culture A
> > buys an object from culture B, w/the understanding that under Culture
> > B's laws, that object reverts back to the maker upon the buyer's
> > death. Mr. A then decides to bequeath that object to someone else
> > instead, keeping the object away from Culture B forever. 
> 
> Rowena:
> 
>   Sooo...basically we are privileging the pov of Culture B over Culture 
> A why? Because the former is non-human perhaps??
> 
>   You are overlooking the fact that, according to Bill, Griphook's is 
> an extreme minority opinion even among goblins - hence the 'Fanatic' 
> comment.

Actually, I see "Goblin fanatic" in the same vein as "muggle-lover" -
we're humans, we're not SUPPOSED to agree with goblins, and the person
who asked the question is a blood-traitor for even thinking it. It's all
in line with the "bigotry is perfectly OK as long as you're not a
slytherin" message of the books. The 'fanatic' comment (which JKR, not
Bill, made) is that agreeing with the goblin concept of property rights
(as Bill seems to) is an extreme minority opinion among _wizards_.

Anyway, sarcasm aside, Goblins come off here as being pretty incompetent
in legal/financial terms: life tenancy isn't unheard of in property
rights among humans, though usually applies to real estate rather than
physical items - so there's no reason to think that humans wouldn't
understand the concept if they were told. That leaves the conclusion
that Goblins are either too bloody stupid to specify what exactly
they're charging money for, or they're committing what amounts to fraud,
because the prices wizards are willing to pay, and thus what they _are_
paying, are set on the _assumption_ that they're buying the item free
and clear, and therefore they are paying many times more gold than they
would for a non-transferable lifetime lease. So even if we DO accept
that the goblins are right about what's ACTUALLY being sold, they are
overcharging by deception.

It's like if some rich person negotiated a trillion-dollar deal with
Disney to buy the rights to Mickey Mouse, and then once they have the
money they're like "oh, THAT? no, we just meant we'd sell you a mickey
mouse DVD for a trillion dollars, not the actual copyright and trademark
etc. SUCKER!"
-- 
Random832