- Pronouns
- He/Him
Great chapter.
I expect a great number of confused Hogwartians in the near future!
Especially Snape.
I expect a great number of confused Hogwartians in the near future!
Especially Snape.
Spells in Silence (Harry Potter)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Man, Snape's going to be confused by her. But she probably will learn something from Potions, at least.
Also, and I apologize if this is rude to ask, but is this story going to be demonizing the goblins? I have a few reasons to be uncomfortable with stories that do.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
I don't have any concrete plans regarding the goblins. I don't even know whether they will play a major role in the story.
That being said, none of my stories feature the common fanon idea that all it takes to get the goblins on your side is to say please and thank you and tell them to call you by your first name. That always felt lazy and even asinine. From what we see in the books, the goblins at Gringotts (whether that represents their culture as a whole or just one specific subgroup) neither trust nor like humans. They also have a culture and a mindset that is very different from a Western society's. IF I decide to use them, that cultural difference would come into play; whether it counts as demonization is up to you to decide.
Last edited:
evagrimm
#narcolepsyproblems
- Location
- US
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Excellent chapter as always, thank you!
I agree with you and your partner—this seems like the most likely reaction (and some professors I could name). Needless to say, I'm curious what the rest of the staff, namely Flitwick and Dumbledore make of her history when they find out!
I don't recall anyone reacting to Hazel's staff so far, and Flitwick can clearly see it here (as could her classmates, unless she pulled it just after they left). Why the non-reaction?
I kind of think that Goblins are culturally a mix of Ferengi and Klingon, given the whole warrior banker thing. What counts as polite for Goblins is very much distinct from what counts as polite for humans.
I doubt that they'll like Hazel much to start with, given all the stealing, and she's going to be somewhat upset that she could have avoided stealing if she'd known that she actually had money, if it wasn't hidden to the point of being impossible for her to find unaided.
I expect that after her experience with the hags, she would be open to learning what is polite behavior for Goblins.
One of the things I expect from the Goblins' behavior is that time is money and it's polite not to waste time that could have been spent making money.
Humans think it's polite to spend a little time on pleasantries, even if it holds up a queue.
I doubt that they'll like Hazel much to start with, given all the stealing, and she's going to be somewhat upset that she could have avoided stealing if she'd known that she actually had money, if it wasn't hidden to the point of being impossible for her to find unaided.
I expect that after her experience with the hags, she would be open to learning what is polite behavior for Goblins.
One of the things I expect from the Goblins' behavior is that time is money and it's polite not to waste time that could have been spent making money.
Humans think it's polite to spend a little time on pleasantries, even if it holds up a queue.
I think it's pretty important to note here that this is Hazel's perspective on goblins from a single encounter, not necessarily what goblin society is truly like. And I don't think it's unfair to say, given canon mentions a number of "Goblin Rebellions" (emphasis mine), that at least the goblins of Gringotts might not have the most charitable thoughts towards humans who they have actively rebelled against in the past.
I think a lot of the canon worldbuilding has... issues, to say the least. Honestly how the series treats nonhumans is pretty bad in general, to be quite honest, painting them with thinly veiled metaphor or poorly disguised bigotry fairly frequently. This story has been an incredible exploration of the world that we don't get to see in the main series, mostly because nearly all the characters in the books are either brought up on, or brought directly into the wizarding culture of discrimination.
All of that is to say I have faith that you'll handle things well, Silently Watches,
Ralyx
Seeking Balance
- Location
- The Realm Between
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It seems surprising and somewhat stupid that hags still hunt humans. Plenty of humans already die every day, and the hags are clearly decently rational regarding their hunger, so I'd expect them to set up or infiltrate plenty of morgues, funeral homes, and crematoriums in large cities to secure steady supplies of fresh corpses. They'd have magical options to fool the muggles, and wizards almost certainly don't rely on such establishments for their own dead, giving them no reason to investigate.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Because no one understands the significance of her staff. I can't remember if it's in the books or not (I'm not at my computer at the moment), but I know in the movies Lucius Malfoy carried a cane. People might will be assuming that this is a similar affectation.
I don't know if it even counts as an encounter!
She didn't talk to him at all. He saw her from across the street, he assumed she was a thief (mostly because she dresses like a hobo), and she immediately nope'd right off. Hazel knows exactly squat about goblin culture; she just doesn't want to get killed.Going to be honest, I've started thinking about goblin culture and what it's like thanks to @Half Moon 's question. I'm not ready to share what I have in mind, but this question seemed relevant to your statement:
Humans call them goblin rebellions, but "rebellion" implies that goblins were at one point subservient to humans. Do goblins consider them rebellions? Or so goblins just consider them wars?
Well I appreciate you joining us! Glad to have you, and I hope the story continues to be so enjoyable.
If the human isn't freshly dead, their meat doesn't satisfy the Hunger. It's part of why Hedwig brought the body back with them when she and Hazel were attacked.
I intended the story of the Three Serpents to make this clearer, but the hag's need for human flesh is magical and cursed in origin, not biological. Normal logic therefore does not apply.
Ralyx
Seeking Balance
- Location
- The Realm Between
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That part was clear enough, but they seemed have at least several hours of leeway given how they cook and cut the bodies before eating them. Hospitals might be better, then. Worst case scenario, they swap out a dying patient while they're still alive.
I don't know if it even counts as an encounter!
This makes perfect sense! She read likely less than a minute of thoughts, from a single goblin. That doesn't make for much of a view on even that person, much less their whole culture.
This is also really interesting! I believe most of the "rebellions" in canon were about goblins trying to get the right to wield wands. So it does feel like there is likely some amount of legislative authority the ministry has over them? Which seems a bit ridiculous, considering, y'know, these took place over centuries, and it surely can't be that hard to find a wand to start reverse engineering, but who knows? Perhaps given the closeness of a bond between wand and wizard, without very specific modifications they wouldn't bond with goblins. Perhaps the ministry is just lying about what the goblins wanted to make them out to be more evil?
The mention of looking at it from the goblin perspective has me thinking though, is their concept of war even the same as humans? Maybe they even consider themselves to still be in war with humans, it's just waged with words and coin rather than blood and steel? That seems like it'd explain a lot of the hostility in canon. It's very probably that goblin culture (as much as you can call it "goblin" culture, there could easily be other groups of goblins around the world with different cultures) is simply not something wizards have cared to learn about, and many of them are just constantly insulting the goblins without knowing. This doesn't mean that a few pleases and thank yous would be instant love, of course not, and honestly I imagine by this point that goblins could be quite suspicious of a wizard trying to learn their culture, but perhaps with vouching from other nonhuman sapients, one could get their foot in the door.
I think the main issue here is that, presuming they need to take them alive, even retirement homes, emergency rooms, places like that probably keep track of the people in their care even more than the average living person would be missed. Why infiltrate a business and go into long-term cover for something that may very easily blow up in your face at the first mishap, when you can instead just grab a person off the street in random towns each time? So long as you're not visiting the same place too often and creating the impression of a serial killer, the sad truth is that a good number of missing persons cases are never found.
I think it would be smarter, even, to go to larger cities where the chances are the police are busier and have less time to investigate, and also your hunt becomes less of a significant thing. A town of a few thousands, even tens of thousands will be more alarmed by even a single disappearance than a city of millions. But given the fact that the Hunger is magical in nature, perhaps more of a capital-H Hunt is necessary than is really possible in a bustling city.
Huh. I hadn't expected to be thinking about how to properly cover up hunting humans today, but here we are!
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's something we absolutely agree on. I don't have any problems with goblins being strange or antagonistic, and frankly I'm pretty irritated by the ones in which they decide to worship the protagonist like that. And of course I have no right in the slightest to tell you how your story should go.
You've been very good at portraying the cultures of non-humans so far. Thank you for the response and the story.
The other kids not believing her is totally believable. Besides most of her adventures ranging from absurd to ridiculous, kids are, for the most part, cruel little shits who will pick and tear at everything and anything. Hazel stands out as different so i would exepect a fair amount of abuse to head her way even if she wasnt famous. Being famous *and* different? Thats gonna suck.
Really am looking forward to when the profs realize how different her casting is, or how much stuff she knows, or even just the terrifying places she has been.
Really am looking forward to when the profs realize how different her casting is, or how much stuff she knows, or even just the terrifying places she has been.
H341ZP1Z
3-20 Op-L337_T4NK boi
- Location
- Right behind you, I got your back bud.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Rule 3: Be Civil
Somehow I think there are very few people in the world who are goblin warrior bankers. But if you know someone like that, I want you to inform them they're awesome for me. Just on the off chance you somehow know a real live fantasyland goblin warrior banker. Because you make it seem like you do and I want them to know.
- Location
- Tromso, Norway.
Long story short the goblins are very obviously based on Jewish stereotypes.
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yes, yes, it's very ridiculous that someone might have the slightest discomfort about the race of short, hook-nosed, bankers particularly with certain writers' tendency towards making them even more greedy and violent.
I'm extremely sorry for not enjoying it when the fantasy race that has already been given multiple features associated with negative stereotypes of my people are made entirely into villainous figures for the protagonist to slaughter or run from.
Very silly of me, I know.
She's going to find merfolk sooner rather than later, isn't she?
0th Law
The Promethean Rose
- Location
- 5 Minutes into the Future
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It would be a careful balancing act and probably require a number of human liaisons, but a coven could theoretically run a hospital &/or morgue, and extract the recently-dead from the corpse supply chain, reuse cadavers, et cetera.
I, personally, have always considered wizarding culture to treat goblins as second-rate citizens and the goblin rebellions as attempts at independence
- Location
- On a speck of dust, floating through the void.
Or, let's throw canon out the window for a moment and look at it in the other way - humans decreed only humans can have wands -> goblins ignores it and went and reverse engineered it -> humans declares war and beat down the goblins -> humans destroys all knowledge goblins have on wand making and kills everyone involved -> humans reiterates only humans can have wands. And rinse and repeat.
Or it has nothing to do with wands at all, that's just wizarding propaganda. The globins are actually starting those wars to gain control of the economy and they won the last 'rebellion' - leading to them controling the money supply -> leading to the wizard government at the time to deny this happened and instead claim the rebellion is for wands so they can say: 'do you see goblins with wands? No? So you see they failed to rebel against their rightful masters.'
- Location
- Deep inside the sand
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Not all bacteria in her mouth. She needs good bacteria in her mouth too as its what her saliva is and other bacteria that keeps her mouth fresh and healthy.
If something were to kill every bacteria then it will also kill the good ones. The ones that we need to have to stay healthy.
>so if I extrapolate that attitude to Hazel everyone would assume that she is telling stories to make herself look more awesome than she is.
RIP. There is really no way to prove she tells the truth unless she and whoever wants to come with her to do an international travel around Europe. And that will cause many to worry and meddle in her business.
Happy to read more of her research to understand more magic. Makes sense to ask the professors after the class.
Does she eat enough? I mean I take it up because I'm not sure if she has malnutrition or if she just is on the skinny side due to upbringing, food supply and her extracurricular activity.
I wonder what Snape will say about her. I mean if it was a shock that she was mute then she probably didn't grow up as a celebrity as he thought but then again his mind can go strange ways.
Thank you for the chapter.
H341ZP1Z
3-20 Op-L337_T4NK boi
- Location
- Right behind you, I got your back bud.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Staff Notice
Yes... obviously. How could I have misunderstood the short green people were somehow Jewish? Supposedly I should've made that connection immediately. It was my mistake I mistook them for a reference to Aos Sí and the fae and various goblins from english folklore. That was foolish of me. I should've immediately realised that a fantasy race was an insult to a people who have been discriminated against for generations. Because when I see a depiction of a goblin who follows the common fantasy goblin tropes I should immediately think of the Jewish people.
Don't push your horrible reality on my fantasy, please.
Oh sure, it's not impossible for it to happen, but it would take vastly more interconnectedness with humans, and even some level of dependence upon them for the food. Which, I imagine, would be a bit of a deal breaker. Also I believe you may be underestimating just how much paperwork a body creates, and how difficult reusing cadavers in... basically any capacity would be.
Both very plausible and interesting interpretations! I do think the second is slightly less plausible, because I wouldn't imagine the goblins to put up with as much crap as they do if they did win the war, but it's certainly possible. Totally different culture, after all. I do think that viewing most of basically anything the wizarding society puts out there in canon through the lens of "this is probably propaganda and/or just lies" is more likely to make a more interesting, diverse world as opposed to not.
In any case, I think the "only wizards can have wands" thing and thus the societal (though not logically sound) corollary "all wizards have wands" is going to be a rather interesting point of contention in this story. I'm very interested in what happens when practical lessons begin for Hazel!
Dopplerdee
Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)
- Location
- Happy Place
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What? The fact that Rowling sucks and made a tace of ugly short people with big noses that compulsively hard money and act like asholes for no reason?
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The fact that you can not immediately recognize Jewish stereotypes does not mean they do not exist, and they do not stop being antisemitic just because they aren't referred to outright as Jews. I might have been a bit harsh earlier, and I apologize for that, but the antisemitic stereotypes are in fact antisemitic.