Hogwarts Legacy Antisemitism: These days, it must be hard to be a Harry Potter fan. J.K. Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter series and an author, has been criticized over and over again for making transphobic comments.
The controversy surrounding franchise stars Ezra Miller and Johnny Depp always took away from the Fantastic Beasts spinoff movies. And now, with the release of the Hogwarts Legacy game, the troubled history of antisemitism in the Wizarding World series continues.
After the first gameplay trailer came out in March 2022, the game was criticized for showing goblins in a way that was offensive to Jews. It’s a troubling pattern, especially since Harry Potter has been accused of overt antisemitism before. What’s going on in Hogwarts Legacy, and how does that affect the game’s popularity and ability to sell?
Hogwarts Legacy Antisemitism
In Hogwarts Legacy, players control a fifth-year student at the school of magic with the same name in the 1800s. The student is able to use an old kind of magic that could change the way the Wizarding World looks as a whole.
While learning how to use this power, players can talk to different people at Hogwarts and even keep going about their normal school days. Players can also make friends with NPCs, which is similar to making friends at a real school.
Members of the “Goblin Rebellion” are some of the many enemies that players will face throughout the game. Throughout the game, players will see that wizards and goblins, who are portrayed as the bad guys, are at war with each other. Wizards are said to be making goblins angry because they can’t have wands on their own.
The idea that the way goblins are shown in the Wizarding World is offensive to Jews has been around long before Hogwarts Legacy.
After claims of antisemitism, gamers have threatened to stop playing “Hogwarts Legacy.”
In Harry Potter, goblins are portrayed as cold and greedy bankers who run the underground banks of the magical society. Even worse, this stereotype is made even worse in the popular movies. Forbes said that the goblins in the movie looked like they were taken straight from Nazi propaganda and Jewish religious symbols.
The disturbing pattern of antisemitism in the Harry Potter series is almost set in stone by Hogwarts Legacy. Here, goblins are shown as an oppressed minority who are seen as enemies because they fought back against those who were hurting them.
People say that once is a coincidence, twice is a chance, and three times is a pattern. But when a franchise that has been around for decades is built on these kinds of images, it’s hard to ignore the signs.
Some gamers have decided to stop playing the game because it shows things that aren’t good. At the very least, the story elements don’t help the franchise’s reputation as a whole these days.
Still, people can feel how much they want to see Hogwarts Legacy. Dexterto just told me that the Collectors Edition of the game has already sold out for pre-orders.
Hogwarts Legacy will come out on all of the major gaming platforms on February 10, 2023.