FWIW and AFAICS, in the book illustration, the goblin on the left definitely has a hooked nose, but not the goblin on the right, who has a long, straight nose. Good answer anyway (+1).

swarthy and clever are also identifiers that have historically been used in antisemitic stereotypes. For a race that controls the worlds banks, that's an unfortunate choice (arguably, having such a race in the first place is already reproducing stereotypes).

@tim Your comment has nothing to do with this answer or the question.

@user76284 it is a direct reference to the quoted passage relating to the goblins physical description ("He had a swarthy, clever face") and how it relates to antisemitic imagery.

I appreciate the text analysis and the discussion of the illustration, but I find your argument of "if it was in the movie, she must have personally wanted it" extremely tenuous. Directors, creative consultants, and every element of the filmmaking process down to the caterer is subject to creative differences, compromises, and oversights (with an exception for Stanley Kubrick, maybe) and it's sloppy to assume that if something was in the movie it was explicitly Rowling that wanted it. And with that in mind, your answer doesn't provide any proof that Rowling pushed for a nose style.

@tim To be clear, I'm not discussing whether the goblins or Rowling are anti-Semitic, I'm asking whether Rowling independently wanted hooked noses per the original claim. I see from your diamond you're a moderator, so I assume you know that I couldn't ask that question on this site if I wanted to.

@GGMG-he-him I'm not sure anyone is making the claim that Rowling explicitly pushed for hook-noses. People are saying that the goblins in the book and even moreso the movie are based on antisemitic stereotypes (not exactly the same ones for book and movie, but similar ones) & that Rowling was significantly involved in the production of both. I fear that focusing on a very narrow claim (that I'm not sure is being made in that specific form) will lead to the misleading impression that these aren't antisemitic stereotypes (when they clearly are, in the book as well as the movie).

@tim Sorry, I'm very unclear how you can say nobody is making the claim. That's why I chose the Forbes article: "...author J.K. Rowling depicted them in her Harry Potter series as a secretive cabal of hook-nosed bankers". That's explicitly an accusation against Rowling. As opposed to a more impartial phrasing like "the goblins in Harry Potter are depicted as..." And the Forbes article constantly frames it as anger against Rowling, not Harry Potter or Chris Columbus, the film's director.

@tim And there's a reason why it's important whether Rowling specifically called for it, since this argument crops up constantly as a way to discredit Rowling for her views on race and gender. I just didn't want to muddy the question with mudslinging and invite unnecessary comments. Should I edit that info about the inferred relationship to Rowling's other politics in this question?

Ah, there we go! I wish you'd just flatten down your answer to the picture and drop or reframe the film information, but I'll mark this as approved until somebody else has something more definitive.

@tim Lots of "references" can be made from quotations. Those not relevant to answering the question at hand would, rightfully, be considered off-topic and thus deleted. That is, assuming a moderator is not abusing their privileges...

Not every casting/visual decision was hers though. For example, she expressed surprise when Warwick Davis was cast as Prof. Flitwick, claiming she'd envisioned him as short in stature, but not little-person short. She didn't disapprove of the decision, but it wasn't something she'd have chosen on her own. I think she later added Flitwick's partial goblin ancestry after the fact, but it wasn't in her original design for the character.

@tim The beard is also suggestive.

@vsz but if you encounter an entire fictional race who are shady and greedy, and also have hooked noses, and also have control of the world's financial system, etc - you don't have to be an antisemite to recognise antisemitic stereotypes. One can debate whether or not the stereotype is deliberately or consciously invoked by the author, but the "ah ha, it must be YOU who is racist, or you wouldn't have noticed this racism!" argument is tired and meritless.

@Carcer : no, I didn't say that "you must be racist for noticing racism" at all, you twisted my words. I said that if you encounter a fictional race with negative characteristics and you react like "ah ha, they are just like real life race x" then it might be you who is racist for associating that characteristic to a real life group. For example, the thought of Jews being just like goblins in HP never even occurred to me. I know, there is a recent trend which dictates that in order to not be racist you must find racism in everything, but that's just a theory and not everyone agrees with it.

@vsz but nobody here is going "ah, they're just like real life Jews". They're going "ah, these look like racist stereotypes about Jews". Knowing that a racist stereotype exists, and noticing things that look like it in fiction, is not equivalent to being racist, and nobody sensible argues you're a bad person if you don't notice it. It's only a problem if you keep trying to argue those things aren't there when people who can see them point them out.

@Carcer The real issue is that all these traits are generally 'goblin' like. The goblins have been associated with most of these previously, likely due to antisemitism in other works. Thus even if the goblins in this work have them it's hard to know rather that's intentional anti-Semitism, unintentional antisemitism, or just copy tropes of the past waithout recognizing antisemitism.

@dsollen yeah, that's what I meant when I said "One can debate whether or not the stereotype is deliberately or consciously invoked by the author", above. I certainly don't mean to suggest that anyone who's ever innocently drawn on that shared concept of the goblin is being deliberately racist. Though the argument has to be made that if it is pointed out to you that a characterisation you're using is derived from a racist stereotype, and then you keep doing it, I think it's fair for critics to say you are now doing it deliberately.

@Carcer : whether it is derived from a racist stereotype or not, is a personal opinion, which not everyone shares.

@Carcer: If one is inclined to be generous, an obvious question is when anyone first pointed this out to JKR. If the first book was already published at that point, let alone the movies being made, any changes would become retcons to existing work, and that's a much tougher ask, even if just visual. The whole series is pretty committed to the trope of whole races being a certain way, e.g. house elves, although there is some plot around changing that situation. Introducing different goblins who weren't bankers was an option that would help a bit, but maybe not attractive to the author.

@PeterCordes She did, goblins are referenced as being skilled metalworkers, so much so that a goblin forged the Sword of Gryffindor. I'm not brushed up on my blood libel but I've never heard of disparaging remarks made against Jews for their metalworking.

"One can debate whether or not the stereotype is deliberately or consciously invoked by the author, but the "ah ha, it must be YOU who is racist, or you wouldn't have noticed this racism!" argument is tired and meritless." No, not at all. I genuinely can't come up with an explanation better than psychological projection for this lunacy. When I'm shown the images in this post I don't think of Jews and it would be absurd in my view for any non-bigoted person to make that association. Simply saying that you're tired of hearing something doesn't mean there isn't a valid point there.

"and nobody sensible argues you're a bad person if you don't notice it" Rowling didn't notice, or she presumably wouldn't have come up with that design for something with such a large audience. People are, demonstrably, arguing Rowling is a bad person because of it.

"Though the argument has to be made that if it is pointed out to you that a characterisation you're using is derived from a racist stereotype, and then you keep doing it, I think it's fair for critics to say you are now doing it deliberately." Yes, she is doing it deliberately. Yes, she should do it deliberately, for the sole purpose (which I presume she has) of (correctly) pointing out that the critics in question are projecting and/or making up nonsense to tar someone innocent. There is no end to this game of witch-hunting for symbolism. "OK" hand gestures, cartoon frogs, drinking milk...

"They're going "ah, these look like racist stereotypes about Jews"." ... but they don't. Actual non-racist people (such as myself) have either never heard of these stereotypes, or promptly forget about them as soon as inane discussions like this one are over. The people who complain about this sort of thing are doing the exact same sort of "noticing" of coincidences as their far-right opponents. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

@KarlKnechtel just because you personally aren't used to seeing racist caricatures and stereotypes - and thus fail to make the connection - does not mean that anyone who has and makes such connection is "projecting". The similarities between HP's goblins and antisemitic stereotypes is fairly evident to anyone who has ever been involuntarily subjected to old antisemitic propaganda or modern day antisemitic memes. I mean, even just the plot point "every bank is operated by this specific race of gold-loving creatures" alone raises an eyebrow for anyone who's ever heard/read a neon*zi's BS.

@Hankrecords I see these caricatures and stereotypes all the time - but curiously, only ever in the context of someone trying to accuse someone else of invoking them deliberately. "The similarities between HP's goblins and antisemitic stereotypes is fairly evident to anyone" - just because I understand a commonly-made association doesn't mean my mind naturally and automatically makes it. No matter how much additional exposure I had to the stereotype, I don't think I would - because I am not bigoted.

@KarlKnechtel fair enough. You not picking up subtext still does not mean that anyone who does is a bigot. Just like seeing a Camel cigarettes ad and thinking that the camel with the sunglasses is probably supposed to make smoking seem cool and persuade viewers to smoke does not mean that the camel is my favorite animal.

"still does not mean that anyone who does is a bigot" What makes them bigots is the decision to lob such an accusation on the basis of having "noticed" (i.e., interpreted) subtext, because it denies other explanations. We know that the camel with sunglasses is intended to be a relatable character because of the context: advertising. Rowling is writing fantasy novels, not political propaganda, so that sort of context is absent.

@Hankrecords The key point of the "JKR is antisemitic" argument is that "JKR must have known about these stereotypes and so following them must be a deliberate act of antisemitism". But if the stereotypes are not that well-known (or known only to people who look at antisemitic memes) then maybe it's possible, if you don't make a point of looking at antisemitic propaganda, to accidentally choose a look that happens to be similar. Or choose it for other reasons.

The quality of the discourse on this question has been a major disappointment. I blame the question which focused on a claim that no-one was seriously making, and has now turned into bad literary criticism and even worse understanding of the topic of racism. These comments do not belong on Skeptics.SE. Please do not use this site for this discussion.