Goblins, British school children and sterotypes ( was, Re: Muggle Parents and

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 184065

> Alla:

> What I am trying to say that I believe that Griphook is a shortcut to 
> how we meant to view Goblins. I mean, not that anybody has to, but I 
> do. If for some readers he is a clever red herring, okay, but I would 
> like to see to what exactly he is a red herring. To the mindsets? 
> That we cannot judge the entity, nation, group of people by one 
> representative? Okay, again, sure, of course we cannot in RL, but in 
> fiction? JKR cannot really give us many goblins in the story where 
> they are secondary characters, so I feel she gave us how one behaves.

Magpie:
I see it the same way for both Goblins and Slytherins. Far more so with 
Slytherins, since we see so many of them, and the exceptions prove the 
rule. They all start out with moral disadvantages, but a few wind up 
having specific experiences in life that make them do the right thing 
or the less wrong thing. There's little point in wondering about better 
Slytherins since they don't exist in terms of being on the page 
(they're Sorted for these tendencies, so it's not really a stereotype).

In Griphook's case his personality isn't really the issue, is it? It's 
not like we imagine every single Goblin would have his personality. 
It's his pov that's supposed to give us a view to Goblins--they don't 
think they've been treated well by Wizards and they believe the crafter 
of something is the true owner. There may be Goblins that don't believe 
these things (good Goblins who agree with the Wizards' pov!) but 
Griphook's just showing us a common pov that Goblins have. He's telling 
us something about their society more than something about the 
character of every Goblin.

-m