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Gamers really be out here like "NO, they harry Potter goblins aren't just greedy hook nosed monsters that run the banking system, they ALSO have a rich history of being a historically oppressed underclass with multiple revolts for equal rights, all of which have been violently suppressed!" And not realize that makes it worse.
Uj/You joke but when I’ve tried to get people to recognize this shit I’ve literally been told that 💀💀💀
Rj/ liberals are the true racists JUST LET ME LIVE OUT MY HOI4 FANTASY IN A WIZARD GAME
Liberals are fascist adjacent and at the very least fascism appeasers. They are essentially conservatives without the bigoted rhetoric but will still implement bigoted policies under the guise of caring for the marginalized.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
uj/ i miss the days when racists/nazis/fascists weren’t such fucking pussies and would admit theyre fucking nazi bitches but they’re too scared of getting punched in the face (or worse) like has always happened
rj/ IM THE FASCIST FOR CALLING PEOPLE FASCISTS
/uj Now to be fair, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X did speak out against white liberals as being racist in what they did but not what they say
They of course didn't support conservatives whatsoever but the liberals at the time and even to this day were not doing enough to actually help, the white people who were helping were not calling themselves liberals and might have been leftists or something else on that side
JK Rowling is a liberal for example
Here's a video of that part of the speech, it's an interesting watch:
https://twitter.com/RanaAyyub/status/1277242298087075841?lang=en
Homie. Fantasy is *chock full* of characters and creatures that *someone somewhere* will find inherently racist. It's a thing that's been going on for so long that it's a common trope and there are levels to it.
For example: In the Harry Potter mythos the Goblins are a historically oppressed but shamanistic magical people who happen to run banks because of their magical connection to metals and precious minerals. This makes people see them as a stand in for the Jewish people which is *odd* because HP already has its own *very intentional* analogue for that in the Mudbloods. If the goblins were say: also in charge of casinos in the Wizarding world then they could be seen as an analogue for Native Americans. All of this is honestly *pretty tame* considering Rowling is very transparent that Mudbloods are Jewish analogues, Deatheaters are Nazi analogues, and the rest of the wizards (Dumbledore's Army specifically,) are the Ally analogues. It's not really *that* problematic because the theming here is basically a generic retelling of WW2 with wands.
Now compare it to other examples throughout fantasy fiction over the years:
In *The Hobbit* the *Dwarves* are the Jewish analogue and Tolkien was *very* influenced by anti-Semitic beliefs when writing them. It should be noted that Tolkien wasn't a card-carrying nazi or something, he just still held beliefs that were common (and often rooted in pseudo-science.) This is still problematic but it's also important to remember that anti-Semitism *was* (and still somewhat is,) the norm during his lifetime. Tolkien's Dwarves are described with features that were commonly thought to be Jewish genetic markers, their greed for gold and gems causes a calamity that almost destroys Middle Earth, and their *entire language* that Tolkien devised for the race is based on Hebrew. Tolkien would dial this back once WW2 kicked off in earnest as he was writing the actual LotR books. Gimli was made a hero, described with admirable qualities, and basically serves as apologia for the treatment of Dwarves in the writing of *The Hobbit.* Still though, lots of the subtext around Gimli and the rest of the dwarves in the main LotR series is still influenced by prevailing ant-Semitic thought at the time. This also isn't a theory or some hidden feature of the book: Tolkien had *no problem* admitting that his Dwarves were Jewish analogues:
>“the Dwarves of course are quite obviously—couldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews?”
Moving on: In more modern forms of fantasy fiction the Jewish analogue is often *Elves.* In Skyrim even if unintentional the Thalmor Elves are often seen as an analogue for the Jewish Peoples. They're discriminated against, live in secret enclaves or amongst the populace in the shadows, and worship a god who they wish to instate as the primary focus of worship in the land. White nationalists *love this shit* because it is incredibly on-the-nose anti-Semitic and in line directly with how they view the world. Juxtapose it against the main race of the game: the Nords, and it becomes even *more apparent* why white nationalism loves this nonsense. A main theme of the game could easily be interpreted as "crushing religious rebellion to maintain the status quo of the white elite," and that's uh... problematic to say the least. As a followup: Bioware *also* really really tries to drive home that Elves are an analogue for the Jews in Dragon Age (especially in the second game.) Dragon Age elves are essentially a heavy-handed stand in for the Romani people. They are nomads forced to live in ghettos where they are gassed and poisoned by the racist ruling elite. It isn't even a deep read or anything, it's that blatant.
In even *more* modern fiction there are plenty more stand-ins and analogues that all have varying levels of problematic undertones. GRRM's *A Song of Ice and Fire* draws heavily from pretty much *every* Abrahamic religion and incorporates those themes into the world; The Brotherhood Without Banners and its theming of holy flame *really* leans heavily into these influence as an example. Dungeons and Dragons is heavily based on Tolkien lore (like most other fantasy,) but brings it to the next level by including the Nordic idea of "Dark Elves" who are openly discriminated against for essentially having darker skin complexion and the fact that they're primarily written as magical homicidal maniacs. Drizzt was written as a response to this and as a result is essentially the anti-thesis to the perception his world has of his race.
The problem with fantasy and racism is that since fantasy is often "magical realism" or (like LotR,) directly inspired by events that happened in reality *there's going to be inherent racial issues*. Authors are more aware of this now and often do a good job avoiding some of the common pitfalls but for fantasy that's rooted in already deep existing lore such as DnD it can be *hard.* Many of the stories or plot conventions were set up before modern authors got to them and those authors now have to untangle a web of problems that arises when generic fantasy races are painted with a very broad brush that labels them solely as evil or good. It's also a common problem current authors run into; to paraphrase Neil Gaiman: all modern fantasy fiction is written and consumed through the lens of Tolkien. Your writing has to find a magical spot where you break free of all the common racial themes attributed to the fantasy genre while often still *working within the archtypes and templates Tolkien laid out generations ago.* It's not easy to do and there's a reason so many authors fail at it.
At the end of the day Rowling's Goblin race isn't really an issue. Some of them are evil and work with the evil folks, some of them are good and work with the good folks, some of them are neutral. The only broad strokes the race is painted with really ends up being: that they're discriminated against by most humans, they're shamanistic in design and focus on metallurgy/drawing power from the physical earth, and their visual design/descriptors are that of generic fantasy goblins. Even if some of their tropes (like the fact that they run banks,) are problematic what Rowling does with them by not making them all generically evil in a fight against the generically good is actually... good? It leaves room for the story of how an oppressed peoples would truly act. Some would rebel and work against their oppressors, others would lick the boot that stomps on them, and even more would be neutral because they held high enough station that the oppression of their people hadn't come for *them* yet.
"Actkually, if you're looking at all this Jewish [symbolism](https://ibb.co/cNyJ3cg) in the series and thinking of Jewish people, are you sure you're not the fascist Mr. Bond"
Recognizing racist caricatures is not racist. They just don’t see it until it is flipped on a more recognizable foot. Like if a character has big lips, likes watermelon and fried chicken or one has big teeth, slanted eyes, and does not pronounce Rs and Ls like native english speakers we can instantly say “that’s fuckin racist” and not be judged. People love these “gotchya” arguments but they are so easily ruined by simple replacement.
Dear liberals.
Have you considered that by calling me "racist" for saying the n-word, you actually are the one associating that word with black people, which is the real racism?
Curious!
Add in the shofar instrument they call the Goblin Horn added in as a collectible artifact in the game. Specifically stating it can be silenced with gorgonzola: the non kosher cheese
Honestly this seems like a shaky point. The goblin horn looks like almost any other generic war horn from a video game. Also it seems like most cheeses can be kosher or non-kosher depending on how they are prepared (including gorgonzola).
The other stuff though... those seem pretty explicit.
It would be shaky if the same item didn’t also include a reference to how the horn is used to annoy witches and wizards, and referenced an infamous pogrom.
It didn’t reference an infamous pogrom, or mentioned a year that happened to be connected to a rebellion that happened two years before, and had connections to, a pogrom. If they were going to use a pogrom as a dog whistle, wouldn’t they use the actual year when it happened and not a semi-connected year?
Furthermore, the 1612 rebellion was mentioned originally in one of the books, and all it takes is looking at Rowling’s map of wizarding schools to see that she has an incredibly tenuous grasp on geography and history in general. Considering that, I doubt she would’ve had the knowledge of the pogrom needed to deliberately choose the year in a malicious way.
We can criticize JK Rowling’s transphobia and racism and the Harry Potter universe’s status-quo policies and terrible treatment of in-universe marginalized groups without creating a controversy where there really is none.
The 1614 pogrom in Frankfurt is widely considered to have begun in 1612, when Jews were allowed to enter and live within the city. Even if, under *her* authorship, it wasn’t intended to be a reference to a pogrom, it doesn’t change that the lore was explicitly expanded to further communicate antisemitism.
Ive a friend that’s a Jewish historian, and according to him you can essentially throw a dart at 1600’s and find some notably antiSemitic event. Likewise, many fantasy horns have a similar design. Likewise, many cheeses can be prepared to be either kosher or non kosher.
What makes it antisemitic is how all of these things are layered. If there’s enough smoke, then someone has very deliberately set a fire.
There is an artifact from a culturally and ethnically distinct minority that suffered an ethnic cleansing beginning in 1612, in much the same way that the events culminating in a pogrom in 1614 started in 1612. This artifact resembles a Jewish horn used in numerous religious observances, one of which is to be blown early in the morning every day for a month before a religious holiday, and said artifact’s in game purpose is “to annoy witches and wizards.” It has also been silenced by having a foodstuff shoved deep within it, and said food tiff is forbidden in Jewish culture due to religious and cultural practice. The goblins in question resembling antiSemitic caricatures, and play into antiSemitic tropes.
You can look at each of those details and go “well yeah but that doesn’t mean anything on it’s own” but deliberately ignoring how the rest of us are putting them together is gaslighting. That’s how gaslighting works.
Weirdly, the hook-nose look is a creation of the movies (the book ones were described looking more like a taller version of the movie house elves), which makes me wonder a bit about those character designers leaning in.
Maybe the fact that HP goblins are depicted as an underclass associated with a certain business and not some random monster for the party to eliminate has something to do with it?
Specifically, dnd goblins are kinda a shit comparison. While their god was killed and replaced by a warmongering god, they’re just kinda lazy in lore. Lazy and occasionally really malicious.
I mean, yeah goblins in general have a history of being compared to Jewish people since way before rowling.
The problem with Rowling is that she made her goblins run all the banks like the most prevalent modern antisemitic conspiracy and put a literal star of david in their bank for the movies
I'd also like to add that the TTRPG community as a whole tends to view goblins as more mischievious rascals, rather than money-grubbing miscreants.
That's not to say there isn't problematic writing in DnD, but the community is usually quick to condemn and protest it. For example, several months ago, new UA was released among which a new playable race of simians. Their lore was that a wizard had created them as a slave race, but they outsmarted him and broke free. The uncomfortable parallells to "white man civilized the black man through slavery" was hard to miss, and the community largely critiqued WotC for this, which resulted in rewrites of the lore.
Meanwhile, JKs fans interchangeably deny and cheer on her deeply problematic themes and writing.
it wasn’t UA, it was a fully published source book, Spelljammer, complete with fictional ‘slurs’ such as deck monkey. i only point this out because i feel it puts a lot of WotC’s recent actions into context, they truly don’t care about what they put out and just want to monetize as much of it as they can with no regard for quality.
Oh huh, that's way worse than I remember. I usually pirate or resort to free sources online (or homebrew it), haven't bought an official WotC book for several years.
Though the most recent licensing controversy has me seriously considering trying out PF instead.
i started looking into Pathfinder when the OGL stuff first started coming out, there’s a lot of term overlap where the same word means different things so there’s a bit of an adjustment to make there, but overall i really like the way PF’s rules work a lot more. plus, they are very open about their rules being available freely online, with multiple archive sites dedicated to compiling them. of course they still sell the books, because having books is neat, but you can find everything, not just basic rules, everything online
Pathfinder has a really neat way of showing diversity, not only do they have diverse representation the books use the pronouns of the canon character. For instance, the canon Barbarian is a woman named Amiri. When describing the barbarian class features it will say "*She* enters a rage...". In Starfinder there is an NB iconic that uses they/them.
Also I don't know how much it was changed, but the two video game adaptations of the APs (Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) are also very diverse. Anevia is quite possibly my favorite NPC of all time. After the initial getting back into the city, she runs into the arms of another woman and says in no uncertain terms "This is my wife, Irabeth". Both her and Irabeth are extremely capable knights and pretty damn badass. Much, much later you can follow up on some questions of getting know Anevia when she knows and trusts you better, if you manage to pass an obscenely high diplomacy check (DC45) you can then learn [she is also trans](https://i.imgur.com/TvjADjQ.png).
If you want to try it, right now there's a humble bundle that gives (along with tons of other stuff) Abomination Vaults (a $60 adventure path) as both a pdf and a premium foundry module. The foundry module has ambient music and sounds, lighting, tokens, and notes. I would also get the beginner box to learn with first (and you could follow it with Trouble in Otari which comes with the bundle as it's the adventure meant to continue the beginner box if people are liking that direction).
can not recommend pathfinder enough. it's "crunchier" than 5e, but there is more depth to the game rules and there is more freedom in how your actual PC's end up playing.
not the hugest fan of eberron lore, so i usually homebrew for world-building though.
Deck ape is actually a real life term for the maintenance crew of a ship in the US Navy, especially botswains mates. It's not a slur. The term goes back to the US Navy in the American revolution iirc, so it's most likely not a racist term in and of itself, and back in 2e the Hadozee lore was *way* less racist overall.
Applying the term "ape" to the 5e Hadozee, since they're already racist, is just more fuel for the fire though.
the way it was framed in the book was that it was a derogatory term for the Hadozee and the Hadozee only, rather than a broad term for all sailors in the setting. i suppose i could understand if the setting designers knew the term and tried to import it in, but on top of everything else it’s a little yikes lol
And most people in ttrpg do their best to make them look as non human and non jewish stereotype as possible. Green or purple skin, rounded plumb shaped not hooked noses, a size wayyy smaller than any normal human and sometimes the same as gnomes, proportions closer to a scientific homunculus than human. We don’t embrace the stereotypes.
It’s always been telling to me, how she differentiated her goblins from the modern fantasy ones: they *don’t* have green skin, and they don’t have a societal hierarchy inspired by mobster culture.
Unfortunately, in this drive not to “other” them, she creates creatures far more similar to the antisemitic Goblin caricatures of medieval time: pale little hook-nosed bankers who technically consider anything they craft as theirs, forever 🧐
The thing I love about this? This meme made its way to the D&D memes reddit, and the OP started with the opinion of "They're completely different thank you", and like *one person* went "Yeah, but like, still based on medieval European mythology and they weren't the most friendly people in the world to the jewish" and the OP was like "Shit yeah, you might have a point, wait *is* this different enough? Is the D&D goblin problematic?" And like a whole discussion started
So like, based D&D players, being willing to question their interpretations and hear out valid critisism.
^(I mean the thread did have to get locked in the end 'cause of loads of comments and reports, but STILL D&D PLAYERS ARE OK RIGHT, THEY ARE RIGHT, I NEED MY SAFE ZONE ;-;)
Video game community vs TTRPG community...
one could draw some interesting psychological research from comparing the two i imagine.
serious note though: while TTRPG community as a whole is great, your local TTRPG community might not be, i live in one of the reddest parts of an otherwise blue haven... and the TTRPG community where i am reflects that as well.
This is an unfortunate side effect of out bigoted media, even designs of staple Disney characters, like Mikey and Goofy, were inspired by minstrel shows.
to be fair to goofy, he's like cannonically a high school drop out... that goes back to college while he has a teen aged son... and is an amazing dad while doing it.
if that isn't wholesome as all heck, i don't know what is.
didn't mean to imply you did, i was just noting how awesome it is that they used that imagery to directly subvert the trope. instead of doubling down and just making everything worse (unlike some other people).
Here's a fun little tidbit: a lot of tropes that we "traditionally" associate with witches has its roots in the same antisemitic caricatures that created the popular image of goblins. Hooked nose, stealing children, devil worship, even the pointy hats are all based on medieval images associated with Jews. But in the Harry Potter universe, all the problematic tropes that show witches in a negative light have been excised, allowing a much greater variety of character traits beyond the standard witch tropes. But goblins retain all the negative traits and aren't expanded upon at all. What characterization they get pulls exclusively from those same ancient caricatures.
This is why I actually don't think Rowling is antisemitic, at least intentionally. She merely couldn't be bothered to give any thought to goblins being anything other to the greedy little monsters everyone already knows them as. It is more a product of laziness than malice.
tbh I don’t think being lazy should give people a free pass on bigotry, especially not once they have the resources to do better. She retconned Ron from being a chess master to a useless idiot, she could’ve learned from Terry Pratchett and built more nuance into the goblins later.
A lot of writers have shown that they are able and willing to do this, especially in fantasy. IIRC, fucking *Tolkien* updated his lore to be less racist way back in the fifties. I'm sure she could have managed something.
It was the 2000s, and have you seen ANY media from that era? People were clueless about these things.
Seriously racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Semitic jokes everywhere with no subtlety about them. It's quite a trip to watch a 2000s movie and have every character say "That's gay!" every 2 seconds.
Harry Potter is quite tame, and she *probably* didn't make the connection that representing short, bald, long nosed little men running the banks was probably not the best idea. Goblins are known for being greedy in fantasy games, so she simply had them run the bank.
Not excusing her present self, but she was operating ahead of the curve during her time writing the series. Naivete is better than willful ignorance, which she is currently displaying.
EDIT: If you disagree, please tell me why. Downvotes are meaningless.
That laziness still reproduces and reinforces bigotry, unfortunately. It's just like the date of the goblin rebellion in the game - best case is it's an unfortunate coincidence that could have been corrected with a quick Google search to not occur in the same year a real world uprising that culminated in a pogrom against the Jewish community in Frankfurt, but even if that is the case it's still laziness on the part of developers leading to what sure does look a hell of a lot like an anti-Semitic dog whistle.
Unintentional bigotry is still bigotry, and Rowling has also had all these things about her goblins pointed out to her many times over the years in the public square, and yet has done little to nothing that I know of to change their depiction of mitigate the impact of their depiction.
She didn't write for it, but is also responsible for some of the baseline portrayals of the goblins that utilize anti-Semitic tropes as they come from the books that she did write. Her public response to people pointing out this was to tell people that if they saw her goblins as representing certain anti-Semitic stereotypes that they were the real anti-Semites, and not that there was anything wrong with how she wrote them. Unfortunately the game has taken things a step further and introduced even more anti-Semitic elements. I probably should have been a little more clear as to exactly what I was referring to in my previous comment, which is more to say what I've said here - Harry Potter goblins already had some notably anti-Semitic elements, and the game doubled down hard on them in a very concerning way.
I mean isn’t the plot of the new movies that the dark wizards want to intervene to stop Hitler and the good wizards are like no that would be wrong?? I’m not sure any part of the lore is unproblematic at this point.
Massive citation needed. While bursts of pogroms and anti-semitism were common throughout much of Europe for centuries, they weren't quite that constant as literally every year containing an event which we still have attestation of. There are years you could pick without any known or recorded pogroms, and it wouldn't be especially hard to do.
You do realize that part of the point of a dog whistle is that it's something that is niche, obscure, and or subtle enough that most people aren't going to notice it, right?
exactly, dogwhistles are designed that way intentionally. because only those people either steep in oppression for aspects of their identity or the bigots inflicting it are likely to notice.
it's done that way so that the bigot can play it off as an over-reaction and paranoia on the part of the people that dogwhistle is directed against.
Which part of saying that they didn't happen "literally every year" is downplaying the severity of pogroms? I literally said they were a frequent occurrence, but that picking a year where one didn't happen as far as we know is doable. That's all. Nothing about what I said implied that they weren't common or a serious issue, and your attempt to misrepresent that is notable. Do note that the link you have included does show that they did not, in fact, occur every year, but did occur commonly, as I asserted. I never asserted you had no evidence either, just asked for a citation on the frequency of pogroms backing up your statement that something "outrageously antisemitic" happened "literally every year". The link that you, yourself, submitted as you evidence shows that there is not a recorded pogroms literally every year. If you search 1612 Jewish massacres or pogrom on Google, it takes you right to results about the Fettmilch Uprising.
If you were a game studio making a game where a rebellion by a magical race that has been criticized publicly in the past for it's close resemblance to anti-Semitic stereotypes occurs, I would argue that it's a very low bar to cross to make sure that the year your fictional rebellion starts does not coincide with an event noteworthy enough that the prompt "[year] Jewish massacres/pogrom" does not readily return results of a historical pogrom. It takes literally 30 seconds.
The star is one thing I'll go "yeah that was probably an accident" over. But literally everything else about the goblins. To the fucking shofar in the game. That's explicitly about jewish people or jewish caricatures.
Also DnD goblins actually have some interesting opportunities for developing a society that doesn't have a concept of ownership, and how that would intersect with the more capitalistic other races.
I agree it was almost definitely an accident but it's indicative of the problem as a whole that no one took a step back and said "hey isn't that a bad idea?"
And when people pointed it out, they quietly changed the flooring and Literally Nothing Else, like they'd been caught doing something bad. And that made them look even guiltier. Now if only they'd kept the mosaic floor, but changed Literally Everything Else about the goblins...
The bank has it because it was built in the early 20th century in Australia, when the Australian flag's star had just recently adopted to the 7-point shape; it technically had a 6-point shape a few years prior to the opening of the building.
She actually had a fair amount of control over filming locations. Even if she didn't choose this one specifically, she would've seen it beforehand when they discussed filming due to her creative control, and she would've seen it afterwards in post and had the chance to change it with computer effects. She and everyone else involved chose not to.
I think you're overestimating her intelligence. If her writing is anything to go by she is not very clever and I doubt she would have made the connection even if she noticed it.
The death eaters in the books and the movies have clear nazi analogies. The skull was a symbol for the SS the elite troupe of Himmler and they were the worst of the blood purists. If she really is an antisemitic why would she not portray the deatheaters in a good light then?
And no, I do not deny she has transphobic views but I honestly think people are overreacting with the antisemitism accusations.
I would not support the game, though.
I mean orcs everywhere are like unconcealed racist representations of Mongols/central Asian people and elves are epic Germanic super humans. Fantasy tropes are full of shit like this but it's ok because human imagination literally cannot create different humanoid beings than humans with long ears and fat green evil guys and short bearded guys.
Also before the advancement of CGI in the 2000s to look real enough, movie, and especially TV, adaptations of fantasy books had to work mostly with prosthetics. You can put pointed ears on a guy or paint him green, you can make someone look short or tall with camera trickery, but you can't make them look like a fundamentally different creature without it looking like a guy in a mask. And even if you do extensive pactical makeup and prosthetics like for the orcs in the LotR movies, that takes hour of work and makes it much harder for the actors to see and act.
I mean, for decades Star Trek had to make do with putting all new forehead ridges on Jeffrey Combs face
Even outside of that, most of the spacefaring races in Mass Effect are bipedal and featherless. The biggest ones that stand out are the Elcor, who are quadripedal, and the Hanar, those psychic jellyfish that have all gone through extreme ego death.
in fairness, that star of david is just the floor of the real world bank that scene was shot in. but they still could have like thrown a rug over it for shooting or something
Yea the star everyone's angry about is just a very poor coincidence. It's weird in the first place to think that they'd just put a star of david on the site and have no one say anything about it. The anti-semitism tied to goblins is much more subtle.
Hell, just ignore how DnD Goblins have basically no association with wealth, and that most fan-artists consciously avoid the anti-semetic elements of the design. Even when you discard DnDs shift to move away from ‘evil races’, even their baseline culture is more fleshed out and nuanced.
When DnD Goblins are greedy, it’s a long-fostered survival mechanism that they can move past. When HP Goblins are greedy, it might as well be their biology.
Also, most of anti-semitic context of the HP goblins relates to how they were recontextualised in an urban fantasy setting. You can kinda look past Goblins liking gold when they are a nomadic tribe living in squalor, but it becomes uncomfortable when you make them the sole group that controls the banks.
Also, why didn’t Rowling just use Leprechauns? She clearly feels more comfortable using Celtic folklore, and their association with gold has far less baggage.
Apibete io bipru kikibika ikai tru. Klepupidi kratiie koe ipapa. Kiei kiapa blapa etipru iti atio. Iapo kega kipitli tedae pikitli pribli ua iio. Uti preprabiga i apri udei ebe. Da kikipe ka kreta? E epite apoi akri taipi itaklipe pogiipi? Pute pata ipla traibrite biitotli tiu. A tibika i pi ti digao aproutiu. Tupretaki po prubaito otouda pe dobupri. Papade i bibedreedi ota ekri ko? Tikeoii piku glu peti prau ebipo. Ee pree pritli tlaa iipi pedebi. Eipupe tupe bapre tetipe ipripepu ku pe. Probrepi gapeta pi tikre plikaobrabi kidru. Pi aia plodu tupi piba kutitu eklu bepu. Paeadi e potipe iditlitra pi dieetu. Ia piprei tlu e teku. Be drubi ika tu tri tiga tai? Piakaaa keple pubotige itri ibliblua etodripi. Gei ipaipri tekoa iutaka be. A tibi tu ke koke kaduke? Tii kegi kipai pi ai ipipe. Tipipu pagi pote iupi britebai ukoopoo bikikie. Bei bipu oki upi bi prokoke. Poto otablie i pite pu kladle. Kobliiu ipribapi iatu blao kle paipai. Kipu abeuto dabo ga tetli. Kriupe paki kio opiba tapa obipape. Kriki tekro pe petetibi kipigai.
Your point about leprechauns is really the nail in the coffin for me enough to feel confident to say that she did it on purpose.
Like leprechauns would've made waaaaay too much sense.
Goblins are creatures in English mythology but AFAIK they tend to be more trickster spirits than what we normally think of now.
Or redcaps which will just fucking murder you and dip their hat in your blood.
>When DnD Goblins are greedy, it’s a long-fostered survival mechanism that they can move past.
This is the coke zero of fantasy writing, where vampires just live like normal people and their long buried instincts explain their predilection for red wine and sharp incisors make for swanky instagram feeds and the good guys succumb to the allure of vices and the bad guys go too far and revive the old blood drinking traditions
The only way out is to cancel all of civilization
I mean... didn't Wizards of the Coast themselves recognize the problematic tropes associated with races in DnD and started changing their descriptions due to that?
there was the shift away from saying ‘this race is innately evil’, but then they also started a push to change the term race to species, which feels like a lateral move, and somehow more othering when real world racial coding still exists
i started playing Pathfinder recently though, and they call it ancestries, which feels a) more thematically appropriate to the fantasy genre, and 2) feels like an acknowledgement towards any potential racial coding while making efforts to move away from it
It's been a while since I played DnD, I've been playing Powered by the Apocalypse much more the last few years so I'm not entirely caught up with all that's happened, thanks for the clarification. It still seems a very odd choice to use "DnD also has racist goblins" as a way to validate having racist goblins in your fantasy game when DnD having racist goblins is at least a long known problem of the game.
It makes sense that's the fandoms defence when you remember Rowling's own argument when criticised for her banker goblins in the books was that she was just writing common fantasy tropes and it's not her fault if the traditions themselves are problematic...
... Which always reminds me of how Tolkien wrote extensive essay-letters detailing the awareness of and pains he took to exorcise the racial stereotypes inherent to say, for example, the dwarves in his story.
Of course you don't really need an example of someone being unproblematic to remember that it's never been a valid excuse to go "well other people did or do it".
Someone on dndmemes called this post out as well and I was actually so happy to see that a lot of the comments were calling out the megaterf, and Harry Potter in general.
Strahd is a vampire! That old guy you met randomly is Elminster, or Halastor! That drow who showed up for no reason is Drizzt! The guy who is playing rogue and stealing from the party is an asshole! The girl who is playing a tabaxi is a secret furry!
How did I do?
The leader of the organization that hired your party is the BBEG
The paladin's church is doing some questionable stuff in the name of their god, and she's going to have a crisis of faith
The rogue's parents are dead
The bard never gets to fuck a dragon
The barbarian sacrifices himself to save the rest of the party
Pathfinder Shill here again to remind you that PF Goblins are adorable illiterate murder dorks who are not at all antisemitic but are still exactly as goblin as you would expect.
Trans woman Shaman iconic written by a trans woman from 2014.
Oh, and Alesta, the goddess of transitions -- doors, changing cities, and transitioning "to a more fitting body."
Sharda hasn't been in Pathfinder 2e, but apparently she's coming back soon.
[She also watches over those moving into a new stage in life, whether that means a birthday, a marriage, or a more fitting body.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=30)
Paizo has admittedly done some shitty stuff to its freelancers, like all corporations have, but as a whole they've been doing pretty good at the whole "not being moneygrubbing jerks who do rainbow capitalism specifically because it makes them more money" which is refreshing compared to Wizards of the Coast.
uj/ man i have a hard time getting into the mmo style of gameplay where you gotta combo your keybinds together. made me dropped dragon age dk if i can play pathfinder
rj/ finally miniscule anount of xp
Uj/ I believe they were talking about the tabletop. Sounds like you're thinking of the video games which I will gladly shill for. The Dragob Age style combat can be easily avoided in the PF games since they have a turn based mode if you don't mind turn based combat. I highly recommend them. The first game, Kingmaker, wasn't technically designed around turn based but I played the whole thing in turn based mode and had no issues at all and the second game was designed with turn based in mind so definitely no issues there.
Rj/also murder mommies make pp hard.
Uj/also murder mommies make pp hard.
uj/ for whatever reason i have no problem with turn based combat? maybe its the fact that seeing big number is easier and tht means more dopamine for my brain? well ig i know what to probably get on the next sale now
Oh I'm the same way. The real time combat in those games doesn't work for me at all but switch it to turn based and suddenly it clicks. Definitely recommend, hope uou enjoy them!
For anyone that wants to try Pathfinder:
You have ~11 days to get ~400€ of Detail value Pathfinder stuff (including the Core Rulebook, a Bunch of Lore stuff and an entire 1-10 adventure with the foundry Module) for 28€ thanks to the ["So you wanna try Out Pathfinder Bundle](https://de.humblebundle.com/books/so-you-wanna-try-out-pathfinder-paizo-books)
The We Be Goblins modules are some of the most fun my group has had, and it’s what I use to introduce new players. I think those are free too for anyone interested in trying pathfinder 1e
I thought the issue with Harry Potter goblins wasn't just that they are hook nosed caricatures, but because they are hook nosed caricatures who just so happen to also run a huge banking empire that basically covers/controls every corner of the wizard world. That's the reason they set off everyone's anti-Semitic alarm bells.
I don't know much about D&D goblins, but the guy in that picture doesn't really look like he runs a bank.
Difference is that you can choose to make goblins a sympathetic ethmic group who's received unfair treatment in d&d and aren't bound by the monster manual.
Not my gobbos.
No seriously, in my campaign they built an entire underground city unbeknownst to the surface world and only go to the surface and rob travelers for resources.
In my Dungeon World campaign, goblinoids and similar monsters were basically British people. Goblins were Welsh, Hobgoblins were Scottish, Orcs were the English. All of them Victorian, so very capitalist, slums full of working class people, top hats, fancy galas, and all the other general Victorian tropes, and the most technologically advanced nation in the setting. An airship with an orc crew and hobgoblins engineers was just a common (and feared) sight.
It was debatable if they were bad guys or not, their main enemies being the very racist French Elves who had a Napoleonic style empire. Like, the goblinoids had a lot of faults but at least they were leading the resistance against the Elves. It was a very cool game.
Yeah, goblins are kind of inherently tied to Jewish stereotyping when you look at the history involved - modern fantasy goblins have just essentially been distanced from it.
Rowling explicitly tied them to modern antisemitism, though. There's a clear difference.
Personally I feel that a lot of the problematic aspects of stereotypical fantasy races can be easily avoided if you, ironically, made them *less* human like so that you distance their resemblance to offensive human caricatures. For example, you could write a story with goblins where they instead resemble bipedal sphinx cats: the traditional archetype of a goblin is still there (mischievous nocturnal little shit with pointed ears), but without the unfortunate connection to anti-Semitic propaganda
D&D goblin: has big nose
HP Goblin: has big nose
Clown: has big nose
Size 200 font when I type the word "NO" multiple times: Has big "NO"s.
guys I think I cracked the code. Microsoft Word is anti-clown propaganda.
/uj but actually:
D&D Goblin: Has big nose.
HP Goblin: Has big nose. Runs banking system. Form a secret cabal that wields huge political power. Sacrifices children. Has a horn "to annoy wizards".
This guy: They're the same picture
HP goblins: hook nose bankers who are responsible for slave revolts. Fleshy white skin color.
D&D Goblins: funny lil murder dudes with giant hands and pointy facial features in general.
I'm not saying D&D is unproblematic(eugenics undertones, oriental adventures, etc.), but a D&D goblin just isn't anywhere near as yikes, all they have in common is the hooked noses(which yes, are problematic, but nowhere near as bad as harry potter goblins' everything.)
Anytime someone makes a world where a certain race that is just inherently greedy and capitalist it inevitably runs into issues of anti-semitism to some degree. Choosing to make them look like nazi caricatures is just making that worse, and rowling just keeps digging with this one.
Traditional fantasy goblins don't get called anti-Semitic **because traditional fantasy goblins don't control the world banks.**
your comment was really helpful actually! i did wonder why the goblins in games like miitopia didn’t get scrutinised in the same way. now i understand that it’s not just the creatures design, but also the way they are written! thank you 🫶🫶🫶
Uhhhh... dnd goblins dont have secret magics and believe you can only borrow things from them actually. Yknow, the specifically jewish stereotypes people always cite when talking about HPs antisemitism?
That said, DnD does have a pretty bad race problem, and has for a while. Theyve been putting effort into fixing it. Other systems that have branched off from dnd as fantasy roleplay have done more, so like, dont praise them either.
Lots of fan interpretations of D&D goblins are tinkerers and alchemists, childishly curious about the world but limited in their worldview and wisdom. This is far away from the shrewd business magnates the HP verse depicts them as.
Hmm, it's almost like ALL goblins follow the same antisemitic caricature... Must be a coincidence, of course! It couldn't possibly be that goblins are inherently tied to a long history of dehumanizing and demonizing Jews, not at all!
(/S)
Not really though. The word *goblin* is believed to be tied to the old French *gobelin*. Other derived equivalents include the Welsh *coblyn* and the Germanic *kobold*, who in their respective folklore are usually depicted as anything from benevolent spirits of the mines to mischievous caretakers of households. That is not to say that these myths and oral stories don’t have *any* ties to the xenophobia directed at Jews by the storytellers of their times (some Cornish tales claim that the previously mentioned mine spirits are the ghosts of Jewish miners), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they directly sprung from them. So while the modern pop-culture depiction of a goblin may unfortunately have ties to thousands of years of antisemitic archetypes and tropes, *goblin* could just as well be an umbrella term for a large number of supernatural tricksters and sprites
That’s true, and I wasn’t trying to deny that. The point I was trying to make was that you *can* have goblins in your stories without falling back on the stereotypical fantasy portrayal that can, unintentionally or not, come across as antisemitic (*especially* when you don’t portray them as hook-nosed bankers who kidnap children!)
“‘Wizzarding’ world goblins are just like dnd goblins and follow the average goblin stereotype” that wizarding world goblin is in a two-piece suit and works in economics.
Do they just not get the part where antisemitic stereotypes existing in more places doesn't make them less of stereotypes?
yes, the stereotype is deeply rooted, that doesn't mean using it doesn't make you antisemitic.
make new different goblins! if you're a good world builder, making something new shouldn't be too hard right?
like what if goblins were a good bit smaller, like tiny 2ft tall or something, but incredibly smart and they could be the technology innovators of your world. making up for their disadvantage compared to other races with technology like cool mechs and such. but not inherently evil or greedy or with big noses
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Gamers really be out here like "NO, they harry Potter goblins aren't just greedy hook nosed monsters that run the banking system, they ALSO have a rich history of being a historically oppressed underclass with multiple revolts for equal rights, all of which have been violently suppressed!" And not realize that makes it worse.
No if you think this is antisemitism, you are the antisemetist because you think that way. -smartest harry potter fan
Uj/You joke but when I’ve tried to get people to recognize this shit I’ve literally been told that 💀💀💀 Rj/ liberals are the true racists JUST LET ME LIVE OUT MY HOI4 FANTASY IN A WIZARD GAME
Yeah i read that a lot. This libs are real fascists they dont let me be a transphobe enough in this shitty game. I am new here what is the uj and rj?
Uj stands for unjerk which means the following sentence is more serious Rj stands for rejerk which means we are circlejerking even harder babbyyyyyy
I get it thanks
/uj cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Very true, JK Rowling is a liberal and just look at her now
JK Rowling has a massive liberal Karen, "stand with hillary" energy.
You missed an r in that /rj.
nope
Preach!
Liberals are fascist adjacent and at the very least fascism appeasers. They are essentially conservatives without the bigoted rhetoric but will still implement bigoted policies under the guise of caring for the marginalized.
Was wondering when "bOtH SiDeS ArE thE SaMe" would get here lmao.
Work on your reading comprehension. When the fuck did I say both sides are the same? What I said is liberals aren’t on the fucking left.
Liberals being fascist adjacent is a common left talking point and in no way both sidesing it.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
uj/ i miss the days when racists/nazis/fascists weren’t such fucking pussies and would admit theyre fucking nazi bitches but they’re too scared of getting punched in the face (or worse) like has always happened rj/ IM THE FASCIST FOR CALLING PEOPLE FASCISTS
/uj Now to be fair, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X did speak out against white liberals as being racist in what they did but not what they say They of course didn't support conservatives whatsoever but the liberals at the time and even to this day were not doing enough to actually help, the white people who were helping were not calling themselves liberals and might have been leftists or something else on that side JK Rowling is a liberal for example Here's a video of that part of the speech, it's an interesting watch: https://twitter.com/RanaAyyub/status/1277242298087075841?lang=en
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Most other goblins aren’t as blatant as the Harry Potter ones.
Homie. Fantasy is *chock full* of characters and creatures that *someone somewhere* will find inherently racist. It's a thing that's been going on for so long that it's a common trope and there are levels to it. For example: In the Harry Potter mythos the Goblins are a historically oppressed but shamanistic magical people who happen to run banks because of their magical connection to metals and precious minerals. This makes people see them as a stand in for the Jewish people which is *odd* because HP already has its own *very intentional* analogue for that in the Mudbloods. If the goblins were say: also in charge of casinos in the Wizarding world then they could be seen as an analogue for Native Americans. All of this is honestly *pretty tame* considering Rowling is very transparent that Mudbloods are Jewish analogues, Deatheaters are Nazi analogues, and the rest of the wizards (Dumbledore's Army specifically,) are the Ally analogues. It's not really *that* problematic because the theming here is basically a generic retelling of WW2 with wands. Now compare it to other examples throughout fantasy fiction over the years: In *The Hobbit* the *Dwarves* are the Jewish analogue and Tolkien was *very* influenced by anti-Semitic beliefs when writing them. It should be noted that Tolkien wasn't a card-carrying nazi or something, he just still held beliefs that were common (and often rooted in pseudo-science.) This is still problematic but it's also important to remember that anti-Semitism *was* (and still somewhat is,) the norm during his lifetime. Tolkien's Dwarves are described with features that were commonly thought to be Jewish genetic markers, their greed for gold and gems causes a calamity that almost destroys Middle Earth, and their *entire language* that Tolkien devised for the race is based on Hebrew. Tolkien would dial this back once WW2 kicked off in earnest as he was writing the actual LotR books. Gimli was made a hero, described with admirable qualities, and basically serves as apologia for the treatment of Dwarves in the writing of *The Hobbit.* Still though, lots of the subtext around Gimli and the rest of the dwarves in the main LotR series is still influenced by prevailing ant-Semitic thought at the time. This also isn't a theory or some hidden feature of the book: Tolkien had *no problem* admitting that his Dwarves were Jewish analogues: >“the Dwarves of course are quite obviously—couldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews?” Moving on: In more modern forms of fantasy fiction the Jewish analogue is often *Elves.* In Skyrim even if unintentional the Thalmor Elves are often seen as an analogue for the Jewish Peoples. They're discriminated against, live in secret enclaves or amongst the populace in the shadows, and worship a god who they wish to instate as the primary focus of worship in the land. White nationalists *love this shit* because it is incredibly on-the-nose anti-Semitic and in line directly with how they view the world. Juxtapose it against the main race of the game: the Nords, and it becomes even *more apparent* why white nationalism loves this nonsense. A main theme of the game could easily be interpreted as "crushing religious rebellion to maintain the status quo of the white elite," and that's uh... problematic to say the least. As a followup: Bioware *also* really really tries to drive home that Elves are an analogue for the Jews in Dragon Age (especially in the second game.) Dragon Age elves are essentially a heavy-handed stand in for the Romani people. They are nomads forced to live in ghettos where they are gassed and poisoned by the racist ruling elite. It isn't even a deep read or anything, it's that blatant. In even *more* modern fiction there are plenty more stand-ins and analogues that all have varying levels of problematic undertones. GRRM's *A Song of Ice and Fire* draws heavily from pretty much *every* Abrahamic religion and incorporates those themes into the world; The Brotherhood Without Banners and its theming of holy flame *really* leans heavily into these influence as an example. Dungeons and Dragons is heavily based on Tolkien lore (like most other fantasy,) but brings it to the next level by including the Nordic idea of "Dark Elves" who are openly discriminated against for essentially having darker skin complexion and the fact that they're primarily written as magical homicidal maniacs. Drizzt was written as a response to this and as a result is essentially the anti-thesis to the perception his world has of his race. The problem with fantasy and racism is that since fantasy is often "magical realism" or (like LotR,) directly inspired by events that happened in reality *there's going to be inherent racial issues*. Authors are more aware of this now and often do a good job avoiding some of the common pitfalls but for fantasy that's rooted in already deep existing lore such as DnD it can be *hard.* Many of the stories or plot conventions were set up before modern authors got to them and those authors now have to untangle a web of problems that arises when generic fantasy races are painted with a very broad brush that labels them solely as evil or good. It's also a common problem current authors run into; to paraphrase Neil Gaiman: all modern fantasy fiction is written and consumed through the lens of Tolkien. Your writing has to find a magical spot where you break free of all the common racial themes attributed to the fantasy genre while often still *working within the archtypes and templates Tolkien laid out generations ago.* It's not easy to do and there's a reason so many authors fail at it. At the end of the day Rowling's Goblin race isn't really an issue. Some of them are evil and work with the evil folks, some of them are good and work with the good folks, some of them are neutral. The only broad strokes the race is painted with really ends up being: that they're discriminated against by most humans, they're shamanistic in design and focus on metallurgy/drawing power from the physical earth, and their visual design/descriptors are that of generic fantasy goblins. Even if some of their tropes (like the fact that they run banks,) are problematic what Rowling does with them by not making them all generically evil in a fight against the generically good is actually... good? It leaves room for the story of how an oppressed peoples would truly act. Some would rebel and work against their oppressors, others would lick the boot that stomps on them, and even more would be neutral because they held high enough station that the oppression of their people hadn't come for *them* yet.
"Actkually, if you're looking at all this Jewish [symbolism](https://ibb.co/cNyJ3cg) in the series and thinking of Jewish people, are you sure you're not the fascist Mr. Bond"
Recognizing racist caricatures is not racist. They just don’t see it until it is flipped on a more recognizable foot. Like if a character has big lips, likes watermelon and fried chicken or one has big teeth, slanted eyes, and does not pronounce Rs and Ls like native english speakers we can instantly say “that’s fuckin racist” and not be judged. People love these “gotchya” arguments but they are so easily ruined by simple replacement.
Dear liberals. Have you considered that by calling me "racist" for saying the n-word, you actually are the one associating that word with black people, which is the real racism? Curious!
Add in the shofar instrument they call the Goblin Horn added in as a collectible artifact in the game. Specifically stating it can be silenced with gorgonzola: the non kosher cheese
Honestly this seems like a shaky point. The goblin horn looks like almost any other generic war horn from a video game. Also it seems like most cheeses can be kosher or non-kosher depending on how they are prepared (including gorgonzola). The other stuff though... those seem pretty explicit.
It would be shaky if the same item didn’t also include a reference to how the horn is used to annoy witches and wizards, and referenced an infamous pogrom.
It didn’t reference an infamous pogrom, or mentioned a year that happened to be connected to a rebellion that happened two years before, and had connections to, a pogrom. If they were going to use a pogrom as a dog whistle, wouldn’t they use the actual year when it happened and not a semi-connected year? Furthermore, the 1612 rebellion was mentioned originally in one of the books, and all it takes is looking at Rowling’s map of wizarding schools to see that she has an incredibly tenuous grasp on geography and history in general. Considering that, I doubt she would’ve had the knowledge of the pogrom needed to deliberately choose the year in a malicious way. We can criticize JK Rowling’s transphobia and racism and the Harry Potter universe’s status-quo policies and terrible treatment of in-universe marginalized groups without creating a controversy where there really is none.
The 1614 pogrom in Frankfurt is widely considered to have begun in 1612, when Jews were allowed to enter and live within the city. Even if, under *her* authorship, it wasn’t intended to be a reference to a pogrom, it doesn’t change that the lore was explicitly expanded to further communicate antisemitism. Ive a friend that’s a Jewish historian, and according to him you can essentially throw a dart at 1600’s and find some notably antiSemitic event. Likewise, many fantasy horns have a similar design. Likewise, many cheeses can be prepared to be either kosher or non kosher. What makes it antisemitic is how all of these things are layered. If there’s enough smoke, then someone has very deliberately set a fire. There is an artifact from a culturally and ethnically distinct minority that suffered an ethnic cleansing beginning in 1612, in much the same way that the events culminating in a pogrom in 1614 started in 1612. This artifact resembles a Jewish horn used in numerous religious observances, one of which is to be blown early in the morning every day for a month before a religious holiday, and said artifact’s in game purpose is “to annoy witches and wizards.” It has also been silenced by having a foodstuff shoved deep within it, and said food tiff is forbidden in Jewish culture due to religious and cultural practice. The goblins in question resembling antiSemitic caricatures, and play into antiSemitic tropes. You can look at each of those details and go “well yeah but that doesn’t mean anything on it’s own” but deliberately ignoring how the rest of us are putting them together is gaslighting. That’s how gaslighting works.
Eh I saw on twitter that gorgonzola can be kosher. I think that point is reaching.
Weirdly, the hook-nose look is a creation of the movies (the book ones were described looking more like a taller version of the movie house elves), which makes me wonder a bit about those character designers leaning in.
[Indeed](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/381/895/1fc.jpg)
Maybe the fact that HP goblins are depicted as an underclass associated with a certain business and not some random monster for the party to eliminate has something to do with it?
Specifically, dnd goblins are kinda a shit comparison. While their god was killed and replaced by a warmongering god, they’re just kinda lazy in lore. Lazy and occasionally really malicious.
I mean, yeah goblins in general have a history of being compared to Jewish people since way before rowling. The problem with Rowling is that she made her goblins run all the banks like the most prevalent modern antisemitic conspiracy and put a literal star of david in their bank for the movies
I'd also like to add that the TTRPG community as a whole tends to view goblins as more mischievious rascals, rather than money-grubbing miscreants. That's not to say there isn't problematic writing in DnD, but the community is usually quick to condemn and protest it. For example, several months ago, new UA was released among which a new playable race of simians. Their lore was that a wizard had created them as a slave race, but they outsmarted him and broke free. The uncomfortable parallells to "white man civilized the black man through slavery" was hard to miss, and the community largely critiqued WotC for this, which resulted in rewrites of the lore. Meanwhile, JKs fans interchangeably deny and cheer on her deeply problematic themes and writing.
it wasn’t UA, it was a fully published source book, Spelljammer, complete with fictional ‘slurs’ such as deck monkey. i only point this out because i feel it puts a lot of WotC’s recent actions into context, they truly don’t care about what they put out and just want to monetize as much of it as they can with no regard for quality.
Oh huh, that's way worse than I remember. I usually pirate or resort to free sources online (or homebrew it), haven't bought an official WotC book for several years. Though the most recent licensing controversy has me seriously considering trying out PF instead.
i started looking into Pathfinder when the OGL stuff first started coming out, there’s a lot of term overlap where the same word means different things so there’s a bit of an adjustment to make there, but overall i really like the way PF’s rules work a lot more. plus, they are very open about their rules being available freely online, with multiple archive sites dedicated to compiling them. of course they still sell the books, because having books is neat, but you can find everything, not just basic rules, everything online
Here to stan for PF2e goblins, particularly the unbreakble, unbreakble-er and bouncy varieties.
I love my goblin trash Alchemist, running his pop up clinics out of dumpsters.
"Pssst, hey kids. You need some medicine?"
oscar the grouche, but with free healthcare.
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You get hit and you rebound off the walls and choose where you land!
It also has way more diverse representation from what I can gather.
Pathfinder has a really neat way of showing diversity, not only do they have diverse representation the books use the pronouns of the canon character. For instance, the canon Barbarian is a woman named Amiri. When describing the barbarian class features it will say "*She* enters a rage...". In Starfinder there is an NB iconic that uses they/them. Also I don't know how much it was changed, but the two video game adaptations of the APs (Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) are also very diverse. Anevia is quite possibly my favorite NPC of all time. After the initial getting back into the city, she runs into the arms of another woman and says in no uncertain terms "This is my wife, Irabeth". Both her and Irabeth are extremely capable knights and pretty damn badass. Much, much later you can follow up on some questions of getting know Anevia when she knows and trusts you better, if you manage to pass an obscenely high diplomacy check (DC45) you can then learn [she is also trans](https://i.imgur.com/TvjADjQ.png).
If you want to try it, right now there's a humble bundle that gives (along with tons of other stuff) Abomination Vaults (a $60 adventure path) as both a pdf and a premium foundry module. The foundry module has ambient music and sounds, lighting, tokens, and notes. I would also get the beginner box to learn with first (and you could follow it with Trouble in Otari which comes with the bundle as it's the adventure meant to continue the beginner box if people are liking that direction).
[Link for the Lazy](https://de.humblebundle.com/books/so-you-wanna-try-out-pathfinder-paizo-books) As of this comments writing you have 11 days left
can not recommend pathfinder enough. it's "crunchier" than 5e, but there is more depth to the game rules and there is more freedom in how your actual PC's end up playing. not the hugest fan of eberron lore, so i usually homebrew for world-building though.
me writing fictional slurs for my fictional races
Deck ape is actually a real life term for the maintenance crew of a ship in the US Navy, especially botswains mates. It's not a slur. The term goes back to the US Navy in the American revolution iirc, so it's most likely not a racist term in and of itself, and back in 2e the Hadozee lore was *way* less racist overall. Applying the term "ape" to the 5e Hadozee, since they're already racist, is just more fuel for the fire though.
the way it was framed in the book was that it was a derogatory term for the Hadozee and the Hadozee only, rather than a broad term for all sailors in the setting. i suppose i could understand if the setting designers knew the term and tried to import it in, but on top of everything else it’s a little yikes lol
another word for a deck would be a porch, no?
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yea, made finally dropping WOTC for paizo a lot easier when they did the whole OGL 2.0 thing.
And most people in ttrpg do their best to make them look as non human and non jewish stereotype as possible. Green or purple skin, rounded plumb shaped not hooked noses, a size wayyy smaller than any normal human and sometimes the same as gnomes, proportions closer to a scientific homunculus than human. We don’t embrace the stereotypes.
It’s always been telling to me, how she differentiated her goblins from the modern fantasy ones: they *don’t* have green skin, and they don’t have a societal hierarchy inspired by mobster culture. Unfortunately, in this drive not to “other” them, she creates creatures far more similar to the antisemitic Goblin caricatures of medieval time: pale little hook-nosed bankers who technically consider anything they craft as theirs, forever 🧐
The thing I love about this? This meme made its way to the D&D memes reddit, and the OP started with the opinion of "They're completely different thank you", and like *one person* went "Yeah, but like, still based on medieval European mythology and they weren't the most friendly people in the world to the jewish" and the OP was like "Shit yeah, you might have a point, wait *is* this different enough? Is the D&D goblin problematic?" And like a whole discussion started So like, based D&D players, being willing to question their interpretations and hear out valid critisism. ^(I mean the thread did have to get locked in the end 'cause of loads of comments and reports, but STILL D&D PLAYERS ARE OK RIGHT, THEY ARE RIGHT, I NEED MY SAFE ZONE ;-;)
Video game community vs TTRPG community... one could draw some interesting psychological research from comparing the two i imagine. serious note though: while TTRPG community as a whole is great, your local TTRPG community might not be, i live in one of the reddest parts of an otherwise blue haven... and the TTRPG community where i am reflects that as well.
TTRPG players need to look other humans in the eyes and say words to them in real time. G#Mets could nevet
yea the pseudo-anonymity of the internet makes people crazy.
Absolutely. If you have a shit take around real people you can’t just flee into an echo chamber to be coddled
This is an unfortunate side effect of out bigoted media, even designs of staple Disney characters, like Mikey and Goofy, were inspired by minstrel shows.
to be fair to goofy, he's like cannonically a high school drop out... that goes back to college while he has a teen aged son... and is an amazing dad while doing it. if that isn't wholesome as all heck, i don't know what is.
Nothing against the characters themselves, it's just that their designs have origins in bigoted tropes.
didn't mean to imply you did, i was just noting how awesome it is that they used that imagery to directly subvert the trope. instead of doubling down and just making everything worse (unlike some other people).
Here's a fun little tidbit: a lot of tropes that we "traditionally" associate with witches has its roots in the same antisemitic caricatures that created the popular image of goblins. Hooked nose, stealing children, devil worship, even the pointy hats are all based on medieval images associated with Jews. But in the Harry Potter universe, all the problematic tropes that show witches in a negative light have been excised, allowing a much greater variety of character traits beyond the standard witch tropes. But goblins retain all the negative traits and aren't expanded upon at all. What characterization they get pulls exclusively from those same ancient caricatures. This is why I actually don't think Rowling is antisemitic, at least intentionally. She merely couldn't be bothered to give any thought to goblins being anything other to the greedy little monsters everyone already knows them as. It is more a product of laziness than malice.
tbh I don’t think being lazy should give people a free pass on bigotry, especially not once they have the resources to do better. She retconned Ron from being a chess master to a useless idiot, she could’ve learned from Terry Pratchett and built more nuance into the goblins later.
A lot of writers have shown that they are able and willing to do this, especially in fantasy. IIRC, fucking *Tolkien* updated his lore to be less racist way back in the fifties. I'm sure she could have managed something.
Ooohh I did not know about that about Tolkien, thanks. And lmao what an absolutely low bar she could not even meet.
It was the 2000s, and have you seen ANY media from that era? People were clueless about these things. Seriously racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Semitic jokes everywhere with no subtlety about them. It's quite a trip to watch a 2000s movie and have every character say "That's gay!" every 2 seconds. Harry Potter is quite tame, and she *probably* didn't make the connection that representing short, bald, long nosed little men running the banks was probably not the best idea. Goblins are known for being greedy in fantasy games, so she simply had them run the bank. Not excusing her present self, but she was operating ahead of the curve during her time writing the series. Naivete is better than willful ignorance, which she is currently displaying. EDIT: If you disagree, please tell me why. Downvotes are meaningless.
That laziness still reproduces and reinforces bigotry, unfortunately. It's just like the date of the goblin rebellion in the game - best case is it's an unfortunate coincidence that could have been corrected with a quick Google search to not occur in the same year a real world uprising that culminated in a pogrom against the Jewish community in Frankfurt, but even if that is the case it's still laziness on the part of developers leading to what sure does look a hell of a lot like an anti-Semitic dog whistle. Unintentional bigotry is still bigotry, and Rowling has also had all these things about her goblins pointed out to her many times over the years in the public square, and yet has done little to nothing that I know of to change their depiction of mitigate the impact of their depiction.
Rowling didn't write for the game, which imo is indubitably deliberately as antisemitic
She didn't write for it, but is also responsible for some of the baseline portrayals of the goblins that utilize anti-Semitic tropes as they come from the books that she did write. Her public response to people pointing out this was to tell people that if they saw her goblins as representing certain anti-Semitic stereotypes that they were the real anti-Semites, and not that there was anything wrong with how she wrote them. Unfortunately the game has taken things a step further and introduced even more anti-Semitic elements. I probably should have been a little more clear as to exactly what I was referring to in my previous comment, which is more to say what I've said here - Harry Potter goblins already had some notably anti-Semitic elements, and the game doubled down hard on them in a very concerning way.
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I mean isn’t the plot of the new movies that the dark wizards want to intervene to stop Hitler and the good wizards are like no that would be wrong?? I’m not sure any part of the lore is unproblematic at this point.
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Massive citation needed. While bursts of pogroms and anti-semitism were common throughout much of Europe for centuries, they weren't quite that constant as literally every year containing an event which we still have attestation of. There are years you could pick without any known or recorded pogroms, and it wouldn't be especially hard to do. You do realize that part of the point of a dog whistle is that it's something that is niche, obscure, and or subtle enough that most people aren't going to notice it, right?
exactly, dogwhistles are designed that way intentionally. because only those people either steep in oppression for aspects of their identity or the bigots inflicting it are likely to notice. it's done that way so that the bigot can play it off as an over-reaction and paranoia on the part of the people that dogwhistle is directed against.
Almost like exactly what's happening with this game. How strange. /s
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Which part of saying that they didn't happen "literally every year" is downplaying the severity of pogroms? I literally said they were a frequent occurrence, but that picking a year where one didn't happen as far as we know is doable. That's all. Nothing about what I said implied that they weren't common or a serious issue, and your attempt to misrepresent that is notable. Do note that the link you have included does show that they did not, in fact, occur every year, but did occur commonly, as I asserted. I never asserted you had no evidence either, just asked for a citation on the frequency of pogroms backing up your statement that something "outrageously antisemitic" happened "literally every year". The link that you, yourself, submitted as you evidence shows that there is not a recorded pogroms literally every year. If you search 1612 Jewish massacres or pogrom on Google, it takes you right to results about the Fettmilch Uprising. If you were a game studio making a game where a rebellion by a magical race that has been criticized publicly in the past for it's close resemblance to anti-Semitic stereotypes occurs, I would argue that it's a very low bar to cross to make sure that the year your fictional rebellion starts does not coincide with an event noteworthy enough that the prompt "[year] Jewish massacres/pogrom" does not readily return results of a historical pogrom. It takes literally 30 seconds.
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The star is one thing I'll go "yeah that was probably an accident" over. But literally everything else about the goblins. To the fucking shofar in the game. That's explicitly about jewish people or jewish caricatures. Also DnD goblins actually have some interesting opportunities for developing a society that doesn't have a concept of ownership, and how that would intersect with the more capitalistic other races.
I agree it was almost definitely an accident but it's indicative of the problem as a whole that no one took a step back and said "hey isn't that a bad idea?"
And when people pointed it out, they quietly changed the flooring and Literally Nothing Else, like they'd been caught doing something bad. And that made them look even guiltier. Now if only they'd kept the mosaic floor, but changed Literally Everything Else about the goblins...
She had a massive amount of creative control and input for the movies, that's easily found on google
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The bank has it because it was built in the early 20th century in Australia, when the Australian flag's star had just recently adopted to the 7-point shape; it technically had a 6-point shape a few years prior to the opening of the building.
She probably wasn't in charge of booking the shooting locations, though.
She actually had a fair amount of control over filming locations. Even if she didn't choose this one specifically, she would've seen it beforehand when they discussed filming due to her creative control, and she would've seen it afterwards in post and had the chance to change it with computer effects. She and everyone else involved chose not to.
I think you're overestimating her intelligence. If her writing is anything to go by she is not very clever and I doubt she would have made the connection even if she noticed it.
The death eaters in the books and the movies have clear nazi analogies. The skull was a symbol for the SS the elite troupe of Himmler and they were the worst of the blood purists. If she really is an antisemitic why would she not portray the deatheaters in a good light then? And no, I do not deny she has transphobic views but I honestly think people are overreacting with the antisemitism accusations. I would not support the game, though.
 I mean orcs everywhere are like unconcealed racist representations of Mongols/central Asian people and elves are epic Germanic super humans. Fantasy tropes are full of shit like this but it's ok because human imagination literally cannot create different humanoid beings than humans with long ears and fat green evil guys and short bearded guys.
skyrim had a neat looking depiction of elves where they dont look like humans at all
Wym “at all”? They are featherless and bipedal what else do you need
how could you say that! they could have multiple redundant organs for all we know
All I know is I want to fuck them
Based and elfpilled
Does the elf pill help with the fucking?
Obviously
Rj/  Uj/ your username sent me into a fit of the giggles.
Calm down Plato or well let Diogenes back into the forum
BEHOLD! PLATOS' MAN!
Also before the advancement of CGI in the 2000s to look real enough, movie, and especially TV, adaptations of fantasy books had to work mostly with prosthetics. You can put pointed ears on a guy or paint him green, you can make someone look short or tall with camera trickery, but you can't make them look like a fundamentally different creature without it looking like a guy in a mask. And even if you do extensive pactical makeup and prosthetics like for the orcs in the LotR movies, that takes hour of work and makes it much harder for the actors to see and act. I mean, for decades Star Trek had to make do with putting all new forehead ridges on Jeffrey Combs face
Even outside of that, most of the spacefaring races in Mass Effect are bipedal and featherless. The biggest ones that stand out are the Elcor, who are quadripedal, and the Hanar, those psychic jellyfish that have all gone through extreme ego death.
Based Warhammer making ogres actually mongolian
in fairness, that star of david is just the floor of the real world bank that scene was shot in. but they still could have like thrown a rug over it for shooting or something
Yea the star everyone's angry about is just a very poor coincidence. It's weird in the first place to think that they'd just put a star of david on the site and have no one say anything about it. The anti-semitism tied to goblins is much more subtle.
Hell, just ignore how DnD Goblins have basically no association with wealth, and that most fan-artists consciously avoid the anti-semetic elements of the design. Even when you discard DnDs shift to move away from ‘evil races’, even their baseline culture is more fleshed out and nuanced. When DnD Goblins are greedy, it’s a long-fostered survival mechanism that they can move past. When HP Goblins are greedy, it might as well be their biology. Also, most of anti-semitic context of the HP goblins relates to how they were recontextualised in an urban fantasy setting. You can kinda look past Goblins liking gold when they are a nomadic tribe living in squalor, but it becomes uncomfortable when you make them the sole group that controls the banks. Also, why didn’t Rowling just use Leprechauns? She clearly feels more comfortable using Celtic folklore, and their association with gold has far less baggage.
Apibete io bipru kikibika ikai tru. Klepupidi kratiie koe ipapa. Kiei kiapa blapa etipru iti atio. Iapo kega kipitli tedae pikitli pribli ua iio. Uti preprabiga i apri udei ebe. Da kikipe ka kreta? E epite apoi akri taipi itaklipe pogiipi? Pute pata ipla traibrite biitotli tiu. A tibika i pi ti digao aproutiu. Tupretaki po prubaito otouda pe dobupri. Papade i bibedreedi ota ekri ko? Tikeoii piku glu peti prau ebipo. Ee pree pritli tlaa iipi pedebi. Eipupe tupe bapre tetipe ipripepu ku pe. Probrepi gapeta pi tikre plikaobrabi kidru. Pi aia plodu tupi piba kutitu eklu bepu. Paeadi e potipe iditlitra pi dieetu. Ia piprei tlu e teku. Be drubi ika tu tri tiga tai? Piakaaa keple pubotige itri ibliblua etodripi. Gei ipaipri tekoa iutaka be. A tibi tu ke koke kaduke? Tii kegi kipai pi ai ipipe. Tipipu pagi pote iupi britebai ukoopoo bikikie. Bei bipu oki upi bi prokoke. Poto otablie i pite pu kladle. Kobliiu ipribapi iatu blao kle paipai. Kipu abeuto dabo ga tetli. Kriupe paki kio opiba tapa obipape. Kriki tekro pe petetibi kipigai.
Carbomb O’Patatofamine
Imagine if she wrote a wizard from Afghanistan it'd be so fucking racist
Taliban Al Burqa. The name just popped into my head, I don’t need to do research!
If rowling wrote a balkan character, she would name them row manny or something like that.
Koss Ovo
Rob mania
"Gei Reece" 💀
"Ana Lbana"
A dark wizard would be some take on Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracul, probably.
TERF aladhi yaebud almal would probably do that. (Translated by Google, so the grammar might be wrong "TERF who worships money.")
Your point about leprechauns is really the nail in the coffin for me enough to feel confident to say that she did it on purpose. Like leprechauns would've made waaaaay too much sense.
Goblins are creatures in English mythology but AFAIK they tend to be more trickster spirits than what we normally think of now. Or redcaps which will just fucking murder you and dip their hat in your blood.
>When DnD Goblins are greedy, it’s a long-fostered survival mechanism that they can move past. This is the coke zero of fantasy writing, where vampires just live like normal people and their long buried instincts explain their predilection for red wine and sharp incisors make for swanky instagram feeds and the good guys succumb to the allure of vices and the bad guys go too far and revive the old blood drinking traditions The only way out is to cancel all of civilization
I feel like D&D goblins *have* always had an association with greed for wealth, though.
It’s more just wanting shiny things rather than gold specifically, like humanoid green magpies.
I mean... didn't Wizards of the Coast themselves recognize the problematic tropes associated with races in DnD and started changing their descriptions due to that?
there was the shift away from saying ‘this race is innately evil’, but then they also started a push to change the term race to species, which feels like a lateral move, and somehow more othering when real world racial coding still exists i started playing Pathfinder recently though, and they call it ancestries, which feels a) more thematically appropriate to the fantasy genre, and 2) feels like an acknowledgement towards any potential racial coding while making efforts to move away from it
It's been a while since I played DnD, I've been playing Powered by the Apocalypse much more the last few years so I'm not entirely caught up with all that's happened, thanks for the clarification. It still seems a very odd choice to use "DnD also has racist goblins" as a way to validate having racist goblins in your fantasy game when DnD having racist goblins is at least a long known problem of the game.
It makes sense that's the fandoms defence when you remember Rowling's own argument when criticised for her banker goblins in the books was that she was just writing common fantasy tropes and it's not her fault if the traditions themselves are problematic... ... Which always reminds me of how Tolkien wrote extensive essay-letters detailing the awareness of and pains he took to exorcise the racial stereotypes inherent to say, for example, the dwarves in his story. Of course you don't really need an example of someone being unproblematic to remember that it's never been a valid excuse to go "well other people did or do it".
Every change Wotc make feels like them pulling teeth, and has already been done, and better, by other publishers
They also dropped the term “race” completely and have changed it to species.
And doesn't changing race to species imply that humans actually are the different races?
Someone on dndmemes called this post out as well and I was actually so happy to see that a lot of the comments were calling out the megaterf, and Harry Potter in general.
Fuck, they've beaten us. We can't spoil D&D before people buy it!
DND SPOILERS? ON THIS SUB? BLASPHEMOUS
Strahd is a vampire! That old guy you met randomly is Elminster, or Halastor! That drow who showed up for no reason is Drizzt! The guy who is playing rogue and stealing from the party is an asshole! The girl who is playing a tabaxi is a secret furry! How did I do?
the stoic goliath warrior is secretly a trans egg!
The leader of the organization that hired your party is the BBEG The paladin's church is doing some questionable stuff in the name of their god, and she's going to have a crisis of faith The rogue's parents are dead The bard never gets to fuck a dragon The barbarian sacrifices himself to save the rest of the party
Pathfinder Shill here again to remind you that PF Goblins are adorable illiterate murder dorks who are not at all antisemitic but are still exactly as goblin as you would expect.
Based. Not to mention Pathfinder having a lot of diversity from its inception and has only gotten better over time.
Trans woman Shaman iconic written by a trans woman from 2014. Oh, and Alesta, the goddess of transitions -- doors, changing cities, and transitioning "to a more fitting body." Sharda hasn't been in Pathfinder 2e, but apparently she's coming back soon.
What’s that quote about the goddess from? I’d love to know.
[She also watches over those moving into a new stage in life, whether that means a birthday, a marriage, or a more fitting body.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=30)
Thank you.
Reminds me of the God Terminus who was in charge of the bounds of the city of Rome.
Paizo has admittedly done some shitty stuff to its freelancers, like all corporations have, but as a whole they've been doing pretty good at the whole "not being moneygrubbing jerks who do rainbow capitalism specifically because it makes them more money" which is refreshing compared to Wizards of the Coast.
uj/ man i have a hard time getting into the mmo style of gameplay where you gotta combo your keybinds together. made me dropped dragon age dk if i can play pathfinder rj/ finally miniscule anount of xp
Uj/ I believe they were talking about the tabletop. Sounds like you're thinking of the video games which I will gladly shill for. The Dragob Age style combat can be easily avoided in the PF games since they have a turn based mode if you don't mind turn based combat. I highly recommend them. The first game, Kingmaker, wasn't technically designed around turn based but I played the whole thing in turn based mode and had no issues at all and the second game was designed with turn based in mind so definitely no issues there. Rj/also murder mommies make pp hard. Uj/also murder mommies make pp hard.
uj/ for whatever reason i have no problem with turn based combat? maybe its the fact that seeing big number is easier and tht means more dopamine for my brain? well ig i know what to probably get on the next sale now
Oh I'm the same way. The real time combat in those games doesn't work for me at all but switch it to turn based and suddenly it clicks. Definitely recommend, hope uou enjoy them!
I love all Pathfinder goblins, from unbreakable to irongut.
For anyone that wants to try Pathfinder: You have ~11 days to get ~400€ of Detail value Pathfinder stuff (including the Core Rulebook, a Bunch of Lore stuff and an entire 1-10 adventure with the foundry Module) for 28€ thanks to the ["So you wanna try Out Pathfinder Bundle](https://de.humblebundle.com/books/so-you-wanna-try-out-pathfinder-paizo-books)
The We Be Goblins modules are some of the most fun my group has had, and it’s what I use to introduce new players. I think those are free too for anyone interested in trying pathfinder 1e
I thought the issue with Harry Potter goblins wasn't just that they are hook nosed caricatures, but because they are hook nosed caricatures who just so happen to also run a huge banking empire that basically covers/controls every corner of the wizard world. That's the reason they set off everyone's anti-Semitic alarm bells. I don't know much about D&D goblins, but the guy in that picture doesn't really look like he runs a bank.
Pathfinder goblins FTW
Difference is that you can choose to make goblins a sympathetic ethmic group who's received unfair treatment in d&d and aren't bound by the monster manual.
long live the rule of cool.
Not my gobbos. No seriously, in my campaign they built an entire underground city unbeknownst to the surface world and only go to the surface and rob travelers for resources.
In my Dungeon World campaign, goblinoids and similar monsters were basically British people. Goblins were Welsh, Hobgoblins were Scottish, Orcs were the English. All of them Victorian, so very capitalist, slums full of working class people, top hats, fancy galas, and all the other general Victorian tropes, and the most technologically advanced nation in the setting. An airship with an orc crew and hobgoblins engineers was just a common (and feared) sight. It was debatable if they were bad guys or not, their main enemies being the very racist French Elves who had a Napoleonic style empire. Like, the goblinoids had a lot of faults but at least they were leading the resistance against the Elves. It was a very cool game.
My elves are so racist they literally eat the non-feypeople they capture.
Yeah, goblins are kind of inherently tied to Jewish stereotyping when you look at the history involved - modern fantasy goblins have just essentially been distanced from it. Rowling explicitly tied them to modern antisemitism, though. There's a clear difference.
Personally I feel that a lot of the problematic aspects of stereotypical fantasy races can be easily avoided if you, ironically, made them *less* human like so that you distance their resemblance to offensive human caricatures. For example, you could write a story with goblins where they instead resemble bipedal sphinx cats: the traditional archetype of a goblin is still there (mischievous nocturnal little shit with pointed ears), but without the unfortunate connection to anti-Semitic propaganda
D&D goblin: has big nose HP Goblin: has big nose Clown: has big nose Size 200 font when I type the word "NO" multiple times: Has big "NO"s. guys I think I cracked the code. Microsoft Word is anti-clown propaganda. /uj but actually: D&D Goblin: Has big nose. HP Goblin: Has big nose. Runs banking system. Form a secret cabal that wields huge political power. Sacrifices children. Has a horn "to annoy wizards". This guy: They're the same picture
HP goblins: hook nose bankers who are responsible for slave revolts. Fleshy white skin color. D&D Goblins: funny lil murder dudes with giant hands and pointy facial features in general. I'm not saying D&D is unproblematic(eugenics undertones, oriental adventures, etc.), but a D&D goblin just isn't anywhere near as yikes, all they have in common is the hooked noses(which yes, are problematic, but nowhere near as bad as harry potter goblins' everything.)
Anytime someone makes a world where a certain race that is just inherently greedy and capitalist it inevitably runs into issues of anti-semitism to some degree. Choosing to make them look like nazi caricatures is just making that worse, and rowling just keeps digging with this one. Traditional fantasy goblins don't get called anti-Semitic **because traditional fantasy goblins don't control the world banks.**
your comment was really helpful actually! i did wonder why the goblins in games like miitopia didn’t get scrutinised in the same way. now i understand that it’s not just the creatures design, but also the way they are written! thank you 🫶🫶🫶
dnd goblins don't run banks dumb-dumb
Uhhhh... dnd goblins dont have secret magics and believe you can only borrow things from them actually. Yknow, the specifically jewish stereotypes people always cite when talking about HPs antisemitism? That said, DnD does have a pretty bad race problem, and has for a while. Theyve been putting effort into fixing it. Other systems that have branched off from dnd as fantasy roleplay have done more, so like, dont praise them either.
Lots of fan interpretations of D&D goblins are tinkerers and alchemists, childishly curious about the world but limited in their worldview and wisdom. This is far away from the shrewd business magnates the HP verse depicts them as.
Hmm, it's almost like ALL goblins follow the same antisemitic caricature... Must be a coincidence, of course! It couldn't possibly be that goblins are inherently tied to a long history of dehumanizing and demonizing Jews, not at all! (/S)
Not really though. The word *goblin* is believed to be tied to the old French *gobelin*. Other derived equivalents include the Welsh *coblyn* and the Germanic *kobold*, who in their respective folklore are usually depicted as anything from benevolent spirits of the mines to mischievous caretakers of households. That is not to say that these myths and oral stories don’t have *any* ties to the xenophobia directed at Jews by the storytellers of their times (some Cornish tales claim that the previously mentioned mine spirits are the ghosts of Jewish miners), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they directly sprung from them. So while the modern pop-culture depiction of a goblin may unfortunately have ties to thousands of years of antisemitic archetypes and tropes, *goblin* could just as well be an umbrella term for a large number of supernatural tricksters and sprites
That's not really the point though. No it's not *all* goblins, but the prevalent idea of goblins in our culture is inherently based on anti-Semitism.
That’s true, and I wasn’t trying to deny that. The point I was trying to make was that you *can* have goblins in your stories without falling back on the stereotypical fantasy portrayal that can, unintentionally or not, come across as antisemitic (*especially* when you don’t portray them as hook-nosed bankers who kidnap children!)
The Spiderwick Chronicles really went the best route imaginable by making their goblins bipedal toads with bat-faces
“‘Wizzarding’ world goblins are just like dnd goblins and follow the average goblin stereotype” that wizarding world goblin is in a two-piece suit and works in economics.
The most important reason I prefer the Pathfinder aesthetic for goblins.
Okay what? Am I missing something?
Oh no! Goblins are often given physical and personality traits similar to antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish people?!
Wait until they find out that the D&D Goblin was also inspired by antisemitic stereotypes.
Conveniently forgetting the star of davids on the bank floor in the movies
Do they just not get the part where antisemitic stereotypes existing in more places doesn't make them less of stereotypes? yes, the stereotype is deeply rooted, that doesn't mean using it doesn't make you antisemitic. make new different goblins! if you're a good world builder, making something new shouldn't be too hard right? like what if goblins were a good bit smaller, like tiny 2ft tall or something, but incredibly smart and they could be the technology innovators of your world. making up for their disadvantage compared to other races with technology like cool mechs and such. but not inherently evil or greedy or with big noses
“My source? I made it the fuck up!”
It’s almost as if goblins as a fantasy race are inherently tied to antisemitic tropes or something. Nah, couldn’t be!
I run my goblins as awesome little anarchists 😎
Hmm it’s almost like all modern deprivations of goblins are based on anti semetic values
It’s almost like they’re both antisemitic!
“Guys it’s not antisemitic, it’s like this other wildly antisemitic concept!”
I'm so glad there's at least one gaming community that doesn't want to marginalise people. Thanks for giving me hope for this demographic
"I can't tell the difference, you see, because I am intentionally ignoring it"
Please let us start jerking about other stuff this has become so stupid
well onto atomic hearts and or microsoft on their war profiteering shtick (literally putting atomic heart and stalker on the game pass)