Hogwarts Legacy Gameplay Showcase: Return of the “Goblins are Jews!” Claim

#HogwartsLegacy is revealing brand-new gameplay tomorrow! Here's a refresher on what we've seen so far pic.twitter.com/gQpIxrpSWN

— GameSpot (@GameSpot) November 10, 2022

Read about ‘Hogwarts Legacy,’ a role-playing computer game set in the Wizarding World of the 19th Century, at the Wikipedia page dedicated to explaining its ins and outs or just watch the video embedded in the tweet above. The game won’t be available for play until next February but it can be ordered before that time, whence the big news of the day: a ‘Gameplay Showcase’ debuts today to encourage those gamers interested in the product, a crowd estimated to number in the millions around the globe, to purchase it in advance.

As you might expect of anything involving J. K. Rowling today, the game already has its critics. Take a look at Did Hogwarts Legacy Seriously Just Make The Anti-Semitic Goblins The Villains? at the gamer.com or vice.com’s Hogwarts Legacy Imagines a Harry Potter Without JK Rowling. Each contends that, although Rowling was not involved in the evolution of the game as a creator or consultant, that her “bigotry” and “transphobia” by necessity inform it, based as it is on the Gender Critical and racial prejudices that permeate her novels. A touchstone argument for both critics is the risible chestnut that Rowling’s Goblins are caricatures of Jews, rapacious for money and privilege.

Beatrice Groves exploded this contention in March 2019 with two posts on the supposed anti-Semitism, Rowling’s Goblin Problem? and The Sword Until Recently Known as Gryffindor’s. To their credit, the creators of the game and its owners, a division of Warner Brothers-Discovery, have not redesigned the game to remove the Goblin Rebellion core of the narrative.

None of the HogwartsProfessor faculty and adjutants are ‘gamers’ so please be sure we welcome contributions from those of you who are — in the form of a Guest Post — about the Hogwarts Legacy Gamesplace Showplace to explain and critique what the big deal is. Let us know what we’re missing as well as the bugs and room for improvement in the game design and format!