CHAPDISC: DH26, Gringotts

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184111

> Zara:
> I think there is a subtlety there. All goblins believe the maker of 
> an object is its rightful owner, no debate from me. But how they act 
> when dealing with humans, is an area in which there may be 
> differences. They are intelligent beings just like humans, so I 
> believe they are capable of understanding the human position (that 
> the purchaser of an artifact becomes its owner and may pass that 
> right to his chosen heirs in perpetuity) just as we understand 
> theirs. It is entirely possible to therefore understand and accept, 
> that however wrongheaded this seems, one can "sell" this natural 
> right to ownership of one's own creation. I think Griphook is an 
> example of a goblin who does not want to accommodate humans in this 
> regard.

Pippin:
I think Zara is on the right track here. The connection between the
maker and the treasure may be goblin instinct, but goblins, like
humans, do not have to obey their instincts, and may choose not to do so. 

Goblins have made a great many objects  for use by other races,
objects which cannot attain their full power (by imbibing the strength
of other objects) unless they are used. Surely goblins did  not make a
helmet suitable for a giant, or a tiara to fit a human head and
flatter a human woman, or goblets with the Black family crest, in the
expectation that humans would not purchase these things. 

Wizards do not know the secrets of goblin manufacture -- they can't
have forced goblins to make all these things for them. And since
neither side is keeping their theories of ownership secret, these
differences must have become known centuries ago, though present-day
wizards have chosen to ignore them. 

IMO, Griphook has every right to feel it's unfair that goblins must
accommodate wizards to the point where wizards can blithely ignore
goblin feelings in this area. But of course that does not make the
sword the rightful property of goblins. I think that just as Harry
does not want to believe that the great Godric Gryffindor was a thief,
Griphook did not want to believe that Ragnuk the First compromised
with wizards. 

In the books generally, and certainly in DH, open-mindedness is
rewarded and closed-mindedness is ridiculed or punished. In this
episode, both Harry and Griphook made an effort to be open-minded, but
each in the end failed to respond to the good will  of the other, and
they relapsed into distrust and betrayal.

But I think the reader is expected to cultivate open-mindedness, and
not close off the possibility of better relations between goblins and
wizards simply because this effort was a failure. 


Pippin