Googling around, I’ve seen a lot of users and journos claiming they are a jewish stereotype. I struggled to even compare them to what HP did. And as a partially jew, I’m really jealous of qualities these bigots paint and the thinking process Quark put to work. He’s probably my favorite character of the whole franchise.
You really don’t know much about HP goblins, do you?
They aren’t just there to look funny. They hold the wizards bank because they’re master craftsmen. They’re defeated rivals who still rebel from time to time whenever able to. They can use magic just as well as wizards if not better and were banned from using wands as a matter of status, something they didn’t much care for anyway because they prefer using violence in combat over magic. The half-goblin professor is a master duelist and attributes part of that to his aggressive goblin blood.
That’s just basic stuff you learn from the movies.
Sure, the exposition is poor, but it makes sense considering it’s being done from the perspective of wizards.
That’s exactly how the wizards see them. Bravo to the directors for instilling that notion so well in the viewers. It means they did their job well in this regard.
You say the protagonists in Star Trek had a system of values they respected, but didn’t they also have to respect the culture of other species? To impose their own views and values on another was also considered self-serving and foolish.
Also the human civilization was post-enlightenment. Is the wizard society in HP also enlightened? Not really. Rowling calls them backwards, centuries behind the rest of civilization.
How were we a century ago, let alone two?
This is why I said similar. Circumstances are different. The world, the lore, the setting.
The goblins were given a foundation and it was built on in accordance with the rest of the world it was in. With the type of background the story portrayed. In line with every other exposition of that world.
In the first movie they were there to scare a newcomer, but it also showed they took their role in that bank seriously. And with each movie beyond that, more and more was uncovered of their culture, their history and their way of life. To anyone who cared to look at least.
Goblins didn’t just remain funny little greedy men with big noses until the end, but at the same time they also didn’t change much of their culture. And neither did the wizards. Only a little. A small step forward. Together. Because they’re long-lived, don’t like each other all that much and change is slow.