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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34549 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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I have seen "Goblins are greedy and treacherous and like gold in fairy tales, Rowling didn't make that up" responded to with "Actually, goblins have historically been used as anti-Semitic allegories."

Likewise, I've seen the Gnomes of Zurich and other Illuminati references asserted to be anti-Semitic tropes.

(Steve Jackson Games published this with their INWO card game in the 90s. Man, SJG has published so much stuff that they're lucky has not come to the attention of the woke mob since.)

I have yet to see any evidence that people in the middle ages referred to Jews as goblins, but it just goes to show that anything can be bent around a bad faith intersectional interpretation.

The "Elders of Zion" are obviously related to Jews, but that doesn't mean the "Gnomes of Zurich" are too. There were lots of different shadowy groups in the Illuminati games.

My reading is that SJGames specifically included the Gnomes of Zürich through a "well, we're trying to include all the possible conspiracy theories we can think of in this game, we should probably have an evil banker faction, but of course it can't be Jewish" and thus specifically name-coded them as Swiss - the other banker stereotype nation - to avoid this association.

Possibly, but the phrase "The Gnomes of Zürich" is older than "Illuminati" (and "Illuminatus" for that matter)

I'm not saying they are. I'm saying I have seen people claim that basically any reference to "Illuminati," but particularly the Gnomes and Bavarians, is coded anti-Semitic.

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