Your post caught my eye also when I first read it but forgot to answer. I think Hagrid and Madame Maxime would have to be content with a long-distance relationship. I couldn’t see Hagrid leaving Hogwarts and Madame Maxime is the headmistress of an important school. She should have been at Fleur’s wedding though.
Yeah, I don’t get the Harry-Christ thing. If Harry were like Christ, he would have sacrificed himself not to protect the others, but to absolve them; he wouldn’t have needed Ron to save him to retrieve Gryffindor’s sword in the pool; he wouldn’t have considered trying to cheat Griphook; he wouldn’t have had a fragment of evil soul in him at all.
And goblins = Jews? I don’t see that either — it would be like saying “the giants are like black people, because black people are strong and stupid.” The racist association isn’t inherently part of the story, but is the supposition of the reader’s own racist sensitivities.
I might buy this, if not for the scene in the Pensieve in which Dumbledore tells Snape to keep an eye on Quirrel.
Dumbledore knew. When Harry told him that Lockhart had been hit by a backfiring memory charm, Dumbledore laughs and says “Impaled on your own sword, Gilderoy!”
I can understand disagreeing with the goblins/Jews comparison, but why the allegations that those of us who it occurred to are anti-semitic? It’s incredibly offensive and childish.
These are American and German anti-Semitic propaganda. While there aren’t as many pics of Potter goblins, here’s Griphook from HP&TSS film, and the action figure. The fact that all have pointed ears, hooked noses, black eyes, thick brows, that they control banking, are considered master metalsmiths, are detested by outsiders, are clannish, stereotyped as greedy and clannish and untrusting and untrustworthy- it may or may not be coincidence (though a quick google reveals that I’m hardly the first person to see the connection- here’s a current article and they date back to the first film at least.
Now, I have no opinion over whether or not Rowling is anti-semitic or racist; the only people she seems to have a problem with are American actors (she didn’t want them in the films) but that doesn’t qualify. I’m certainly not saying HP is anti-Semitic propaganda. But I think it’s a bit ridiculous to say that I and other Dopers and various Jewish bloggers for that matter are projecting internalized anti-Semitism for noting similarities in the visual and stereotypical depictions of Jews and goblins in a book that draws much from WW2 and classical literature already. Since this isn’t the Pit I won’t go into the degree of irritation I have with this allegation, but please note the objection.
Last word on subject (at least in this thread- I’ll continue if pitted).
Rysto:
That clearly happened some time during the year, though…after all, Snape was already familiar with Harry. There’s no indication Dumbledore knew there was something amiss about him before hiring him.
All that means was that Lockhart’s own spell backfired on him on that occasion, not that he knew (and certainly not before hiring him) that Lockhart used that spell to create the illusion of his great achievements.
If those allegations are incredibly offensive and childish, why is it not offensive and childish to suggest that Rowling’s work is anti-semitic?
The best you’ve done is claim that a design in a Chris Columbus film is anti-semitic. A design which looks nothing like the propaganda pics you linked to.
I didn’t D. I said that they resembled anti-semitic caricatures and that it was hopefully just me who thought so.
I wouldn’t suggest that people who perceive the anti-Semitism must themselves be anti-Semetic. Some people are more sensitive to the appearance of racism than are others. There’s a fine line between a villain who is black, a villain who wears black, and a villain who merely has a black hat, and it’s possible that none of them are racist in design. Nevertheless, there are some that will cry foul at the black hat, but not at the black villain, for no reason I can see.
Dwarves, in Tolkien, are acquisitive, short, misshapen, clannish, master metalsmiths, stingy, with a secret language, and strike hard bargains, but I have not heard that they are considered a Jewish stereotype. Dwarfs in Pratchett are much the same. When I hear that one presentation is racist and another is not, it makes me wonder what the criteria must be.
In the second to last book (Harry Potter and the Half Prince) during his lessons Dumbledore reveals to Harry that after Voldemort had come to ask him for the DoDA job no one had managed to keep it for more than one year. Snape was obviously important to his plans and therefore he had to keep him away from the job (and thus, in Hogswart). He probably gave him the job once he knew he hadn’t more than a year to live.
One reader seemed to think they were.
I still don’t see what in this movie or set of books would make Mel Gibson( generally assumed to be anti-Semitic due to drunken comments recently) happy, but I’m going out of town and have no time for this. Just a joke in passing? Ok, but it puzzled me, as does the automatic “it must be anti-semitic!” if a group is portrayed as money grubbing, apart and mistrusted. That just leaves me wondering if all the fairy tales in the world are anti-semitic… 
:rolleyes:
And the TV networks complained that Mr. Spock was a devil figure because he had pointy ears. Somehow, some people see those associations more strongly. I freely admit that I don’t read anti-Semitism in Rowling’s goblins, because they are goblins and not humans. At what point does a treasure-acquisitive non-human cease to be a Jewish stereotype?
But you’re using something from the movie to say that there is anti-semitism in the books. I don’t think that J.K. Rowling had anything to do with how goblins were portrayed in the movie. Or are goblins described as “pointed ears, hooked noses, black eyes, thick brows” in the books? I will have to go look again in book 1.
Sampiro, you are the second person to say that being a “master metalsmith” is a character trait normally associated with Jews. Do you have an example of that? Selling jewelry maybe - in my case (as I said before) I know of the stereotype of the Jewish diamond merchant. Making jewelry? Not a cliche that I was familiar with.
We did this dance in the Half Blood Prince movie thread. She didn’t want the film Americanized (see V for Vendetta or High Fidelity). Save the baseless venom for the pit.
I honestly don’t see how you can say that you have “no opinion” on it, seeing as how you are effectively accusing Rowling of engaging in racist stereotyping. ISTM the best you could argue is that her racism is unconscious or grounded in earlier apparently racist works (“WW2 and classical literature”). Unless you would admit the possibility that the similarities are coincidental, in which case your entire premise that there is some Rowling Goblin / Jew connection is effectively undermined. I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, but I don’t think you can say “Oh, look! The goblins look like racist depictions of Jews” and then profess to have no further opinion on it. The statement itself implies an opinion, and not a good one. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t at all think YOU are projecting internalized anti-semitism, but I do think the very connection implies an anti-semitic accusation made about HER. I hope you see the distinction I am drawing, and understand that I am trying to draw it with all due respect to you.
Can we start a new “Jews are goblins” thread? Let’s keep discussion in this thread about this book.
I’ll try not to repeat what’s been said in this novel of a thread, so thoughts:
-I was really amused how Harry still has a “Support Cedric/Potter Stinks” badge.
-How humiliating for Voldemort, after gloating about how no one knows more magic than he does, to be defeated by the most basic of spells, Expelliarmus.
-I really would’ved like to see another chapter at the end, before 19 years later, to see the world put back together after Voldy’s downfall. Throughout the book, I not only hated Voldy but his followers too. Each and every Death-Eater needed their come-uppance. And though Bellatrix totally deserved to die, it’s too bad she never lived to see Voldy get defeated.
-I’m not sure if this has been answered yet, but what exactly ressurected Harry? Was it his blood connection in Voldemort, or the Deathly Hallows?
Make with it what you will 
Yes, forget goblins = jews, I’ve found something much more worrisome!
http://www.exposingsatanism.org/harrypotter2.htm
Voldemort = Jesus!
Lucius Malfoy = the Angel Gabriel
Tom Riddle’s Diary (from Chamber of Secrets) = The Bible
Ginny Weasley = Mary mother of God
Harry Potter = demon
Sirius Black = Satan
all very clear once J.K. Rowling’s veil of deception is rent asunder.
I’ve got a dirty mind.
page 564
on his what?
That’s a brilliant parody.
That is parody, right?