Chatterbox: Blab About Books

Because, for various reasons, I have been thinking and writing about Potter a lot lately. 

And that's "a lot" to the point of writing an essay about the goblins. Which I will post bits of in a minute. Anyway, the point of this thread is so that those who are so inclined can, well, rant about Harry Potter. Overanalysis is fun! :D

*

And I have some thoughts on the goblins I would like to share. It's a bit disjointed because I'm skipping over the more rambly bits of a four-page essay. Feel free to skip over these if you want because can you say "pointless minutia"?

If the goblins built Gringotts, it follows that they are both skilled architects and highly comfortable underground. This combined with their proclivity to metalsmithing* suggests a mining culture, even, perhaps, a predominantly-underground civilization. They obviously must have more topside buildings in addition to Gringotts to pander to wizardkind, however--this could be a concession made following the Goblin Wars of the medieval period and later rebellions in the 17th century** and thus an additional sore point in goblin-wizard relations.

*much is made in-series of goblin-made objects, in particular the sword of Gryffindor but also armor and the Prewett tiara that Fleur wore at her wedding, and I believe some of the dishes in 12 Grimmauld place were fine goblin-wrought silver.

**we can only assume that the goblins lost these wars, since wizardkind is firmly in control--the goblins have Gringotts, yes, but the Ministry itself only has the Goblin Liason office, which is implied to be pretty low on the heirarchy if I recall correctly. Also, like other non-human magical beings, they are denied the use of wands.

It's interesting that we never meet any female goblins. This could indicate a prevalence of sexism in goblin society--females should stay at home while the males go to work--or some kind of matriarchal system in which the females direct everything behind the scenes. Although my personal head!canon (and I'm allowed to do this because there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever in favor of any of these three theories over the others) is that goblins are agendered and reproduce through some kind of parthenogenesis. (They're magical beings; I'm sure it's in the phase space somewhere.)

Goblins are shown to have financial interests in Egypt, employing wizarding Curse Breakers to disarm and, presumably plunder ancient tombs. This suggests that goblins either (a) made these treasures and therefore still own them under goblin law, or (b) take a finders-keepers approach to the long-dead, or (c) have no scruples about stealing from wizards. On the whole, (c) seems the most likely, given that there is no mention of Egyptian goblins in canon and a species that puts so much emphasis on how absolutely no good horrible awful theft is* would hold views like (b). 

*it's heavily implied that the perceived theft of the sword of Gryffindor was what started the Goblin Wars in the first place.

They're said to be ruthless negotiators, not to be crossed and nigh impossible to gain an upper hand against or trick. This might be a recent change, given that they've obviously gotten the short end of the stick in their historical dealings with wizards, but it might indicate that they sneakily put one over on wizardkind--they do, after all, control the entirety of magical Britain's economy*.

*they mint the money and run the only bank in magical Britain. 

On the whole, goblins strike me as a proud group, resentful of wizardkind due to the centuries of fighting and prejudice they've receieved, but I think they're too shrewd to let on. Most of the wizarding world is convinced of their general trustworthiness* and that's very much to the goblin's advantage. Goblins have been effectively crippled over the years--after each rebellion they've probably had their rights lessened as punishment** and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't allowed to have a military force--so they have sought (and found) a modicum of control through money.

*see previous note about the economy. 

**the sheer amounts of casual anti-goblin prejudice, even from characters who are shown to care about Muggleborn or even house-elf rights, is telling, as is the fact that goblins are obviously marginalized--there is no mention of them outside metalsmithing (all of which took place several generations ago at the very earliest) and banking--which suggests that they face a fair amount of oppression from wizardkind.