Goblins; different from Griphook?

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 184098

> > Mike previously:
> > 
> > But goblins? Where was the exception? Which one broke ranks to 
> > show us that they don't all think the way Griphook thinks? 
> 
> Pippin:
> The goblin family murdered by Voldemort that Bill mentioned in OOP.

Mike:
How? We know "[t]hey've suffered losses too" from what Arthur said, 
but how did that show a breaking from Griphook's position? Isn't 
Griphook on the run from the snatchers? That shows that Griphook 
himself has run afoul of Voldemort's forces, just as that family 
mentioned in OotP must have. If anything, they would seem to have had 
the same opinion of LV and the DEs that Griphook had. It shows us 
nothing of goblin ownership beliefs.



> Pippin:
> What a previous poster said about Hogwarts applies to the goblins
> as well, IMO. If the story was about what goblins are like, then I
> would expect Griphook to be a fair example of them. But the story
> is about what *Harry* is like, and to understand that we only need
> to know what Harry knows about goblins.

Mike:
Granted, we get very intimate knowledge three very different elves. 
Which gives us good insight into what elves are all about. But we 
really only get Griphook on behalf of the goblins. Why do you suppose 
that is? Could it be that in the Potterverse understanding one 
goblin's views suffice to tell you what all goblins are about?

Are we really in the dark about goblins? Bill told us in OotP that 
the goblins were still feeling pretty anti-wizard over the Bagman 
incident. Over gold. Which is the same thing that Bill warned Harry 
about, gold and treasure. Add in their grievance against wizards over 
wand usage, and you have Griphook and all goblins in a nutshell.

Bill also said that he thought the goblins might sit out the war. He 
was proved right. Griphook said in the woods, "We take no sides. This 
is a wizards' war."

The upshot, IMO, is that if it's not gold or treasure, goblins have 
no interest in it. That was Griphook's take, despite his curiosity 
over this strange wizard named Harry Potter. I saw nothing in goblin 
society that would lead me to believe otherwise.



> Pippin:
> I think it would be a bit disingenous to say that Griphook made
> an honest bargain.

Mike:
*honest*;-) I wouldn't call it honest at all, unless you were to look 
at it from a goblin perspective, I suppose. But Griphook did follow 
to the letter what he had agreed to. 

I also suppose goblin society could function amongst themselves, if 
they lived in a vacuum. But as a group within a larger world, I find 
the goblin perspective untenable. For all the reasons Carol has 
enumerated so I won't repeat them.



> Pippin:
> IMO, he knew Harry would reasonably expect him to help Harry get
> out of the vault as well as into it, just as Harry knew perfectly
> well that Griphook could reasonably expect to receive the sword
> when he'd fulfilled his side of the bargain.

Mike:
I agree with Rita (Catlady) that this was a case of karmic justice. 
Harry was uncomfortable with the bargain he had made. I'm guessing 
that breaking into Gringotts was not high on Griphook's to do list 
either. So they both made a pact in which neither really liked what 
they had promised to the other. Harry got his justice earlier. But 
I'll bet somewhere down the line Griphook was made to answer for his 
part in this escapade. And without the Sword to show why he did it 
(having lost it to Neville), Griphook probably got a bigger payback.



> Pippin:
> There isn't any cultural misunderstanding here,IMO, just two
> sharp bargainers each counting on the other's greed to keep him
> from asking too many questions. What's that saying? Oh yeah,
> "You can't cheat an honest man." Or goblin.

Mike:
How about, "It's easier to receive forgiveness than get permission"? 
I like my corollary to that old standy, "Don't ask the question if 
you can't stand the answer." Neither of them asked the question.



> Pippin:
> Does Griphook show goblins in a bad light? Sure, just as Greyback
> shows werewolves in a bad light, and Voldemort shows humans in a
> bad light.

Mike:
But we have Lupin to show that not all werewolves are like Greyback. 
We have lots of people, Harry at the top of the list, to show humans 
are not all Voldemorts. Which goblin did you see that showed they 
weren't all like Griphook in constitution?

Griphook wasn't all bad, he did fail to inform Snape that the Sword 
they put in Gringotts was a fake. (He didn't know that Snape was 
already well aware of it.) And he later lied to Bella in Malfoy Manor 
about the real Sword. At least in the second case, he had no reason 
to believe he was going to be rewarded for that act. It seems he 
failed to inform Snape out of spite.

But even in that scene in the woods, the goblins showed little to no 
compassion for the other species. In fact, I believe the two goblins 
were on the run because one wouldn't be treated as a house elf and 
Griphook recognized "no Wizarding master." There is very little 
subtlety in the way goblins were portrayed, and that was purposeful, 
IMO.

Mike