Regarding the miraculous appearance of the sword near the end of DH is both a nice touch and bad move by JK.

Neville has probably been the only character that JK has developed gradually over the series. Neville starts out as a wimp and loser in PS but even then he starts to show signs of why he was sent to the house of the brave.

His growth starts to increase rapidly in OOTP, along with Ginny, but unlike the redhead whore his development is real and believeable especially when he finds out the Lestrange has escaped askaban.

His development hits his peak when he draws Gryffindor's sword and proves that even though the prophecy didn't chose him, even though, he began Hogwarts with less skills and confidence then anyone else in Gyffindor, that he was a true gryffindor in every sense, and is the only on near harry in that regard. Plus he jumped at the dark load with nothing but a knife and still killed the damn snake.

However since the sword presented itself to a true gryffindor in need, when we knew it was in possesion of griphook, it just reinforces the stereotype that goblins are not to be trusted. JK fucked up. Griphook placed doubt in the trio's head when he said the sword was stolen from goblins and that it is rightfully theirs, however we now know you cannot charm goblin weponery and jewelly, unless your a goblin.

If Gryffindor really did take the sword by force he would not be able to charm it to respond to those call themselves in his namesake. He would have had to request it from a goblin who willingly crafted the sword for him.

JK proves to us you can't trust goblins, its not that there oppressed, or misunderstood, ohh no, its that they really are greedy lying cheats.

for shame JK,

for shame

 

I don't think it went exactly as you said

Griphook never said that it was stolen from the Goblins. According to Bill goblins believe that nothing they make is ever sold (even when you pay). What occurs (according to goblins) is that they are lending you the object until you die, after which they will want it back. Since that didn't occur Griphook believed it was stolen from him. Its just a different way of seeing things. Gryffindor did not take the sword (or maybe he did but I doubt it). What most likely occurred is he bought it, then charmed it to always come to the aid of a gryffindor, then died. The goblins who request it back were obviously refuted, and thus they stayed pissed.

 

Pg. 409, line 3-4. "That sword was Ragnuk the First's, taken from him by Godric Gryffindor!"

My guess is that GG didn't like goblins much, and when he defeated one in battle (whether or not the goblin was actually dead), he decided that taking the sword would be a nice trophy.

 

Or, possibly, that Godric inherited the sword, from someone who acquired it from the goblins perfectly legally. Remember that the goblins view inheritance as theft, since the person who has the item didn't pay them anything.

 

Hmm good call on that, you got me there. The only thing I say to that would be that perhaps in Goblin terms buying something is akin to taking it, since the person buying it did not make said object. I think Goblins place higher value on making objects (thus making effort and time worth more then coin) rather than buying em. Granted this is all guesswork, and in the end you could be right. Perhaps we should post this on that chat Rowling is having.

 

Actually Bill does clarify on the way Goblins perceive such treasures

“If you have struck any kind of bargain with Griphook, and most particularly if that bargain involves treasure, you must be exceptionally careful. Goblin notions of ownership, payment, and repayment are not the same as human ones.
....
“You don’t understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have
lived with goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the purchaser. All goblin made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.”

“But it was bought—”

“—then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money.
They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. You saw Griphook’s face when the tiara passed
under his eyes. He disapproves. I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his
kind, that it ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.”

(Chapter 25: Shell Cottage; Deathly Hallows)

There you have it. According to Goblins, wizards cannot own Goblin made objects since they did not manufacture them. Wizards on the other hand believe that if they paid for it, it's their for keeps. A fundamental contradiction which doesn't seem to have a middle ground. Thus, the sword returning to Neville would have been Gryffindor's magic more than anything else. The final book made it clear than anything else that Goblins are not as powerful as they are made out to be in many fanfictions out there. both sides are equally to blame for the current state of affairs between them

 

And what about the hundreds of thousands of other pieces of goblin-made wares out there?

Honestly, this is a plot hole. Why would any wizard, any at all, buy something goblin made if they would later demand it back? Our perception of 'buying' means we have the ownership, thats why we have the word 'renting' to signify we are paying money for the loan of said item.

Lets take some examples. The Black family had many silverware items which were goblin made; did they demand them back when the person who 'baught'? Hell no, they paid money for that, and any craftsman knows fuckign full well that when someone pays for the best, they want to fucking keep it. They don't want to 'borrow' the silverware for one generation, what would be the point? You would just buy it from some muggle silver-smith; job done.

Another example is the Goblin-made tiarra from the Prewit (sp?) family. That was 'passed down from generagtion to generation'. If this so called Goblin trait existed for the whole novel, you would think Bill, who knows Aunt Muriel owns a goblin-made tiarra, would have to turn it in because he works for the goblins? The information is flaunted, and If a craftsman feels so strongly about an item don't you think they would seek to aquire it asap?

No thanks. I thought the whole idea was riddiculus, almost as much as the 350+ pages of camping... Plot fillers for the lo0se.

 

That's not the point here and has been belied several times in the series. Andromeda was most likely a Slytherin and she married a muggle. So was Alphard who gave Sirius the money. McClaggen is an absolute shit of a Gryffindor, Malfoy and his parents saw light at the end of the day.

Anyway, I agree with Stallion on this one. If I buy something then I deserve to keep it for myself. Why the hell should I pay the frigging Goblin everytime it's passed down from generation to generation? Is that how they do business? No wonder there is so much bad blood between the two sides and both are to blame for that. One thing that DH was to break the myth of great fair goblins one sees in fanfics. All those things about Goblin invincibility was proved false. They caved into Tom just like most witches and wizards out there.

 

Neither do I. But I felt like making a valid counterpoint here. Stereotyping doesn't always work.