The Fundamental Message.../ Heroes...

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176505

Magpie:
> But I think Hermione's view as opposed to Griphook's is the one the 
> book takes. Griphook has every reason to see the wand-carriers 
> gaining power in general and not make distinctions between Muggle-
> borns and Pure-bloods. The book is concerned with the injustices 
> done to the wand-carriers who are opposing their own rights taken 
> away. Griphook's pov as a non-human, his different perspective, is 
> simply wrong, just as is his idea that the sword was stolen. 

Carol responds:

Goblins' rights aside, Griphook *is* wrong--as in mistaken--about the
ownership of the Sword of Gryffindor. It was made by a long-dead
goblin for Godric Gryffindor, who paid a large amount of gold for it.
Griphook's wanting it back for the gobins in general makes no sense.
What are they going to do with it, keep it in Gringotts? That won't
work because it's enchanted to come out of the Sorting Hat for any
Gryffindor who needs it. (Of course, in the two instances we've seen,
the Sorting Hat *happened* to be right there, delivered by Fawkes in
the one instance and summoned by Voldemort himself in the other.
Complicated logistics, part of the "help will always come at Hogwarts
to those who ask for it" idea, I suppose.)

At any rate, as I see it, goblin-made swords, armor, tiaras, etc., do
belong to the wizards who paid for them, just as my car belongs to me
and not to the Ford workers who manufactured it. It may be a "human"
idea of ownership, but it makes much more sense than returning a sword
or tiara or whatever to the goblin who made it on the death of the
wizard who *bought*, not *leased* it. Should wands made by Ollivander
return to him on the death of the wizard who made them? *He* doesn't
expect that to happpen. Neither, IMO, should the goblins.

With regard to employment opportunities, the right to carry wand
(which they don't need), and their right to live in peace, Griphook
and the goblins have more legitimate grievances, but Griphook's idea
that he was retrieving goblin property by seizing the Sword of
Gryffindor (willed to Harry by DD, who was presumably its legitimate
owner as headmaster of Hogwarts, and made available to Harry and Ron
by another headmaster, Severus Snape, who makes sure that the sword is
retrieved under circumstances involving valor and chivalry as required
by its internal magic) is, IMO, just absurd. An artifact can't belong
to a group. The only goblin with a hint of a legitimate claim would be
a descendant of the original maker, and even then the descendant or
heir of the original buyer would have a better claim. 

Carol, who does not consider her legally purchased copy of DH to
belong to JK Rowling even though Rowling created it, property rights
being different from copyright protection