Goblin fanatic

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 176197

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" <zgirnius at ...> wrote:
<SNIP>
> > Random832:
> > 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, becaise 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.
> 
> zgirnius:
> The way I take 'goblin fanatic', what I figure is that the goblin 
> who sold Godric the sword did understand that the human buyer was
> buying it forever, for himself, his descendants, and any other
> entities to  which those individuals might choose to give the
> sword, for ever and ever. And he set the price accordingly. 
> 
> But 'goblin fanatics' like Griphook don't think that goblin had the 
> right to do so. It goes against his culture and permanently
> deprives other goblins of the item. Which is what makes them
> fanatical - it means they refuse to ever deal with humans on human
> terms. (A human who refused ever to consider buying a goblin
> artifact for his/her life only, or did and then claimed to have
> bought it for ever, would be guilty of same).
> 

I look at Griphook as akin to an indigenous person trying to rescue a 
tribal artifact from a group who knew something of goblin customs, 
yet in their might took those artifacts in exchange for things of 
ultimately lesser value to the goblins. In other words, wizards 
traded a great deal of goblin culture for trinkets, then limited the 
goblins to the reservation of banking, which corrupted their natures, 
and the practice of their native crafts.  And still, the goblins 
apparently had a history of resisting their role in the magical 
world.  It's like Native Americans trading land for beads, all the 
time not understanding the trade in land itself, as land belonged to 
everyone, then having that land taken from them by force and 
continued guile.  Griphook acted to retake possession of his culture, 
if only symbolically, just as the Native Americans retook possession 
of Alcatraz Island in the late-1960s.

Griphook is trying to recover goblin culture, not for himself, but 
for all goblins.  He is willing to lie to Voldemort's followers to 
protect it.  He is willing to endure Fleur's negativity to preserve 
it.  He is willing to bargain with a wizard to recover it.  He is 
willing to risk his life in a trip back to Gringotts to secure it.  
He is willing to run off with it despite the dominant power of 
wizards.

The fact that Harry Potter is willing to double-cross Griphook and to 
justify a lie like an attorney-in-training disturbed me as much as 
his use of Unforgivables (which are probably now standard among 
Aurors, as waterboarding is excusable to the current U.S. 
president).  The fact that Griphook realizes he is being lied to and 
takes action makes me respect this particular goblin quite a bit. 
After all, why should Harry Potter's priorities be Griphook's, 
especially when Harry is not willing to share the truth with the 
goblin?

Harry does not risk only the lives of his willing friends and 
himself, by the way.  He asked this presumed sub-human to assume a 
dangerous risk.  But as Edmund Hillary to Griphook's Sherpa, as 
Dumbledore to Snape, sacrifice of inferiors is the natural order.  
And in the end, Manifest Destiny prevailed, as a true Gryffindor 
(white, straight, rich wizard) recovered the sword from the creepy 
native, and all is well in Little England.  The history books will 
recall how Griphook betrayed Harry Potter (as Wikipedia does at the 
moment).

Others have argued that the goblins are the Jews of the Potterverse, 
and money-handling is the restricted profession of the ghetto.  I can 
see why some make this comparison, but the scapegoated role held by 
Jews is still, I think, held by Slytherins.  They are ambitious, 
cunning, ruthless. They are out for themselves and not to be trusted. 
They stick together, and won't fight for your group, only for 
themselves, with their mysterious arts and exclusive natures.  The 
goblins are even more "Other" than the Slytherins.

For me, Griphook was one of the only characters in DH who had a will 
of his own.  He used it to act for a greater good; it just wasn't the 
dominant culture's good.  In other words, he was a "fanatic," as JKR 
has characterized him in interviews.

lealess