Some have accused the new video game, Hogwarts Legacy, as peddling in antisemitic caricatures of goblins. (YouTube\/Hogwarts Legacy)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The narrative of the game centers on a goblin rebellion in the 1890s, about a century before the fantasy books take place. Some who have had an early look at the game have echoed longstanding concerns that the creatures\u2019 prominent hook noses, and their role in the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d universe running the wizard bank, Gringotts, teeter on the edge of an antisemitic stereotype that Jews control the world\u2019s banks. <\/p>\n
Others have taken issue with \u201cHarry Potter\u201d author J.K. Rowling\u2019s views on transgender people, which LGBTQ rights groups have called transphobic. <\/p>\n
The criticism does not appear to have significantly impeded sales of \u201cHogwarts Legacy,\u201d which has become the best-selling game on Steam, the world\u2019s most popular vendor for computer games. On Twitch, the popular video-game streaming platform, the game reached 1.2 million concurrent viewers at its peak, the most views ever achieved for a single-player game. <\/p>\n
While there have been Harry Potter games in the past, this is the first major studio video game from Avalanche Software, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games. It provides an immersive experience, creating hype among fans who are hungry for a wizard simulator that makes the player feel like they live in that world. And it\u2019s also received positive reviews, sitting at 84% on Metacritic, a review aggregate site.<\/p>\n
It lands several years after the depiction of goblins in the extended series of Harry Potter books and movies elicited criticism. Comedian Pete Davidson criticized J.K. Rowling, the books\u2019 author, on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d in 2020 for creating a world in which \u201clittle giant-nosed Jew goblins\u201d control the banks. In a podcast episode in 2021, comedian Jon Stewart said, \u201cYou can ride dragons, and you\u2019ve got a pet owl, and who should run the banks? Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those accusations have resurfaced in the days leading up to the video game\u2019s release. Jack Doyle, a writer for The Mary Sue, a publication that describes itself as \u201cthe geek girl\u2019s guide to the universe,\u201d wrote that the video game \u201crevives the antisemitic trope.\u201d Doyle added that \u201cthe game seems to be of the opinion that the \u2018moral\u2019 choice is to crush the [goblin] rebellions, thereby returning goblins to subjugation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The website for \u201cHogwarts Legacy\u201d says that \u201cJ.K. Rowling was not involved in the creation of the game,\u201d though developers \u201ccollaborated closely with her team on all aspects of the game.\u201d Rowling herself does not appear to have directly addressed the antisemitism allegations. <\/p>\n
Rowling does have defenders in the Jewish community \u2014 even as some of them acknowledge antisemitic undertones to the goblins. She has repeatedly condemned antisemitism publicly, particularly among supporters of former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Following Stewart\u2019s comments, the U.K.\u2019s Campaign Against Antisemitism said in a statement that \u201cthe portrayal of the goblins in the Harry Potter series is of a piece with their portrayal in Western literature as a whole\u201d and \u201cis a testament more to centuries of Christendom\u2019s antisemitism than it is to malice by contemporary artists. So it is with JK Rowling, who has proven herself over recent years to be a tireless defender of the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Travis Northup, who wrote a glowing review of the game for IGN, a popular video game journalism website, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he did not think the game\u2019s premise echoed an antisemitic conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story does not depict a cabal of bank-controlling goblins trying to take over the world,\u201d Northup wrote in a Twitter direct message. \u201cIt\u2019s about one particular goblin rebelling against the Wizarding World\u2019s insistence on keeping magic out of the hands of their kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northup added, though, \u201cI certainly won\u2019t deny that the Wizarding World\u2019s depiction of goblins in general has always been a bit questionable \u2014 even before this game.\u201d Northrup added that whether concerns over that \u201cquestionable\u201d portrayal should have influenced game developers is \u201ca tough question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI imagine that Avalanche had to work within established Potter lore, which includes the goblin rebellions,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know enough about the situation there or the creative freedoms they were allowed to take.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northup noted that the games\u2019 writers \u201cgo out of their way to make you interact with good goblins who don\u2019t share the evil goblin\u2019s ideals.\u201d He also said he thought the developers included a trans woman in the game to \u201calmost certainly distance themselves from Rowling\u2019s views\u201d on transgender people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a world a lot of people love and I think the developers did their best to make it better than it was before Hogwarts Legacy, which is admirable,\u201d Northup wrote. <\/p>\n
Yonah Gerber, a video game archivist, had a different take, noting other details of the game that they said verge on antisemitism. The game includes a description of a horn that resembles a shofar, which \u201cgoblins [used] during the 1612 Goblin Rebellion to rally troops and generally annoy witches and wizards,\u201d Gerber said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this was the first time a Rowling property has been antisemitic, that\u2019s a woopsie. But it\u2019s not,\u201d Gerber tweeted. \u201cEven if these are coincidences, had the development team made a point to avoid antisemitic caricatures and educated themselves on that history, this wouldn\u2019t have happened. They chose not to care. And that\u2019s not much better, really.\u201d <\/p>\n
Gerber, who is Jewish and nonbinary, told the New York Jewish that \u201cit sucks\u201d that so many people are playing the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t do anything about the fact that people care more about entertainment than actual people harmed by said entertainment,\u201d Gerber said. <\/p>\n
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