"Made the main plot a goblin uprising and included house-elves everywhere": Community reacts to J.K. Rowling and Hogwarts Legacy's problematic representations
Hogwarts Legacy fans finally got a peek at the game's world and its gameplay during the dedicated State of Play streamed last week by PlayStation. It features a fresh, in-depth look at the Wizarding World of the title and life inside Hogwarts.
But recent developments have also brought back the inherent issues that plague the Harry Potter universe.
J.K. Rowling's shadow looms large over her IP, and Hogwarts Legacy will not be able to outrun it. With her controversial transphobic stance, the community is already divided over whether they should play the game or give it a miss in protest.
A recent tweet discusses the problematic representations of goblins and house-elves in the Wizarding World that Hogwarts Legacy ends up furthering.
The issues with the representations of both marginalized races, goblins and house-elves, have been pointed out by fans and critics alike. The former has been seen as containing anti-Semitic tropes. They are bankers, with physical characteristics reportedly similar to caricatures of Jews disseminated in an early twentieth-century text and how they are treated and depicted in the universe.
The latter has been seen as a depiction of slavery sustained in the modern world. A 2010 article in The Midwest Quarterly contended that:
Irrespective of J.K. Rowling's views towards anti-Semitism, racism, and slavery, the issues run deep through the world of Harry Potter and all the stories it tells, which will include Hogwarts Legacy.
The tweet by Testament Pit Crew points out that the game has been showcased at the State of Play by choosing to further this legacy.
Redditor Konradleijon's post on the Hogwarts Legacy subreddit also points out the issue of how goblins are depicted in the universe and, more
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