Analysis Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich) [Archive]

Bootman

2021-04-30, 05:21 PM

I'm a huge fan of OOTS and hold it very highly among other stories, but I have been concerned about how the Goblin plot has progressed up to this point. I felt the meeting with Redcloak was very well handled but the most recent strips relating to it have been creating issues. If I'm totally off my mark about what the story is attempting to say feel free to ignore me, but I value OOTS too highly to say nothing about it.

The tipping point for me was strip 1233 because it crosses a few important thresholds that impact the technical writing of OOTS. The first issue starts with Durkon saying that what happened to the Goblins being out of malice or neglect doesn't matter, that either way it's just as bad. The contention is that because the Goblins had worse lands they have been at a systemic disadvantage their entire history. We're ignoring them being abandoned by their God or any other racial factors and just focusing on this as the main injustice. By 'we' I mean Rich since he's been pretty clear this is the primary issue for some time now culminating in strip 1232.

So the first thing we have to ask is 'is it wrong for some races to have spawned in worse lands?'. Well from the Gods perspective, they can't survive without conflict and conflict requires disparity. If everyone is post-scarcity they will literally starve, then no existence will ever happen again. I assume by the end we'll be provided with a solution to this and if it ends up being super obvious then it becomes a plot hole that the Gods never figured out a superior method of obtaining souls.

Let's say we agree that it is wrong for races to have ANY differences in how they're spawned. Now I happen to remember the entire book regarding the Western Continent. The nature of their continent has created a history of murder, wars, betrayal etc. while the Elves chill out in lush forests above. Is that okay just because some other humans happened to be in better areas? What about the lizardfolk that seem to be native to the Western Continent and nowhere else? And the West had to have people spawned to it since the western gods need worshippers. Where's the speech about generations of people being slaughtered in the west due to their resource issues?

Is it okay because some humans have good lands? Then surely the Goblins are okay because some have good lands. Hell, they just had an army laying around capable of conquering Azure City, armed and armored. 30,000 is pretty wild my guys. Are their lands really that much worse than the western continent? What about the dwarves who literally were explicitly betrayed from their creation and live in frozen wastelands to the North? Does it not count because they made it work for them? Is the amount of resources your race has literally the only factor for measuring how good you and your race have it and whether or not you deserve it?

Keeping in mind that the Gods are locked out of wide sweeping changes because otherwise the world would constantly be in flux and cause many more issues than it fixes, there really isn’t much they could do after the spawning the world and once again if there is then that will damage the Gods as characters and feel quite cheap.

The narrow focus on the Goblins and this theme naturally raises these questions because all of them can undermine this theme and therefore what's building up to be a significant part of the final arc loses the logical throughline it needs. The framing is extremely deliberate in favor of the theme to the point of being borderline deceptive. Despite all this though, this actually isn't my biggest issue with 1233.

Roy points out that it is hard to communicate with Goblins about their motivations when they attack you, and in response Durkon references the fight against evil Durkon. Once that is mentioned Roy seemingly agrees with Durkon that he was operating with a double standard. The misconstruing of the situations here is really upsetting and has damaged Roy as a character. So let's go through step by step.

Does Roy talk a lot while he fights? Yes. Typically just with notable villains or to quip. He doesn't 'interrogate the inner motivations’' of the ice giants, the beetle raiders, any of the other vampires they fought, the evil adventurers in heaven, Taquin's soldiers, the ninjas sent after him in Azure city, etc. But he is a talkative man. There's a difference between talking and negotiating. So then why did he negotiate with Greg? Because he thought that was his literal best friend being evil and doing the worst thing ever. Not only would he think he could talk Durkon out of it, but if he could that would be the best possible solution, even putting aside the emotional investment in helping his best friend and trying to understand this betrayal. This is such a crucial piece of context left out of this example it's frankly manipulative.

But Roy agrees with Durkon about it and I'm not sure what the implication there is supposed to be about Roy's character. I'll leave that aside for now since it would be speculation on my part currently, but it doesn't look good. Roy is one of my favorite protagonists in all of fiction so I'm very concerned.

Roy regrets having never asked Goblins why they were doing what they were doing. It is viewed as a mistake and a pretty bad one. So does everybody remember all the previous encounters with Goblins?

The first encounters are in the very first dungeon. They are battling the minions of an explicitly evil lich in a dungeon full of monsters with their lives at stake, a rag tag party, a sleep deprived Roy and multiple evil goblin clerics. It's pretty reasonable not to negotiate in those circumstances. In fact, when given the option to avoid killing more goblins to enhance his level and instead go straight for Xykon, he chooses the latter. But wait, how did he get that option?

In strip 93 we are introduced to good aligned Goblin teenagers. Roy instantly treats them like he would any other children trying to help, listens when their motivations are explained to him and believes these random Goblins are good aligned based almost entirely on their word, despite the fact that they do get betrayed by one very quickly afterwards. So literally the second it was even partially reasonable to listen to them and understand them, he did. Roy's statement about never asking the Goblins why they did what they did is technically accurate in that he didn't ask, but understood, listened and showed amazing empathy and restraint. This is reinforced with his attitude towards the Orcs in the origin book, but I'll remain spoiler free and Rich has expressed many times he wants the main comic to function without the side materials.

What's the other time they fought Goblins? A literal war. I don't think I have to explain why not speaking and negotiating with individual hobgoblins in that scenario is okay. And either way Roy himself was on a dragon before he met a single one. If we want to include times Roy wasn't there, I don't think the Azure City Resistance is any more obligated to negotiate with slavers, evil clerics and undead then they were when the Goblins were marching on the city. If they had asked the Hobgoblins why they were invading or enslaving, I will direct you to panel four of strip 422. I'll also direct you to strip 511.

So there we go, all three times we've encountered Goblins in broad strokes, where Roy (and Haley) have acted with shockingly high moral character and everybody else was at least reasonable, including a functional contradiction because they did listen and understand Goblins, making Roy's statement at the end of 1233 inaccurate..

And just on a personal note, many Goblins are killed as a jokes in the early strips. Do we really want to take the stance that our heroes were comedically killing innocent people they should have communicated with? Do we really want to be pulling our collars or shedding tears when we reread those first 100 strips? If Rich wants us to react in ways like that that is 100% his call, but recontextualization can be very dangerous especially when the tone is jumping from comedy to tragedy.

The contradictions regarding the state of the Hobgoblins and similarly stationed non-Goblins, combined with contradictions involving Roy's character and extremely misleading framing is damaging the story. But it is far from broken, and in fact throwaway lines in future strips could entirely fix many of these issues. Say we had strips to show the state of Goblinoids in their crappy lands yet somehow explain their massive numbers and armies, or Roy brings up many of the things I mentioned about their previous interactions next strip. I'm bringing this up now because we are on the edge of these things breaking entire sections of the story and damaging Roy's character permanently if they aren't addressed and that would be absolutely heartbreaking for me as a fan for years.

Thank you to anybody who read this giant post this far with an open mind. I believe it is more important to be complete rather than brief and I hope you appreciate it.

EDIT: Frequent Feedback. Will add more as the thread continues if it becomes needed.

1. "The end of 1233 is a joke": Everything that exists in a story involving a character is reflective of character. If a joke isn't character accurate then it fails. For instance if you had Vee be incredibly stupid over something we know he should know about, that would be a contradiction of his character and also reflective of it despite just being a joke. If it is purely a joke and they're going to do something of a 180 in the next comic then that certainly would help fix a lot of things but it could through this joke into a bad light. Being able to tell jokes, explore character and progress the plot all at the same time is something that Rich is exceptionally good at and probably what I respect him most for as a writer since it is incredibly challenging to do that consistently.

Precure

2021-04-30, 05:38 PM

"Stop oppressing my people."

"What about dwarves, eh?"

Bootman

2021-04-30, 05:45 PM

"Stop oppressing my people."

"What about dwarves, eh?"

Oppression isn't even brought into it. I was talking strictly about resource availability which has been the main contention in many of these comics. The crux of the injustice presented in comic 1232 is that Goblins can't win as frequently because they don't have good metals or good food so therefore the competition is rigged.

The point of me addressing the other races including the humans of the Western Continent is that it becomes hypocritical to exclusively focus on goblinoids as if they were the only ones that were screwed. If Redcloak were consistent he'd fight for good lands for everybody, but he doesn't. If the story was consistent about it's themes it would mention the issues with these races, but aside from the Dwarves (briefly) it doesn't. If Durkon was consistent he'd bring these things up as well. If it wants me to agree with the themes it either has to be consistent or explain what the differences are.

And then I also addressed that it's hard to believe they were at much of a disadvantage when they had 30,000 trained, armed and armored hobgoblins laying around.

dancrilis

2021-04-30, 05:58 PM

I think you are critiquing writing that hasn't finished yet based on assumption that you have made about where it is going.

'Why are the goblins working with Xykon' is a fair question that Roy (and the order) never asked or considered - had they done so they might have been able to divide them earlier, maybe even finished the quest after the first dungeon.

Now don't get me wrong The Order didn't/don't have the ability to meet Redcloak's requirement (the gods might not either) - but that doesn't mean that asking the question shouldn't have occured to them.

Bootman

2021-04-30, 06:07 PM

I think you are critiquing writing that hasn't finished yet based on assumption that you have made.

'Why are the goblins working with Xykon' is a fair question that Roy (and the order) never asked or considered - had they done so they might have been able to divide them earlier, maybe even finished the quest after the first dungeon.

Now don't get me wrong The Order didn't/don't have the ability to meet Redcloak's requirement (the gods might not either) - but that doesn't mean that asking the question shouldn't have occured to them.

I agree. As I said at the end, I'm mentioning it now because if things keep progressing without the issues being addressed they will quickly become impossible to repair.

While certainly possible I'm saying they had no moral obligation to. So Roy treating it like it was a mistake is a bit much. It wasn't like he was prejudice against Goblins or even monsters. In fact in strip 4 he attempts to take a peaceful route with an ogre. If you are on a quest to kill an evil person, and somebody charges you with an axe to stop you, I don't think it's reasonable to expect anybody to negotiate there. We're talking about somebody who's sleep deprived, with a bunch of people he doesn't trust, trying to fulfill a quest for the sake of his father and his mortal soul while being responsible for his team's lives and even with all that he takes the peaceful option whenever it is even slightly reasonable.

So it's not about whether it was actually possible (which I don't think it was and you seem to mostly agree), it's about what a reasonable expectation of a person is for the sake of these themes. I think expecting it in the dungeon is a bit much and even if we should have expected it that is a microscopic selection of the comic

Precure

2021-04-30, 06:17 PM

If Redcloak were consistent he'd fight for good lands for everybody, but he doesn't.

Except no? He always wanted equality.

Redcloak: The Dark One has given me a vision. A vision that someday, all PC and NPC races will sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Ionathus

2021-04-30, 06:26 PM

I think a lot of this discussion is already ongoing in the 1233 thread, but one point I want to highlight: you're upset that Durkon is being critical about their interactions with goblins in the past. You feel it's an unfair accusation, and your arguments are solid: Roy has not ever really been in a position where talking would help against goblinoid aggressors.

But the point there wasn't ever "Roy is bad for not talking", the point was that Roy never even considered it.

Realizing your implicit biases and assumptions takes a bit of soul-searching and even admitting you were in the wrong, but the narrative never makes Roy out to have majorly sinned here. It's like the Bechdel Test: people sometimes get up in arms, feeling like the statement that a movie "fails" the test is a sign that it's sexist. It's not. The Bechdel test is about pointing to the widespread tendency to neglect female stories...it's not useful as a case-by-case judgment.

Roy isn't a bad person for not talking to attacking goblins. But the fact that even he, a Lawful Good person, didn't think to even TRY is meant to be a broad indicator of a problem, and maybe a gentle wake-up call.

Bootman

2021-04-30, 06:34 PM

Except no? He always wanted equality.

Redcloak: The Dark One has given me a vision. A vision that someday, all PC and NPC races will sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I'd advise citing a strip since I don't recall that, and if it's from side material then I don't think it should be considered. Even if it is from the main material and that is the entire context for the quote, and Redcloak wants all the races to sit down together in brotherhood, then he doesn't bring it up nearly enough and his actions don't particularly indicated it either. I think the most valuable piece for analyzing Redcloak's motivations are when he sits down with Durkon. There he explains explicitly what he wants.

In fact in panel 8 of strip 1208 he just assumes Durkon is a greedy Dwarf surrounded by gold and gems, totally invalidating his perspective. Since Redcloak has never done anything to show he cares about humans or lizardfolk or dwarves, admits he's speciest against humans, etc. etc. shows more about him then one land which seems to have been given as some kind of propaganda perhaps?

Equality for Redcloak is exclusively focused on the Goblins having equality compared to other races in the fantasy world and the story seems to be agreeing with him that there's an issue with how Goblins have been treated. I counter this by showing other species have been mistreated just as bad if not worst but they are barely being addressed in the slightest. This will make the theme ineffective in the long term. Does Redcloak have the right to be exclusively concerned with his own race? Absolutely and I think that is totally fair. Should the story be agreeing with his assessment? I don't believe so given the philosophical and technical arguments regarding the world building that I presented above.

I think a lot of this discussion is already ongoing in the 1233 thread, but one point I want to highlight: you're upset that Durkon is being critical about their interactions with goblins in the past. You feel it's an unfair accusation, and your arguments are solid: Roy has not ever really been in a position where talking would help against goblinoid aggressors.

But the point there wasn't ever "Roy is bad for not talking", the point was that Roy never even considered it.

Realizing your implicit biases and assumptions takes a bit of soul-searching and even admitting you were in the wrong, but the narrative never makes Roy out to have majorly sinned here. It's like the Bechdel Test: people sometimes get up in arms, feeling like the statement that a movie "fails" the test is a sign that it's sexist. It's not. The Bechdel test is about pointing to the widespread tendency to neglect female stories...it's not useful as a case-by-case judgment.

Roy isn't a bad person for not talking to attacking goblins. But the fact that even he, a Lawful Good person, didn't think to even TRY is meant to be a broad indicator of a problem, and maybe a gentle wake-up call.

Possibly, but I wanted a place to put a more in depth analysis and discuss it to completion.

I understand the distinction about him never considering it, and I'm saying that if an army is marching on me, or I'm under an evil slave-state or I'm in a high stakes life or death struggle persisting over multiple days, not considering it in those moments is totally reasonable and it would be a LOT to ask of anybody to expect them to respond peacefully in those scenarios.

We don't expect our soldiers to even consider peaceful options in a war zone where they're being actively attacked. I agree that in a broad sense, yes Roy should have considered the Goblins as a society more if he interacted with Goblin society more. He's only interacted with evil armies and forces working for a dark lich in a situation I've explained multiple times so I'll not do it again here. I would answer it with a simple question. If Roy walked into a Goblin village and nobody attacked him, do you think he would attack them? He might be nervous as he reasonably should be. Hell in medieval times you were nervous about people who lived two towns over.

I think if he got to interact with anything other than minions of Xykon he would have come to the conclusion quickly, and with the minions of Xykon it's totally reasonable that he wouldn't consider it due to the mitigating factors. If it really just serves as a gentle wake up call in general that's totally fine, but if the comic continues on it's path I could really easily see it taking the stance that Roy was doing bad in the first dungeon. In fact I think it has already taken that stance but I'm willing to wait and see. I just wanted to get my thoughts out before it was too late.

Thanks for the response btw I think it was well thought out and reasonable.

arimareiji

2021-04-30, 06:59 PM

I agree. As I said at the end, I'm mentioning it now because if things keep progressing without the issues being addressed they will quickly become impossible to repair.

While certainly possible I'm saying they had no moral obligation to. So Roy treating it like it was a mistake is a bit much.

...it's about what a reasonable expectation of a person is for the sake of these themes. I think expecting it in the dungeon is a bit much and even if we should have expected it that is a microscopic selection of the comic
In my experience, "reasonable" is too often a synonym with "my personal preferences". When it's about "moral obligation[s]", it's virtually guaranteed.

I'm fond of an old proverb, especially since I get to be nerdy about it: "De gustibus non est disputandum (https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/33182/whats-the-origin-of-the-saying-theres-no-accounting-for-taste)", probably of medieval origin. It's a decent attempt to render the proverb that became "There's no accounting for taste" into Latin, but the word choice is more interesting.

"About [more than one person's subjective] senses of taste, [the process of rational] arguing is not [does not exist]."

For example, how are we supposed to rationally debate what cilantro tastes like? A subset of people (which includes me) gets an overwhelming taste of something like laundry soap (https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap-to-some-people). It's so "loud" that it virtually drowns out the various flavors most people would describe it with. Let alone rational debate, how am I supposed to convince someone who doesn't taste those chemicals that I don't have any way to discern the elements they insist I should be able to taste?

And that's with an extremely neutral subject. Someone might choose to believe me in good faith, or take the time to read the article I provided and take Britannica in good faith, but their faith is not rational per se. They don't taste those chemicals; they have no evidence other than my word for it or Britannica's. Now imagine a subject as inflammatory as symbolism that tangentially touches on racism, morality, fairness, etc. It takes a very special subset of people to even calmly discuss it, let alone dissect the elements and truly understand each other.

And this is what you've proposing to do with the author on an inflammatory subject, based on the hypothetical that:

You understand his mindset on extremely-subjective matters well enough to predict how he will write the story.
The way he will write the story is flawed, based on his not understanding the moral principles as well as you do.
You want to correct his lack of understanding, and can explain this to him in a manner that will be illuminating to someone (not just a waste of time that generates ill feelings).

I can't say with certainty that you're not right. But if you're right, it would be the closest thing to a miracle I've seen in years.

Bootman

2021-04-30, 07:12 PM

In my experience, "reasonable" is too often a synonym with "my personal preferences". When it's about "moral obligation[s]", it's virtually guaranteed.

I'm fond of an old proverb, especially since I get to be nerdy about it: "De gustibus non est disputandum (https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/33182/whats-the-origin-of-the-saying-theres-no-accounting-for-taste)", probably of medieval origin. It's a decent attempt to render the proverb that became "There's no accounting for taste" into Latin, but the word choice is more interesting.

"About [more than one person's subjective] senses of taste, [the process of rational] arguing is not [does not exist]."

For example, how are we supposed to rationally debate what cilantro tastes like? A subset of people (which includes me) gets an overwhelming taste of something like laundry soap (https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap-to-some-people). It's so "loud" that it virtually drowns out the various flavors most people would describe it with. Let alone rational debate, how am I supposed to convince someone who doesn't taste those chemicals that I don't have any way to discern the elements they insist I should be able to taste?

And that's with an extremely neutral subject. Someone might choose to believe me in good faith, or take the time to read the article I provided and take Britannica in good faith, but their faith is not rational per se. They don't taste those chemicals; they have no evidence other than my word for it or Britannica's. Now imagine a subject as inflammatory as symbolism that tangentially touches on racism, morality, fairness, etc. It takes a very special subset of people to even calmly discuss it, let alone dissect the elements and truly understand each other.

And this is what you've proposing to do with the author on an inflammatory subject, based on the hypothetical that:

You understand his mindset on extremely-subjective matters well enough to predict how he will write the story.
The way he will write the story is flawed, based on his not understanding the moral principles as well as you do.
You want to correct his lack of understanding, and can explain this to him in a manner that will be illuminating to someone (not just a waste of time that generates ill feelings).

I can't say with certainty that you're not right. But if you're right, it would be the closest thing to a miracle I've seen in years.

I understand where you're coming from, and I think you're right that I should explain more clearly what I mean by 'reasonable' and if you can provide a counterargument you genuinely believe in you of course can. This would get into very broad philosophy if it went on too long and I'll try and keep it as simple as possible.

So when I say 'It's reasonable not to think of a peaceful solution when there are mitigating factors and you're being attacked' what I'm saying is that the natural human response to those situations is fight or flight. Expecting more than that from somebody is asking for a lot. If I was attacked and killed my attacker, that would be reasonable during the circumstances because the human ability to control themselves in life or death situations is very minimal.

Roy has a lot of motivations, responsibilities and is being attacked constantly in the first dungeon while he's trying to stop somebody he knows to be evil and people who work for that person are constantly attacking him. Even then he thinks of peaceful solutions regularly. Most people would not do that good under that much pressure and I think it would be expecting a lot to expect Roy to interrogate the motives of every individual sapient that ever attacked him. My evidence is that most people will not perform under those standards, even the best of us, and we don't expect soldiers to interrogate the motives individual enemy combatants. Are there differences between this and that? Absolutely, but the broad strokes philosophy is upheld as far as I can see. It works in principle. When you are attacked, it is reasonable to fight back without any other considerations. Is it sometimes better to do more? Sure sometimes. But it doesn't make you bad if you don't arise to that angelic standard.

In regards to your conclusion, I don't claim to understand Rich, I've pointed out several flaws already that if not addressed will be an issue both on a technical and a thematic level as well as many flaws that could be easily fixed with future strips and possibly were already intended to be and are, as such, not flaws. All I want to do is point these out to him with the hopes he can make those corrections if he hadn't already intended to. I did this accepting that somebody I deeply admire and respect may end up hating me, but it's that very admiration and respect that made me want to write this up to help in a small way if it was at all needed and preserve the quality of one of my favorite stories.

Obviously that's all in my eyes but I think I've made compelling technical arguments even aside from the moral or taste based ones. Thanks for the response as it gave me the chance to strengthen my arguments and be more specific.

KorvinStarmast

2021-04-30, 07:16 PM

Bootman: appreciate the time and effort you put into your post.

Here's the thing. A few years ago, Rich figured out where this story was going and what he wanted to say in writing it. He's proceeding toward his ultimate goal and trying to flesh out a lot of details, threads in the weave of a beautiful tapestry if you will, so that when he's done we all look at the tapestry hanging on the wall and see the story told therein with all of its nuance and detail.

Your critique about this section over there in the lower right hand sector looks to me like a problem of creatus interruptus - or an attempt close to it.

He already knows where he's going with it. The lines are already in the coloring book. What's happening now is choosing the crayons, one at a time, and coloring in the pictures one page at a time...just so.

Me, I'm gonna enjoy the ride (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1138.html).
You do you. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1135.html)
It's not the critic who counts

Ghosty

2021-04-30, 07:20 PM

{scrubbed}

WanderingMist

2021-04-30, 07:21 PM

Bootman

2021-04-30, 07:22 PM

Bootman: appreciate the time and effort you put into your post.

Here's the thing. A few years ago, Rich figured out where this story was going and what he wanted to say in writing it; and so he's proceeding toward his ultimate goal and trying to flesh out a lot of details, threads in the weave of a beautiful tapestry if you will, so that when he's done we all look at the tapestry hanging on the wall and see the story told therein.

Your critique about this section over there in the lower right hand sector looks a bit like a problem of creatus interruptus - or an attempt close to it.

he already knows where he's going with it. The lines are already in the coloring book. All that's happening now is picking up the crayons, one at a time, and coloring in the pictures one page at a time.

Me, I'm gonna enjoy the ride (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1138.html).
You do you. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1135.html)
It's not the critic who counts

Thank you my friend. I appreciate your response.

I agree he likely won't make any changes thanks to my comments, and he's also under no obligation to. But if I point out a strand in that tapestry that's sticking out and he can see it too, I hope he would snip it or tie it in with another strand. I'll be reading until the end too, and even if this issue isn't fixed it wouldn't effect my overall opinion of the work too much. But I would be deeply honored if my pointing out a single strand could help a work I love be just a little bit better.

Bootman

2021-04-30, 07:24 PM

Ah, but it isn't, and that's the beauty of it. Let me find the strip very quickly: 840 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0840.html)
Note that Roy has problems with using the Linear Guild's Dominated kobold member as a trap trigger while knowing that the kobold was actively trying to kill them in the recent past, yet never once has he stopped to consider Redcloak's point of view.

Could it be that Roy doesn't see it as just? I.E. killing somebody in the heat of battle is okay, but torturing them when there's no reason is not okay? It's also in a non-combat situation. And as a side reminder, I don't believe he's ever interacted with Redcloak.

Thank you for the reply and I appreciate the citation btw :)

KorvinStarmast

2021-04-30, 07:28 PM

Thank you my friend. I appreciate your response.
{snip}
But I would be deeply honored if my pointing out a single strand could help a work I love be just a little bit better.
We'll see. :smallcool: I understand that your post came from a positive impulse. :smallsmile:

Empiar93

2021-04-30, 10:11 PM

And as a side reminder, I don't believe he's ever interacted with Redcloak.

I believe the closest thing to an interaction that we’ve seen between Redcloak and Roy is when the former tried to Disintegrate the latter.
I know it’s probably not a popular perspective, but I’d agree that it’s COMPLETELY fair not to immediately want to parley with someone who shot you in the head.

Worldsong

2021-04-30, 10:40 PM

Bootman

2021-04-30, 11:32 PM

I believe the closest thing to an interaction that we’ve seen between Redcloak and Roy is when the former tried to Disintegrate the latter.
I know it’s probably not a popular perspective, but I’d agree that it’s COMPLETELY fair not to immediately want to parley with someone who shot you in the head.

It does seem to be a minority view on the website, but since it's been contentious I chose to focus more on the technical aspects of writing like the inconsistencies and how the theme ends up muddled when all context is applied. Nothing beyond saving but certainly stuff that should be addressed. Lots of things are subjective, but Roy saying he never asked why the Goblins do what they do when he has shown empathy, understanding and reasoning with Goblins in the past is a contradiction in the writing. People can say the contradictions or inconsistencies don't bother them subjectively, and that's totally fine, but it's still an issue in the writing that effects overall quality.

Lethologica

2021-04-30, 11:50 PM

dps

2021-04-30, 11:55 PM

If I'm totally off my mark about what the story is attempting to say feel free to ignore me, but I value OOTS too highly to say nothing about it.

The misconstruing of the situations here is really upsetting and has damaged Roy as a character. So let's go through step by step.

I don't want to ignore you, partly because I appreciate the effort that went into your post, partly because I value OotS highly as well, and partly because I can't resist getting in my two cents worth.

The problem here, as I see it, is that the misconstruing of the situations is being done by you, not the author. What's being done here isn't damage to Roy's character, nor even character growth, but rather an affirmation of Roy's character as a decent, intelligent person.

I'm bringing this up now because we are on the edge of these things breaking entire sections of the story.

If you believe that these things are breaking the story, then I have to believe that you simply don't understand the store that Rich has been telling at all.

understatement

2021-04-30, 11:59 PM

Do you think the tag-line from now on will be "Roy Greenhilt, privileged racist!"?

"The man called Cable Greenhilt, privileged racist!"

*

The last 3-4 panels are more of the punchline. Durkon, nor the story, are criticizing Roy; they are more simply nudging Roy to open up a new train of thought.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 12:07 AM

1232 relies a lot on the concept of 'bad land' as a signifier of goblin oppression, and I think it struggles to carry that load. But I don't think that's the focus in 1233. A lot can be wrapped up in "Thar's na reason 'is folk shoulda gotten so l'il when yers an' mine got so much" - like being abandoned by Fenris, for example.

A note on the Roy discussion: the main point of the last three panels is to make a joke. You can draw all the relevant implications about Roy's character from his previous comment: "I will be the first to admit I've never really thought too much about the position of the goblins myself." I'm frankly not sure what damage you fear arising from this. Do you think the tag-line from now on will be "Roy Greenhilt, privileged racist!"?

The last 3-4 panels are more of the punchline. Durkon, nor the story, are criticizing Roy; they are more simply nudging Roy to open up a new train of thought.

The issue is that without the bad land there is no argument for Goblin oppression in any way they don't already oppress others. Without it we get to cite the dwarves living in a frozen wasteland and having an awful afterlife set up, we get to cite the western continent, dirt farmers, grungy bandits, etc. It stops being about the Goblins being screwed and starts being about everyone being screwed to varying degrees. The reason why the Goblin oppression theme relies on bad land is because without it everything is even. It's crappy the gods have to set up a world with conflict, but if they don't they die so I understand why they would. So if we accept the world will have conflict no matter what between the races, then if the Goblins aren't at a disadvantage there's really nothing to whine about. And it's the crux of Redcloak's argument, that he's never received the same opportunities.

I think a lesser version of that is already in place. Joke or not, it's a part of his character. In the same way musical and action scenes establish character, so do jokes. See Blackwing to that effect. So through the joke we learn it is considered bad that he did not address these issues earlier. It's considered a mistake. The joke also frame Roy's previous actions with Greg and his general chattiness in a strange and somewhat inaccurate light followed by a moral judgement for never previously considering negotiating with Goblins. Which is of course incorrect per page 93, and even if he didn't I think it's perfectly reasonable that he didn't given the various circumstances. I have no idea what the tag line will be from now on, but if what's already been stated isn't addressed then that will be enough of an issue on its own.

And once again re-contextualizing the first dungeon to be a mistake is going to make those jokes very awkward.

The problem here, as I see it, is that the misconstruing of the situations is being done by you, not the author. What's being done here isn't damage to Roy's character, nor even character growth, but rather an affirmation of Roy's character as a decent, intelligent person.

If you believe that these things are breaking the story, then I have to believe that you simply don't understand the store that Rich has been telling at all.

I understand your feelings on these things and I want to respond, but since you didn't provide any points there it makes it difficult. I can believe that I've misunderstood things, I'm only human, but I would be very much obliged to you if you could point them out specifically and provide some evidence from the text to contradict my points.

Thank you to all of you for the responses. I appreciate how reasonable this has been so far.

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 12:15 AM

Bootman

2021-05-01, 12:24 AM

Roy didn't say "negotiating with goblins" in general - he was talking about the goblins directly serving Xykon, specifically.

"We never asked the goblins we fought why they're doing what they're doing" is still true even though Roy negotiated with some teenage goblins.

Yes and all my examples for why it is reasonable not to negotiate with them come from Xykon's Goblins specifically. I admitted that it was technically not a contradiction, but it was a contradiction in spirit since it clearly shows that Roy is willing to speak with Goblins even in high stakes situations surrounded by Goblins trying to kill him. It's a strange technicality to hold to since it functionally makes his admission meaningless. I can't think of too many minions they interrogated, human, Goblin or otherwise in terms of trying to learn their perspective. So it wouldn't even be considered a double standard to do with Goblins. You'd have to take the stance they should communicate with basically everyone who has ever attacked them the same way as he did with Greg for the comparisons to be fair and then that makes the theme having to do with Goblins specifically fall through a bit.

Teioh

2021-05-01, 12:37 AM

Michaeler

2021-05-01, 12:42 AM

My feeling was that the references to lands being pivotal was going to link back to Laurin's attempt to irrigate the desert with the water from the rift.

Just because the gods can't change the lands doesn't mean they can't be changed.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 12:42 AM

I'll just say I agree with your take, but not that it's shocking the story is going this way. It's been clear for almost a decade the direction The Giant decided. I still enjoy the story, even if I prefer the original path

I enjoy it too. Overall I've really appreciated the strengthening of Durkon over the last few books as a character, Belkar and Roy have overall been fantastic, etc. If we're talking strictly about generalwriting quality, the newest books have been some of the best with issues like these being very recent.

I would say I disagree about it being the clear direction for almost a decade, because one of my major issues is the recontextualization. It's hard to have a story where almost every single goblinoid is presented as explicitly or implicitly evil and then try to backtrack later on. It feels somewhat like trying to have your cake and eat it too, but there are ways to balance things out where we can proceed down this direction without the writing quality suffering. However since this isn't really the subject of the thread I probably shouldn't stray too far.

Thanks for chiming in my friend and have a great night / day / whatever you're having.

My feeling was that the references to lands being pivotal was going to link back to Laurin's attempt to irrigate the desert with the water from the rift.

Just because the gods can't change the lands doesn't mean they can't be changed.

I hope you're correct and I agree they can be changed, but the issue is that if we start addressing those things the theme will very quickly shift away from the Goblin-centric path it has been taking. I'm all for that and I think it would be more consistent, but that is not the impression I've gotten from the comic or Rich's comments outside of it.

Lethologica

2021-05-01, 12:45 AM

I think a lesser version of that is already in place.
I think you're severely overreacting.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 12:48 AM

I think you're severely overreacting.

I would appreciate a response including reference to the material and how it is not contradictory or somewhat damaging to Roy's character. Even if I was overreacting that would mean there is still an issue to react to.

I happen to hope I am overreacting and 100% wrong about where the strip is going. To clarify what I meant by a 'lesser version', any condemnation to Roy for how he's handled Goblins specifically is going to ring hollow and be character inaccurate, especially if it doesn't address his similar treatment of every other mook in the world regardless of species. I'm open to counter arguments but they need to be made for me to understand and agree with them.

Lethologica

2021-05-01, 02:24 AM

I would appreciate a response including reference to the material and how it is not contradictory or somewhat damaging to Roy's character. Even if I was overreacting that would mean there is still an issue to react to.

I happen to hope I am overreacting and 100% wrong about where the strip is going. To clarify what I meant by a 'lesser version', any condemnation to Roy for how he's handled Goblins specifically is going to ring hollow and be character inaccurate, especially if it doesn't address his similar treatment of every other mook in the world regardless of species. I'm open to counter arguments but they need to be made for me to understand and agree with them.
See, words like 'condemnation' instead of 'criticism' worry me. I'm not a fan of choosing between 'Roy deserves to be condemned' and 'the comic is doing irreparable damage to Roy's character' when I don't think either of those things is accurate. Roy overlooked the question of the goblins' involvement. Ideally, he would not have. That's what the comic says. The comic does not say this oversight was terrible, or that it's a black mark on Roy's character, or that Roy mistreats goblins. That's you interrupting the conversation mid-stream to impute the worst.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 03:55 AM

Roy isn't a bad person for not talking to attacking goblins. But the fact that even he, a Lawful Good person, didn't think to even TRY is meant to be a broad indicator of a problem, and maybe a gentle wake-up call.
What problem would that be exactly? That he occasionally prioritizes the survival of his party over talking to the guy trying to slaughter it? That Roy would have implicit biais (to use the fashionable term) against enemy soldiers that are actively attempting to kill him? That since he talked to some monsters, he should have tried talking to them all?

Maybe Roy should "ideally" have talked to goblins, but that's an unrealistic expectation. Even if he had, the best answer would have been "we don't have lands while you do", and if he had negotiated with Redcloak, it would have been "Implosion". Then what? They still don't know Redcloak has his own agenda, or that there is any daylight between him and Xykon. So the only difference is that Durkon couldn't blame Roy for not trying, which IMO makes Durkon ridiculously unfair. That Roy treats it as "oh no, what have I been thinking all along?" is what strains credulity.

I get this strip is a nod to real world issues. But in universe, this is happening while they are in a fight to the death against a tyrant trying to take over the world, a god-killer monstrosity is trying to get free, and most of the Pantheons looking at them to see if they should blow up the planet. Durkon should have better things to do than blaming his leader for not trying something that he had no reason to believe would work, didn't work when Durkon tried it, and Durkon only tried because he had a divine revelation from his God.

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 04:00 AM

The point is that to save the world, they will need a 9th level spell slot, willingly expended, by a goblin caster. Which almost certainly means Redcloak in this context.

And Durkon needs to get through to Roy why they need to win Redcloak over - which must include the fact that Redcloak has a legitimate grievance.

hroþila

2021-05-01, 04:04 AM

Telenil

2021-05-01, 04:27 AM

The problem is that he didn't really respect the goblins enough to e.g. ensure that surrendering goblins wouldn't be slaughtered by his subordinate or to ever wonder why they were fighting (beyond "they're goblins, they're minions, this is the natural order of things"). I think you're being too literal by focusing on Durkon's somewhat flippant response to Roy's objection. It goes deeper than literally talking to axe-wielding charging goblins - it's about Roy and Durkon's internalized worldview, which they now realize was biased.
So the message of the strip is that good people are supposed to wonder what the enemy soldier trying to cleave their skull in two is fighting for? I don't think I could say that out loud with a straight face.

Yes, trying to understand someone else's perspective is good advice in many situations. But here, I almost feel it is Roy who should blame Durkon for going against orders, screwing their plan and alerting the vilains to their presence. I wrote "almost" because, this being a story, Redcloak's motivations may turn out to be the key to the resolution.

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 04:32 AM

But here, I almost feel it is Roy who should blame Durkon for going against orders, screwing their plan and alerting the vilains to their presence.

The comic begins with Roy sniping at Durkon for Not Following Orders. So he's already done that.

In addition to him getting a yell at Durkon the moment they reunited, and Durkon making the concession that Roy is entitled to yell:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html

hroþila

2021-05-01, 04:32 AM

So the message of the strip is that good people are supposed to wonder what the enemy soldier trying to cleave their skull in two is fighting for? I don't think I could say that out loud with a straight face.
After enough generations of fighting the same people in the same circumstances and nothing changing, then yes, maybe it'd be a good idea to think about it a little.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 04:47 AM

The comic begins with Roy sniping at Durkon for Not Following Orders. So he's already done that.

In addition to him getting a yell at Durkon the moment they reunited, and Durkon making the concession that Roy is entitled to yell:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html

True. Now would be a good time for Roy to ask what Durkon's attempt to consider the goblin perspective has brought them, aside from exposing them and inviting disaster.

Precure

2021-05-01, 05:28 AM

Your honor, I must add these two strips as evidence.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0200.html
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0408.html

theNater

2021-05-01, 06:03 AM

Telenil

2021-05-01, 06:45 AM

I'd like to note that we're not talking about a handful of goblins leaping out of the bushes and trying to kill Roy. We're talking about an extended conflict between The Order of The Stick and Team Evil, including Haley's months-long stint organizing a resistance movement in Azure City. Even just from a strategic point of view, looking for internal divisions within Team Evil would have been a good idea.

On that I agree, but Durkon's angle seem to be moral, not strategic. He was sympathetic to the notion that goblin should have better steal so they could beat the dwarves a bit more often, for example.

WanderingMist

2021-05-01, 07:18 AM

Could it be that Roy doesn't see it as just? I.E. killing somebody in the heat of battle is okay, but torturing them when there's no reason is not okay? It's also in a non-combat situation. And as a side reminder, I don't believe he's ever interacted with Redcloak.

Thank you for the reply and I appreciate the citation btw :)

True. But he's never stopped to ask any of the goblins or hobgoblins, either, and did stop to ask Xykon. Along with this, while we've seen human, lizardfolk, orcs, etc. in the background of large city scenes (I'm assuming here that we have, I don't want to reread the whole comic at the moment to give citations, but may edit them in at a later time), I don't think we've ever seen a single goblin (in the online comic that I can remember anyway, unless you want to count Goblin Dan).

Lethologica

2021-05-01, 08:31 AM

Maybe Roy should "ideally" have talked to goblins, but that's an unrealistic expectation. Even if he had, the best answer would have been "we don't have lands while you do", and if he had negotiated with Redcloak, it would have been "Implosion". Then what? They still don't know Redcloak has his own agenda, or that there is any daylight between him and Xykon. So the only difference is that Durkon couldn't blame Roy for not trying, which IMO makes Durkon ridiculously unfair. That Roy treats it as "oh no, what have I been thinking all along?" is what strains credulity.

I'm not sure what the unrealistic expectation is here. That Roy (or the party at large) would try to ascertain the motives of the people fighting them, perhaps even in the middle of a fight? They do this numerous times with other foes.

Which is not to say that the Order has had a great opportunity to assess goblin motives before now, or that not having made the attempt is some great moral failure. You seem to think the last panel treats it as one. I disagree.

I also think the conversation is far from over, and half the objections that have been mounted here are going to come up. This strip gets them only to a vague conclusion about goblins, not to any conclusion about how to handle Redcloak - and in the process of reaching that topic, some variant of "okay, but even if we talked to every goblin we met, we still wouldn't have found out Redcloak's particular problem, and even now we know, that doesn't tell us what to do about it" is likely to be said. Would that be satisfactory? Or is the strip already past the point of 'irreparable damage' in your eyes?

Worldsong

2021-05-01, 08:42 AM

So the message of the strip is that good people are supposed to wonder what the enemy soldier trying to cleave their skull in two is fighting for? I don't think I could say that out loud with a straight face.

Seems like a reasonable course of action to me if you're trying to minimize bloodshed.

Remember, in OotS talking is a free action. It doesn't impair your ability to fight back in any way, so the usual counter argument of 'I need to focus on defending myself' doesn't apply.

Also if someone is charging you with murderous intent you can also just decide to try not to kill them so you can talk to them after they've been subdued. Given Roy's strength he could afford to do so with the vast majority of enemy combatants.

Alsadius

2021-05-01, 09:01 AM

I think this has some legitimate points, but that it's a bit overstated on net. There's ways for this to go badly for the strip, but Rich usually has a pretty deft hand with these things.

Also, Durkon makes an important point with his bit about needing the right treatment and not just the right diagnosis. The diagnosis of "Yeah, goblins, your situation kinda sucks" is legit. How they treat that...well, that's likely the crux of this whole plotline. But if Rich handles it well, I expect it'll involve resolution very different than the one Redcloak currently has in mind.

Dion

2021-05-01, 09:36 AM

So the message of the strip is that good people are supposed to wonder what the enemy soldier trying to cleave their skull in two is fighting for?

Yes. That message was explicitly stated in comic two strips ago.

Thor said that they once had a world where you could change someone’s mind by hitting them on the head, but now you actually have to talk to them.

WanderingMist

2021-05-01, 10:10 AM

So the message of the strip is that good people are supposed to wonder what the enemy soldier trying to cleave their skull in two is fighting for?

That is the definition of being Good. Good is selfless and tries to right wrongs. But you can't right wrongs if you never stop to consider why Evil acts the way it does.

Dragonus45

2021-05-01, 10:12 AM

Except no? He always wanted equality.

Redcloak: The Dark One has given me a vision. A vision that someday, all PC and NPC races will sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

"Then I can cast implosion on them while I taunt them."

Bootman

2021-05-01, 10:30 AM

See, words like 'condemnation' instead of 'criticism' worry me. I'm not a fan of choosing between 'Roy deserves to be condemned' and 'the comic is doing irreparable damage to Roy's character' when I don't think either of those things is accurate. Roy overlooked the question of the goblins' involvement. Ideally, he would not have. That's what the comic says. The comic does not say this oversight was terrible, or that it's a black mark on Roy's character, or that Roy mistreats goblins. That's you interrupting the conversation mid-stream to impute the worst.

I actually agree that I am interrupting the conversation mid stream, that is the entire point of my post. That if in the next page Durkon and Roy agree that he was explicitly doing something bad or wrong or operated with a double standard (Something I believe is established in this strip), that is where the damage will be unrepairable in addition to the other contradictions I've already pointed out. condemnation and criticism mean the same thing in this context, along with chided, punished, looked down on, etc. The only relevant factor here is whether Durkon, Roy and the story itself think what he's done is wrong. I am saying what he's done is not wrong in the slightest.

The point is that to save the world, they will need a 9th level spell slot, willingly expended, by a goblin caster. Which almost certainly means Redcloak in this context.

And Durkon needs to get through to Roy why they need to win Redcloak over - which must include the fact that Redcloak has a legitimate grievance.

I disagree and so does Roy. They actually interrogated exactly what Roy thinks of the God plot and he establishes that he believes risking the whole mission for the God mission is a bad idea. He's shooting for it but he's not going to risk his team and the planet for it. It's completely possible to save millions of people by simply killing Redcloak and Xykon and keeping the gates functional for years after even if the world eventually reaches its lifespan. Remember, no more holes are known to have opened between the Scribble time and the current time. If they keep opening at the rate they have been you could expect potentially thousands of years of life that would all be risked for the God plot. Asking Roy to gamble everyone alive for the possibility of this world lasting longer overall is a bit much.

Aside from that I made a pretty solid case for Redcloak not having as much of a grievance given the resources we have seen the goblins to have and the lack of resources and total disadvantages we've seen other races have. Either they all have grievances or none of them do, and it they do it is no longer a racial thing, it's like a class action lawsuit from all the races that spawned on crappy land.

The problem is that he didn't really respect the goblins enough to e.g. ensure that surrendering goblins wouldn't be slaughtered by his subordinate or to ever wonder why they were fighting (beyond "they're goblins, they're minions, this is the natural order of things"). I think you're being too literal by focusing on Durkon's somewhat flippant response to Roy's objection. It goes deeper than literally talking to axe-wielding charging goblins - it's about Roy and Durkon's internalized worldview, which they now realize was biased.

Which is why I pointed out many other times where he hasn't asked why people are doing what they're doing or tried to find the most peaceful solution possible, and how many of those times involved other races, undead and humans. Meaning no matter what point the strip thinks its making it can't possibly be an internalized worldview as the significant cause. Also Roy interacted with Goblins he did not treat like minions when they were nice to him, but he has no problems killing enemy combatants.

Your honor, I must add these two strips as evidence.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0200.html
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0408.html

I'm going to assume this is related to my stating Roy doesn't interrogate minions. Miko is not a minion first of all, she's an extensively fleshed out character with an arc. If you want to argue for in general story telling should make it so characters treat minions and higher up villains more consistently I'd actually agree with you but it would still undermine this theme. I appreciate the citations friend.

I'd like to note that we're not talking about a handful of goblins leaping out of the bushes and trying to kill Roy. We're talking about an extended conflict between The Order of The Stick and Team Evil, including Haley's months-long stint organizing a resistance movement in Azure City. Even just from a strategic point of view, looking for internal divisions within Team Evil would have been a good idea.

I agree strategically, but I think stating they did something wrong for not pursuing those options goes too far for me. It's a high expectation for people in an extreme circumstance.

True. But he's never stopped to ask any of the goblins or hobgoblins, either, and did stop to ask Xykon. Along with this, while we've seen human, lizardfolk, orcs, etc. in the background of large city scenes (I'm assuming here that we have, I don't want to reread the whole comic at the moment to give citations, but may edit them in at a later time), I don't think we've ever seen a single goblin (in the online comic that I can remember anyway, unless you want to count Goblin Dan).

As I stated earlier, I was very clear that Roy didn't interrogate the motivations of minions in general. Xykon, Miko and Greg all have personal reasons specifically for them being dealt with, but he doesn't talk with Tarquins soldiers, the ninjas that attack him in Azure city, etc.

I think the place of Goblins in wider society is a bit far from my current points, but I'll address it out of respect for your continued conversation. It always bugged me when Redcloak said something along the lines of "When you kill Goblins you're heroes, when we kill you we're monsters". Does that mean that Goblins see themselves as monsters when they kill humans? Absolutely not. We're talking about two distinct cultural groups. "Our brave warriors vs. their violent thugs" is a common thing throughout history. So his point is that when Goblins kill humans, humans don't like that. Like, of course, obviously.

By the same token about Goblins not being a part of wider human society, none of the other races aside from 'monster' races are seen to be a part of Goblin society. Cultural groups form unique relationships over time. This would honestly be a point in favor or human society, that it sees the value and chooses to associate with so many other races. It can't just be appearances that make the difference, right? Orcs have green skin and fangs too. So it must be something to do with the unique relationship between Goblins and the "PC Races" involving their history, actions and nations that causes this.

I'm not sure what the unrealistic expectation is here. That Roy (or the party at large) would try to ascertain the motives of the people fighting them, perhaps even in the middle of a fight? They do this numerous times with other foes.

Which is not to say that the Order has had a great opportunity to assess goblin motives before now, or that not having made the attempt is some great moral failure. You seem to think the last panel treats it as one. I disagree.

I also think the conversation is far from over, and half the objections that have been mounted here are going to come up. This strip gets them only to a vague conclusion about goblins, not to any conclusion about how to handle Redcloak - and in the process of reaching that topic, some variant of "okay, but even if we talked to every goblin we met, we still wouldn't have found out Redcloak's particular problem, and even now we know, that doesn't tell us what to do about it" is likely to be said. Would that be satisfactory? Or is the strip already past the point of 'irreparable damage' in your eyes?

On the first page fairly early on I go into why it is unrealistic to expect that, and in other areas on very post I've gone into how they only really do that with villains who are actual characters regardless of race.

I believe the last few panels of the comic do treat it as a failure and double standard, and many other people who agree with that comic agree that it represents the double standard of Roy as well. In fact you seem to imply it here when you talk about how the Order has assessed other motives but not the Goblins.

Aside from that I agree the conversation is far from over. The goal of my post is to intercept it in case these things were not planned.

Seems like a reasonable course of action to me if you're trying to minimize bloodshed.

Remember, in OotS talking is a free action. It doesn't impair your ability to fight back in any way, so the usual counter argument of 'I need to focus on defending myself' doesn't apply.

Also if someone is charging you with murderous intent you can also just decide to try not to kill them so you can talk to them after they've been subdued. Given Roy's strength he could afford to do so with the vast majority of enemy combatants.

Minimizing bloodshed isn't always the moral or reasonable response. When you're being attacked by enemies in the situation I have laid out in the first Dungeon and killing them will increase the odds of survival for you and everybody else you work with and you're the leader, valuing enemy lives ahead of your subordinates can be seen as very immoral

You can't decide that sometimes though. The fight or flight response is real and it takes a lot of willpower, training or the right kind of person to resist it. Which is why Roy is quite impressive for all the times he does. In a dungeon where the enemy is sending foes after you as you progress and every day you spend in attrition lowers your odds, and where every -2 to try and use your weapon nonlethally can get you hit back for 4 damage that will make the difference when you fight a chimera later... well, you're asking the people involved to take a lot of risks on themselves that I don't think you're asking them to take in other situations involving humanoids for instance.

I think this has some legitimate points, but that it's a bit overstated on net. There's ways for this to go badly for the strip, but Rich usually has a pretty deft hand with these things.

Also, Durkon makes an important point with his bit about needing the right treatment and not just the right diagnosis. The diagnosis of "Yeah, goblins, your situation kinda sucks" is legit. How they treat that...well, that's likely the crux of this whole plotline. But if Rich handles it well, I expect it'll involve resolution very different than the one Redcloak currently has in mind.

I agree. The point of my post is simply that this is the first time where I've spotted an instance of things going wrong on the technical craft level of OOTS that requires some for of back tracking or patching to fix and I'm concerned it won't receive those needed lines in the next comic. If it does, fantastic. The whole point of this was simply "If he doesn't this is a problem".

Yes. That message was explicitly stated in comic two strips ago.

Thor said that they once had a world where you could change someone’s mind by hitting them on the head, but now you actually have to talk to them.

For context, you're saying yes the message is that enemy soldiers should try and understand each others inner motivations as they fight. When you're fighting and your life is at stake, you have every right to kill the person you're opposing. You're essentially telling people to risk their lives for those who hate them. Have you ever been pumped? Like ran a lot and won something or beat people in a pushup contest? I assume you haven't been in a real fight or a battlefield but if you have that's relevant I suppose. When your heart rate is going and survival is at stake, fighting the fight or flight response is actually very difficult. There are times where the hesitation of considering your enemy's point of view for even a second, not pulling the trigger, will result in your death. In Roy's case, not just his own but the team he is responsible for.

Thank you everyone and thanks to Telenil for joining in.

The Pilgrim

2021-05-01, 10:39 AM

Deathhappens

2021-05-01, 10:43 AM

I'm just going to point out that Durkon thinking all this does not automatically mean he's right. Heck, you could say he has a history of being absolute in his worldviews.

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 10:47 AM

I disagree and so does Roy. They actually interrogated exactly what Roy thinks of the God plot and he establishes that he believes risking the whole mission for the God mission is a bad idea. He's shooting for it but he's not going to risk his team and the planet for it. It's completely possible to save millions of people by simply killing Redcloak and Xykon and keeping the gates functional for years after even if the world eventually reaches its lifespan.

Roy conceded that they do need to talk to Redcloak:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1200.html

but "after the immediate threat is stopped".

Bootman

2021-05-01, 11:00 AM

I'm just going to point out that Durkon thinking all this does not automatically mean he's right. Heck, you could say he has a history of being absolute in his worldviews.

Completely possible, which is why I didn't bring it up until Roy seemed to agree. It's still possible to pull back which is the premise of my entire post.

Roy conceded that they do need to talk to Redcloak:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1200.html

but "after the immediate threat is stopped".

Yes, that's what I meant when I was saying he's still aiming for it. Like it's the ideal. But he's not going to risk everything or the people he's in charge of for that ideal more then is absolutely needed. If Roy had to kill Redcloak in the heat of battle to save even one life he wouldn't bat an eye I think.

dancrilis

2021-05-01, 11:02 AM

As I stated earlier, I was very clear that Roy didn't interrogate the motivations of minions in general. Xykon, Miko and Greg all have personal reasons specifically for them being dealt with, but he doesn't talk with Tarquins soldiers, the ninjas that attack him in Azure city, etc.

Roy knows that Tarquin's soldiers and the ninjas in Azure city are following orders and he knows the benefits they have from following those orders - namely money, this doesn't apply to every one of them some might be serving out of fear or out of love of the job or whatever but ultimately they have jobs and they do their jobs for payment which they can use to get food, accommodation etc.

But that basic reason doesn't really apply to the goblins working for Xykon - if Xykon was simply paying them as soldiers then why don't some goblins in general just get normal jobs instead (like some humans do), the reason becomes that most people will not hire a goblin - which leads to the question of 'why do they only work for evil people?' and the answer of 'they are evil' and the question of 'why are they evil?' and the answer of 'they only work for evil people'.

Durkon is now telling Roy that that chain of questions and answers should perhaps be considered.

At the start if instead of goblins it has been elves who were working for Xykon there would likely have been a lot of questions (in universe and out) about 'why are elves working for this evil lich' (in fact to use a different creature type when Celia was encountered that question was asked) but there were very few questions (in universe or out) of 'why are goblins working for this evil lich'.

woweedd

2021-05-01, 11:06 AM

I would note that Roy HAS shown an ability to negotiate with monsters and reach a peaceable solution in the past: Him doing that is HOW he and Durkon met. Also, while, yes, the goblins of Dorukan's dungeon were hostile, Start of Darkness reveals that they were, by and large, conscripts, who were drummed into Xykon's forces under threat of death. This not only explains why, in comic, they surrender literally the INSTANT he's dead, but means Roy probably COULD have gotten somewhere with negotiation, had he tried, and, givent hat talking is a free action in OOTS-verse laws of physics, I see no reason he shouldn't have.

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 11:08 AM

Utterly Dwarfed (the book compilation of the strips, with commentary) made it clear that just defeating Xykon and Redcloak is not enough.

Round 7

Until now, it was reasonable to think that defeating Xykon and resealing the rifts would count as a win. But with the scope of the true problem laid out before him, Durkon can see that just resetting back to the state of things at the beginning of the series won't be enough. Not when there's hope for a more lasting victory over the forces of entropy and destruction. Of course, that victory will be a little more difficult to come by than simply bashing one lich and one goblin until they aren't a threat anymore, which raises the stakes for the conflict to come.

Round 8

...he now must find a way to make peace with Redcloak for the sake of the entire world.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 11:19 AM

Roy knows that Tarquin's soldiers and the ninjas in Azure city are following orders and he knows the benefits they have from following those orders - namely money, this doesn't apply to every one of them some might be serving out of fear or out of love of the job or whatever but ultimately they have jobs and they do their jobs for payment which they can use to get food, accommodation etc.

But that basic reason doesn't really apply to the goblins working for Xykon - if Xykon was simply paying them as soldiers then why don't some goblins in general just get normal jobs instead (like some humans do), the reason becomes that most people will not hire a goblin - which leads to the question of 'why do they only work for evil people?' and the answer of 'they are evil' and the question of 'why are they evil?' and the answer of 'they only work for evil people'.

Durkon is now telling Roy that that chain of questions and answers should perhaps be considered.

At the start if instead of goblins it has been elves who were working for Xykon there would likely have been a lot of questions (in universe and out) about 'why are elves working for this evil lich' (in fact to use a different creature type when Celia was encountered that question was asked) but there were very few questions (in universe or out) of 'why are goblins working for this evil lich'.

I would note that Roy HAS shown an ability to negotiate with monsters and reach a peaceable solution in the past: Him doing that is HOW he and Durkon met. Also, while, yes, the goblins of Dorukan's dungeon were hostile, Start of Darkness reveals that they were, by and large, conscripts, who were drummed into Xykon's forces under threat of death. This not only explains why, in comic, they surrender literally the INSTANT he's dead, but means Roy probably COULD have gotten somewhere with negotiation, had he tried, and, givent hat talking is a free action in OOTS-verse laws of physics, I see no reason he shouldn't have.

The general sentiments here are the same so I'll respond to both.

Are you sure about that? Roy spent his whole time in the gladiator pit. There could be rebels in the guards, or some form of mind control, or will be killed if they don't serve. This is the point. The comic has chosen to go JUST into the Goblin motivation. You assuming there's no larger motivation or other possibilities involved with the soldiers, ninjas, beetle raiders, etc. is the same thing this strip is criticizing Roy for. Maybe the beetle raiders literally need humans to lay their larva in to survive, so we could have worked out a deal to give death row inmates to them along with a painkilling spell so that the beetles no longer have to live in conflict with humanity.

In the comics, maybe? Until we see more civilian Goblins (very few have even been mentioned) functionally all of them are warriors, even in Gobbotopia. But even there there was a Goldsmith who made Redcloak's amulet. There are non-military, non-evil jobs. I will reference the villages in Start of Darkness but I don't wish to make them integral because once again all outside material should not be required to understand the main material. So the point is we know there are other things you can do. The Hobgoblins had an independent nation with a standing army of 30,000 soldiers armed and armored. Those people need beds, clothes, food, cups, weapons, etc. So a much larger infrastructure of non-evil civilian jobs must exist. The specific Goblins working for Xykon are, of course, being held at gun point and were peaceful prior, and I think that is a bad bit of recontextualization that kills the comedy of the first 100 pages. And once again is only established in start of darkness.

Yes because Goblins tend to work for evil people. The fact it was never questioned says a lot about the Goblins themselves and how they have interacted with the world and less about Roy. The reason why he shouldn't have tried is because, once again, the fight or flight response is a thing and when somebody is attacking you you are justified to fight back without consideration, because consideration and hesitation can get you killed, your comrades killed and leave your father's soul in purgatory forever.

Utterly Dwarfed (the book compilation of the strips, with commentary) made it clear that just defeating Xykon and Redcloak is not enough.

Round 7

Until now, it was reasonable to think that defeating Xykon and resealing the rifts would count as a win. But with the scope of the true problem laid out before him, Durkon can see that just resetting back to the state of things at the beginning of the series won't be enough. Not when there's hope for a more lasting victory over the forces of entropy and destruction. Of course, that victory will be a little more difficult to come by than simply bashing one lich and one goblin until they aren't a threat anymore, which raises the stakes for the conflict to come.

Round 8

...he now must find a way to make peace with Redcloak for the sake of the entire world.

I don't consider arguments from word of god or outside the material itself to be valid since I believe in death of the author and that all media must be able to stand on its own.

However I will say that I believe Roy makes an excellent counter argument when he's talking with his sister on the ship and that these comments seem to be relating to Durkon's mental state. If they're not, it is the author explicitly giving his point of view on the scenario and he is welcome to do that, just as much as J.K. Rowling is. But their work must stand on their own and defeating Xykon and Redcloak would absolutely be a victory that saves millions. That is enough and frankly it is incredibly heroic of Roy to face enemies that much out power him for the sake of those millions.

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 11:26 AM

Bootman

2021-05-01, 11:33 AM

Based on the Snarl's already being capable of reaching out from the rifts:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0945.html

I think it's safe to say that Redcloak's helping seal the rifts will save the world itself, and come into play.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1195.html

"Making the last gate safe" will, IMO, need Redcloak and the Dark One to work at all.

And killing Redcloak will doom the world - and I predict Roy eventually ending up in a position to realise that.

We know from the scribble crayon books that you can physically engage with and fight the snarl as it is reaching out so that you can seal the gates, and that the gates last quite some time if not interfered with by outside sources.

Roy does not believe he should gamble with the lives of the people who exist for the people who might exist in the future. The people in the here and now are his responsibility as hero.

I agree that as the story is progressing, most likely Redcloak will seal the rifts and that is obviously a preferable solution. But with everything Roy knows in the situation it would be wrong to risk the lives of the people to change the divine order of the cosmos forever. If Roy ever said anything to the effect of "These people should be okay risking their lives so that life will be better in the future, so I'll gamble their lives" then that would be the ultimate end of Roy's character and be completely inconsistent with everything we know about him, not to mention wrong in my subjective opinion.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 12:00 PM

That is the definition of being Good. Good is selfless and tries to right wrongs. But you can't right wrongs if you never stop to consider why Evil acts the way it does.
I disagree. Durkon would still have been Good if he had followed Roy's command, instead of revealing himself to the enemy and destroying the possibility of surprise. I believe you should right wrongs when the war is over and Evil has been checked. Until then, an enemy's motivations are only relevant insofar as 1) you want to negotiate a truce, or 2) it helps you to defeat or otherwise neutralise him. Durkon tried the first, and apparently made things worse.

Good should never do evil acts. Once that is granted, Good is not supposed to follow the letter of its principles to the point doing so helps Evil win. This is not to say the end justifies the means, but merely that a good character can still think strategically. Maybe some clue in the conversation with Redcloak will turn out to be the one thing that saves the day, and something helpful will come out of Durkon's attempt at diplomacy. But so far, Durkon has nothing to show for it and Roy was right when he told him not to do it.

Bootman summed up the point rather well:

Minimizing bloodshed isn't always the moral or reasonable response. When you're being attacked by enemies in the situation I have laid out in the first Dungeon and killing them will increase the odds of survival for you and everybody else you work with and you're the leader, valuing enemy lives ahead of your subordinates can be seen as very immoral

Buckethead

2021-05-01, 12:17 PM

The problem I see with the goblin plot right now is that Thor in #1232 never states that the Goblins were given worse lands. Thor says Fenris created them as people who "age fast and breeds a lot".(1)

Durkon in #1233 states his belief that the Goblins were treated poorly at the creation of the world. And the implication of his statement is that being created as a fast-growing, fast-breeding race means to be treated poorly. Which implies Goblins are defective by nature.

So, either Durkon is wrong (2), or Rich is failing at delivering his point. Unless his point is "goblins were created defective", which bears very uncomfortable implications.

...

(1) Thor also said that Fenris lost interest in them, later. Not a word creation, but after the goblin-rush failed to provide the returns Fenris expected.

(2) Durkon is, in fact, already wrong: He says the goblins were "treated poorly" for no reason at all. Which is false, Fernis created them with a winning strategy in mind. Which failed, yes, but there was a reason.

This is an excellent point, I'd go on to state that Durkon actually completely ignored what Thor verbatim said and instead put it as Thor described "unnecessarily pejorative", Fenris is just as "valid" a god as Thor, why should "where he put his starting creations stat points" be bizarrely turned by Durkon (who you'd think would listen a little closer to his GOD) into the goblins living on poor quality lands? Suddenly the Zerg have been a disadvantaged race this whole time because the Protoss started on Aiur? (forgive me if you don't know starcraft)

Do you know why Roy never questioned a goblin before? Literally every single goblin Roy has encountered, any he ever fought would have said "because lord xykon said to kill you!" Now they are gonna retroactively act like Roy made a mistake? Puh-leeze. Being lawful good doesn't mean you need to have therapy sessions with every orc on the road to moria before you dispatch them. I am sick of people pretending orcs and goblins are equivalent to real life racism or something, everyone on Earth is a friggen Human! Goblins eat man flesh!

Emberlily

2021-05-01, 12:25 PM

Do you know why Roy never questioned a goblin before? Literally every single goblin Roy has encountered, any he ever fought would have said "because lord xykon said to kill you!" Now they are gonna retroactively act like Roy made a mistake? Puh-leeze.

And Roy clearly had some way to know this to be true without even trying to ask them, right?

Telenil

2021-05-01, 12:30 PM

And Roy clearly had some way to know this to be true without even trying to ask them, right?

Well, what do you think a random goblin soldier's anwser would be? From what we've seen, the best would be "because you have lands and we don't", which is not a particularly shocking answer - perhaps even a predictable one.

Buckethead

2021-05-01, 12:31 PM

And Roy clearly had some way to know this to be true without even trying to ask them, right?

Well why didn't he question every beetle raider? Every tarquin goon? Why do we only apply this to goblins?

Edit: Let's take a look at this scene from https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0011.html
"Wretched do-gooders!"
Yeah, they seem like well adjusted morally complex villains!

Lethologica

2021-05-01, 12:35 PM

I actually agree that I am interrupting the conversation mid stream, that is the entire point of my post. That if in the next page Durkon and Roy agree that he was explicitly doing something bad or wrong or operated with a double standard (Something I believe is established in this strip), that is where the damage will be unrepairable in addition to the other contradictions I've already pointed out. condemnation and criticism mean the same thing in this context, along with chided, punished, looked down on, etc. The only relevant factor here is whether Durkon, Roy and the story itself think what he's done is wrong. I am saying what he's done is not wrong in the slightest.
Just above 'did nothing wrong' is a substantial region with varying shades of 'could have done better' that a Good character often strives to cross.

On the first page fairly early on I go into why it is unrealistic to expect that, and in other areas on very post I've gone into how they only really do that with villains who are actual characters regardless of race.
You went into why it is unrealistic specifically to expect Roy to attempt dialogue with people swinging axes at him who aren't "villains who are actual characters". Apart from OtOoPCs providing an example of exactly that, I also broadened the conversation to Roy attempting to ascertain the motives of the people fighting them because that was what Roy claimed not to have done in panel 9. Not having asked any goblins while fighting is actually a narrower admission as it would also allow for a scenario where Roy had thought about it but never thought it was 'the right time to bring it up.' Another reason why I say panel 9 is the one that carries the relevant implications.

I believe the last few panels of the comic do treat it as a failure and double standard, and many other people who agree with that comic agree that it represents the double standard of Roy as well. In fact you seem to imply it here when you talk about how the Order has assessed other motives but not the Goblins.
Behaving differently at different times does not automatically produce a double standard unless there is reasoning which is differentially applied.

But even before that, let's tease out the actual line of argument in the comic. Roy admits in panel 9 that he hasn't really thought about the position of the goblins. His defense in panel 10 is it's hard to discuss something like that in the middle of combat - that is, even if he had thought about it, there wasn't a good time to bring it up. The purpose of the last three panels, then, is to puncture that defense. Because Roy has a habit of talking while fighting, up to and including talking about more difficult topics under more challenging circumstances, if he had thought about the goblin position he probably would have brought it up. The fact that no one ever did reinforces that no one ever thought about it.

At what point in this line of argument is a double standard claimed or implied?

Aside from that I agree the conversation is far from over. The goal of my post is to intercept it in case these things were not planned.
I think the idea of having that kind of influence from here is pretty presumptuous, but hey, maybe you'll start a movement.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 12:45 PM

But even before that, let's tease out the actual line of argument in the comic. Roy admits in panel 9 that he hasn't really thought about the position of the goblins. His defense in panel 10 is it's hard to discuss something like that in the middle of combat - that is, even if he had thought about it, there wasn't a good time to bring it up. The purpose of the last three panels, then, is to puncture that defense. Because Roy has a habit of talking while fighting, up to and including talking about more difficult topics under more challenging circumstances, if he had thought about the goblin position he probably would have brought it up. The fact that no one ever did reinforces that no one ever thought about it.

At what point in this line of argument is a double standard claimed or implied?
There is the implication that because Roy can and somtimes does talk to enemies during combat, he should also have done so when fighting goblins. I fail to see why this would follow.
It apparently blames Roy for not communicating with the enemy, even though the rest of the party (including Durkon himself) has been equally capable but even less willing to do so.

Buckethead

2021-05-01, 12:47 PM

hamishspence

2021-05-01, 01:02 PM

And don't give me that vampires prey on humans thing, goblins are perfectly happy to eat humans in basically all lore.

But not, as far as we know, in OOTS - there has never been a single reference to goblins or hobgoblins eating humans.

Lethologica

2021-05-01, 01:03 PM

There is the implication that because Roy can and somtimes does talk to enemies during combat, he should also have done so when fighting goblins. I fail to see why this would follow.
It apparently blames Roy for not communicating with the enemy, even though the rest of the party (including Durkon himself) has been equally capable but even less willing to do so.
Both Roy and Durkon use 'we' in the last panel, so the second point is misaimed.

I can see why you would object to the implication, but you're shaving rather a lot off to reach that objectionable version. And I asked not just for an objection, but for the double standard which was claimed to exist.

Some

2021-05-01, 01:35 PM

"Thar be no compromise! Thar be no parley an' thar be no resonable discussions! Yer a frickin' vampire, Malack! Yer a danger ta everyone livin' on this continent!"
-Durkon just 2 books ago, talking to a vampire (a stereotypically evil creature with free will who Durkon forces into battle because of his race)

That does get into a tricky issue of when to reject evil when it has a good component to it.

There seems to be a hierarchy of evil purity in the OotS/D&D world:

Evil-outsiders are literally made up of the concept of evil itself.
Undead are primarily driven by negative-energy, which seems closely connected to evil.
Evil divine-casters have both their personal evil and evil drawn from their connection to an evil deity.
Evil non-outsiders have some evil in them.
Non-[good/evil] non-outsiders have an even lesser amount of evil in them.

As a High Priest to an evil-deity who was already evil, then done many evil deeds, Redcloak's approaching the level of evil of an evil-outsider, but presumably not quite there yet as he's not literally made up of the very concept of evil (like an evil-outsider is).

The goblins are a different matter. They were designed-and-created by an evil-deity with a strong inclination to evil, and presumably have done a lot of evil. But they're still non-outsiders, so they're not exclusively composed of it, and.. there's an ambiguous amount of free-will.

It's still unclear how deeply rooted evil is. I mean, for an outsider that's literally composed of evil itself, it'd seem like they'd have trouble being anything but. Then again, Thor made a point (with Odin being a prime example) that deities (who're especially powerful outsiders) can change in response to beliefs about them, so... could beliefs flip an evil-deity?

Then mortals seem capable of changing. Belkar, who was previously extremely evil, now seems more neutral-ish.. though it's unclear how that'd actually work in-universe, since while he's more neutral-ish now, he's done a ton of evil before. Likewise, V was neutral, though after the epic-spell they cast, the demon-directors commented on V possibly being condemned anyway, despite V's earnest attempts at atonement and otherwise-[non-evil or good-ish] record.

As for the line between Evil and Neutral, V might our best in-universe metric, because the demon-directors (who're presumably experts on the topic of the line between Evil/Neutral) were apparently unsure about which side of the line V would fall on. So:

presumably, anything more evil than V would be on the Evil side of things; while
presumably, anything more good than V wouldn't be Evil.

Worth noting that this was the group opinion of 3 demon-directors, being Lawful-Evil, Neutral-Evil, and Chaotic-Evil, so that'd seem to be a pretty good spread with multiple expert opinions weighing in. Also, as these demon-directors have been spying on V and studying V and psycho-analyzing V, presumably their opinions were educated and informed. (Being why they'd seem like a relatively strong canon assessment.)

Psyren

2021-05-01, 01:44 PM

I don't consider arguments from word of god or outside the material itself to be valid since I believe in death of the author and that all media must be able to stand on its own.

That's a valid perspective when the work is complete. But demanding that the work must stand on its own when the work is in progress, based on your fears of where it might go, is frankly unfair.

And yes, the pre-Cerebus strips are probably not going to stand up to full scrutiny with the benefit of hindsight, but if the impact of the work overall is positive I personally am willing to overlook that. Again, this will be dependent on how things will end up, not my own assumptions and predictions.

dancrilis

2021-05-01, 01:49 PM

"Thar be no compromise! Thar be no parley an' thar be no resonable discussions! Yer a frickin' vampire, Malack! Yer a danger ta everyone livin' on this continent!" (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0872.html)
-Durkon just 2 books ago, talking to a vampire (a stereotypically evil creature with free will who Durkon forces into battle because of his race) And don't give me that vampires prey on humans thing, goblins are perfectly happy to eat humans in basically all lore.

Durkon did not force Malack into battle because of his race, Malack forced Durkon into battle because Malack showed up to interfere with Durkon's quest - had Malack agreed to simply leave and let Durkon go about his business Durkon would have likely accepted that.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 02:12 PM

Just above 'did nothing wrong' is a substantial region with varying shades of 'could have done better' that a Good character often strives to cross.

You went into why it is unrealistic specifically to expect Roy to attempt dialogue with people swinging axes at him who aren't "villains who are actual characters". Apart from OtOoPCs providing an example of exactly that, I also broadened the conversation to Roy attempting to ascertain the motives of the people fighting them because that was what Roy claimed not to have done in panel 9. Not having asked any goblins while fighting is actually a narrower admission as it would also allow for a scenario where Roy had thought about it but never thought it was 'the right time to bring it up.' Another reason why I say panel 9 is the one that carries the relevant implications.

Behaving differently at different times does not automatically produce a double standard unless there is reasoning which is differentially applied.

But even before that, let's tease out the actual line of argument in the comic. Roy admits in panel 9 that he hasn't really thought about the position of the goblins. His defense in panel 10 is it's hard to discuss something like that in the middle of combat - that is, even if he had thought about it, there wasn't a good time to bring it up. The purpose of the last three panels, then, is to puncture that defense. Because Roy has a habit of talking while fighting, up to and including talking about more difficult topics under more challenging circumstances, if he had thought about the goblin position he probably would have brought it up. The fact that no one ever did reinforces that no one ever thought about it.

At what point in this line of argument is a double standard claimed or implied?

I think the idea of having that kind of influence from here is pretty presumptuous, but hey, maybe you'll start a movement.

My argument is that I don't necessarily believe talking to every mook constitutes 'better' and that rather then 'could do better' the comic, Durkon and Roy seem to treat it as something actively bad he did.

To clarify on this point, I actually think if he believes it is a moral responsibility to resolve everything peacefully if possible and communicate with everyone, he SHOULD do it with everyone. At which point we're dealing with things like narrative stakes involving villains (I.E. when heroes kill all the minions but take the villain alive) among other things. If we hold that he should have communicated with Goblins it should apply to everything. I understand On the Origins of PCs, but once again that material is outside the comic itself and Rich has expressed he wants it to stand on its own. Even if we were to include it, it just further shows Roy's ability to excellent morality in these situations and that it shouldn't be considered wrong or bad that he didn't do that for every mook up to this point.

It's possible that it does not imply a double standard, but I don't think so because of the intense focus on the Goblins themselves and pointing out that Roy has talked with other people. Per my main post and many others Roy's defense holds up very well. Once again we don't know what's going on with the goblins as far as online only people go. We see them being all 'wretched do gooders' and worshipping demon princes for online only people. So for online only people it is fair game to assume they're just evil. But if we're saying even when they appear that way Roy should still have thought about their position and then he might have resolve things peacefully, I would point out the same thing for literally every villain. Every mook could have a special context that could cause them to change sides easily or allow for a peaceful resolution if at all possible. If we expect it for Goblins, we have to expect it for everybody. Which seems to be what the comic is implying, that Roy will talk and consider other people but not Goblins.

It's not presumptuous because I don't expect to succeed, I don't know if I'm even needed, I don't want to start a movement and in fact I expect if Rich ever saw or responded to this I would simply lose the respect of somebody I admire. I just had to try in case it was needed.

That's a valid perspective when the work is complete. But demanding that the work must stand on its own when the work is in progress, based on your fears of where it might go, is frankly unfair.

And yes, the pre-Cerebus strips are probably not going to stand up to full scrutiny with the benefit of hindsight, but if the impact of the work overall is positive I personally am willing to overlook that. Again, this will be dependent on how things will end up, not my own assumptions and predictions.

I'm not, I'm simply pointing out issues that if not addressed will cause problems. These issues currently exist, and they may be fixed or it may go a direction I haven't predicted. In case it doesn't, I wanted to have a chance to convince Rich of it and do a technical breakdown of a small facet of the writing for other people. An example would be an ongoing TV show that ends with a cliffhanger reveal of a previously thought dead character being alive and you say something like "They better have a good explanation for this". It's not quite the same and is actually a bit worse than that in my perspective, but it's a similar scenario.

The impact of a work has nothing to do with the technical writing or whether or not the themes are effectively conveyed. I think it has muddled and messed up any kind of real world allegory this could have and thus the theming is quickly becoming botched. It won't convey the theme he wants to convey if the facts of the story contradict it.

Rrmcklin

2021-05-01, 02:12 PM

On that I agree, but Durkon's angle seem to be moral, not strategic. He was sympathetic to the notion that goblin should have better steal so they could beat the dwarves a bit more often, for example.

This is a misrepresentation of what he said. Thor claimed that the system is fair because if a goblin beats a dwarf they get XP just like if a dwarf beats a goblin. Durkon responded that in practice one of those is much more likely to happen than the other, because of circumstances they were born into and largely have no control over. It's not about wanting more dwarfs beaten by goblins, it's pointing out it unreasonable to call a system like that "fair".

Robots

2021-05-01, 02:14 PM

Durkon did not force Malack into battle because of his race, Malack forced Durkon into battle because Malack showed up to interfere with Durkon's quest - had Malack agreed to simply leave and let Durkon go about his business Durkon would have likely accepted that.
Well, they couldn't even do that. Malack is working with Tarquin to prevent the Order's quest. And even then, they couldn't have been friends after Malack attempted to vampirize Belkar. Durkon's too noble to just be like "okay you can kill my traveling companion see you bye". Even if Malack and Durkon hadn't crossed paths at this point, Malack is still complicit in the Empire of Blood's dirty dealings. One way or another, the two would probably have had to fight each other.

It's not (just) about Malack being a vampire.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 02:47 PM

This is a misrepresentation of what he said. Thor claimed that the system is fair because if a goblin beats a dwarf they get XP just like if a dwarf beats a goblin. Durkon responded that in practice one of those is much more likely to happen than the other, because of circumstances they were born into and largely have no control over. It's not about wanting more dwarfs beaten by goblins, it's pointing out it unreasonable to call a system like that "fair".
See, the big problem with these last few strips is that war cannot be fair. If a general gives the enemy a fair chance, he is terrible at his job and should be replaced by someone who will not waste an opportunity the enemy might have seized if the roles were reversed. If the goblins lose more due to circumstances they have no control over and cannot change, that means the dwarves are winning.

So it very much comes down to whether or not you want more dwarves beaten by goblins. "Unfair to the goblins" simply dodges the issue, which is that either the dwarves defeat the goblins as completely as they can, to the point goblins are no longer able to pose a threat to their nation, or they willingly create a situation where more of their kind will die. If you want that to stop, you need peace, not a "fairness" that would boil down to generals on the winning side sacrificing their own men. The gods expected the races to fight, surely they also expected some races to win, sometimes decisively. That's what happened, and that's as "fair" as war can ever be.

Dion

2021-05-01, 02:50 PM

I believe you should right wrongs when the war is over and Evil has been checked.

I agree that’s true in the sort of romantic fantasy story where it’s true.

But it’s not true anywhere else.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 02:55 PM

I agree that’s true in the sort of romantic fantasy story where it’s true.

But it’s not true anywhere else.

I think the idea being expressed is that when good people are at risk, you should defend them and not risk their lives one bit for the sake of evil people, or even good people that happen to be your enemies if their actions are hurting good people that are your friends and allies.

When troops are being attacked, we worry about them before we consider the socio-economic circumstances that led to them back attacked or whether or not the attacks had a reason. The 'human' cost of reversing that order has not been addressed.

Dion

2021-05-01, 03:02 PM

I think the idea being expressed is that when good people are at risk, you should defend them and not risk their lives one bit for the sake of evil people,.

Yes. I fully agree that there exist fantasy romance stories with “good people” and “evil people”, and that in subset of those stories the way to solve conflicts is for the good people to kill the evil people.

The point is that this isn’t that specific type of fantasy romance story.

Which is nice, because I find those types of stories so completely unrealistic.

Psyren

2021-05-01, 03:04 PM

I'm not, I'm simply pointing out issues that if not addressed will cause problems. These issues currently exist, and they may be fixed or it may go a direction I haven't predicted. In case it doesn't, I wanted to have a chance to convince Rich of it and do a technical breakdown of a small facet of the writing for other people. An example would be an ongoing TV show that ends with a cliffhanger reveal of a previously thought dead character being alive and you say something like "They better have a good explanation for this". It's not quite the same and is actually a bit worse than that in my perspective, but it's a similar scenario.

The impact of a work has nothing to do with the technical writing or whether or not the themes are effectively conveyed. I think it has muddled and messed up any kind of real world allegory this could have and thus the theming is quickly becoming botched. It won't convey the theme he wants to convey if the facts of the story contradict it.

I get that you're expressing a concern about potential direction, but you can't have it both ways. Either you're judging the whole work on its own without seeing the end (unfair) or you're allowing that things can end up in a spot you like, in which case authorial statements of intent are germane to that unseen future state. My issue is with your statement that authorial commentary is irrelevant to the final product, when currently there IS no final product.

Rrmcklin

2021-05-01, 03:09 PM

Telenil

2021-05-01, 03:14 PM

I agree that’s true in the sort of romantic fantasy story where it’s true.

But it’s not true anywhere else.

I would have said the opposite. It is only in fantasy stories (like OOTS) that people can be in life-or-death situations and still take time to ponder the morality of their actions. In most cases, you simply do what you must and try to survive.

You're focusing too much on the details of that specific hypothetical to realize the larger part being made in general. Durkon is not just talking about war, he is talking about every facet of life, and how (in general) dwarfs (and humans, elves, etc.) have advantages that goblins (or orcs, trolls, etc) don't have through no fault of their own.

The things that Durkon (and the story) are focusing on go beyond this conflict, and tunnel vision won't help with it.
Durkon gives the examples of dwarves winning due to having better steel, or having better food. Then he said he didn't want the dwarves to lose more, but that he understands why the goblins would find it unfair. That was literally his argument.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 03:19 PM

Yes. I fully agree that there exist fantasy romance stories with “good people” and “evil people”, and that in subset of those stories the way to solve conflicts is for the good people to kill the evil people.

The point is that this isn’t type of fantasy romance story.

Which is nice, because I find those stories so completely unrealistic.

Even if we don't believe in good and evil people, what about the right to defend yourself and the ones you love? It doesn't matter how bad somebody needs it, I'm not going to let them kill me for their own sake even if they have all the reasons and justification in the world. Even removing good and evil, sometimes there are violent situations that are extremely difficult and unrealistic to resolve without violence, and even if they could be resolved without violence if pursuing that resolution would be a risk to you or those you love you are within your right to take the safer route. It would be expecting a lot for individual people being attacked to always consider what other people are going through and then be like "Well they're in a really bad spot so maybe I can resolve this peacefully even if I'm at risk of dying (or the entire world is at risk of being destroyed and the souls consumed forever)"

I get that you're expressing a concern about potential direction, but you can't have it both ways. Either you're judging the whole work on its own without seeing the end (unfair) or you're allowing that things can end up in a spot you like, in which case authorial statements of intent are germane to that unseen future state. My issue is with your statement that authorial commentary is irrelevant to the final product, when currently there IS no final product.

I'm saying that I don't have to judge the whole work to say "the work up to this point has an issue that should be addressed". If the story goes the whole time and never accounts for certain things, or continues progressing in the way it appears to, that will cause technical writing issues. As I've said many times, almost all of the things I've mentioned can be fixed with a bit of crafty writing, expository scenes and throwaway lines. The authorial intent is completely irrelevant to 'Has the online comic shown enough Goblins in other situations to counteract the cartoonishly evil ones?' or 'How did the hobgoblins have 30,000 armed and armored soldiers but somehow are stated to be lacking in resources?' These things can be fixed but they are issues with the work as it stands. It's not the same as say, an unresolved mystery that will surely get explained at some point. These are plot holes or writing failing the themes. There is no expectation that they will be corrected, but they very well might be.

Rrmcklin

2021-05-01, 03:20 PM

I would have said the opposite. It is only in fantasy stories (like OOTS) that people can be in life-or-death situations and still take time to ponder the morality of their actions. In most cases, you simply do what you must and try to survive.

Even if you're working from that frame of reference, that's separate from declaring "all these people are definitively good" and "all these people are definitively evil and okay to kill". Your take here strikes me as much more amoral than any sort of black-and-white morality.

Though I question the notion people can't be interested in survival and actual care about why the fighting is happening and the morality of actions taken before and later.

Durkon gives the examples of dwarves winning due to having better steel, or having better food. Then he said he didn't want the dwarves to lose more, but that he understands why the goblins would find it unfair. That's literally what he said.

I know what he said. I also know you're ignoring the actual context and broader implications of why he said it.

dps

2021-05-01, 03:20 PM

Just above 'did nothing wrong' is a substantial region with varying shades of 'could have done better' that a Good character often strives to cross.

I think that this gets to the crux of where I disagree with Bootman. My understanding of what he is trying to convey might be faulty, but it seems to me that he is conflating Roy making a possibly less than optimal choice with a moral failing on Roy's part. I don't think that Roy has done anything morally wrong vis-a-vis the Goblins (at least not to the extent that it damages his character or breaks the story--he's not perfect after all, and has never been portrayed as such), the current arc is simply about Durkon becoming aware that there is more going on than the party had been aware of, and now making Roy aware of it, too.

Kornaki

2021-05-01, 03:21 PM

Bootman

2021-05-01, 03:28 PM

Even if you're working from that frame of reference, that's separate from declaring "all these people are definitively good" and "all these people are definitively evil and okay to kill". Your take here strikes me as much more amoral than any sort of black-and-white morality.

Though I question the notion people can't be interested in survival and actual care about why the fighting is happening and the morality of actions taken before and later.

They certainly can. My point is just that it is difficult to do so and saying a character did something wrong by not doing doing it is going too far. It's a bad message and it contradicts all the times he did consider the point of view of his enemies Goblin or otherwise.

I think that this gets to the crux of where I disagree with Bootman. My understanding of what he is trying to convey might be faulty, but it seems to me that he is conflating Roy making a possibly less than optimal choice with a moral failing on Roy's part. I don't think that Roy has done anything morally wrong vis-a-vis the Goblins (at least not to the extent that it damages his character or breaks the story--he's not perfect after all, and has never been portrayed as such), the current arc is simply about Durkon becoming aware that there is more going on than the party had been aware of, and now making Roy aware of it, too.

If that's the case, if they just go 'aw gee shucks that wasn't perfect', it will be pretty weak sauce as a revelation to bring up to Roy and lack a lot of power. The issue is that Roy gives a very good reason why he wouldn't have done it (even though he has in the past), and Durkon gives a very manipulatively framed snide example to counteract it and make it seem like Roy's defense is flawed. After which Roy agrees that he was wrong to have treated the Goblins the way he did. Is it possible this is amounting to the weak little slap of 'maybe we should consider our enemies point of view more but I was still right to do what I did in the moment'? Absolutely. But if next page Roy gives a speech to his team about how they did wrong in the first dungeon or something along those lines? Then that becomes really messed up.

Also if it really is 'we didn't do perfectly but we still did really really good' that further weakens the presentation of Goblins being oppressed in some way, and the Goblin plot REALLY needs to be strengthened in that regard to work, not weakened. Also it needs to be applied universally, not just to Goblins, if it's going to work as a character revelation or theme.

Dion

2021-05-01, 03:30 PM

See, the big problem with these last few strips is that war cannot be fair.

Well then, it’s a very good thing that nobody is currently at war in the strip.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 03:33 PM

woweedd

2021-05-01, 03:47 PM

Pretty much. Which is why I can't fathom why Durkon and Thor speak of "fairness" in a system designed around people being rewarded for killing each other. This isn't a game or a match.

The goblins and Azure City are at war. The word was written multiple times in that book.
The OOTS and Redcloak and Xykon are enemies and try to kill the other side. If that's not technically war, that's close enough.

So, what? The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer? That’s not what being Good is about. Being Good means being held to a higher standard.If war can not lead to a good outcome, that is a problem with war. It can, but not always. Not every problem can or should be solved by the sword. Durkon is advocating for fairness, and, if there is no fairness in war, that’s war’s problem.

Psyren

2021-05-01, 03:49 PM

The authorial intent is completely irrelevant

Agree to disagree it is

Telenil

2021-05-01, 03:59 PM

So, what? The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer? That’s not what being Good is about. Being Good means being held to a higher standard.If war can not lead to a good outcome, that is a problem with war. It can, but not always. Not every problem can or should be solved by the sword. Durkon is advocating for fairness, and, if there is no fairness in war, that’s war’s problem.Yes and no. I agree that adventurers and paladins should stop raiding goblin villages if the goblin agree to not take any more land, and something can be sorted out with the exiled Azurite. But Redcloak rejected that offer, and therefore, he must be stopped by the sword, irrespective of legitimate grievances the goblin may have.
As I've said a couple of times, the time to be fair is after the war.

Dion

2021-05-01, 04:06 PM

The OOTS and Redcloak and Xykon are enemies and try to kill the other side. If that's not technically war, that's close enough.

That’s... not a war. It’s not even sort of like a war. It’s nothing like war.

Silly Name

2021-05-01, 04:08 PM

See, the big problem with these last few strips is that war cannot be fair. If a general gives the enemy a fair chance, he is terrible at his job and should be replaced by someone who will not waste an opportunity the enemy might have seized if the roles were reversed. If the goblins lose more due to circumstances they have no control over and cannot change, that means the dwarves are winning.

Perhaps the better takeaway is that the world's various peoples shouldn't try to "win" over each other, and that a system that necessitates conflict isn't exactly a good system?

So it very much comes down to whether or not you want more dwarves beaten by goblins. "Unfair to the goblins" simply dodges the issue, which is that either the dwarves defeat the goblins as completely as they can, to the point goblins are no longer able to pose a threat to their nation, or they willingly create a situation where more of their kind will die. If you want that to stop, you need peace, not a "fairness" that would boil down to generals on the winning side sacrificing their own men. The gods expected the races to fight, surely they also expected some races to win, sometimes decisively. That's what happened, and that's as "fair" as war can ever be.

1) Even if we assume "conflict" to be something that's impossible to remove from OotS-world, there's no reason for why that conflict has to be along racial lines. There was conflict between the Order and Tarquin's empire, and that wasn't a conflict steeped in racial divide, but ideology and politics.

2) It could be argued that one of the main reasons behind those racial conflicts is exactly the lack of good land and resources. If their homeland can't support them, then the goblins will seek out better land, and if the humans' reaction is "Kill the goblins, protect our land!" there will be conflict. Or maybe the goblins will think "Let's kill the humans and take their lands!" In any case, conflict over resources is one of the main reasons behind war, usually.

I think Durkon isn't going to argue in favour of "ok guys, everyone now has exactly the same starting resources. Now let's all go to war and the survivor takes all!" I seriously doubt that's the point Rich wants to make, that we should have "fair wars".

Again, notice what Durkon says at the start of the strip: that Redcloak is right about getting a raw deal, because your god making you and giving you ****ty lands and then immediately abandoning you isn't a good thing to have. But Redcloak is also wrong about how to solve the problem, because Redcloak's methods are only increasing suffering for a bunch of people, and it's pretty clear that Redcloak's ideal world has the goblins on top, not on even footing with everyone else.

Bootman

2021-05-01, 04:09 PM

Agree to disagree it is

That's taking it pretty out of context. I gave a specific scenario where authorial intent is irrelevant, which there are current technical issues with the writing that would need to be actively fixed. I would never say authorial intent doesn't matter at all, ever, under any circumstance.

Dion

2021-05-01, 04:27 PM

But Redcloak rejected that offer, and therefore, he must be stopped by the sword

You are defending a ridiculous position.

You’ve left me no choice but to stab you.

Telenil

2021-05-01, 04:27 PM

Perhaps the better takeaway is that the world's various peoples shouldn't try to "win" over each other, and that a system that necessitates conflict isn't exactly a good system?Exactly. The problem is not that the goblins can't get as much xp as the dwarves, because that just means the dwarves are winning. The problem is that you gain xp by killing other sentient creatures.

2) It could be argued that one of the main reasons behind those racial conflicts is exactly the lack of good land and resources. If their homeland can't support them, then the goblins will seek out better land, and if the humans' reaction is "Kill the goblins, protect our land!" there will be conflict. Or maybe the goblins will think "Let's kill the humans and take their lands!" In any case, conflict over resources is one of the main reasons behind war, usually.

I think Durkon isn't going to argue in favour of "ok guys, everyone now has exactly the same starting resources. Now let's all go to war and the survivor takes all!" I seriously doubt that's the point Rich wants to make, that we should have "fair wars".

That's how it comes accross. We wouldn't be having this conversation if not for the following exchange:

"Don't forget that it works both ways. If a goblin defeats a dwarf, the goblin gains the levels instead.
- But the goblins started out with less, so that's not usually what happens. What happens is, the dwarf wins because he has a better axe and better armor and has been eating better food his whole life. I don't know, I mean, I don't want the dwarf to lose, but I can see how it's not exactly fair for the goblin.
- I mean... Yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose... but I guess we didn't prevent it either."

Psyren

2021-05-01, 04:29 PM

That's taking it pretty out of context. I gave a specific scenario where authorial intent is irrelevant, which there are current technical issues with the writing that would need to be actively fixed. I would never say authorial intent doesn't matter at all, ever, under any circumstance.

Right, and I disagree with your scenario, so no point in going any further.

Silly Name

2021-05-01, 05:20 PM

That's how it comes accross. We wouldn't be having this conversation if not for the following exchange:

"Don't forget that it works both ways. If a goblin defeats a dwarf, the goblin gains the levels instead.
- But the goblins started out with less, so that's not usually what happens. What happens is, the dwarf wins because he has a better axe and better armor and has been eating better food his whole life. I don't know, I mean, I don't want the dwarf to lose, but I can see how it's not exactly fair for the goblin.
- I mean... Yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose... but I guess we didn't prevent it either."

I understand your point about how that line can be taken as Durkon wanting a "fair war" situation, but I find the point to be more about how "equal rules for all" doesn't work when one guy shows up to the race in a Ferrari and the other without even wearing shoes. Durkon is rebutting Thor's point that goblins have a fair shot at getting some good things, when in reality they lack the material means to even make a serious attempt at bettering their situation in the first place.

Again, notice how Durkon also doesn't think Redcloak's methods will work to make things better - because, as you've pointed out, if the goblins "win", that means someone else has to "lose". Redcloak is stuck in this zero-sum mentality where he has to take good things by force and overpower other people into submission, because he doesn't want things to be better for everyone, he wants things to be better for the goblins and worse for everyone else. Durkon says it out loud - "I don't want the dwarf to lose" -, because his ideal is not everyone fighting until only one victor remains.

Rrmcklin

2021-05-01, 06:01 PM

It bears mentioning that Durkon isn't the one to bring up fairness - Thor did. Thor claimed the system was fair, and Durkon's simply pointed out reasons for why, in practice, that's not actually the case.

And the hypothetical wasn't even necessarily about "war", you could claim it's about a competition or gladiator event and the wording could stay the same. So the take away of "Durkon's point is wrong because war isn't fair, and don't you want your side to win!" is missing what was actually being discussed and why.

Spartan360

2021-05-01, 06:22 PM

Taevyr

2021-05-01, 06:42 PM

In general, aside from getting the Dark One to help with the Snarl, I see Zero reasoning why the other races, even good alignment people like Roy or even O-Chul should entertain the idea that they have an obligation to kneel over to a race that has been doing little more than slaughter not only members of their race but have also been doing countless acts of villainy for more than couple of decades now, many of which include necromancies and genocides that unsurprisingly many people would find hard to even attempt to forgive.

Besides Redcloak, who even Roy and Durkon said they disagreed with in the latest comic, I doubt anyone here's arguing that the other races should "kneel over" to the goblins. All we're saying is that they deserve fair treatment, and a fair share of the world.

That's it. That's the entire argument for most of those who are arguing "in favor of the goblins". And yes, it's apparently an idealist, utopian notion, but dammit that's why they should strive for it. Impossible as it may be to reach it in reality, striving for it is still way freaking better than dragging in concepts like the unfairness of war, or all species inherently competing for space, or RTS mechanics as excuses for why treating the goblins with some basic decency is apparently a ridiculous notion. All of that ignores the simple, base argument of just treating them fairly and allowing them the same opportunities the other races got, which includes shutting down both adventurers who'd kill any goblin for XP AND Redcloaks who go far beyond the whole "equal treatment" thing and implode people who try diplomatic solutions.

Spartan360

2021-05-01, 06:47 PM

That's really not a fair assessment since we already know it's not a one way attack on a race, Those races hate goblins and goblins hate those races, for understandable reasons might I add. And what opportunities are you talking about? You want to make it easier for the invading goblins to kill other races that originally had better racial or home advantages?

RossN

2021-05-01, 07:04 PM

Durkon is rebutting Thor's point that goblins have a fair shot at getting some good things, when in reality they lack the material means to even make a serious attempt at bettering their situation in the first place.

An enormous, well equipped army of hobgoblins overwhelmed and conquered a powerful, well armed, rich human kingdom storming and taking that kingdom's capital via sheer military might. Yes they had 'outside' high level help but so did the humans and the vast bulk of the fighting was done by the hobgoblins.

Now I think it can be reasonably argued that the goblins have been dealt a relatively weak hand, but the comic as written simply doesn't support the idea that they are so weak they have no shot at all. I think that is part of why people who aren't thrilled at the direction of the plot and the ethos supplied are so frustrated. It feels like the narrative is being purposefully weighted to make the goblin case as sympathetic as possible, regardless of what we've already seen or been able to reasonably infer.

goodyarn

2021-05-01, 08:03 PM

mjasghar

2021-05-01, 09:21 PM

That's taking it pretty out of context. I gave a specific scenario where authorial intent is irrelevant, which there are current technical issues with the writing that would need to be actively fixed. I would never say authorial intent doesn't matter at all, ever, under any circumstance.

I’m choosing death of the author and saying you would say that regardless of you saying you wouldn’t.

SN137

2021-05-01, 10:41 PM

Worthless thoughts removed

Nephrahim

2021-05-01, 10:57 PM

TRH

2021-05-01, 11:19 PM

How about this:

Since lack of good land and elbow room for the Goblins seems to be the original problem here, I would like to point out that there is an ENTIRE PLANET inside/made of the Snarl which is, as far as we can tell, uninhabited. If the Snarl can be tamed with the help of the Dark One, it can be renamed New Gobbotopia and the Goblins can go there and live in Gobbotopical peace without upsetting anybody's sensibilities. How's that? Because THAT's where I think this is all heading.

Snarl + Goblins
Survivors of the Gods' Myopia
Forever

I'm almost entirely certain that that's not where we're heading. For all of the debate over authorial intent and the intended direction of the story we've got in this thread, I think we can all agree that Rich is making it loud and clear that the necessary solution to the goblins' plight cannot be quick and easy, and it will involve work on the part of mortals to make sure they can all work through their issues and past violence and injustice in order to live together. Together. So to have the goblins all migrate to another world, to be swept under the rug? It's too neat and easy, and would make the social work and reform we've been discussing unnecessary.

TRH

2021-05-01, 11:22 PM

Leliel

2021-05-01, 11:37 PM

Even if I acknowledged those
1) The comic appears to treat this as a 1 way street, when we have only ever seen Goblinoids invade and enslave an area occupied by humans
2) A demand for a fair share of the world seems to me to have about the same moral weight as say Europeans demanding an equal share of land from the Americas or Australia, because their land is underpopulated due to epidemics and less advanced subsistence patterns, whilst Europe is overpopulated. It seems to me that that could only be considered moral if this was negotiated peacefully with the original inhabitants. It would also be perfectly moral if they were to tell the Europeans to bugger off, and pay for their food if they wanted any. Or even if they didn't want to be farmers and didn't export food.
3) The goblins have at no point asked for any of this onscreen, but have just invaded,taken land, enslaved and killed.

1) Yes, we've just seen the humans invade and murder an area occupied by goblins. Or hobgoblins. Kind of a semantic point. I'll admit a lot of that is in the supplementary books, but frankly, I wasn't exactly crying for the Azure City Resistance after what they did to that hobgoblin prisoner.

2) That's not what's happening at all. It's more like a bunch of people stuck in a desert want to be out of a desert, and the owners of the farmlands stabbed them when they tried so often that the desert dwellers have given up trying that as a tactic.

3) No, Redcloak has just invaded, taken land, enslaved, and killed. The goblins generally follow his orders, and Redcloak is not a good person, that's the crux of his character. As a counterpoint, we have Oona, who is more like what happens when a goblinoid has land she's happy with - she's just a hunter who'd be fine staying in the snow.

This is a thorny problem; that's the point of this entire subplot. It's a lot more complex than one issue, but no side is innocent - and no side is completely to blame (except Fenris. Fenris sucks).

The sheer bizarreness of morality presented undercuts the story and makes it bad.

I don't think it's weird to give the benefit of the doubt to what is essentially an entire species of abandoned children whose own deadbeat creator left them, without any guidance the other races take for granted, in a wasteland, leaving them with a bad hand of fate to start with.

It's kind of hard to completely condemn a group that was literally cast adrift from the divine realm because of their creator's negligence and laziness. From the implication, it's entirely possible goblins didn't have any clerical magic at all until TDO came along; that's a pretty bad handicap, and it doesn't exist for a good reason.

dps

2021-05-02, 12:12 AM

I mean, part of that same story was about how goblins were explicitly made to be slaughtered by clerics to level them up, and we just learned how that's a long way from being the truth. So much so as to be completely untrue, if you ask me. Not to say the goblins don't have problems, but that specific problem is entirely fictitious.

Well, as it happens, Durkon didn't ask you, he asked Thor. And unlike you, Thor didn't say it was completely untrue.

Spartan360

2021-05-02, 12:25 AM

But he did say that was the worst way to view it. The Gods made an ecosystem and just like every other eco system in fiction, some weren't as fortunate as others. It does happen but feeling entitled just because you didn't win the lottery isn't really fair to those who did win the lottery and those who didn't win but did gain something.

Dion

2021-05-02, 12:29 AM

But he did say that was the worst way to view it.

Newsflash: when people say that, what they mean is “it’s true”.

When things aren’t true, people say so. They don’t parse words.

SN137

2021-05-02, 01:27 AM

Destroyed like it all

skim172

2021-05-02, 01:58 AM

IMO the goblins were really only handed a hand of cards in poker by their god, ones that promised a flush but when the dealer put down the cards onto the table, they found that they didn't get the win and are now angry with a sense of entitlement towards the other race that kept a pair of 7 and got a full house.

Or in a different terms, they were given a perfectly useable faction traits in an rts but merely failed to take advantage of their numbers before the other races managed to shut down their attempts before using their fighters/adventurers to get some payback for the attacks.

In general, aside from getting the Dark One to help with the Snarl, I see Zero reasoning why the other races, even good alignment people like Roy or even O-Chul should entertain the idea that they have an obligation to kneel over to a race that has been doing little more than slaughter not only members of their race but have also been doing countless acts of villainy for more than couple of decades now, many of which include necromancies and genocides that unsurprisingly many people would find hard to even attempt to forgive.

Really, I even doubt that Redcloak and the goblins would have found the scenario unfair, if at the start they would have started with halfling, gnomes or other goblin neighbours.

The gods in the OOTS-verse are not neutral spectators nor non-interventionist creators. They actively, constantly, physically, and powerfully interfere with the events of mortal lives. Real world concepts of morality and divinity aren't really applicable.

The most uncharitable version of the goblins' creation is that they were established purely to be slaughtered to empower the gods' favored races. Thor's more charitable version is that the goblins were abandoned by their creator god and consequently dropped way down the food chain to become prey for the races who have gods.

In either scenario, the goblins are at a severe disadvantage compared to the rest of the races. They're not just upset because they were unlucky with the draw. Rather - to stick with your poker analogy - they're upset because they're playing with the hand that they were dealt, while everyone else has their own personal dealer who has - since the deal - been constantly supplying them with extra bonus cards. And no matter what the goblins do, they simply can't beat other players who are always playing hands composed of 4 aces, or 5 aces. Or 10 aces, or 12, or 20.

This is not a level playing field, a fair competition, or a game of chance. It never has been and never will be - nor was it ever intended or promised to be. The gods stack the deck - and that's the actual game: who's better at stacking the deck for their chosen players. Without a dealer slipping you cards, you're not really even playing. You're just at the table.

Without a god to protect them and use them, the goblins are essentially non-players. Now that might be fine - but there's an additional dimension to this situation. The other races - and the other gods - can strengthen themselves by killing the goblins over and over. They have a motivation to kill the unprotected, godless goblins. The PCs gain levels, the gods gain souls. Really, they're basically farming the goblins. Let them grow a bit, then harvest them on the regular for XP, lewt, and sweet, sweet worship.

So to go to your RTS analogy - the goblins are not a "faction with perfectly usable traits". They're not a faction in this game at all. They're just a resource. They're the gold/crystals/minerals/lumber/pigs/pylons that the other factions are mining.

Which is why they're upset. I wouldn't say that justifies their reactions - but they were, indeed, short-shrifted from the start.

It is a fallacy to try to view the OOTS-verse via our real world cosmology. Our world is fundamentally not like the OOTS-world. I think most people would agree - whether they believe in the existence of divinity or not - that the influence of the divine in the daily events of individual lives is subtle, and not obvious. Certainly, your local priest or holy man can't dial up Jehovah or Quetzalcoatl on their internal head telephone to ask questions about his daily to-do list (well, most people don't think so, anyway). But the OOTS-verse is a cosmology in which not only can a priest do that, but they are obligated to do so. In return, they are given the power to defy physical and biological laws and reshape space-time within their vicinity, as part of their daily routine.

And if they want to increase their ability to make reality their plaything - then they must kill other living beings. And their religion in fact obligates them to do so, in order to strengthen themselves and the powers of their god(s).

I don't know about you, but my local priest doesn't do that on the regular. At least, not since I left that cult.

Telenil

2021-05-02, 03:06 AM

I understand your point about how that line can be taken as Durkon wanting a "fair war" situation, but I find the point to be more about how "equal rules for all" doesn't work when one guy shows up to the race in a Ferrari and the other without even wearing shoes. Durkon is rebutting Thor's point that goblins have a fair shot at getting some good things, when in reality they lack the material means to even make a serious attempt at bettering their situation in the first place.

Again, notice how Durkon also doesn't think Redcloak's methods will work to make things better - because, as you've pointed out, if the goblins "win", that means someone else has to "lose". Redcloak is stuck in this zero-sum mentality where he has to take good things by force and overpower other people into submission, because he doesn't want things to be better for everyone, he wants things to be better for the goblins and worse for everyone else. Durkon says it out loud - "I don't want the dwarf to lose" -, because his ideal is not everyone fighting until only one victor remains.

I get what you are saying, but my whole issue with the last two strips is that this is not a race. Durkon didn't say "this is unfair because one side has a Ferrari and the other not", he said "this is unfair because one side has a tank and the other not". That's not the same thing at all.

The whole exchange is bizarre. Thor reacts as if the Gods had organised a friendly tournament and goblin athletes couldn't get medals, not a brutal conflict where every kill makes you stronger. The conversation may be an attempted nod at real-world issues, but if it is, battles to the death are the wrong narrative to make that point.
If Durkon's real argument is "give the goblins a shot at peacefully having their own kingdom and only resume clubing them if they attack first", fine. But as far as I can see, that's not what he said.

3) No, Redcloak has just invaded, taken land, enslaved, and killed. The goblins generally follow his orders, and Redcloak is not a good person, that's the crux of his character. As a counterpoint, we have Oona, who is more like what happens when a goblinoid has land she's happy with - she's just a hunter who'd be fine staying in the snow.

This is a thorny problem; that's the point of this entire subplot. It's a lot more complex than one issue, but no side is innocent - and no side is completely to blame (except Fenris. Fenris sucks).

I don't think it's weird to give the benefit of the doubt to what is essentially an entire species of abandoned children whose own deadbeat creator left them, without any guidance the other races take for granted, in a wasteland, leaving them with a bad hand of fate to start with.

Because the leader of the goblin is Redcloak and not Oona, any combatant in his forces is a fair target. You shouldn't give the benefit of the doubt to an armed enemy and you are not morally expected to do so. A moral soldier is supposed to treat prisoners well (no forced labor for the conquered population, no pushing prisoners from the top of a tower) and to protect civilians to the extent that is compatible with military operations. He is not supposed to wonder if the enemy has a point or pull his punches if he does.

Everyone agrees that razing a village of goblin civilians or attacking them under a flag of truce is bad - and I must point out that Redcloak himself just tried to murder a negotiator because he couldn't pass up the strategic advantage this would bring, so he is completely hypocritical if he uses the Dark One's fate as a justification. Durkon went beyond the call of duty and endangered his party to try and offer a fair peace to his enemy, and it was the goblin leader who refused. So fighting it is. If you really want to be fair, what you should do is destroy anyone who tries to defend Redcloak, irrespective of their grievances, and after that present the same offer to Redcloak's successor. Assuming something can be worked out with the Azurite, who should receive fair treatment too.

Some

2021-05-02, 04:00 AM

I know people have said they don't want to use SoD materials as evidence, buuutttt:

The Origin of The Dark One is of them attempting to peacefully take land and being betrayed in turn by human nations, although it is possible there's more to the story then The Dark One's version.

Woah, okay, now I'm confused.

I haven't read Start of Darkness, so I checked a Wiki for an overview...

In the divine realm, the Dark One learns of the other gods' cruel joke, that being that the whole of Goblin-kind was created for the sole purpose of providing Clerics with low-level threats to aid in their level progression.

Until seeing that, it seemed like the claim about goblins being fodder for heroes was completely invented; nothing in the main comic seemed to support it, and I was deeply confused why people just bought Redcloak's vague claim as though it were fact. (Afterall, Redcloak's extremely evil and lies to pretty much everyone, so Redcloak's self-serving claim that seemed to contradict all available evidence didn't seem very credible.)

But if there's a canon reveal that that's true, then.. well, I'm confused. Is it canon? And if so, then is Thor lying? Because Thor said that Fenris made the goblins under a theory of evolutionary-superiority; that seems incompatible with the other gods having made goblins as EXP-fodder.

There're other confusing things, too. For example, the Wiki says that the goblins took out a million humans.. but somehow couldn't get any human land? The goblins took out vastly fewer humans to conquer Azure City, so if they were able to get a million humans in one year before, how did they not conquer most of the major human cities?

And apparently the gods assigned land to the races after creation, denying goblins the good land? But Thor directly stated that the gods couldn't do that when Durkon asked if the goblins could be given land. And it certainly seems like the gods aren't acting to give the humans back Azure City after the goblins' conquest of it, so Thor's claim would seem to be holding up.

What's going on with these apparent inconsistencies?

masamune1

2021-05-02, 04:29 AM

Woah, okay, now I'm confused.

I haven't read Start of Darkness, so I checked a Wiki for an overview...

Until seeing that, it seemed like the claim about goblins being fodder for heroes was completely invented; nothing in the main comic seemed to support it, and I was deeply confused why people just bought Redcloak's vague claim as though it were fact. (Afterall, Redcloak's extremely evil and lies to pretty much everyone, so Redcloak's self-serving claim that seemed to contradict all available evidence didn't seem very credible.)

But if there's a canon reveal that that's true, then.. well, I'm confused. Is it canon? And if so, then is Thor lying? Because Thor said that Fenris made the goblins under a theory of evolutionary-superiority; that seems incompatible with the other gods having made goblins as EXP-fodder.

There're other confusing things, too. For example, the Wiki says that the goblins took out a million humans.. but somehow couldn't get any human land? The goblins took out vastly fewer humans to conquer Azure City, so if they were able to get a million humans in one year before, how did they not conquer most of the major human cities?

And apparently the gods assigned land to the races after creation, denying goblins the good land? But Thor directly stated that the gods couldn't do that when Durkon asked if the goblins could be given land. And it certainly seems like the gods aren't acting to give the humans back Azure City after the goblins' conquest of it, so Thor's claim would seem to be holding up.

What's going on with these apparent inconsistencies?

Thor isn't lying. The Wiki was written before we got Thor's version of events. The Wiki lays out the dogma that the Dark One told his followers.

Either the Dark One misunderstood, or the Dark One is lying.

Or possibly Loki or some other evil god told him that version for a laugh.

Some

2021-05-02, 05:07 AM

Thor isn't lying. The Wiki was written before we got Thor's version of events. The Wiki lays out the dogma that the Dark One told his followers.

Either the Dark One misunderstood, or the Dark One is lying.

Or possibly Loki or some other evil god told him that version for a laugh.

So Start of Darkness doesn't actually show these events happening, and it's all just what the Dark One claimed? Like it's the dogma the Dark One put into the Crimson Mantle that Redcloak wears?

SN137

2021-05-02, 05:14 AM

Editing your post is apparently against the rules

Nephrahim

2021-05-02, 05:34 AM

I'm confused as to how one would go about "Peacefully" requesting land, in that case? *scrubbed* You're right, *scrubbed* (In fact he was very possibly evil, though there's not a lot of evidence for that, outside his alightment post-ascension.) The point is, he didn't just invade. He appealed the human leader's sense of rightness to get a better deal for the goblins, and they quite literally stabbed him in the back, during a negotiation, again, as far as we know (From the Dark One's own words.)

*scrubbed*

hroþila

2021-05-02, 05:45 AM

The context in SoD is that the Dark One united the goblinoids to address the pre-existing injustice, and that he was still magnanimous enough to give a peaceful solution one last try before he was betrayed, even though he had every right to just use force to settle the issue.

Telenil

2021-05-02, 05:53 AM

I'm confused as to how one would go about "Peacefully" requesting land, in that case?
It's difficult, which is why people usually trade for goods they need instead of taking the lands that produce them.

Your best option if you want land for your nation is to find something your neighbors are willing to give you land for, such as military assistance, a truckload of money, or the ability to seal a god-killing monstrosity out of the world forever. Redcloak threw away a giant opportunity here, though it was for the somewhat understandable reason that he didn't trust Durkon.
If you want land for your people, you can try to split them in groups and send them to empty places or where other nations don't mind them. If this can't be done safely, then your objective is to build trust so it can.

Or you can raise an army and get the land by intimidation or force, but then you don't get to complain when the other nations raise their armies and fight back.

dps

2021-05-02, 07:11 AM

I will grant that killing a prisoner is morally questionable, but given that he is part of an army committing acts that are generally considered far more heinous, I'm going to have to leave it at questionable.

It wasn't morally questionable, it was straight up wrong, and the elf commander knee it was wrong, or else there was no reason to tell the others to no tell the Paladin, *scrubbed*

SN137

2021-05-02, 07:33 AM

Just give up

Silly Name

2021-05-02, 07:51 AM

I still don't see the comic's narrative pushing the idea that what Redcloak is doing and did is right. I doubt we're going to reach an ending where the hogboblin army keeps occupying Azure City or keep slaves, and I don't think anyone will tell Redcloak "you were absolutely justified in everything you did"

I don't think the narrative is even "goblins are poor innocent victims" when, as has been rightly pointed out, they kill and invade the same way humans and elves do.

I get what you are saying, but my whole issue with the last two strips is that this is not a race. Durkon didn't say "this is unfair because one side has a Ferrari and the other not", he said "this is unfair because one side has a tank and the other not". That's not the same thing at all.

The whole exchange is bizarre. Thor reacts as if the Gods had organised a friendly tournament and goblin athletes couldn't get medals, not a brutal conflict where every kill makes you stronger. The conversation may be an attempted nod at real-world issues, but if it is, battles to the death are the wrong narrative to make that point.
If Durkon's real argument is "give the goblins a shot at peacefully having their own kingdom and only resume clubing them if they attack first", fine. But as far as I can see, that's not what he said.

I can and will concede your point about the wording used by Durkon so far, but I'd also point out that the conversation, in-universe, is ongoing. Durkon hasn't been crowned the moral victor, he's voicing an issue he just now realised exists, and is talking with Roy about it and what they can do about it. And since Roy is still a viewpoint character too, and arguably the main character of the story, I doubt we're heading towards "Roy Greenhilt, evil racist" (especially because that'd be incoherent with Roy's character so far).

Regarding Thor, I think the point was that he wanted to say that even if the goblins got shafted by their god, they could have still "made it", and Durkon rebutted that the way the system is set is why goblins have ended up as "XP fodder" even if they weren't meant to.

And, yes, a goblin army conquered Azure City. On average the goblins are still at a disadvantage, but through overwhelming numbers and a good strategy (and some luck in the form of Miko) they won over an human city. I don't think that's a common occurrence in OotS-world, we don't see goblins routinely toppling other humanoid nations and cities in a day. I'm pretty sure the hobgoblin city is the only time we saw a large goblinoid settlement, too.

dps

2021-05-02, 07:56 AM

Those mean almost the same thing to me. I'm more so comparing it on the level of,
Vaarsuvius' familicide > Enslavement of occupied city > Order not killing or handing Vaarsuivius over for justice > Home invasion and murder of sentient if dangerous child Dragon > Murder of Hobgoblin too racist to Gob who helped enslave city.It's basically low on the totem poll is the point. The murder of even people whom have committed war crimes, is I believe a bad thing, especially in cases where there is some doubt as is the case with hobgoblin prisoner, but the fact that people will often just shrug,laugh or call it a happy ending, if they hear a story about them being beaten to death in a cell, leads me to conclude that there is at least debate as to its morality. Thus it would objectively be defined as only morally questionable by society at large.

You may believe as you wish, however do consider the above statement.

Well, yeah, you're not alone.

RossN

2021-05-02, 08:26 AM

I still don't see the comic's narrative pushing the idea that what Redcloak is doing and did is right. I doubt we're going to reach an ending where the hogboblin army keeps occupying Azure City or keep slaves, and I don't think anyone will tell Redcloak "you were absolutely justified in everything you did"

I don't think the narrative is even "goblins are poor innocent victims" when, as has been rightly pointed out, they kill and invade the same way humans and elves do.

I can and will concede your point about the wording used by Durkon so far, but I'd also point out that the conversation, in-universe, is ongoing. Durkon hasn't been crowned the moral victor, he's voicing an issue he just now realised exists, and is talking with Roy about it and what they can do about it. And since Roy is still a viewpoint character too, and arguably the main character of the story, I doubt we're heading towards "Roy Greenhilt, evil racist" (especially because that'd be incoherent with Roy's character so far).

Regarding Thor, I think the point was that he wanted to say that even if the goblins got shafted by their god, they could have still "made it", and Durkon rebutted that the way the system is set is why goblins have ended up as "XP fodder" even if they weren't meant to.

And, yes, a goblin army conquered Azure City. On average the goblins are still at a disadvantage, but through overwhelming numbers and a good strategy (and some luck in the form of Miko) they won over an human city. I don't think that's a common occurrence in OotS-world, we don't see goblins routinely toppling other humanoid nations and cities in a day. I'm pretty sure the hobgoblin city is the only time we saw a large goblinoid settlement, too.

Aren't overwhelming numbers canonically part of their intrinsic advantages though? Which one of things that bothered me about Durkon's 'dwarf vs goblin' fight argument, since given dwarves have fewer children and take longer to grow how often is the situation going to be a lone dwarf fighting a lone goblin and how often is it going to a lone dwarf fighting three or four goblins? And those thousands upon thousands of hobgoblins had to come from somewhere so clearly there must be big (hob)goblin settles somewhere.

In fact looking at the D&D rules (and yes I know the story isn't exactly bound by those but they are still a guide) goblins are arguably physically superior to humans. They take a hit to Strength but get a bonus to Dexterity (the king of stats), darkvision and racial bonuses to riding and moving silently. They are equally resilient and intelligent. Working from those basics goblins do hit a little less hard than humans but they are harder to hit, superior archers, superior horsemen and have a serious advantage in fighting (or hunting) after dark. Those are not negligible advantages.

Silly Name

2021-05-02, 08:46 AM

Aren't overwhelming numbers canonically part of their intrinsic advantages though? Which one of things that bothered me about Durkon's 'dwarf vs goblin' fight argument, since given dwarves have fewer children and take longer to grow how often is the situation going to be a lone dwarf fighting a lone goblin and how often is it going to a lone dwarf fighting three or four goblins? And those thousands upon thousands of hobgoblins had to come from somewhere so clearly there must be big (hob)goblin settles somewhere.

Keep in mind, the overwhelming numbers in the battle of Azure City were also part of Xykon and Redcloak's strategy: they sabogated the Azurite warning system, so that they wouldn't have time to rally their full army and had to rely on the forces within the city proper.

But, yes, we did see a large hobgoblin settlement in-story, but it seems to have been either the only one, or an incredibly rare occurrence. The conquest of Azure City is an oddity, something that doesn't happen on the regular.

I would also argue that, clearly, if within the narrative goblins have been stuck in bad territories with few resources for so long, it's obvious that their faster breeding doesn't actually work as an equaliser.

SN137

2021-05-02, 08:48 AM

End it all

RossN

2021-05-02, 09:00 AM

Keep in mind, the overwhelming numbers in the battle of Azure City were also part of Xykon and Redcloak's strategy: they sabogated the Azurite warning system, so that they wouldn't have time to rally their full army and had to rely on the forces within the city proper.

But, yes, we did see a large hobgoblin settlement in-story, but it seems to have been either the only one, or an incredibly rare occurrence. The conquest of Azure City is an oddity, something that doesn't happen on the regular.

I would also argue that, clearly, if within the narrative goblins have been stuck in bad territories with few resources for so long, it's obvious that their faster breeding doesn't actually work as an equaliser.

The problem for me is that it seems like the narrative is trying to have its cake and eat it; goblins must simultaneously be incredibly common (from their 'fast breeding' and apparently being around as XP-fodder if we are to believe the goblins) yet also can't actually succeed at anything despite this and despite being at least physically and mentally equal to humans (to maintain sympathy) and having little obvious technology gap.

It seems to me that in order for the conceit to fully work - that the goblin position is so weak they can't achieve anything - we have to retcon their success at Azure City and the enormous, well disciplined, well equipped army that conquered the humans. Because as is the conquest of Azure City is an argument that backs up Thor, not Durkon.

I think it would be reasonable to accept a position in between Thor and Durkon's views - that the goblins had a poor hand but still could and can do a lot better with what they do have - but the last few strips definitely suggest to me that we are meant to see Durkon as entirely in the right and Thor entirely in the wrong.

Silly Name

2021-05-02, 09:27 AM

It seems to me that in order for the conceit to fully work - that the goblin position is so weak they can't achieve anything - we have to retcon their success at Azure City and the enormous, well disciplined, well equipped army that conquered the humans. Because as is the conquest of Azure City is an argument that backs up Thor, not Durkon.

Again, we can take the hobgoblin army as a notable exception in the course of goblinoid history. It's not impossible for goblins to succeed, but the system is stacked against them.

I think it would be reasonable to accept a position in between Thor and Durkon's views - that the goblins had a poor hand but still could and can do a lot better with what they do have - but the last few strips definitely suggest to me that we are meant to see Durkon as entirely in the right and Thor entirely in the wrong.

I feel like we're supposed to look at Thor as not having put as much thought into the situation as he and the other gods should have. Durkon is right in rising concerns about whether Redcloak has a point when he says that goblins got the short end of the stick when the world was created, and that maybe something should be changed.

But I also want to insist that we're lacking context. Next strip is most likely going to be Roy's (relatively fresh) PoV on the situation. Again, I don't think the conclusion of this conversation is going to be that Roy is an horrible person who doesn't want to change the world for the better.

Stickfigures

2021-05-02, 09:54 AM

I can see the bard maybe getting on board with this stupid narrative, but the rest of the party hasn't dump-stated INT or in the cleric's case, has had friends and family murdered, enslaved and eaten by goblinoids.

The party is 4 races who have had to unite and form a civilization as the only way to protect themselves from goblinoids who were given all the advantages of strength and population who would have conquered and literally eaten them otherwise.

Even united, even having worked together to form a civilization and advancements such as mage schools, metal working, industry, economy etc. they're still weaker than the cave man goblinoids population advantage with cities being conquered, slaves taken, people used as food etc.

It's only because the goblinoids have never built a civilization and have fought each other as much as anyone else that the other races even exist still. Now they're being portrayed as the victim? Ugh, like most of the party, I haven't dump-stated INT either.

mjasghar

2021-05-02, 10:05 AM

Well that’s one wrong way to interpret it....

Yirggzmb

2021-05-02, 10:17 AM

Bootman

2021-05-02, 10:51 AM

I kinda feel like complaining to an author about where you think the story might go, when the odds of the author actually reading is fairly slim and the odds of the author changing anything are nil, is kinda pointless?

You're not obligated to like it, but the story has been flirting with these ideas for years. I generally trust Rich to handle it with nuance. But you have to give him time to get there. The main characters are only just beginning to contemplate the bigger picture. We probably have irl years to go before the story is over.

Absolutely nearly pointless. The chances of success are basically zero. But I don't like the term 'complaining' since it implies it is purely personal.

Much of the stuff I pointed out and others have as well are technical writing issues that have existed for awhile. If they aren't addressed, it doesn't matter whether or not we love it or hate it.

The Hobgoblin armies despite being supposedly disadvantaged is a gap in the plot. Virtually never showing good or even neutral goblins, having loads of pure evil ones, and then trying to be like 'no see they're just like anyone else' at the end is muddling the themes and trying to have your cake and eat it too. Treating the Goblins like have it the worst without substantiating while we know for a fact there are other peoples in comparable if not worse scenarios is a contraction and once again muddles the theme.

All of these issues are possible to fix and explain but we've officially reached the territory where we have to start initiating repairs and planning scenes to patch these holes or else they will forever be damaging to the narrative. Will I still read the story? Absolutely. Will I still like it? Most likely. But as a writer I want to minimize the number of issues in my own work as much as possible, and I assume Rich feels the same way. Regardless of if we feel these are huge issues or little issues, regardless of whether they impact literally anybody's enjoyment or literally everybody's, they're issues.

Jason

2021-05-02, 11:01 AM

It shows it in a different style which implies story telling (or at least it has in earlier pages).

Really, if you're going to discuss Redcloak and his motives, you must read Start of Darkness. Trying to discuss his character without doing that is like trying to discuss the character of Hamlet without having actually read the play. You could theoretically do it, but the results are not likely to be useful.

When Redcloak and his brother recruit the still-living Xykon to their cause Redcloak gives a long expositional speech about the history of the Dark One and the Snarl. The art style shifts to crayons, like Shinjo's long exposition to the Order about the Snarl. It is also the only part of the book that is in color.
It is very clear that the story being told is Redcloak telling the story to Xykon, meaning it is all from Redcloak's point of view. The events depicted are not necessarily how they really happened. This is true of Shinjo's long crayon exposition as well, which we later discovered was not entirely accurate (primarily on the subject of how many worlds the gods have created).
Redcloak's story there is the source of the idea that the goblins were not treated fairly by the gods. Thor has contradicted the idea that the other gods deliberately kept the goblins down, saying basically that if they were treated badly it wasn't on purpose. It seems likely that other parts of it are also not entirely accurate. Particularly suspect is the claim that the Dark One was a wise and merciful ruler of goblinkind and only wanted justice for his people. Of course that's what the Dark One's high priest would believe.

I wonder, what if in the comic somehow things were arranged for all the races to have equal proportions of good land...and then the goblins outbred everyone, conquered and enslaved them all, and eventually exterminated all the other races before devolving into endless goblin vs. goblin wars, because it turns out the "usually neutral evil" entry in the monster manual meant that goblins really do have a racial predisposition towards being neutral evil (probably put their by their creator), and giving what really was an evil race an even footing with all the other less-evil races ultimately proved to be a terrible idea for everyone, the goblins included.

It's not going to happen, because Rich has made it clear he doesn't like the idea that sentient races might really have a disposition towards a particular part of the alignment spectrum, but it might have been interesting.

I think it's a pretty silly idea that the goblins were dealt bad land to begin with and then they haven't been able to overcome that disadvantage for the thousands of years of world history that have followed. It's made particularly ridiculous when you realize we have at least two known instances where gigantic goblin hordes rose up and wrecked havoc on global scales (the crusade of the Dark One's followers and the conquest of Azure City). If their land disadvantage was really too much for them to overcome, how did they form big enough goblin hordes to threaten the world? Twice?

The Giant has surprised me before with how things have unfolded, and hasn't been afraid to show that much of what we thought we knew was wrong. I'll wait until the end credits are running before deciding if this goblin rights subplot (and despite what some readers seem to think it is a sub-plot, not the focus of the whole comic) was handled well or not.

Emberlily

2021-05-02, 11:15 AM

Jason

2021-05-02, 11:38 AM

There are plenty of explicitly non-evil goblins in the books, including two whole storylines centered around "Neutral" goblin societies.
I presume you mean Righteye's village in Start of Darkness and the Hobgoblin settlement in How the Paladin Got His Scar? I agree that Righteye's village seems to have been at least neutral, but I'm not so sure about the hobgoblin settlement.
Granted, there are hobgoblins who wish to have peace with other races in the story, but their society as a whole seems to be evil-aligned to me. Everyone is essentially bullied into doing whatever the supreme leader wants. The first one is obviously evil. The new supreme leader at the end poisons the entire court (including the poor hobgoblin serving the food) in order to become supreme leader, and then scapegoats the humans. He's probably not neutral-aligned, he's just less interested in open conflict with the Azurites.

Nephrahim

2021-05-02, 11:39 AM

One of the things about goblins that is touched on briefly here but more in other books is that they are very prone to following their leaders. Hobgoblins that had no desire to fight were drafted by their stronger leaders.

This means, effectively, most goblins we meet in the comic are simply extensions of redcloak and his master.

Dion

2021-05-02, 11:51 AM

So, things we know:

1) Thor admitted in comic that RedCloak is right

2) The gods are shown in comic to give a *lot* more aid than just “good land at the start”

3) The author clearly believes murdering prisoners in cold blood is wrong, and has created a fictional world where it’s wrong

Why are we focusing on the questions that have already been addressed successfully in the comic?

Jason

2021-05-02, 12:03 PM

1) Thor admitted in comic that RedCloak is rightNo, he admitted that goblins are currently living on resource-poor lands and implied that they started out that way too, but he also said that Redcloak was wrong about the other gods doing this to the goblins on purpose.

Dion

2021-05-02, 12:35 PM

he also said that Redcloak was wrong about the other gods doing this to the goblins on purpose.

I just reread the actual comic very carefully to see if your assertion is true.

It is not.

Thor never says that redcloak is wrong.

In fact, the whole point of the last two comics is Durkon’s growing horror at discovering that Thor doesn’t deny anything Redcloak said.

It’s awful to say, but I don’t think you’re arguing about things that happen in the comic.

TRH

2021-05-02, 01:04 PM

Well, as it happens, Durkon didn't ask you, he asked Thor. And unlike you, Thor didn't say it was completely untrue.

But his account took us from "The gods deliberately made goblins to fail and die horribly" to "A god made goblins to win, but he unfortunately had no functional conception of what it takes for a race to succeed." If you believe those are functionally identical accounts, that's your prerogative. But for me, well, to return to my original point, if The Dark One's account of his own death is remotely as distorted as that, then that injects a lot of doubt into exactly how perfidious his demise really was.

TRH

2021-05-02, 01:22 PM

Vikenlugaid

2021-05-02, 01:23 PM

Some

2021-05-02, 01:23 PM

So, things we know:

1) Thor admitted in comic that RedCloak is right

Thor didn't say that. Instead, he said that the truth was complicated and that Redcloak's take was extremely biased.

Redcloak appears to argue that the gods, as the creators of the world, are responsible for everything that happens. And then Redcloak focuses on the goblins' grievances as the main thing that the gods caused.

The first problem with Redcloak's perspective is that it's absurd to claim that the gods actually had power to control everything. That's like faulting someone driving a car for not dodging a microscopic bacteria on the road when they could've turned the wheel.. while dodging may've seemed possible in principle, merely controlling the steering-wheel isn't actually sufficient to have had the power to choose otherwise.

The second problem with Redcloak's perspective is that, if Redcloak does take the absurd position that the gods are at-fault for everything by virtue of being creators, then Redcloak also has to fault the gods for everything Redcloak likes. Including the fact that the goblins exist in the first place; that Redcloak himself has become a high-level Cleric; that the Dark One ascended; that the goblins got Azure City; etc.. So if the gods created the Dark One and gave the goblins Azure City, aren't they helping the goblins?

Thor pointed out that Redcloak's arguments were extremely biased -- not that they were correct.

Bootman

2021-05-02, 01:43 PM

There are plenty of explicitly non-evil goblins in the books, including two whole storylines centered around "Neutral" goblin societies. However, the main comic almost exclusively focusing on overtly evil or ambiguously ethical goblins in the earlier strips does feel like a flaw to me, especially bc the Giant wants the story to be fully comprehensible to people who don't buy the books, and recent threads have shown that there's a lot of people who didn't read the side stories before now who aren't satisfied bc of the ideas they've built about OotS goblins.

But I'm not really sure what could have been done in the strips from the past few years to remediate that without grinding the plot to a halt. The addition of Oona and the bugbears feels like setup to lead to it in the final book in a way that works organically, and especially after HtPGHS I do trust the Giant to make it land.

I agree. Recontextualizing things this late in the game with how cartoonishly evil the Goblins have been in the past is really challenging. The giant decided he wanted to do it though, and as much as I respect him as a writer (seriously dude is basically 10/10 for hundreds of strips at a time), it's a big ask. It would be hard to do it without grinding the story to a halt, but the 'hard' part is what he signed up for. It's up to him to have the skills to perform what he promised and if he makes a mistake it's fair to point out. He might be able to make it work and he's done better then I thought possible up to this point, we're just reaching risky territory.

Roy even "protected" Tarquin's soldiers when they were trying to "execute" him "Durkon, have Spiky and the dominated soldiers cover us until we are clear, then release them" i mean, would he did the same if they were Goblins? and Roy is clearly a good person, and is not like he was doing it evil... but he was doing it "not good enough", at least for him, who is always trying to improve.

This is why the recent strips are so damaging to Roy. People earlier have mocked me by saying that the comic isn't saying "ROY GREENHILT IS A RACIST", but here you are literally saying he would discriminate based on race in such a blatant way. That he literally values Goblin lives much less.

I believe he would do the same for Goblins if all the other factors were the same and if the Giant confirms the contrary then it's a pretty awful take on Roy's character that will contradict previous scenes where he's shown kindness, empathy, understanding and peaceful resolutions with 'monsters'.

tanonx

2021-05-02, 02:03 PM

Roy even "protected" Tarquin's soldiers when they were trying to "execute" him "Durkon, have Spiky and the dominated soldiers cover us until we are clear, then release them" i mean, would he did the same if they were Goblins?

Given he objected to walking the dominated Linear Guild kobold up the steps to check for traps over in 840, probably. And that was a guy whose crowning achievement was trying to murder a cat because it was there.

I think the potential for discrepancies like that is what the post is concerned about, though.

Bootman

2021-05-02, 02:19 PM

Given he objected to walking the dominated Linear Guild kobold up the steps to check for traps over in 840, probably. And that was a guy whose crowning achievement was trying to murder a cat because it was there.

I think the potential for discrepancies like that is what the post is concerned about, though.

Exactly. If you try to make a point about his double standard you have to explain every situation that seems to contradict it or else your theme will fail and you'll be contradicting the character. I think that themes tend to sit safely outside of normal judgement (Subjective, if you will), but we can judge how they're conveyed. In this case though I only made my post because of the contradictions and narrative issues it is starting to cause. When a story makes a blatant mistake that's what we call 'objective'. I.E. if they made Vee really stupid for the sake of a joke. You can subjectively find it funny or find a theme in it, but on the technical writing side it would be deeply flawed.

Rrmcklin

2021-05-02, 02:20 PM

Thor didn't say that. Instead, he said that the truth was complicated and that Redcloak's take was extremely biased.

Redcloak appears to argue that the gods, as the creators of the world, are responsible for everything that happens. And then Redcloak focuses on the goblins' grievances as the main thing that the gods caused.

The first problem with Redcloak's perspective is that it's absurd to claim that the gods actually had power to control everything. That's like faulting someone driving a car for not dodging a microscopic bacteria on the road when they could've turned the wheel.. while dodging may've seemed possible in principle, merely controlling the steering-wheel isn't actually sufficient to have had the power to choose otherwise.

The second problem with Redcloak's perspective is that, if Redcloak does take the absurd position that the gods are at-fault for everything by virtue of being creators, then Redcloak also has to fault the gods for everything Redcloak likes. Including the fact that the goblins exist in the first place; that Redcloak himself has become a high-level Cleric; that the Dark One ascended; that the goblins got Azure City; etc.. So if the gods created the Dark One and gave the goblins Azure City, aren't they helping the goblins?

Thor pointed out that Redcloak's arguments were extremely biased -- not that they were correct.

"Biased" and "inaccurate" are not synonyms. Thor denies that the injustices and inequalities that the goblinoids face were done intentionally, but he doesn't deny that they exist. He also doesn't deny the fact that the gods could have done something about them, but just didn't.

Yes, Redcloak is biased, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. And for that matter, Thor is also a biased perspective. He is one of the gods who made this system, he has an inherent interest in defending it. That's not even saying he's a bad guy, but it does mean that he isn't perfect and his perspective can be skewed. That's a thing that happens, in real-life, and often in this comic.

Vikenlugaid

2021-05-02, 02:21 PM

I think it would be reasonable to accept a position in between Thor and Durkon's views - that the goblins had a poor hand but still could and can do a lot better with what they do have - but the last few strips definitely suggest to me that we are meant to see Durkon as entirely in the right and Thor entirely in the wrong.
But Thot himself admitted that Durkon is right, i see no doubt here.

And seriously, the conquering of Azure City is not a valid point to "Hobgoblins can beat humans". They got helped a lot by Xykon, Redcloack (he is not originally part of their community) and unintencionally by Miko. I mean, Xykon and Redcloak manage to bypass the azurite "invaders detection system", which is, in this kind of situations, really important, probably the most important thing in that war, couse then the azurites coudnt assemble his army (and allies) properly, so they just fight with the forces they had inside the city at the moment. Redcloak summoned elementals that broke the walls, 3 powerful undead warriors (or, at least, 2), and a good strategy both in direct combat and with that spies who opened the second gate. Xykon destroyed the entire shaphire ward. Miko killed the azurite leader causing a lot of chaos and nobles leaving the city (with their soldiers)... this all are things that hobgoblins couldnt do by theirselfs, without all of this they wouldnt had a chance vs Azure City, and that was the biggest goblin army since the Dark One's.
Hobgoblins are not crap, but they, at their best, are not a real threat.

And for dwarves vs goblins, if Durkon says that normally dwarves kill goblins and not the other way, i suppose is couse he have seen that a lot of times, and if Thor says "well, you are right" is couse that's true, that happened a lot of times.

Bootman

2021-05-02, 02:46 PM

But Thot himself admitted that Durkon is right, i see no doubt here.

And seriously, the conquering of Azure City is not a valid point to "Hobgoblins can beat humans". They got helped a lot by Xykon, Redcloack (he is not originally part of their community) and unintencionally by Miko. I mean, Xykon and Redcloak manage to bypass the azurite "invaders detection system", which is, in this kind of situations, really important, probably the most important thing in that war, couse then the azurites coudnt assemble his army (and allies) properly, so they just fight with the forces they had inside the city at the moment. Redcloak summoned elementals that broke the walls, 3 powerful undead warriors (or, at least, 2), and a good strategy both in direct combat and with that spies who opened the second gate. Xykon destroyed the entire shaphire ward. Miko killed the azurite leader causing a lot of chaos and nobles leaving the city (with their soldiers)... this all are things that hobgoblins couldnt do by theirselfs, without all of this they wouldnt had a chance vs Azure City, and that was the biggest goblin army since the Dark One's.
Hobgoblins are not crap, but they, at their best, are not a real threat.

And for dwarves vs goblins, if Durkon says that normally dwarves kill goblins and not the other way, i suppose is couse he have seen that a lot of times, and if Thor says "well, you are right" is couse that's true, that happened a lot of times.

How is it not a valid point? It means they had an army that was comparative to Azure city. They had 30,000 troops. That is absolutely massive. This is in fact further supported by outside material involving the Dark One uniting the tribes, but we'll leave that aside. It's less important that they are better then the humans, which is arguable. It is more important that they had an army that big, armed and armored, laying around. 30,000 troops is a threat no matter what you say and it takes a lot of industry and resources to keep it going. Whether or not they are exactly on par with humans is irrelevant the fact that you can't have 'crappy land that makes you totally disadvantaged no matter what' and '30,000 armed and armored troops' without something else going on.

Azure city was only able to muster 10,000 for instance. How many troops should we assume they have that were unable to reach? If we assume they had 60,000 because human land is SOOOO much better than hobgoblin land, that they actually had double their troops overall and thus the hobgoblins were really not a threat, then they would have had a 2.5 times advantage when they remustered their outside armies to take the city back. If there were tens of thousands of troops left in other areas, wouldn't they have been mentioned at some point at least? Wouldn't Hinjo have wanted to meet with this vast army and its generals?

We can't just assume that Azure city has a massive advantage over the hobgoblins when to all appearances their army is weaker discounting PCs and villains on either side. And really, if one cleric and one sorcerer is enough to make that much of a difference, to raise something from 'non-threat' to 'easily destroying the enemy' that's a pretty big ask. Either way, if we're admitting they're not crappy then what's the complaint about from Redcloak? Their lands are better than others then, surely. Once you allow that the Hobgoblins could amass a force like that it becomes really hard to justify them as oppressed or severely disadvantaged just because maybe most of the time they can't just destroy another nation at a whim.

Vikenlugaid

2021-05-02, 03:12 PM

This is why the recent strips are so damaging to Roy. People earlier have mocked me by saying that the comic isn't saying "ROY GREENHILT IS A RACIST", but here you are literally saying he would discriminate based on race in such a blatant way. That he literally values Goblin lives much less.

I believe he would do the same for Goblins if all the other factors were the same and if the Giant confirms the contrary then it's a pretty awful take on Roy's character that will contradict previous scenes where he's shown kindness, empathy, understanding and peaceful resolutions with 'monsters'.

1- But he did, not on purpose, he just didnt question that in the past. That is not RACIST, but "microracist"

2- Well, I believe he would do that NOW for sure, but he didnt do it earlier. And is not only with goblins, we had a big story arc about some elf having troubles couse he/she killed a young dragon without a second thought... I mean, this "monsters are people too" topic is not new at all in this comic, but characters mostly treated them as "things" everytime they have fought them. There are exceptions, but still no with goblins.
You know, they even throwed Nale and Thog in jail like three times, without killing them, but they never throwed a goblin in jail.

How is it not a valid point? It means they had an army that was comparative to Azure city. They had 30,000 troops. That is absolutely massive. This is in fact further supported by outside material involving the Dark One uniting the tribes, but we'll leave that aside. It's less important that they are better then the humans, which is arguable. It is more important that they had an army that big, armed and armored, laying around. 30,000 troops is a threat no matter what you say and it takes a lot of industry and resources to keep it going. Whether or not they are exactly on par with humans is irrelevant the fact that you can't have 'crappy land that makes you totally disadvantaged no matter what' and '30,000 armed and armored troops' without something else going on.

Still that army is an exception (that, by the way, started as a gag), and still, without Xykon and Redcloak they wouldnt have a chance to conquer Azure City anyway.

Humans, elfs, etc are supposed to have a lot of armies like that all over the world (unless this is a really weird world where none go to war ever). You can't make a valid point with one single exception.

And the fact that, in the comid, we have only seen that army, and no other army of humans, elfs, etc. and that was precisely a goblinoid army, and they won, and they are evil (or in the evil side) just make this topic about "goblins being right in their original motives" more interesting. If they were showed just like oppresed people and 100% victims, it would be simpler, less interesting and less original.

Azure city was only able to muster 10,000 for instance. How many troops should we assume they have that were unable to reach? If we assume they had 60,000 because human land is SOOOO much better than hobgoblin land, that they actually had double their troops overall and thus the hobgoblins were really not a threat, then they would have had a 2.5 times advantage when they remustered their outside armies to take the city back. If there were tens of thousands of troops left in other areas, wouldn't they have been mentioned at some point at least? Wouldn't Hinjo have wanted to meet with this vast army and its generals?
We just don't know, couse Rich just did not want to tell that part of the story, couse that is mostly irrelevant i think. But we know that Azure City had an "antiinvaders" system, and they couldn't use it, so, it is logical to think that they would have a bigger army, and allies and that.

But we know that goblins normally can'd do this kind of campaigns and succed, otherways there would be plenty of goblin states all over the oots world.

We can't just assume that Azure city has a massive advantage over the hobgoblins when to all appearances their army is weaker discounting PCs and villains on either side. And really, if one cleric and one sorcerer is enough to make that much of a difference, to raise something from 'non-threat' to 'easily destroying the enemy' that's a pretty big ask. Either way, if we're admitting they're not crappy then what's the complaint about from Redcloak? Their lands are better than others then, surely. Once you allow that the Hobgoblins could amass a force like that it becomes really hard to justify them as oppressed or severely disadvantaged just because maybe most of the time they can't just destroy another nation at a whim.

Man, i won't repeat myself on how the Azure city conquest is not a likely scenario.
But anyway, if your point is that goblins can't be opressed couse they manage to conquer one single human city... then, if we see the rest of the world, plenty of humans cities and without a single goblin city apart from that one... what do you think then? they are balanced but in all of these thousands of years they only manage to have ONE city and to win ONE siege? i don't see it.

Larsaan

2021-05-02, 03:48 PM

Kilo24

2021-05-02, 03:52 PM

I'd advise citing a strip since I don't recall that, and if it's from side material then I don't think it should be considered. Even if it is from the main material and that is the entire context for the quote, and Redcloak wants all the races to sit down together in brotherhood, then he doesn't bring it up nearly enough and his actions don't particularly indicated it either. I think the most valuable piece for analyzing Redcloak's motivations are when he sits down with Durkon. There he explains explicitly what he wants.

In fact in panel 8 of strip 1208 he just assumes Durkon is a greedy Dwarf surrounded by gold and gems, totally invalidating his perspective. Since Redcloak has never done anything to show he cares about humans or lizardfolk or dwarves, admits he's speciest against humans, etc. etc. shows more about him then one land which seems to have been given as some kind of propaganda perhaps?

Equality for Redcloak is exclusively focused on the Goblins having equality compared to other races in the fantasy world and the story seems to be agreeing with him that there's an issue with how Goblins have been treated. I counter this by showing other species have been mistreated just as bad if not worst but they are barely being addressed in the slightest. This will make the theme ineffective in the long term. Does Redcloak have the right to be exclusively concerned with his own race? Absolutely and I think that is totally fair. Should the story be agreeing with his assessment? I don't believe so given the philosophical and technical arguments regarding the world building that I presented above.

...

I understand the distinction about him never considering it, and I'm saying that if an army is marching on me, or I'm under an evil slave-state or I'm in a high stakes life or death struggle persisting over multiple days, not considering it in those moments is totally reasonable and it would be a LOT to ask of anybody to expect them to respond peacefully in those scenarios.

We don't expect our soldiers to even consider peaceful options in a war zone where they're being actively attacked. I agree that in a broad sense, yes Roy should have considered the Goblins as a society more if he interacted with Goblin society more. He's only interacted with evil armies and forces working for a dark lich in a situation I've explained multiple times so I'll not do it again here. I would answer it with a simple question. If Roy walked into a Goblin village and nobody attacked him, do you think he would attack them? He might be nervous as he reasonably should be. Hell in medieval times you were nervous about people who lived two towns over.

At the most basic level, this is a comic founded in Dungeons and Dragons: the expectation is that you have enough irredeemable evil around to kill to fill an adventuring party's schedule from levels 1-20, and - while Rich does subvert that *always* being the case - cutting off a steady stream of guilt-free monsters to fight would put traditional adventurers out of work and render most of their toys useless.

As such, presenting the default order of things as "Goblins bad, should be killed on sight" isn't an artistic statement, but attempts to subvert it (as Rich has been doing) are. I do agree with you that Roy has had good reasons as shown thus far to fight all the goblins without stopping to talk - but I do also agree that he should be worried that he hasn't even seriously tried to talk them out of violence at all. That doesn't mean he should drop his sword when they're trying to kill him, but that maybe he should have tried to *make* opportunities to talk with the goblins like Durkon just did. Maybe it would have been just as fruitless and as personally dangerous, but Roy could go to sleep knowing that he made a good faith attempt at a peaceful resolution. Or even if there was no possibility to attempt to negotiate for a peaceful resolution, he could console himself that he at the very least looked for one once. That bare-minimum good-faith attempt to avoid unnecessary death is something that he, I, and I would assume Rich would consider to be characteristic of a Good alignment (but not an absolute requirement).

As to whether the story considers Redcloak to be "right", I am willing to bet that "right idea, wrong execution" is going to be Redcloak-as-a-villain's epitaph: maybe he'll be redeemed, maybe he won't, but I do expect that the climax of his personal arc will be him being confronted with hard evidence that his actions have compromised instead of served the goblin race. And the thing is that there's a lot of leeway in how the line between where the "idea" and the "execution" is drawn: Redcloak's right idea as envisioned by Durkon might simply be that "Goblins have an unfair lot in life and there should have been some way to address that issue with the gods" - and to leave all the details about exactly how unfair the initial resource allocation was and what the ideal manner of correcting that disparity is in the problem-prone "execution" category.

Given how vague a "fair share" of "resources" is for a whole race, Thor's embarrassed, frustrated, and with-pertinent-additional-context "It's complicated" response, and Redcloak's demonstrated refusal to negotiate a compromise, I expect that the whether or not the story agrees with Redcloak's stated goals isn't going to be nearly as important as you worry it will be. Redcloak indeed has a lofty and noble goal of racial equality and harmony and brotherhood and whatnot, but - as evidenced in the negotiation with Durkon - when said goal might actually be within reach he doesn't know what to do and gets defensive. Moreover, Durkon, Thor, and now Roy are in a position that they can demonstrate that they care more about Redcloak's noble-goals-as-stated than Redcloak does. As such, I expect that that will be used to force Redcloak to face his own hypocrisy, and not that it will argue the inherent morality of forceful redistribution of land/wealth or that Roy had a moral imperative at any specific time to talk instead of fight.

And there's still a pretty good chance that Redcloak's goals are going to be demonstrated to be self-contradictory. While that option's still a major possibility, there's going to be any number of ways to interpret the story as supporting or refuting said goals; to agree on aspects of a hypothetical but impossible-to-achieve utopia is hardly a notable endorsement of the idea.

Jason

2021-05-02, 03:58 PM

I just reread the actual comic very carefully to see if your assertion is true.

It is not.

Thor never says that redcloak is wrong.

In fact, the whole point of the last two comics is Durkon’s growing horror at discovering that Thor doesn’t deny anything Redcloak said.

It’s awful to say, but I don’t think you’re arguing about things that happen in the comic.

Well, let's look at it in more depth. What Redcloak said to Durkon was (among other things):
"If you and your friends raid a goblin camp, kill everyone and take all of their money, they call you adventurers. If me and my friends do the same to a human village, they call us monsters.
"And it's not by accident! This was done to us on purpose! Your gods made us to serve as fodder for you! We were put here so your 'heroes' could kill us and become more powerful!
"We were betrayed by our own creators from the moment we first drew breath - and that betrayal has led to goblin suffering ever since!!"

Durkon says to Thor: "Redcloak said... 'E said tha goblins were creat'd by the gods solely ta be fodder for other races, so heroes could kill 'em an' get more powerful."
Thor's response (paraphrasing) is "It's more complicated than that."
Thor: "My point is that we didn't put the goblins in a specific position to be anyone's targets, at least not more than we did everyone else in the whole world."

So Redcloak's idea that "Your gods made us to serve as fodder for you," is false. It's only true in the sense that the gods created a world where anyone can serve as fodder for anyone else - the goblins were not intended to be the victims of everyone else, not even by their careless creator who abandoned them.

Redcloak says it was done on purpose. Thor says "no, it wasn't done on purpose."

If Thor is telling the truth then yes, he is saying that Redcloak is wrong. He's not saying the exact words "Redcloak is wrong," but that is the clear meaning of what he is saying.

Durkon's horror is not that Redcloak was right, it's that he realizes his god Thor didn't consider the plight of the goblins earlier and act to prevent it.

Bootman

2021-05-02, 04:08 PM

I think all of this shows the difference between what an author wants to say, versus what is actually supported by their story. Which is one of the dangers of switching themes mid-telling.

We're being told that this is a story of oppression of inequality. However, what we're shown is a story about the cycle of revenge.

At no point in this comic have we seen goblins suffer from poverty or starvation. With the exception of the crayon flashback of TDO's origins (which are becoming more and more suspect), every single goblin-related conflict so far can be traced back to the feud between the Sapphire Guard and the Crimson Mantle. Not a single goblin we've seen has taken up arms because of poor living conditions, the ones who fight either does so for the sake of revenge (Redcloak, the hobs in HTPGHS), or just because they were ordered to. And that makes all this talk of bad land ring very hollow, since at no point has that actually been a factor in the storyline we've been following.

I suspect that Rich has changed his mind more than once about what the comic's theme really is. Back when it was just about examining the morality of PC races versus NPC races we didn't have these issues, because that message didn't require the goblins to be inherent underdogs. Now that we've switched over to a more real-life inspired oppression narrative, however, the cracks from shoving a square theme-peg through a round story-hole are starting to show.

Very well put my friend. And on a side note I'm very happy with the discourse in this thread.

1- But he did, not on purpose, he just didnt question that in the past. That is not RACIST, but "microracist"

2- Well, I believe he would do that NOW for sure, but he didnt do it earlier. And is not only with goblins, we had a big story arc about some elf having troubles couse he/she killed a young dragon without a second thought... I mean, this "monsters are people too" topic is not new at all in this comic, but characters mostly treated them as "things" everytime they have fought them. There are exceptions, but still no with goblins.
You know, they even throwed Nale and Thog in jail like three times, without killing them, but they never throwed a goblin in jail.

Still that army is an exception (that, by the way, started as a gag), and still, without Xykon and Redcloak they wouldnt have a chance to conquer Azure City anyway.

Humans, elfs, etc are supposed to have a lot of armies like that all over the world (unless this is a really weird world where none go to war ever). You can't make a valid point with one single exception.

And the fact that, in the comid, we have only seen that army, and no other army of humans, elfs, etc. and that was precisely a goblinoid army, and they won, and they are evil (or in the evil side) just make this topic about "goblins being right in their original motives" more interesting. If they were showed just like oppresed people and 100% victims, it would be simpler, less interesting and less original.

We just don't know, couse Rich just did not want to tell that part of the story, couse that is mostly irrelevant i think. But we know that Azure City had an "antiinvaders" system, and they couldn't use it, so, it is logical to think that they would have a bigger army, and allies and that.

But we know that goblins normally can'd do this kind of campaigns and succed, otherways there would be plenty of goblin states all over the oots world.

Man, i won't repeat myself on how the Azure city conquest is not a likely scenario.
But anyway, if your point is that goblins can't be opressed couse they manage to conquer one single human city... then, if we see the rest of the world, plenty of humans cities and without a single goblin city apart from that one... what do you think then? they are balanced but in all of these thousands of years they only manage to have ONE city and to win ONE siege? i don't see it.

I actually appreciate this since you're going through and giving lots of points and a complete argument.

Microracist is still racist, and if it's being presented as a character revelation in the story even if it is 'microracist' it is still given narrative and thematic weight.

I believe this would be because dragons and goblins are not citizens of any northern nations nor criminals that can strictly break the law. At the same time one was a character's brother and that person's friends so it would be natural to expect them to be a bit more merciful. Nale was also captured in a pause in the battle by Elan and was no longer any kind of a threat in that scenario. I think the unique relationship that they have and the citizen status is a lot more important. Would a Goblin take a human soldier to Goblin-jail? That sounds very very silly to me.

As established in an edit to my first post in this thread, gags are indicative of character and worldbuilding as much as anything else. As an exception it is still bigger and stronger than anybody else's army that we've seen.

If they do have bigger armies we should have seen them and they should have been stated to exist, and they would have to be a LOT bigger then 30,000 to uphold the narrative that the hobgoblins have very little.

Even if it does add texture to the theme as you say, I.E. it presents some goblins that are not oppressed, we need to see some that are. We need to see the majority or a significant amount are oppressed. We have literally seen more appressed humans then goblins in the online comic.

My point was that if the army was just that much bigger then it would have been mentioned. If they had even a few thousand more troops in the countryside, that should have been mentioned. Instead Hinjo functionally abandons them because I certainly didn't see a bunch of extra ships added or mention of the professional soldiers when he was talking about raising a new army. Without being told this force that dwarfs the hobgoblins exists we should not assume it does.

It doesn't matter whether it was likely, just the fact that it's possible and the hobgoblin state had a good chance of doing so and an army like that undermines the oppression narrative. We've seen two significant hobgoblin cities for a start. For a second point, the heroes have been going to human areas because I doubt they're accepted in goblin areas and they've never had to go there for plot reasons. We don't know how many there are, just that they have at least one nation able to muster a 30,000 man army with swords, shields and armor. So once again from what we're shown on screen, goblins are both nearly always evil and doing pretty well for themselves (as far as the online comic goes).

Nephrahim

2021-05-02, 04:23 PM

I'll say this about Azure City and Gobbotopia, as it relates to this question. I don't think you can really say the hobgoblins conquered it. I think Xykon did, and I think everyone in the universe thinks that too.

While the hobgoblins ended up doing most of the work, without Xykon and team sabotaging the beacons, the city would have had a ton more warning, been able to call in allies, and fortify the city. If the nobles hadn't left (Technically not Xykon's direct doing, but it was a factor.) the forces would be even stronger. Without Xykon, frankly, I don't think redcloak ever gets that high level, to be honest (Considering the last bearer of the crimson mantle didn't seem too impressive.) and his help would have been much less.

Even after the city was taken, when Hinjo asks for support in taking it back, nobody is worried about the hobgoblins, they tell him "We don't want to be the lich's next target." Nobody is afraid of the horde of hobgoblins, they're worried about him.

Without Xykon's intervention, then yes, that hobgoblin "Encampment" does exists, but I think it ends the way Redcloak alleges all such endeavors do. A bunch of humans, with maybe some elves and dwarves get together and push them back the moment they start marching. Because that's what everyone in these strips, Redcloak, Durkon, even Thor, take for granted. The humans have the levels, the equipment, the everything, to make any battle they have with hobgoblins (without huge intervention) 9/10 in their favor.

dps

2021-05-02, 04:30 PM

Much of the stuff I pointed out and others have as well are technical writing issues that have existed for awhile. If they aren't addressed, it doesn't matter whether or not we love it or hate it.

Well, I'd turn that last part completely around--how much readers enjoy the story is what matters, not whether and how what you perceive to be technical writing issues are addressed. It's a work of fiction, not an instruction manual or rulebook, so technical writing aren't the big a deal as they would be otherwise, even if I agreed that the things you express concern about are problems--what you see as contradictions, I see as nuance.

Bootman

2021-05-02, 04:30 PM

At the most basic level, this is a comic founded in Dungeons and Dragons: the expectation is that you have enough irredeemable evil around to kill to fill an adventuring party's schedule from levels 1-20, and - while Rich does subvert that *always* being the case - cutting off a steady stream of guilt-free monsters to fight would put traditional adventurers out of work and render most of their toys useless.

The issue isn’t whether or not he cuts it off, but how many are shown at all and how reasonable it is to feel guilty about the ones that Rich wants us to. The fact that it would be hard to tell a story with a bunch of fights while making the fights themselves typically have nuance to both sides is very difficult doesn’t impact whether or not he should do it. I, in fact, have zero sympathy for somebody who fails when trying to do something hard when it is their job. I am currently writing a very ambitious story and if I make genuine mistakes I won’t allow myself of the excuse that it was too hard.

As such, presenting the default order of things as "Goblins bad, should be killed on sight" isn't an artistic statement, but attempts to subvert it (as Rich has been doing) are. I do agree with you that Roy has had good reasons as shown thus far to fight all the goblins without stopping to talk - but I do also agree that he should be worried that he hasn't even seriously tried to talk them out of violence at all. That doesn't mean he should drop his sword when they're trying to kill him, but that maybe he should have tried to *make* opportunities to talk with the goblins like Durkon just did. Maybe it would have been just as fruitless and as personally dangerous, but Roy could go to sleep knowing that he made a good faith attempt at a peaceful resolution. Or even if there was no possibility to attempt to negotiate for a peaceful resolution, he could console himself that he at the very least looked for one once. That bare-minimum good-faith attempt to avoid unnecessary death is something that he, I, and I would assume Rich would consider to be characteristic of a Good alignment (but not an absolute requirement).

As I said before, recontextualization is incredibly hard to do right. You run the risk of these mistakes when trying to subvert things. If you want the original goblins from the first dungeon to be misunderstood, by all means. But that means you’ve got to bridge the gap from comedy to tragedy and that is dangerous to do.

Right and I would argue that Roy has made the good faith attempt when reasonable. Any definition of the ‘good faith’ as it would apply to Goblins would have to include basically every mook in the story forever. And once again that makes it lose the Goblin edge. I actually agree with your overall assessment there, but the implications on every other minion and whether or not it fits with Roy or the goblins as a whole is a lot more tricky. The real trick is going to be how this sort of thing progresses from here. Say the next chapter Roy starts crying because of what he did, or gives a big speech to everybody about how they treated just the goblins wrong. Then that will come across a lot worse than just ‘it’s okay to try and be a bit better’ and contradict things when we bring up similar situations with non-goblins.

As to whether the story considers Redcloak to be "right", I am willing to bet that "right idea, wrong execution" is going to be Redcloak-as-a-villain's epitaph: maybe he'll be redeemed, maybe he won't, but I do expect that the climax of his personal arc will be him being confronted with hard evidence that his actions have compromised instead of served the goblin race. And the thing is that there's a lot of leeway in how the line between where the "idea" and the "execution" is drawn: Redcloak's right idea as envisioned by Durkon might simply be that "Goblins have an unfair lot in life and there should have been some way to address that issue with the gods" - and to leave all the details about exactly how unfair the initial resource allocation was and what the ideal manner of correcting that disparity is in the problem-prone "execution" category.

I completely agree with this statement but I think it also applies to the story itself, not just Redcloaks “right problem wrong treatment” thing. I think the idea of what Rich is doing is fantastic, but the execution and details need to be addressed for me to believe in it. I don’t recall if I said the story agrees with Redcloak and if I did I apologize.

Given how vague a "fair share" of "resources" is for a whole race, Thor's embarrassed, frustrated, and with-pertinent-additional-context "It's complicated" response, and Redcloak's demonstrated refusal to negotiate a compromise, I expect that the whether or not the story agrees with Redcloak's stated goals isn't going to be nearly as important as you worry it will be. Redcloak indeed has a lofty and noble goal of racial equality and harmony and brotherhood and whatnot, but - as evidenced in the negotiation with Durkon - when said goal might actually be within reach he doesn't know what to do and gets defensive. Moreover, Durkon, Thor, and now Roy are in a position that they can demonstrate that they care more about Redcloak's noble-goals-as-stated than Redcloak does. As such, I expect that that will be used to force Redcloak to face his own hypocrisy, and not that it will argue the inherent morality of forceful redistribution of land/wealth or that Roy had a moral imperative at any specific time to talk instead of fight.

If you’re correct (and I’m properly understanding you), and I hope you are, then many of my stated problems vanish. My only concern was that if it doesn’t go that way, and fast, then the problems in this most recent strip could fester let alone if they go in the direction I feared they might which would lead to outright ruining the themes and contradicting previous things in the narrative. So I agree, most of my statements so far could be fixed or may already be intended to be fixed (and so they wouldn’t actually be problems). I’m mentioning it just in case they weren’t and I have some small power to influence one of my favorite stories.

And there's still a pretty good chance that Redcloak's goals are going to be demonstrated to be self-contradictory. While that option's still a major possibility, there's going to be any number of ways to interpret the story as supporting or refuting said goals; to agree on aspects of a hypothetical but impossible-to-achieve utopia is hardly a notable endorsement of the idea.

There will be many ways that’s true. But unless certain things are addressed they will be, as I label, objective issues within the writing. Contradictions and the like. For example, in the first introduction the monster god with Fenris. In 1232 it was Fenrir. This is a nano issue. You could interpret it a bunch of ways (Maybe it’s a nickname! Maybe he recently changed his name! Maybe it’s a different god!) but without hard and fast stuff in the story addressing why the name is different, it will forever remain an issue. An objective mistake in the writing and one that, if never addressed, won’t impact my personal opinion of the work in the slightest.

Thank you very much for your well thought out and extremely reasonable response. I really enjoyed responding to it and it’s posts like yours that make me happy I started this thread.

I'll say this about Azure City and Gobbotopia, as it relates to this question. I don't think you can really say the hobgoblins conquered it. I think Xykon did, and I think everyone in the universe thinks that too.

While the hobgoblins ended up doing most of the work, without Xykon and team sabotaging the beacons, the city would have had a ton more warning, been able to call in allies, and fortify the city. If the nobles hadn't left (Technically not Xykon's direct doing, but it was a factor.) the forces would be even stronger. Without Xykon, frankly, I don't think redcloak ever gets that high level, to be honest (Considering the last bearer of the crimson mantle didn't seem too impressive.) and his help would have been much less.

Even after the city was taken, when Hinjo asks for support in taking it back, nobody is worried about the hobgoblins, they tell him "We don't want to be the lich's next target." Nobody is afraid of the horde of hobgoblins, they're worried about him.

Without Xykon's intervention, then yes, that hobgoblin "Encampment" does exists, but I think it ends the way Redcloak alleges all such endeavors do. A bunch of humans, with maybe some elves and dwarves get together and push them back the moment they start marching. Because that's what everyone in these strips, Redcloak, Durkon, even Thor, take for granted. The humans have the levels, the equipment, the everything, to make any battle they have with hobgoblins (without huge intervention) 9/10 in their favor.

The issue I'm bringing up is not whether or not they could conquer Azure city easily on their own. And it's not based off other things or guesses like how big other armies are or whether or not Hobgoblins attack a lot or whether they have a 9/10 chance of losing. My reasoning is simply this. Based off what we've seen, the hobgoblins have the biggest army in the story and there is no reason to assume anyone has an army that is bigger or able to equip so many in the first place. Whether or not there are other factors involving strategy, leadership or individual powerful beings on either side, the Hobgoblins despite having 'bad land' according to Redcloak mustered this force and kept it trained, equipped and ready for war at a moments notice. That's a lot of resources for 'bad land' to handle.

Well, I'd turn that last part completely around--how much readers enjoy the story is what matters, not whether and how what you perceive to be technical writing issues are addressed. It's a work of fiction, not an instruction manual or rulebook, so technical writing aren't the big a deal as they would be otherwise, even if I agreed that the things you express concern about are problems--what you see as contradictions, I see as nuance.

Okay so let's get really extreme here then. Next page Durkon converts to Loki because he thinks it would be funny. Minrah confesses her love to Roy. Mr. Scruff reveals he was a celestial wizard this whole time. Elan solves a complicated math problem. etc. etc. And everybody loves it. Would you still say whether or not readers enjoy the story is the only thing that matters? In that case, is there even such a thing as 'bad' stories out there? Can a story be bad if the only thing that matters is whether or not the audience enjoys it?

Nephrahim

2021-05-02, 04:42 PM

Bootman

2021-05-02, 04:46 PM

But I mean, the question isn't if the Hobgoblins can have a BIG army. Nobody doubts they can have a lot of guys. The question is, can they accomplish anything with that, against the "Civilized" nations, and the answer seems to be "no."

I do agree it's a bit of a contradiction that they live in what is described as a "Fertile valley." despite complaints about the land. But is just having that food enough? I'm not sure about that.

I think those are very good questions to ask and they should be explored in the story, but if they aren't we're forced to just go with what we can see. And if it was a bunch of small warring tribes with clubs and leather that Redcloak united I actually wouldn't be bringing this up. It's that they had ONE nation ruled by one person with an orderly, disciplined, metal clad, fully equipped, professionally trained army of 30,000.

If food isn't enough, numbers aren't enough, your own cities aren't enough, your own god isn't enough, and ores to equip your giant armies isn't enough, I wonder what is enough. What is it that the goblins are missing, exactly? And why is it so much of a big deal that it's considered oppressive or intensely disadvantageous to them?

Nephrahim

2021-05-02, 04:54 PM

Bootman

2021-05-02, 04:56 PM

I really want to see what's happening in Gobotopia for that reason, to be honest. Maybe nothing (I assume Redcloak would stay in contact?) but without him and Xykon I really want to know what's the rest of the nation is doing.

Me too! And if Rich found a really great way to show that without slowing down the story and started fixing the issues I've laid out and explaining things, guess what? I'd be super happy. I believe Rich could do it. But if he doesn't, or does it poorly, these issues are going to exist forever.

Thanks for the comments, friend. Here's hoping we get to learn more as this book goes on.

Telenil

2021-05-02, 04:57 PM

pearl jam

2021-05-02, 05:25 PM

There will be many ways that’s true. But unless certain things are addressed they will be, as I label, objective issues within the writing. Contradictions and the like. For example, in the first introduction the monster god with Fenris. In 1232 it was Fenrir. This is a nano issue. You could interpret it a bunch of ways (Maybe it’s a nickname! Maybe he recently changed his name! Maybe it’s a different god!) but without hard and fast stuff in the story addressing why the name is different, it will forever remain an issue. An objective mistake in the writing and one that, if never addressed, won’t impact my personal opinion of the work in the slightest.

It's been noted in the discussion thread and other places that Fenrir and Fenris are grammatical inflections of the same name in the original Old Norse, and as such are actually the same name. I suspect that, even had Rich been intentionally referencing that in modern English that doesn't have the same kind of grammar, that the uses in comic probably call for the same inflection, but it's a fairly small issue, as you have said.

Bootman

2021-05-02, 05:38 PM

It's been noted in the discussion thread and other places that Fenrir and Fenris are grammatical inflections of the same name in the original Old Norse, and as such are actually the same name. I suspect that, even had Rich been intentionally referencing that in modern English that doesn't have the same kind of grammar, that the uses in comic probably call for the same inflection, but it's a fairly small issue, as you have said.

Yeah it was just an example to illustrate a point that there are things that are objective issues with a piece of art, but we are allowed to feel whatever we want about them. If I had been beaten up by a massive Norwegian kid named Fenris growing up I may have gotten really upset for instance hahaha. I appreciate the information though and that does make me understand why it swaps between the two in different pieces of media, though normally not within the same one.

Vikenlugaid

2021-05-02, 05:38 PM

Very well put my friend. And on a side note I'm very happy with the discourse in this thread.

I actually appreciate this since you're going through and giving lots of points and a complete argument.

Microracist is still racist, and if it's being presented as a character revelation in the story even if it is 'microracist' it is still given narrative and thematic weight.

I believe this would be because dragons and goblins are not citizens of any northern nations nor criminals that can strictly break the law. At the same time one was a character's brother and that person's friends so it would be natural to expect them to be a bit more merciful. Nale was also captured in a pause in the battle by Elan and was no longer any kind of a threat in that scenario. I think the unique relationship that they have and the citizen status is a lot more important. Would a Goblin take a human soldier to Goblin-jail? That sounds very very silly to me.

As established in an edit to my first post in this thread, gags are indicative of character and worldbuilding as much as anything else. As an exception it is still bigger and stronger than anybody else's army that we've seen.

If they do have bigger armies we should have seen them and they should have been stated to exist, and they would have to be a LOT bigger then 30,000 to uphold the narrative that the hobgoblins have very little.

Even if it does add texture to the theme as you say, I.E. it presents some goblins that are not oppressed, we need to see some that are. We need to see the majority or a significant amount are oppressed. We have literally seen more appressed humans then goblins in the online comic.

My point was that if the army was just that much bigger then it would have been mentioned. If they had even a few thousand more troops in the countryside, that should have been mentioned. Instead Hinjo functionally abandons them because I certainly didn't see a bunch of extra ships added or mention of the professional soldiers when he was talking about raising a new army. Without being told this force that dwarfs the hobgoblins exists we should not assume it does.

It doesn't matter whether it was likely, just the fact that it's possible and the hobgoblin state had a good chance of doing so and an army like that undermines the oppression narrative. We've seen two significant hobgoblin cities for a start. For a second point, the heroes have been going to human areas because I doubt they're accepted in goblin areas and they've never had to go there for plot reasons. We don't know how many there are, just that they have at least one nation able to muster a 30,000 man army with swords, shields and armor. So once again from what we're shown on screen, goblins are both nearly always evil and doing pretty well for themselves (as far as the online comic goes).

The gag of the hobgoblin legions is marking that fact as an exception, both Redcloak and Kykon assumed that was just "another goblin village with a bunch of soldiers in it", and both of them have lived a lot of time and we need to assume that they have been recruiting every goblin they could for the Plan... and even so they are surprised, like mad, when they heard about so many legions, they obviously NEVER expected that number.

And the rest... we have seen a lot of human cities, and we have been told about reings, empires, wars between them... we don't need the exact numbers. With that info, if the comic tell us that goblins have less, we should believe it.

And the most important thing, when Durkon said to Thor that goblins are in disadvantage compared to dwarves, Thor answer is "you are right", and obviously Thor knows how the world is, so we have absolutely no reason to think that goblins have as many cities an armies as humans/elfs/dwarves, because if that was the case, Thor wouldn't had said "you are right" there.

RossN

2021-05-02, 05:42 PM

Well, let's look at it in more depth. What Redcloak said to Durkon was (among other things):
"If you and your friends raid a goblin camp, kill everyone and take all of their money, they call you adventurers. If me and my friends do the same to a human village, they call us monsters.

Even accounting for Redcloak's bias I just don't understand that line at all. It only makes sense if Redcloak means that goblins shun their own people who raid human villages.

Some

2021-05-02, 05:44 PM

"Biased" and "inaccurate" are not synonyms.

Yup. Nor are they antonyms.

Someone else claimed that Thor said Redcloak was correct. My point is that Thor didn't say that Redcloak was correct, just that Redcloak was extremely biased.

Thor denies that the injustices and inequalities that the goblinoids face were done intentionally, but he doesn't deny that they exist. He also doesn't deny the fact that the gods could have done something about them, but just didn't.

"but just didn't" is the extremely biased part. It makes it sound like there was some sort of check-box for "goblinoid equality" that the gods could've clicked. The whole notion of "just didn't" minimizes the scope and difficulty of both foreseeing and addressing the perceived issue.

Part of the thing is lumping them together. The gods don't all want the same things -- 1/3 of them are Good, 1/3 are Evil, and 1/3 are neither.

At least some of the Evil-gods want racism, because, ya know, Evil -- so far, we only have canon-confirmation that Fenris is pro-racism, though presumably other Evil-gods are also pro-racism (since they're literally made out of Evil). Presumably they're also pro-murder, pro-rape, pro-sexism, pro-slavery, pro-inequality, pro-supremacism, etc., because, again, Evil: that's literally what being Evil is all about. And the goblins were created as a tool of such Evil, with Fenris having created them as supremacists who'd kill and enslave other races, which is exactly what the goblins are now doing.

So how can the 1/3 of Good-gods stop it?

That said, the Good-gods aren't powerless. For example, Thor got help from Loki in getting fewer of his followers to go to Hel. Apparently Thor prioritized keeping his faithful from eternal damnation. By focusing on that particular goal, he's failed to focus on all sorts of other Good-causes, e.g. ending poverty, promoting happiness, or ensuring peace. In fact, Thor has his followers engage in violent conflicts even when violence wouldn't otherwise be necessary, because that's how Thor's keeping them out of Hel.

Thor's ability to plan and get what he wants appears to be limited. He's not omniscient -- in fact, part of his lore is that he's often duped by Loki. Apparently Thor's well aware of his limitations, and he's been focusing what abilities he does have on keeping people from going to Hel. This has come at the expense of other Good-causes Thor could've focused on.

Of course, there might be a better solution. A better solution that might involve defeating Evil forever -- ending suffering, murder, rape, and all of these horrible things for good. And maybe it's just a matter of Thor thinking hard enough to figure out how to do it. And so it's great that Thor's willing to consider and keep trying.

That said, if you were in Thor's shoes, what would you be doing?

Finally, just to reiterate: it's still unclear exactly what the goblins are. This is, Fenris made the goblins to carry out his Evil agenda.. can the goblins break free of it, or did Fenris encode racial-supremacism and violence into their very nature? How much free-will is there? And can the goblins change, or do the mechanics of the world bind them to their creator's original intent?

Larsaan

2021-05-02, 05:53 PM

Not to suggest that there's not a better solution. In fact, there may be some clever trick where the Good-gods can defeat the Evil-gods once-and-for-all, permanently ending suffering, racism, murder, rape, and all of those other horrible things forever. Just, what is it?

Kill all their followers and starve them of faith? :smallconfused:

Disclaimer edit: Obviously I don't think they'd still qualify as Good by the time they'd finished.

Actually, wasn't there an incident in Planescape where the Harmonium faction started massacring everyone who wasn't Lawful Good, and it ended up causing their entire stronghold to drop out of Celestia and crash into Mechanus?

masamune1

2021-05-02, 06:03 PM

Even accounting for Redcloak's bias I just don't understand that line at all. It only makes sense if Redcloak means that goblins shun their own people who raid human villages.

He means that he sees it as a double standard- he thinks that the gods have made a world where it is okay for humans and other races to raid goblin villages, but not okay for goblins to do the same, according to the gods and their mortal followers.

Of course, he is evidently unaware that goblins were created by the literal god of monsters to be the ultimate dominant monster race....

Some

2021-05-02, 06:17 PM

Kill all their followers and starve them of faith? :smallconfused:

Disclaimer edit: Obviously I don't think they'd still qualify as Good by the time they'd finished.

Yeah.. there's a sad irony to the Dark One's plan with the Snarl. By which I mean, in a way, the Dark One's already won, and he doesn't even know it.

As Thor explained, he originally tried to end the Dark One when the Dark One ascended, in part because he could do so "safely". But now the Dark One's presumably a full god (rather than being in a weird, still-ascending transitional state).

And gods can't fight. If they do, it creates tangles that can form another Snarl. Heck, they can't even argue; they have to have their clerics come together and communicate indirectly between them, because if they do communicate directly and even just start disagreeing, it might make another Snarl.

So the Dark One may not realize this yet, but if he merely engaged in direct conflict or even argumentation with the other gods, he could summon a new Snarl without needing a complex ritual to contain the first one. He could just focus on arguing and conflicting with the other gods while constantly running away from them, like a "kiting"-strategy in an MMORPG, to build up a new Snarl.

And even though the Dark One doesn't know this, the other gods do. So all of the gods can already threaten each other with the Snarl. I think that's the canon-explanation for why even Good and Evil gods have to get along.. because they've all got a mutually-assured-destruction (MAD) weapon pointed at each other, where if anyone gets too upset, they can take out everyone else too.

Anyway, my point's that I dunno if gods can actually directly campaign to starve each other, because if any of them feels too victimized by the others, they can just go MAD by releasing the Snarl or/and creating new ones.

And the worst part? The Dark One's a *fifth* color. So if he created a new Snarl that combined with the old one, it'd have a total of 5 colors.. presumably that'd make it even harder for the 3-colors of the other pantheons to contain it, as they already have trouble with the 4-color Snarl.

Some

2021-05-02, 07:23 PM

To clarify what Thor said of Redcloak's position (because a lot of posts seem to claim that Thor validated it): Thor didn't.

Thor only validated one of Durkon's points, specifically:

DURKON: But tha goblins start'd out wit less, so ths's na usu'lly wha happens. Wha happens, tha drawf wins cuz `e's gotta better axe an' better armor an's been eatin' better food `is whole life! I dunno. I mean, I dinnae want tha dwarf ta lose, but I can see how it's na `xactly fair fer tha goblin.

THOR: I mean... yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose...but I guess we didn't really prevent it, either.

This is, Thor agreed that, in one-on-one conflicts, Dwarves tended to have an advantage over Goblins. Thor wasn't agreeing to anything else; claims to the contrary are misstating what actually happened.

Further, Redcloak wasn't even upset about 1-on-1 combat odds. Nor could he be; there're 3 kinds of goblinoids, and only the green ones are weaker -- hobgoblins are about equal, and bugbears are stronger. Rather, Redcloak was complaining that all goblinoids -- even the stronger bugbears -- were created as EXP-fodder.

TRH

2021-05-02, 07:39 PM

Yeah it was just an example to illustrate a point that there are things that are objective issues with a piece of art, but we are allowed to feel whatever we want about them. If I had been beaten up by a massive Norwegian kid named Fenris growing up I may have gotten really upset for instance hahaha. I appreciate the information though and that does make me understand why it swaps between the two in different pieces of media, though normally not within the same one.

If you want a more clear-cut example of a micro-error that is inconsequential but undeniably real, Andi was first referred to as "Sally" in an early scene in the last book, and Rich seemingly forgot he'd established her with that name and went back and edited the earlier instance accordingly.

Worldsong

2021-05-02, 08:07 PM

Also to note it, it's unclear to what extent that that problem's actually a problem. For example, if Dwarves always beat Vampires, then would that be a problem? And if it's a problem with Goblins, why?

The difference between vampires and goblins is that goblins are a fully sapient and independent race, whereas vampirism is more of an affliction where a parasite-soul formed of all the worst parts of the original soul takes control of the body and then either does horrible things or, at best, lives in isolation but is still a huge threat to anyone they might come across.

In the Stickverse it'd make more sense to compare vampires to fiends than to mortal races. Including the common issue with Alignment-focused Outsiders where you have to wonder if they're truly free-willed individuals if their very being is tied to a certain alignment. Beyond that vampires have no culture, no independent form of reproduction, nothing else which would establish them as being an actual race and not an extremely unusual disease.

Durkon managed to temporarily override the parasite-soul that had taken over his body but that seemed less like a case of full-blown conversion and more Durkon using the fact that the parasite-soul is a twisted echo of his own self to seize control and self-destruct before the vampire could recover.

Spartan360

2021-05-02, 08:13 PM

Some

2021-05-02, 08:19 PM

The difference between vampires and goblins is that goblins are a fully sapient and independent race, whereas vampirism is more of an affliction where a parasite-soul formed of all the worst parts of the original soul takes control of the body and then either does horrible things or, at best, lives in isolation but is still a huge threat to anyone they might come across.

The goblins don't appear to be fully independent. While non-outsiders seem to have a weaker propensity to have a pre-determined alignment, they still have very strong, obvious tenancies.

For example, we've seen a lot of goblins that we can confirm to be Evil, but none that're confirmed to be Neutral or Good in the main-comic. (Yeah, some teenaged-goblins claimed to be Good in an early strip, but quickly revealed that they weren't actually Good, just faking it to stick it to their parents -- they quickly gave up the ruse the very moment it stopped amusing them.)

Which I think is what makes racial-ethics so tricky in this setting: there's extremely powerful evidence that goblins are innately predisposed toward Evil. The empirical evidence in their behavior is overwhelming, and it makes perfect sense given that they were created by an Evil-deity to do Evil things. The idea that all of that is a coincidence, and that goblins are actually completely free-willed without additional inclination to Evil, seems implausible.

That said, I think the characterization of Vampires may've undersold their own merits. Mallock, for example, seemed genuinely Neutral-leaning.. he wasn't pure Evil. Which, given that he was a being made of negative-energy and connected to an Evil-god and required a vampiric-diet, was actually quite incredible. It seems like some part of Mallock really had an inclination toward Good, to shift such an Evil-predisposition toward Neutral. (Of course, he was still quite Evil overall, just he's evidence that the mechanics don't completely bind even a vampire cleric of an Evil-god, suggesting some level of free-will even under such constraints.)

Spartan360

2021-05-02, 08:22 PM

Worldsong

2021-05-02, 08:26 PM

The goblins don't appear to be fully independent. While non-outsiders seem to have a weaker propensity to have a pre-determined alignment, they still have very strong, obvious tenancies.

For example, we've seen a lot of goblins that we can confirm to be Evil, but none that're confirmed to be Neutral or Good. (Yeah, some teenaged-goblins claimed to be Good in an early strip, but quickly revealed that they weren't actually Good, just faking it to stick it to their parents -- they quickly gave up the ruse the very moment it stopped amusing them.)

Which I think is what makes racial-ethics so tricky in this setting: there's extremely powerful evidence that goblins are innately predisposed toward Evil. The empirical evidence in their behavior is overwhelming, and it makes perfect sense given that they were created by an Evil-deity to do Evil things. The idea that all of that is a coincidence, and that goblins are actually completely free-willed without additional inclination to Evil, seems implausible.

The problem here is that, while you do have a point that most of the goblins we've encountered in the main story are on the side of Evil, Rich has all but outright stated that, implausible as it is, the truth is that goblins do not have some kind of genetic or instinctive inclination towards Evil. Which means that they are fully independent and free-willed.

Basically, if a human and a goblin grew up under the same circumstances you wouldn't be able to predict which one ends up more Good or more Evil than the other. Sure, it might turn out that the Goblin is less Good than the human, but it could just as easily be the other way around.

If goblins consistently grow up to be Evil it's because of the culture and conditions they are raised in rather than some kind of innate disposition towards Evil.

I feel like by this point it'd be better to argue that Rich could have done a better job getting that idea across than trying to refute the idea itself, since OOC Rich couldn't have been blunter with his intentions unless he'd stamped them on everybody's forehead.

EDIT:

That said, I think the characterization of Vampires may've undersold their own merits. Mallock, for example, seemed genuinely Neutral-leaning.. he wasn't pure Evil. Which, given that he was a being made of negative-energy and connected to an Evil-god and required a vampiric-diet, was actually quite incredible. It seems like some part of Mallock really had an inclination toward Good, to shift such an Evil-predisposition toward Neutral. (Of course, he was still quite Evil overall, just he's evidence that the mechanics don't completely bind even a vampire cleric of an Evil-god, suggesting some level of free-will even under such constraints.)

Malack wasn't Neutral. He was just a very civilized form of Evil. He was polite, respectful, rational, and was willing to compromise for the sake of someone he considered a friend of his despite their differences and opposition of each other.

However at the same time, Malack wanted to turn at least one-third of the Western Lands into a tyrannical regime where vampires would rule and thousands of living people would be sacrificed on a daily basis both to sustain the vampires and as offerings to his decidedly Evil god (important to note, Malack talked to Durkon about how death and destruction don't have to be innately evil but he never explicitly stated that his god wasn't Evil).

That's not Neutral by any margin.

Some

2021-05-02, 08:26 PM

Actually, I think Right-Eye and his Family were True Neutral, while he did act rather aggressively at the start of the prequel, he was mostly shown to be decent sort that actually prioritized having a simple good life for himself, his family and fellow goblins.

Thanks for pointing that out! I edited the observation to clarify that I meant in the main-comic only. Haven't bought the other stories yet (can't seem to find a non-pirated electronic version).

Dion

2021-05-02, 08:27 PM

Yeah as Thor said it's an Ecosystem, if the well fed lions manage to slaughter the starving hyenas that charge into their lands, no one is going to feel bad on the lions side. And if a hunter noticed that the hyenas were losing so much and decided to either shoot the strongest lion or give the hyenas enough food that they manage to massively outnumber the lions. I would rather call that unfair.

Exactly!

Saying "lions eat antelope" is the single least charitable way to put it.

It's an ecosystem. The antelopes eat the grass. The lions eat the antelopes. The worms eat the lions.

It's unnecessarily pejorative to say "the system where the lions usually eat the antelope seems designed to benefit the lions".

People really need to think a lot harder about the lion's feelings before saying something so cruel and hurtful.

Some

2021-05-02, 08:30 PM

I feel like by this point it'd be better to argue that Rich could have done a better job getting that idea across than trying to refute the idea itself, since OOC Rich couldn't have been blunter with his intentions unless he'd stamped them on everybody's forehead.

My comments are based almost entirely on the main-comic. I did briefly skim a Wiki-summary for Start of Darkness, but besides that, I haven't been following the out-of-universe discussion on the comic nor the side-stories.

If the author (Rich?) did state that the goblins don't have any natural inclination toward an alignment, could you point me in the right direction for reading about that? It would be very difficult to reconcile that with what happens in the main-comic, but an author's direct claim would seem to win out if it's canon.

Some

2021-05-02, 08:42 PM

Exactly!

Saying "lions eat antelope" is the single least charitable way to put it.

It's an ecosystem. The antelopes eat the grass. The lions eat the antelopes. The worms eat the lions.

It's unnecessarily pejorative to say "the system where the lions usually eat the antelope seems designed to benefit the lions".

People really need to think a lot harder about the lion's feelings before saying something so cruel and hurtful.

Just to note it: one of the reasons that it can feel so much easier to make a point through sarcasm, rather than direct statement, is that sarcasm makes it really easy to strawman opposing positions.

For example, Thor's comment about a position being "unnecessarily pejorative" was a reference to logical bias, not cruelty or emotional pain. The whole bit about hurt feelings misrepresents the actual point, instead attacking a position that no one's actually making (which is what we call a "strawman argument").

To make a clearer argument, it'd be best to clearly reference stuff and directly state a point. Often that's harder than making a strawman, though it enables productive discussion.

For example, if you feel that there's a point to be made in relation to Thor's comment with "unnecessarily pejorative", what point would that be?

Worldsong

2021-05-02, 08:44 PM

My comments are based almost entirely on the main-comic. I did briefly skim a Wiki-summary for Start of Darkness, but besides that, I haven't been following the out-of-universe discussion on the comic nor the side-stories.

If the author (Rich?) did state that the goblins don't have any natural inclination toward an alignment, could you point me in the right direction for reading about that? It would be very difficult to reconcile that with what happens in the main-comic, but an author's direct claim would seem to win out if it's canon.

I don't have a link where Rich/the author literally states "goblins have no innate disposition towards evil". If I did I could have ended a couple of arguments very quickly.

However, this is what the second link in my signature leads to:

Sorry, I missed this in my earlier post:

the inapplicability as satire (again I have to wonder why anyone gives a crap about whether it's fair to depict monsters are evil in fantasy games),
I CARE. I care, and every goddamn person in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil. I may like the alignment system overall, but that is its ugliest implication, and one that I think needs to be eliminated from the game. I will ALWAYS write against that idea until it has been eradicated from the lexicon of fantasy literature. If they called me up and asked me to help them work on 5th Edition, I would stamp it out from the very game itself. It is abhorrent to me in every way.

So, complaining that I am failing to uphold it is the best compliment you could give me.

Here Rich makes it very clear that he is completely opposed to the idea that you should just assume that, just because every goblin you've seen so far has been Evil, it's safe to treat the next goblin as Evil as well. I think that's about as straightforward an answer as we can get from him on the topic.

EDIT:
As for why this wouldn't apply to vampires and fiends, it's the Outsider Problem again. Outsiders (and vampires act a lot like fiends in the Stickverse so far as I understand them) are bound to an alignment. But you can't both be bound to an alignment and have free will, and the easiest way out of that conundrum is the conclusion that Outsiders, at least the ones who are bound to a specific alignment, don't have free will in the way that mortals do.

Dion

2021-05-02, 08:45 PM

Just to note it: one of the reasons that it can feel so much easier to make a point through sarcasm, rather than direct statement, is that sarcasm makes it really easy to strawman opposing positions.

For example, Thor's comment about a position being "unnecessarily pejorative" was a reference to logical bias, not cruelty or emotional pain. The whole bit about hurt feelings misrepresents the actual point, instead attacking a position that no one's actually making (which is what we call a "strawman argument").

To make a clearer argument, it'd be best to clearly reference stuff and directly state a point. Often that's harder than making a strawman, though it enables productive discussion.

Ok. This isn’t sarcasm.

Pejorative does not mean “wrong”. Uncharitable does not mean “wrong”. Thor never says redcloak is wrong.

In fact, he confirms the gods intentionally created an ecosystem, and he admits goblins are not on top.

Now, he does make a weasel excuse and say not all the gods are equally responsibly, but I honestly seem to have something wrong with my brain where I can’t possibly see how that matters to the goblins.

No sarcasm take is that I think that people are reading words in the comic and making up their own meanings if they think Thor says redcloak is wrong.

(I do admit that Thor doesn’t say Redcloak is entirely right. But the whole point of the last two strips is that Durkon realizes Redcloak isnt entirely wrong, either.)

hungrycrow

2021-05-02, 08:49 PM

I don't have a link where Rich/the author literally states "goblins have no innate disposition towards evil". If I did I could have ended a couple of arguments very quickly.

However, this is what the second link in my signature leads to:

Here Rich makes it very clear that he is completely opposed to the idea that you should just assume that, just because every goblin you've seen so far has been Evil, it's safe to treat the next goblin as Evil as well. I think that's about as straightforward an answer as we can get from him on the topic.

V's reflections on the familicide incident could also apply, even though they're talking about dragons instead of goblins. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0866.html

Some

2021-05-02, 08:52 PM

Here Rich makes it very clear that he is completely opposed to the idea that you should just assume that, just because every goblin you've seen so far has been Evil, it's safe to treat the next goblin as Evil as well. I think that's about as straightforward an answer as we can get from him on the topic.

In-comic, the best argument for goblins being inherently evil would be a combination of that being the case in the underlying D&D system the comic's based on plus the fact that the goblins were created by an Evil-god to do Evil-things.

Thor's revealed that they used to have creatures change their minds to reflect the beliefs of an attacker. That strongly suggests that the gods do have strong control over the mechanics of their creation's minds.

The comic's also pretty clear that behavior correlates with cosmetics. For example, color-coded dragons. For another example, things that look undead tend to behave in certain, stereotypical fashions. For another example, things that look like demons tend to be Evil.

This isn't because cosmetics actually matter -- for example, throwing paint on a dragon presumably wouldn't change it -- but rather because the cosmetics vary between things that vary. For example, demons both look different and act different, creating the correlation -- but merely putting someone in a demon-disguise or demon-illusion wouldn't.

Worldsong

2021-05-02, 08:59 PM

In-comic, the best argument for goblins being inherently evil would be a combination of that being the case in the underlying D&D system the comic's based on plus the fact that the goblins were created by an Evil-god to do Evil-things.

The comic seems to leave the issue of how much control gods have over their creations' alignments unclear, but I'm not sure why some might have such confidence in the idea that an Evil-god would have literally zero ability to influence the behavior of his creations.

For example, Thor did recently point out that people used to be able to change others' minds by hitting them. This suggests that the gods do have the direct ability to influence how their creations' minds work, to a pretty extreme degree.

In that post I linked Rich makes it clear that he despises the fact that the underlying DnD system would just give an entire sapient race the Evil stamp like that, so that argument is effectively nullified.

Also, I don't agree with the idea that Fenrir made goblins with the intent of doing Evil things. As stated by Thor, Fenrir's goal was to have the goblinoids be the strongest competitors in the struggle for survival and supremacy. The same competition all other races, including those created by Good-aligned deities, were part of.

I have confidence in the idea that Fenrir did not give goblins an innate tendency towards Evil because the author has stated that he despises the idea that an entire sapient race can be written off as 'just Evil'.

As I said before, you could make the argument that Rich hasn't done a good job representing his ideas in-universe, but that doesn't refute his actual ideas. If you continue reading the story with the expectation that goblins are going to be revealed to be innately biased towards Evil then you're setting yourself up for disappointment because the story is decided by the author and the author has made it clear that he does not see it that way.

You can't counter this by giving in-story examples because so far as I'm concerned Word of God trumps any such examples when examining the intended meaning of the story and how it's going to develop.

EDIT:

V's reflections on the familicide incident could also apply, even though they're talking about dragons instead of goblins. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0866.html

Also true. Vaarsuvius is currently on a path of redemption, and that speech could be interpreted as Rich using his character as a mouthpiece to get some of his ideas across on why assuming that all dragons related to the Ancient Black Dragon would be Evil and deserving of slaughter would be a bad thought to have.

Some

2021-05-02, 09:06 PM

You can't counter this by giving in-story examples because so far as I'm concerned Word of God trumps any such examples when examining the intended meaning of the story and how it's going to develop.

Yeah, we may be having two different discussions then.

Not that I disagree with an author's insight into their own work, just, these seem to be your personal interpretations of the author's comments that I haven't seen. So while I certainly wouldn't mean disrespect, it's hard for me to just accept someone else's interpretations that seem contrary to the published work without at least seeing the comments myself.

Edit: Unless you're referring exclusively to the thing you quoted above; if it's just that, we can definitely have a discussion (or anything else linked). I'm just getting the gist that you've read a lot of author commentary over the years and are basing your comments on a broad survey rather than a specific point.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-02, 09:09 PM

I think you're severely overreacting.
I'd like to welcome you to internet discussion forums.
Here's a nice cold beer.
Over there's the hors d' ouvres tray: I think that you'll find the bacon wrapped jalapeños delicious. :smallcool:

There's a bit of a plot meta problem, which is a blood oath.
There's Roy, obligated to take out Xykon due to the blood oath.
Goblins could, ya know, get out of the way and let him kill that non goblin dude. But they don't, and two core reasons that they don't is that (a) they are minions of an evil lich and (b) the most powerful goblin cleric in the region, possibly in the world, has convinced them not to, but instead to serve this undead abomination: the lich Xykon. While in one way this becomes a case of "it's not easy being green" those minions could be lizard folk, dwarves, human bandits, beserkers, drow, or pretty much any of the MM humanoids and still be in Roy's way (and hence at risk for slicing and dicing with that greatsword) since evil lich needs minions is, as Elan might observe, an unavoidable narrative imperative.

It's an imbedded problem in the entire narrative arc.

I'll get the popcorn.

Worldsong

2021-05-02, 09:09 PM

Yeah, we may be having two different discussions then.

Not that I disagree with an author's insight into their own work, just, these seem to be your personal interpretations of the author's comments that I haven't seen. So while I certainly wouldn't mean disrespect, it's hard for me to just accept someone else's interpretations that seem contrary to the published work without at least seeing the comments myself.

...I actually linked you a quote from the author where he literally says that he thinks it's wrong to apply blanket negative statements to an entire race in a story, fictional as that race might be.

If that isn't clear enough in the message that this story isn't about goblins unfortunately just being Evil by nature I can't really say much other than that you should set yourself up for disappointment if you think this story is going to go in any direction other than goblins deserving better treatment than just being written of as Evil.

EDIT:
I've got two other links in my signature to things said by the author on the issue. I would've had more but eventually decided that if anyone read all three of those links and still wasn't convinced then I wouldn't be able to convince them anyway.

Edric O

2021-05-02, 09:14 PM

This is a story about characters. Those characters are not perfect. They're not perfectly good (not even the Good ones), or perfectly rational, or perfectly knowledgeable about every aspect of their world. They're also not moral philosophers discussing the question of "how can we eliminate or minimize injustice in our world?"

They are all flawed people on a quest to save the world, who are only just now starting to discover that the villains are not just doing evil for the lulz (well, one of the main villains isn't doing evil for the lulz; the other one totally is).

So what exactly would you have expected to happen, once they start seeing Redcloak's point of view? An elaborate philosophical dialogue about the nature of justice? The Giant is asking Big Questions in his story, yes, but he's also keeping the characters in character. This is a story, not an essay. You're not expected to necessarily agree with ANY individual character's opinions, and I'm pretty sure The Giant does not personally agree 100% with any one of his characters, either.

Dion

2021-05-02, 09:16 PM

In-comic, the best argument for goblins being inherently evil would be a combination of that being the case in the underlying D&D system the comic's based on plus the fact that the goblins were created by an Evil-god to do Evil-things.

I’m not sure if either of those two things are actually in the comic?

For example, I’m not sure if the MM entry for goblins is in the comic, and I’m rather doubtful anybody said in comic that fenris created the goblins to be evil?

And if your hypothesis is “creatures match the alignment of the god that created them”, then your hypothesis is disproven by the existence of gold, green, black, and brass dragons..

Shadowknight12

2021-05-02, 09:19 PM

I have no intentions of getting dragged into a long discussion, so I'll just throw in my interpretation, feel free to take it or leave it.

Re: Roy: I don't think the comic is criticizing any of Roy's specific past actions (if it were it would've referenced them), but instead criticize the mindset that Roy never bothered to ask why goblins were joining Xykon. This is not about Roy trying to find a peaceful resolution to a violent situation (by that point it's too late) but to try and find out what led the goblins to end up in that situation.

That's why Durkon says "interrogate the inner motivations" rather than "try to dissuade". Durkon's point is not "you should have tried to use diplomacy mid-combat" but "you should have tried to find out why goblins were attacking humans/serving liches and then tried to do something about it after you resolved the violent situation."

Re: the lands. Again, I don't think the issue here is that the goblins were given bad lands, but a criticism of the unfair system the gods created, because if it wasn't bad land or the neglect of a parent god, it would have been some other form of disadvantage and if it wasn't the goblins it would've been a different race.

The comic as a whole has been presenting good-/neutral-aligned characters that are actively critical/dismissive of the gods (Roy, Julia and Eugene) and has been building up to have Durkon now actively disagree with his own party leader and with his own deity on how to approach the Redcloak matter, leading to him agreeing with Redcloak's principles, if not his methods.

To me, the point that the comic is building up to is a criticism of systemic exploitation, and it doesn't matter that the gods need things to be a certain way to subsist, it's still exploitation and it's still wrong.

Some

2021-05-02, 09:29 PM

...I actually linked you a quote from the author where he literally says that he thinks it's wrong to apply blanket negative statements to an entire race in a story, fictional as that race might be.

To clarify, what's a "race" in this case? Like, do demons/devils/angels/devas/zombies/vampires/dragons/deities/etc. count? Or are we talking just native demi-humans?

I ask because, from my perspective, there's little that's particularly special about being humanoid. For example, I'd consider someone hurting a dolphin/whale to be on-par with hurting a human.. the fact that dolphins/whales swim and don't speak English means very little to me. Likewise, I tend to believe that primates (including monkeys and such) should have human-like rights; ditto for cats/dogs/etc.. I also dislike the beef industry, and generally anything that hurts mammals, and I think human-like AI, human-like aliens, etc., would also deserve full human rights.

[EDIT: It may've been easier to just say that I care about sapient-rights and perceive many non-human things to have significant degrees of sapience.]

That said, while I respect other forms of life, I also don't mistake them for being behaviorally indistinguishable from humans.

So, in this discussion, it's weird to me to hear someone argue that cross-species respect ought to imply a lack of behavioral distinguishability, especially in light of overwhelming canon evidence to the contrary. Given that you seem well-researched on the author's comments, but still hold such an odd position, I'm trying to make sense of exactly what you're trying to say.

So, for example, are you saying that traditionally Evil-aligned races (like goblins) and Good-aligned races (like dwarves) shouldn't be assumed to have any predisposition toward those alignments? If so, then does this same claim hold with respect to different species of dragons, outsiders, undead, etc.? Or, basically, could you specify where this perspective does and doesn't apply?

Finally (and sorry for asking so much!), but how do you reconcile this with the knowledge that gods of differing alignments made different creatures? For example, how do you reconcile Thor and Fenris as having had no difference in bestowing behavioral tenancies? Or, are you of the position that the gods lack the ability to influence the behavior of their creations?

I've got two other links in my signature to things said by the author on the issue.

Awesome, I can try reading 'em! (Didn't notice them before because my eyes filter out signatures like ads.)

Teioh

2021-05-02, 09:46 PM

Worldsong

2021-05-02, 10:04 PM

To clarify, what's a "race" in this case? Like, do demons/devils/angels/devas/zombies/vampires/dragons/deities/etc. count? Or are we talking just native demi-humans?

I ask because, from my perspective, there's little that's particularly special about being humanoid. For example, I'd consider someone hurting a dolphin/whale to be on-par with hurting a human.. the fact that dolphins/whales swim and don't speak English means very little to me. Likewise, I tend to believe that primates (including monkeys and such) should have human-like rights; ditto for cats/dogs/etc.. I also dislike the beef industry, and generally anything that hurts mammals, and I think human-like AI, human-like aliens, etc., would also deserve full human rights.

That said, while I respect other forms of life, I also don't mistake them for being behaviorally indistinguishable from humans.

So, in this discussion, it's weird to me to hear someone argue that cross-species respect ought to imply a lack of behavior distinguishability, especially in light of overwhelming canon evidence to the contrary. Given that you seem well-researched on the author's comments, but still hold such an odd position, I'm trying to make sense of exactly what you're trying to say.

So, for example, are you saying that traditionally Evil-aligned races (like goblins) and Good-aligned races (like dwarves) shouldn't be assumed to have any predisposition toward those alignments? If so, then does this same claim hold with respect to different species of dragons, outsiders, undead, etc.? Or, basically, could you specify where this perspective does and doesn't apply?

Part of the problem here is that some of the questions you're asking don't have a definite answer so far as I'm aware. People kind of just agree on a common interpretation and then go with it.

For example, the definition of race is a group of individuals who are considered connected through shared physical traits and/or ancestry.

Quite frankly, covering this topic in its entirety is a mammoth of a task. For now I'll keep it short and say that humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and similar creatures count as races. And, according to the author, goblins as well.

If I had to make a short list of traits that a group of creatures needs to have to be treated as a race in the context of this discussion, it would boil down to sapience, free will, similar physical attributes/biology, and the ability to reproduce without relying on a parasitical mechanism (this last one is in part there to make sure vampires are kicked out of the discussion).

Sapience is difficult to define, but in DnD terms it would mean an intelligence score higher than 3. In less game-y terms, it means a level of awareness and intelligence that allows for technological progress and philosophical thought. We can't ascertain whether apes ever think about the meaning of life but we're pretty certain they've never gotten much further with technology than the idea that sticks help them reach hard to reach places.

Free will in this context boils down to the ability to move across the alignment chart. Goblins have been shown to be capable of being various types of Evil, as well as at the very least True Neutral. That they can move both in the Good-Evil axis and in the Lawful-Chaotic axis means they're free-willed. Demons, angels, and other Alignment-focused Outsiders are bound to a certain alignment or a very strict subset of alignments (Slaad, the closest thing to Chaotic-focused Outsiders, can be both Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral, but nothing else).

Goblins also have the very specific advantage of the author himself using them as an example of a race just being dismissed as Evil in a way which is essentially racism smuggled into a story.

You're correct that you can't just assume that all races are similar enough to humans to be treated the same, and honestly a story about truly alien sapient individuals would be interesting. That said, the third link in my signature makes it clear that Rich considers his writing commentary on our reality, which means that when Rich writes about goblins and elves and dwarves it's safe to assume they're all similar enough to humans that how they act and how they are treated reflects on human society. This means that assuming a certain alignment for any of these races is bad, as they all have the capability to be either Good or Evil and should not be judged for the behaviour of their kin.

In the context of the Stickverse yes, goblins shouldn't be treated as predisposed towards Evil, and dwarves shouldn't be treated as predisposed towards Good. Because so far as I'm concerned the author has been pretty clear on his views on that sort of thing, and his views are rather negative towards the idea of stereotyping. In the Stickverse goblins tend to turn Evil because of culture and circumstances, and dwarves tend to turn Good for the same reasons.

This also applies to dragons, as pointed out earlier in this thread. Vaarsuvius points out to Blackwing that it was actually pretty horrible to just assume that anyone related to the Ancient Black Dragon is a villain, with even the dragons having the capability to be Good.

Demons and undead are trickier because these are arguably not individuals but complex machines, specifically lacking free will. I believe I remember Rich once saying that he wished he hadn't used DnD as the base template for his story specifically because stuff like DnD having an afterlife and alignment-bound entities is very frustrating for him.

For the record, I'm all in favour of assigning basic human rights to sapient artificial intelligences and any other type of entity which can show itself to be sapient, but I do believe that so far humans have been the only ones to reach that point.

Awesome, I can try reading 'em! (Didn't notice them before because my eyes filter out signatures like ads.)

You know what, fair enough, I often glance over signatures as well.

Some

2021-05-02, 10:11 PM

I’m not sure if either of those two things are actually in the comic?

For example, I’m not sure if the MM entry for goblins is in the comic, and I’m rather doubtful anybody said in comic that fenris created the goblins to be evil?

I'm going off Thor describing Fenris's plan for the goblins.

In real-life, creators have a lot of control over their creation's behaviors. AI-designers can heavily influence how AI think, and breeders can breed animals to have certain personalities. (It's easier for AI-designers than breeders since AI-designers have more direct control, but in both cases there's a very high degree of behavioral influence.)

Likewise, in the comic, Thor and Odin talk about how they were able to have creatures' thinking change in response to being hit. And gods' creatures' alignments often match their own. These seem like extremely strong evidence that the gods both have-and-use the ability to select behavioral tenancies.

Which leads me to the presumption that Fenris would've bestowed goblins with the tenancies desired to enact his plan. Which they actually do have, and matches their stereotypical behavior from D&D settings.

And if your hypothesis is “creatures match the alignment of the god that created them”, then your hypothesis is disproven by the existence of gold, green, black, and brass dragons..

In normal D&D, an Evil-god (Tiamat) makes the Evil-dragons, while a Good-god (Bahamut) makes the Good-dragons. And they're rivals.

After V cast that epic-spell on the Black-dragons, Tiamat demanded that the demon-directors slaughter like 5 times as many Good-dragons for each Evil-dragon that was slain.

So I don't think that Tiamat made the Good-dragons.. or else it'd be weird that she made them only to demand that they be slaughtered. Instead, it seems more likely that Bahamut made the Good-dragons and just hasn't been mentioned yet.

Nephrahim

2021-05-02, 10:31 PM

See, I feel like you're assuming a lot of facts without evidence here. For example, you point to the link between Thor and his followers, but we have no idea WHO created the dwarves. It could have been Thor, or Odin, or literally any of the other pantheons. Also, Thor is widely regarded as Chaotic good, while his (Dwarven, at least) followers tend to lean Lawful Good, so that's another mismatch.

Also, while I suppose it's POSSIBLE we've never seem Bahamut... it'd be pretty hard to have hid him this entire time. We can be pretty sure he's not a remember of the northern or Sothern pantheons, since we've seen them all. With Western we know they compose of Marduk's clan, who are all based on Babylonian gods, and the Elven ones, who one must assume are elves. I do agree it's possible a good god created the chrome dragons in this world, and not Tiamat, but there's just no way to know.

Dion

2021-05-02, 11:00 PM

I'm going off Thor describing Fenris's plan for the goblins.

In real-life...

Let me point you to one of my favorite words: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
.
And let me poiint you to one of my favorite comic authors: Daniel Clowes.

He’s best known for Ghost World, but I thought David Boring was an absolute masterpiece.

And David Boring is full of hundreds of hooks where the author basically comes right out and asks you to let your imagination run wild.

Interpret all the car keys and row boats and butts in David Boring any way you want, and nobody, least of all the author, is ever going to tell you you’re wrong.

It seems like the kind of thing you might enjoy.

pyrefiend

2021-05-02, 11:06 PM

Also, while I suppose it's POSSIBLE we've never seem Bahamut... it'd be pretty hard to have hid him this entire time. We can be pretty sure he's not a remember of the northern or Sothern pantheons, since we've seen them all. With Western we know they compose of Marduk's clan, who are all based on Babylonian gods, and the Elven ones, who one must assume are elves. I do agree it's possible a good god created the chrome dragons in this world, and not Tiamat, but there's just no way to know.

What about this point:

So I don't think that Tiamat made the Good-dragons.. or else it'd be weird that she made them only to demand that they be slaughtered. Instead, it seems more likely that Bahamut made the Good-dragons and just hasn't been mentioned yet.

That seems pretty much decisive to me...

Jason

2021-05-02, 11:39 PM

If the author (Rich?) did state that the goblins don't have any natural inclination toward an alignment, could you point me in the right direction for reading about that? It would be very difficult to reconcile that with what happens in the main-comic, but an author's direct claim would seem to win out if it's canon.
Nonesense. An author can claim anything they like about what they intended, or what's really going on, but what's canon is what's in the actual work. Authors change their minds all the time between when they write a comment and when they finish a work. Or sometimes they even misdirect fans in an attempt to keep their coming big reveals secret. Or sometimes they aren't a good enough author to tell what they intended.

Word of God never trumps what is in the actual story. If something isn't in the story but the author says it was, it still isn't in the story.
The Special Edition of Star Wars did not change what I saw on the screen in the '70s - not only did Han shoot first, but Greedo didn't shoot at all.

I've seen that particular quote by the Giant before, and much as I like the comic, I have a few problems with this quote:

[Everybody] in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.A game supplement saying goblins are "usually neutral evil" is not the same thing as lableing a group of humans "evil". Goblins don't really exist, so no harm is being done to the "real" non-evil goblins. The game world has no reality outside of what's in the manuals and in your individual game. It's not a biased label intended to forward oppression of an innocent people, it's an accurate description of the game world, as far as the DM doesn't change it. And anyway, the game doesn't say that all goblins are evil, and any player that assumes that the monster manual entry gives him free reign to kill any goblin he sees on sight, or torture or otherwise abuse them "because they're evil," at my table will pay for their foolishness.

If labelling goblins "usually neutral evil" is a short hop to real-world racism, what message is being taught by all the violence in Order of the Stick? Why isn't watching Belkar and Roy kill monsters and take their treasure a short hop to the readers going out and murdering people and taking their stuff? Will showing that magic works and gods exist in the comic mean its readers will start to believe magic really works or cause them all to get religion?

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil.
The Giant is the one who has decided that the differences between his goblins and humans are only cosmetic. In a D&D game this may or may not be the case, again depending on your DM. The written material for the game doesn't really say whether goblins are usually evil because they have an evil culture or because they have an inherent disposition towards evil, or some other reason, and it's therefore up to the DMs to decide how it works in his or her world.

DMs who decide that in their world goblins are inherently evil are not closeted racists who really hate goblins just because they are green and have fangs. In their worlds the goblins really are inherently evil. Perhaps they were created by an evil god who wanted them to outbreed everyone else and conquer the world, so he designed them with a strong predisposition towards evil. Maybe orcs aren't a natural race at all, but were corrupted by the Dark Lord from elves, and that corruption is irreversible by mortal efforts. Perhaps gnolls are really the result of a demon lord's curse, rather like vampires or lycanthropes. Some of these examples may sound a little familiar.

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 12:05 AM

If labelling goblins "usually neutral evil" is a short hop to real-world racism, what message is being taught by all the violence in Order of the Stick? Why isn't watching Belkar and Roy kill monsters and take their treasure a short hop to the readers going out and murdering people and taking their stuff? Will showing that magic works and gods exist in the comic mean its readers will start to believe magic really works or cause them all to get religion?

The Giant is the one who has decided that the differences between his goblins and humans are only cosmetic. In a D&D game this may or may not be the case, again depending on your DM. The written material for the game doesn't really say whether goblins are usually evil because they have an evil culture or because they have an inherent disposition towards evil, or some other reason, and it's therefore up to the DMs to decide how it works in his or her world.

DMs who decide that in their world goblins are inherently evil are not closeted racists who really hate goblins just because they are green and have fangs. In their worlds the goblins really are inherently evil. Perhaps they were created by an evil god who wanted them to outbreed everyone else and conquer the world, so he designed them with a strong predisposition towards evil. Maybe orcs aren't a natural race at all, but were corrupted by the Dark Lord from elves, and that corruption is irreversible by mortal efforts. Perhaps gnolls are really the result of a demon lord's curse, rather like vampires or lycanthropes. Some of these examples may sound a little familiar.

I think one thing that's worth noting in this discussion is whether the DM is making those blanket worldbuilding statements intentionally or not.

In my games, I always try to run all humanoids as mortal, sentient, free-willed, and mostly-rational actors (with some prejudices/dogma thrown in for flavor). I save the "inherently X" for outsiders -- celestials, fiends, undead, fey, etc. I do this because I want the variety & flavor that different types of humanoids provide, but I'm uncomfortable with making anything that's "human, except ______" irredeemable or automatically evil. If a humanoid *is* evil, it's either due to their own choices or the environment in which they were raised. And even then, they will always be relatable on some level to the players.

Meanwhile, I can see some interesting games & exploration coming from the kinds of games you've described in your last paragraph...exploring the corruption of a Dark Lord, holding the defensive line against the Inherently Evil zerg rush of an evil god, or the byproducts of a demon lord's curse can lead to a very different type of game, and open up new roleplaying opportunities, as long as you're interested in asking those questions and exploring that corruption effect.

My biggest concern comes when somebody applies something like that corruption without thinking for a second about it, or having it affect how they run the monsters. If the irredeemable monsters are something utterly alien, like The Borg, it can be a very interesting interaction. But if those "irredeemable monsters" are just acting like "humans, except _______", then that gets trickier for me. If you don't develop that corruption effect or similar factor, what you wind up with is something that still acts very human, but just looks different than you, but is okay to kill for [reasons]. And that sort of "evil by default, but we're not going to think about it too much" is more of the slippery slope that I think Rich was talking about.

He had another quote from a debate over baby dragon statistics being printed in the Monster Manual, which I really liked. He essentially said that his biggest concern on the matter isn't that adults will decide to build & run a nuanced, thoughtful exploration of how we treat dangerous fantasy monsters when they're even dangerous in infancy -- his biggest concern is that a bunch of 14-year-olds will pick up D&D for the first time, and the inexperienced DM will roll on a random encounter table and say "oh, looks like you're fighting a baby dragon. Ok, roll initiative" without ever thinking any harder about why that baby dragon is there, or whether it should be a moral quandary at all.

That's what I'm personally talking about when I argue "evil by default" is a concerning mentality for mortals in fantasy RPGs, and I hope it's not too presumptuous to think Rich was saying something similar in his quote about Redcloak.

TheSummoner

2021-05-03, 12:09 AM

The Giant is the one who has decided that the differences between his goblins and humans are only cosmetic. In a D&D game this may or may not be the case, again depending on your DM. The written material for the game doesn't really say whether goblins are usually evil because they have an evil culture or because they have an inherent disposition towards evil, or some other reason, and it's therefore up to the DMs to decide how it works in his or her world.

DMs who decide that in their world goblins are inherently evil are not closeted racists who really hate goblins just because they are green and have fangs. In their worlds the goblins really are inherently evil. Perhaps they were created by an evil god who wanted them to outbreed everyone else and conquer the world, so he designed them with a strong predisposition towards evil. Maybe orcs aren't a natural race at all, but were corrupted by the Dark Lord from elves, and that corruption is irreversible by mortal efforts. Perhaps gnolls are really the result of a demon lord's curse, rather like vampires or lycanthropes. Some of these examples may sound a little familiar.

As someone whose found the growing tendency to repaint every traditionally monstrous antagonist species in new fantasy settings as funny looking people who just have a different culture a bit tiresome and stale, thank you for saying that better than I ever could. I'm also in strong disagreement with the second Giant quote you quoted. The goal if fiction is to tell a good story. No more, no less. If it serves the story better for the goblins to be funny looking people with a different culture, so be it. But if it serves the story better for them to be completely inhuman monsters whose brains and biology make them utterly incompatible with human (dwarven, elven, etc) civilization, then that is no less valid. That's sort of the wonderful thing about telling stories about things that don't really exist - the rules are what you make them. It is not the responsibility of an author to worry about to reflect on who we are as a civilization in a fictional universe strongly divorced from the real world as your typical fantasy setting is. That's not to say that an author can't go that route if they choose to, but they aren't obligated.

Regarding the main topic, it's an issue of show, don't tell. You can say that goblin are only "evil" because they've been dealt a worse position in-universe than humans, but the story hasn't shown that. Trying to drop it in now and act like it was there the entire time was always going to raise some eyebrows.

dps

2021-05-03, 12:15 AM

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 12:27 AM

As someone whose found the growing tendency to repaint every traditionally monstrous antagonist species in new fantasy settings as funny looking people who just have a different culture a bit tiresome and stale, thank you for saying that better than I ever could. I'm also in strong disagreement with the second Giant quote you quoted. The goal if fiction is to tell a good story. No more, no less. If it serves the story better for the goblins to be funny looking people with a different culture, so be it. But if it serves the story better for them to be completely inhuman monsters whose brains and biology make them utterly incompatible with human (dwarven, elven, etc) civilization, then that is no less valid. That's sort of the wonderful thing about telling stories about things that don't really exist - the rules are what you make them. It is not the responsibility of an author to worry about to reflect on who we are as a civilization in a fictional universe strongly divorced from the real world as your typical fantasy setting is. That's not to say that an author can't go that route if they choose to, but they aren't obligated.

Regarding the main topic, it's an issue of show, don't tell. You can say that goblin are only "evil" because they've been dealt a worse position in-universe than humans, but the story hasn't shown that. Trying to drop it in now and act like it was there the entire time was always going to raise some eyebrows.

The issue is that I've never seen a DM run goblins, even ones that they believed were inherently evil, as anything more than funny looking people. I've never seen a goblin behave like, say, an aberration: utterly alien, completely unfathomable, impossible to reason with. I feel like that's what you're describing...and if that *is* what you're looking for in a monster, then why not just remove the "funny looking people" sections of the Monster Manual entirely, and replace them all with skeletons and demons and mind flayers and giants?

And if you absolutely must have a fantasy army of humanoids, why does it have to be all goblins? Why doesn't the Evil Overlord ever have a goblin/elf/human/halfling/orc/lizardfolk hybrid army, all of them irredeemably evil? Why don't any fantasy modules open with "the standard races are orc, a goblin, a kobold, or a lizardfolk: you must choose one of these races unless you have special permission from your DM. You will be fighting the Evil Queen and her inherently evil Human army: 'Humans' are a bizarre, pale, Evil race with the terrifying ability to adapt quickly to any challenge..."?

This is no commentary on you, or the types of games you like to play/run. It's all just hypotheticals. Like you said, the rules are what you make them: you can do literally anything with your fantasy world. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest thinking further outside the box than "mostly human behavior, but green skin and stronger/dumber/faster/more numerous" when a game designer or DM is inventing something they want to act wholly inhuman.

edit:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was beginning to think I was the only one who understands this.

You aren't: some of us have just decided to pick up the slack from Roy & Co. If they're not gonna have an elaborate philosophical dialogue about the nature of justice, somebody has to. All jokes aside, this is an excellent point. I think people are taking Roy & Durkon's comments with too much weight, simply because they're loitering in the latest comic slot and a new one hasn't come out yet. Once you're able to read this entire arc all at once, their comments will be able to show up as they were meant to be: individual thoughts from individual characters, which taken as a whole can form the full story.

Bootman

2021-05-03, 12:36 AM

The gag of the hobgoblin legions is marking that fact as an exception, both Redcloak and Kykon assumed that was just "another goblin village with a bunch of soldiers in it", and both of them have lived a lot of time and we need to assume that they have been recruiting every goblin they could for the Plan... and even so they are surprised, like mad, when they heard about so many legions, they obviously NEVER expected that number.

And the rest... we have seen a lot of human cities, and we have been told about reings, empires, wars between them... we don't need the exact numbers. With that info, if the comic tell us that goblins have less, we should believe it.

And the most important thing, when Durkon said to Thor that goblins are in disadvantage compared to dwarves, Thor answer is "you are right", and obviously Thor knows how the world is, so we have absolutely no reason to think that goblins have as many cities an armies as humans/elfs/dwarves, because if that was the case, Thor wouldn't had said "you are right" there.

I think that’s inferring a lot from Xykon’s reaction. More than I assume from the material put in place.

So should we believe Thor about this? If a character states something that to all appearances seems to be wrong is that enough to go off of? He agrees they have bad land, but I would have to see what he means by bad. Does that mean it grows %1 less food and has %1 less ore? Let’s say Thor said Durkon is not a dwarf. So we have a god telling us one thing, and the comic telling us something else. Which should we believe? The answer is that is doesn’t matter which because either way it’s a contradiction. Roy tells us in this most recent page that he never considered Goblin points of view when we saw him do that in the first 100 strips. Should we believe Roy or what the comic itself showed us?

If you want a more clear-cut example of a micro-error that is inconsequential but undeniably real, Andi was first referred to as "Sally" in an early scene in the last book, and Rich seemingly forgot he'd established her with that name and went back and edited the earlier instance accordingly.

Thank you for that. I could have also used this example. At the time, was her name Andi or Sally? Which time her name was spoken should we believe? Either way it’s an error.

I'd like to welcome you to internet discussion forums.
Here's a nice cold beer.
Over there's the hors d' ouvres tray: I think that you'll find the bacon wrapped jalapeños delicious. :smallcool:

There's a bit of a plot meta problem, which is a blood oath.
There's Roy, obligated to take out Xykon due to the blood oath.
Goblins could, ya know, get out of the way and let him kill that non goblin dude. But they don't, and two core reasons that they don't is that (a) they are minions of an evil lich and (b) the most powerful goblin cleric in the region, possibly in the world, has convinced them not to, but instead to serve this undead abomination: the lich Xykon. While in one way this becomes a case of "it's not easy being green" those minions could be lizard folk, dwarves, human bandits, beserkers, drow, or pretty much any of the MM humanoids and still be in Roy's way (and hence at risk for slicing and dicing with that greatsword) since evil lich needs minions is, as Elan might observe, an unavoidable narrative imperative.

It's an imbedded problem in the entire narrative arc.

I'll get the popcorn.

This is an incredibly good point and makes you wonder why the Goblins never negotiated with Roy or considered his point of view, eh?

This is a story about characters. Those characters are not perfect. They're not perfectly good (not even the Good ones), or perfectly rational, or perfectly knowledgeable about every aspect of their world. They're also not moral philosophers discussing the question of "how can we eliminate or minimize injustice in our world?"

They are all flawed people on a quest to save the world, who are only just now starting to discover that the villains are not just doing evil for the lulz (well, one of the main villains isn't doing evil for the lulz; the other one totally is).

So what exactly would you have expected to happen, once they start seeing Redcloak's point of view? An elaborate philosophical dialogue about the nature of justice? The Giant is asking Big Questions in his story, yes, but he's also keeping the characters in character. This is a story, not an essay. You're not expected to necessarily agree with ANY individual character's opinions, and I'm pretty sure The Giant does not personally agree 100% with any one of his characters, either.

If he’s bringing in big questions, he should have big answers, and the questions should make sense. And I agree, they don’t have be perfect and they don’t have to moral philosophers. But they do have to be in character and the comic does have to be accurate to get across the themes he wants to get across. If you want to ask the question ‘how to minimize injustice’ then I think expecting an answer discussing the nature of justice is pretty reasonable though. The reason why I’ve brought this thread up is because I feel Roy is now somewhat out of character or contradicting his own past actions with these new statements and that is damaging to both the story and the theme.

Rich can ask whatever big questions he wants but if the comic doesn’t support it he’ll not only fail but he’ll potentially sabotage his own work.

I have no intentions of getting dragged into a long discussion, so I'll just throw in my interpretation, feel free to take it or leave it.

Re: Roy: I don't think the comic is criticizing any of Roy's specific past actions (if it were it would've referenced them), but instead criticize the mindset that Roy never bothered to ask why goblins were joining Xykon. This is not about Roy trying to find a peaceful resolution to a violent situation (by that point it's too late) but to try and find out what led the goblins to end up in that situation.

That's why Durkon says "interrogate the inner motivations" rather than "try to dissuade". Durkon's point is not "you should have tried to use diplomacy mid-combat" but "you should have tried to find out why goblins were attacking humans/serving liches and then tried to do something about it after you resolved the violent situation."

Re: the lands. Again, I don't think the issue here is that the goblins were given bad lands, but a criticism of the unfair system the gods created, because if it wasn't bad land or the neglect of a parent god, it would have been some other form of disadvantage and if it wasn't the goblins it would've been a different race.

The comic as a whole has been presenting good-/neutral-aligned characters that are actively critical/dismissive of the gods (Roy, Julia and Eugene) and has been building up to have Durkon now actively disagree with his own party leader and with his own deity on how to approach the Redcloak matter, leading to him agreeing with Redcloak's principles, if not his methods.

To me, the point that the comic is building up to is a criticism of systemic exploitation, and it doesn't matter that the gods need things to be a certain way to subsist, it's still exploitation and it's still wrong.

I understand and respect that you do not want to be involved in a long discussion, but I respect the points you’ve brought forth and will respond to them in kind.

If that is all it’s saying, and it’s just a minor nudge, then I would agree with you. I’ll state again, a lot of my comments could be addressed and fixed with reasonable ease. The issue I have is the specific counter to Roy saying it’s hard to interrogate inner reasons while you’re fighting, and then Durkon brings up an EXTREMELY manipulative example of when he did just that but which doesn’t disprove Roy as I’ve explained before. The comic would have been served better by being more clear and avoiding Durkon’s snide insults if that really is what Rich is going for.

So I actually like this part about the lands, but I did address it in my original post. It is not wrong for the Gods to create unequal land. The Gods have established they need conflict and souls to survive, because conflict makes stronger souls. The requirement of souls is so intense that very few gods (relatively) have arisen and stayed stable since they started like a billion years ago. If they ever fail to generate enough souls, they die forever. If enough gods die forever then existence is gone forever. And even if they get enough souls to survive, the wrong DIET of souls can make them crazy.

Thank you for your points. They were some of the better put and formulated of the ones I’ve seen.

And thank you everybody else in the comments. I feel many of you who lean towards my side have addressed critical points and issues with the comic as a whole have been arguing very reasonably, putting a lot of effort into evidence and explanation. I haven’t been chipping in because I’m trying to keep my comments directly related to my post as much as I can but I think your dialogue is going fantastically. Thank you all, both people who agree and those who don’t, for making this the most reasonable thread discussing this topic I’ve seen on this forum.

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 12:49 AM

If that is all it’s saying, and it’s just a minor nudge, then I would agree with you. I’ll state again, a lot of my comments could be addressed and fixed with reasonable ease. The issue I have is the specific counter to Roy saying it’s hard to interrogate inner reasons while you’re fighting, and then Durkon brings up an EXTREMELY manipulative example of when he did just that but which doesn’t disprove Roy as I’ve explained before. The comic would have been served better by being more clear and avoiding Durkon’s snide insults if that really is what Rich is going for.

Eh, "extremely manipulative" is putting it strongly, I'd say. I still think you're reading too much into it. This feels like nothing more than somebody calling a close friend on their BS: Roy made an excuse, and Durkon pushed on it, maybe getting a little too snarky but hey, they're good friends, he's allowed to do that. Roy isn't on trial here: Durkon's just throwing shade because he had a crappy conversation with his god, he's had Implosion attempted on him today, and (most importantly) it's the final panel of the update and there needs to be a punchline!

As someone else recently said, I also think this exchange won't feel so harsh when it has another strip coming after it. Gary Larson once talked about a controversial Far Side comic he drew called "Tethercat", where several dogs bat a cat around a tetherball pole. People got mad, and he wondered why, when Tom & Jerry cartoon violence has been on the air for decades. But the thing about Tom & Jerry is that it's transient: you watch Jerry crush Tom with an anvil, and then he walks it off and is back to chasing Jerry thirty seconds later. But if you set down the newspaper with "Tethercat" in it, go for a walk, and come back an hour later, those dogs are still playing Tethercat. There are also some good arguments to be made about punching down vs. punching up, but even in that regard you can argue that Durkon is almost always punching UP! (#shortjokes)

And thank you everybody else in the comments. I feel many of you who lean towards my side have addressed critical points and issues with the comic as a whole have been arguing very reasonably, putting a lot of effort into evidence and explanation. I haven’t been chipping in because I’m trying to keep my comments directly related to my post as much as I can but I think your dialogue is going fantastically. Thank you all, both people who agree and those who don’t, for making this the most reasonable thread discussing this topic I’ve seen on this forum.

Much of which I'd credit to you. Thank you for your incredibly polite discourse throughout!

Nephrahim

2021-05-03, 12:54 AM

What about this point:

That seems pretty much decisive to me...

Eh. Just because she made them it doesn't mean she has to protect them, doubly so if they don't worship her. She was mad her Black dragons got killed so she wants good dragons killed too.

We're not sure how exactly the world creation process works, but it doesn't seem like every god makes things for the sole propose of making things that worship them. IT's possible she created all dragons, but wants them to be in balance, not overbalanced toward good.

TheSummoner

2021-05-03, 01:09 AM

The issue is that I've never seen a DM run goblins, even ones that they believed were inherently evil, as anything more than funny looking people. I've never seen a goblin behave like, say, an aberration: utterly alien, completely unfathomable, impossible to reason with. I feel like that's what you're describing...and if that *is* what you're looking for in a monster, then why not just remove the "funny looking people" sections of the Monster Manual entirely, and replace them all with skeletons and demons and mind flayers and giants?

And if you absolutely must have a fantasy army of humanoids, why does it have to be all goblins? Why doesn't the Evil Overlord ever have a goblin/elf/human/halfling/orc/lizardfolk hybrid army, all of them irredeemably evil? Why don't any fantasy modules open with "you must play either an orc, a goblin, a kobold, or a lizardfolk: you will be fighting the Evil Queen and her inherently evil Human army"?

Well, to the first point I'd say that's on the DM. Not to say it's a bad thing, just that it was the way it was because of a choice they made in their portrayal of goblins.

As for the second, let's step back a bit and look at things from a wider scale. What makes a "humanoid" a "humanoid"? What makes something "evil"? Not just from a D&D sense, but let's look at fiction as a whole. "Humanoid" is an arbitrary classification for human-like. Goblins are "humanoid" because they're more intelligent than animals and have a roughly human shape. That doesn't mean they are the same as humans in every way but physical. What defines a "humanoid" says nothing of what the eat or if they're predisposed to aggression or anything of the sort. What about "evil"? This is a big problem I have with D&D specifically in that good and evil are objective things. A dragon burns down a farmer's cottage and when the family flees, snatches up their son and flies off with him to devour. Is the dragon evil? From a human perspective, yes. From the dragon's perspective, maybe it was just hungry. In either case, if you're an adventurer passing through and willing to help or even just a foolhardy member of that village who doesn't want to it to happen again, the dragon is a threat and an antagonist to be dealt with. My point is that goblins, dragons and the like are fictional monsters. They are only as "human" as the person telling the story makes them. Maybe they're intelligent and able to converse with humans and understand morality or maybe they're more primal and see humans as little more than dinner. Or they could be something entirely more alien. At the end of the day, they're fictional monsters and the rules are what the author makes them.

And as to why does it always have to be goblins? It doesn't. If you want to tell that story, then go ahead and tell it. People tend to like what is familiar, however, which is why the cliche evil army of goblins/orcs/whatever is a cliche in the first place. It's why most fantasy settings that have species other than human usually go with dwarf and elf first.

This is no commentary on you or the types of games you like to play/run. But like you said, the rules are what you make them. You can do literally anything with your fantasy world. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest thinking further outside the box than "mostly human behavior, but green skin and stronger/dumber/faster/more numerous" when a game designer or DM is inventing something they want to act wholly inhuman.

Well, in the campaign I'm currently in, goblins are a caste of a species of semi-intelligent asexual bipedal fungus who enjoy violence above all else to the point that they'll gladly pick fights with each other if no one else is available and reproduce by dying. Warhammer is funny like that.

Jason

2021-05-03, 01:21 AM

If he’s bringing in big questions, he should have big answers, and the questions should make sense.Yes the big questions should make sense, no they don't have to have big answers, or any answers. Sometimes raising the question and discarding some obviously wrong answers is enough for a work.

Bootman

2021-05-03, 01:24 AM

Yes the big questions should make sense, no they don't have to have big answers, or any answers. Sometimes raising the question and discarding some obviously wrong answers is enough for a work.

You’re very right, I was getting a bit too piffy and cute here. What I mean to say is that if he’s asking big questions then the answers should make sense as well as the questions as you said. Some things don’t have answers. I think Star Trek TNG has lots of episodes with no clear right answer, but when all the characters tend to be true to their established skills and personalities the story can stand on it’s own AND we get to discuss these big issues ourselves.

I think there's also a group of people who seemingly want to defend Roy or Durkon's moral fiber -- there's this idea that Roy & Durkon are the heroes, so them getting called out in any way, shape, or form somehow invalidates their heroics. It doesn't. Hell, the comic doesn't even really accuse either of them of a moral failing here. It just asks them to take a second and think about something (goblinoid history) in a new light, and maybe let that insight inform their behavior going forward.

Before I address the other points you've presented, I'd just like the clarify if you were referring to a group including me here? I could understand if you were I just wanted to be clear. No hard feelings either way.

Eh, "extremely manipulative" is putting it strongly, I'd say. I still think you're reading too much into it. This feels like nothing more than somebody calling a close friend on their BS: Roy made an excuse, and Durkon pushed on it, maybe getting a little too snarky but hey, they're good friends, he's allowed to do that. Roy isn't on trial here: Durkon's just throwing shade because he had a crappy conversation with his god, he's had Implosion attempted on him today, and (most importantly) it's the final panel of the update and there needs to be a punchline!

As someone else recently said, I also think this exchange won't feel so harsh when it has another strip coming after it. Gary Larson once talked about a controversial Far Side comic he drew called "Tethercat", where several dogs bat a cat around a tetherball pole. People got mad, and he wondered why, when Tom & Jerry cartoon violence has been on the air for decades. But the thing about Tom & Jerry is that it's transient: you watch Jerry crush Tom with an anvil, and then he walks it off and is back to chasing Jerry thirty seconds later. But if you set down the newspaper with "Tethercat" in it, go for a walk, and come back an hour later, those dogs are still playing Tethercat. There are also some good arguments to be made about punching down vs. punching up, but even in that regard you can argue that Durkon is almost always punching UP! (#shortjokes)

Much of which I'd credit to you. Thank you for your incredibly polite discourse throughout!

I agree that most of the factors of Durkon’s response include what you said, I just feel it ends up coming across manipulative. For example if I told you “Elan saved a murderer”, without understanding the context of Nale and the situation at the time, this could be interpreted a lot of way and it certainly wouldn’t be evidence for why Elan should save every murderer, or that he’s somewhat biased if he doesn’t save a Goblin murderer.

Similar things could be done with “Belkar apologized for hitting somebody”, “Varsuvius abandoned his lover for years”, “Haley attempted to break a known thief and rebel out of prison”. These all have varying degrees of applicability and their inaccuracy would be determined by the conclusion we’re trying to draw from them, like if you wanted to say “Belkar should be nice to Goblins because he was nice to Durkon that time” it would obviously be inaccurate.

So when Roy says it’s hard to negotiate mid fight, and Durkon points out a fight against what he thought was his best friend, in a specific circumstance that could be resolved non-violently, where Roy was in fact losing and nearly died because he was trying to talk, it ceases to be a defense that defeats Roy’s argument, yet Roy admits defeat regardless.

Could it also be that newspapers have different audiences, or that Farside has a different established tone and style to Tom and Jerry? I agree it’s possible it won’t seem as harsh as things move on, lots of people here seem to think it’s just a light nudge (others think it’s pointing out Roy’s racism / bias which they believe exists as well). Personally? I don’t know which way it will go, and you could absolutely be right on the money with it.

I’d also like to point out that your short joke was both character accurate to Durkon and funny and that’s why it worked. Durkon punches up, and he’s short. Love it.

And lastly thank you my friend for appreciating it. But everybody else, you included, is certainly worth crediting too. Keep up the excellent work and if you choose to continue discussing this with me, keep throwing things at me that require a page and a half to appropriately respond to hahaha.

Rrmcklin

2021-05-03, 01:24 AM

Yes the big questions should make sense, no they don't have to have big answers, or any answers. Sometimes raising the question and discarding some obviously wrong answers is enough for a work.

This is a good point. Just because a story tasks you with thinking about something, doesn't necessarily mean it's meant to give you an answer. Especially with things like this which, in the real world don't have obvious answers or quick fixes.

And based on what Durkon said during his first attempts at negotiations, I imagine it's understand the larger societal problems in this story won't be having any of those either. That's a good thing, writing wise.

dps

2021-05-03, 01:57 AM

In real-life, creators have a lot of control over their creation's behaviors.

Based on this comment , I'm guessing you don't have children, do you? 😁

Just a joke, please don't read too much into it.

Second Wind

2021-05-03, 02:42 AM

The issue is that without the bad land there is no argument for Goblin oppression in any way they don't already oppress others. Without it we get to cite the dwarves living in a frozen wasteland and having an awful afterlife set up, we get to cite the western continent, dirt farmers, grungy bandits, etc. It stops being about the Goblins being screwed and starts being about everyone being screwed to varying degrees.

Yes, viewing oppression solely through the lens of race would leave us blind to other injustices, like the crushing poverty of the dirt farmers. Likewise, viewing oppression solely through the lens of class struggle would omit the systematic inequalities imposed on goblin kind, which are distinct from the general mistreatment of the poor. You're right to push for an intersectional view that acknowledges multiple injustices, but that doesn't cancel out the oppression of goblinfolk.

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 09:04 AM

As for the second, let's step back a bit and look at things from a wider scale. What makes a "humanoid" a "humanoid"? What makes something "evil"? Not just from a D&D sense, but let's look at fiction as a whole. "Humanoid" is an arbitrary classification for human-like. Goblins are "humanoid" because they're more intelligent than animals and have a roughly human shape. That doesn't mean they are the same as humans in every way but physical. What defines a "humanoid" says nothing of what the eat or if they're predisposed to aggression or anything of the sort. What about "evil"? This is a big problem I have with D&D specifically in that good and evil are objective things. A dragon burns down a farmer's cottage and when the family flees, snatches up their son and flies off with him to devour. Is the dragon evil? From a human perspective, yes. From the dragon's perspective, maybe it was just hungry. In either case, if you're an adventurer passing through and willing to help or even just a foolhardy member of that village who doesn't want to it to happen again, the dragon is a threat and an antagonist to be dealt with. My point is that goblins, dragons and the like are fictional monsters. They are only as "human" as the person telling the story makes them. Maybe they're intelligent and able to converse with humans and understand morality or maybe they're more primal and see humans as little more than dinner. Or they could be something entirely more alien. At the end of the day, they're fictional monsters and the rules are what the author makes them.

Well, in the campaign I'm currently in, goblins are a caste of a species of semi-intelligent asexual bipedal fungus who enjoy violence above all else to the point that they'll gladly pick fights with each other if no one else is available and reproduce by dying. Warhammer is funny like that.

(Emphasis mine)

Right, and my argument is that we then run the risk of making them too human in behavior and appearance (displayed attributes that are proven by the narrative), while only making them completely unhuman in morality (informed attributes that might only amount to a paragraph of flavor text from the DM, or throwaway statements from NPCs). That's the danger: that we'll arrive at "this thing is always deadly and you need to kill it to survive, don't try to reason with it" without doing any work to identify what makes it irredeemable. Without any other reasons to go off of, the mind might start to associate "irredeemable evil" with skin color or certain cultural behaviors, and that's the danger I see.

Before I address the other points you've presented, I'd just like the clarify if you were referring to a group including me here? I could understand if you were I just wanted to be clear. No hard feelings either way.

At the start of this thread, it did seem like you were trying to defend Roy and felt like Durkon's "accusation" (really, I'd call it more of an "observation") was unfair. I'm not sure if your thoughts have changed in the ensuing pages.

I agree that most of the factors of DurkonÂ’s response include what you said, I just feel it ends up coming across manipulative. For example if I told you Â“Elan saved a murdererÂ”, without understanding the context of Nale and the situation at the time, this could be interpreted a lot of way and it certainly wouldnÂ’t be evidence for why Elan should save every murderer, or that heÂ’s somewhat biased if he doesnÂ’t save a Goblin murderer.

Similar things could be done with Â“Belkar apologized for hitting somebodyÂ”, Â“Varsuvius abandoned his lover for yearsÂ”, Â“Haley attempted to break a known thief and rebel out of prisonÂ”. These all have varying degrees of applicability and their inaccuracy would be determined by the conclusion weÂ’re trying to draw from them, like if you wanted to say Â“Belkar should be nice to Goblins because he was nice to Durkon that timeÂ” it would obviously be inaccurate.

So when Roy says itÂ’s hard to negotiate mid fight, and Durkon points out a fight against what he thought was his best friend, in a specific circumstance that could be resolved non-violently, where Roy was in fact losing and nearly died because he was trying to talk, it ceases to be a defense that defeats RoyÂ’s argument, yet Roy admits defeat regardless.

IÂ’d also like to point out that your short joke was both character accurate to Durkon and funny and thatÂ’s why it worked. Durkon punches up, and heÂ’s short. Love it.

Again, I want to highlight The Bechdel Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test) because I think it's really valuable for its parallels to this discussion. Durkon is essentially saying that Roy's behavior didn't "pass the test". But the Bechdel Test isn't about whether or not a movie is sexist: it's about whether or not ALL movies tend to underrepresent women. Using it on an individual basis to judge the quality of a movie is - to use your word - manipulative. Many acclaimed works that highlight women fail to pass the test, too. That Roy's behavior "failed the test" isn't an accusation against Roy; it's an observation that even his behavior reflects the society in which he grew up. Sure, he had plenty of good reasons to not try talking (the only goblins they encountered have been in relation to Xykon & Redcloak), AND talking probably wouldn't have changed anything!

The point is simply that he never tried. And if enough people don't try - for good reasons, bad reasons, or neutral ones - then it forms a pattern of behavior, and soon the goblins never get asked questions or spoken to like fellow sentient mortals.

This is a good point. Just because a story tasks you with thinking about something, doesn't necessarily mean it's meant to give you an answer. Especially with things like this which, in the real world don't have obvious answers or quick fixes.

And based on what Durkon said during his first attempts at negotiations, I imagine it's understand the larger societal problems in this story won't be having any of those either. That's a good thing, writing wise.

I also like this point. "Sitting in your discomfort" is something I've run into a lot: sometimes it's not about figuring out the entire problem and identifying who's to blame or what we should do. Sometimes, the first step is to just acknowledge the problem and sit in it, and work through your feelings on it personally, before collaborating to fix things on a grander scale.

Worldsong

2021-05-03, 10:19 AM

Word of God never trumps what is in the actual story. If something isn't in the story but the author says it was, it still isn't in the story.
The Special Edition of Star Wars did not change what I saw on the screen in the '70s - not only did Han shoot first, but Greedo didn't shoot at all.

Okay, yes, if Word of God is flat out incompatible with what's in the actual story then Word of God can be erroneous. With that in mind I shall revise my statement:

If there is ambiguity in the interpretation of the content of the story one should use Word of God at the time that such content was created as the guideline for filling in the blanks. Although now I expect someone to jump out and complain that this is too vague and easily twisted to always work the way I want it to.

In the case of Han Solo there is no ambiguity. Han Solo shot first, Word of God is wrong if it claims otherwise.

In the case of goblinoids being innately predisposed towards Evil there is ambiguity.

- Fenrir creating the goblinoids is not conclusive evidence that goblinoids are inherently Evil.
- Goblinoids being created with the idea that they'd use rapid proliferation to become one of the dominant races is not conclusive evidence that goblinoids are inherently Evil.
- Goblins and hobgoblins going along with Redcloak to work for Xykon and do Evil things is not conclusive evidence that goblinoids are inherently Evil.
- Gobbotopia practicing slavery is not conclusive evidence that goblinoids are inherently Evil.

If this comes across as me setting very high standards for what counts as conclusive evidence that goblinoids are inherently Evil, then... well, yes. I'm not going to agree that goblinoids are inherently Evil just because only Evil goblinoids have been given screentime. You'd need to find me some evidence pointing in the direction that goblinoids will consistently be more inclined towards Evil than other races even if they're raised under the exact same circumstances.

So in my eyes there's ambiguity, and Word of God says that he despises the idea of writing goblins off as just inherently Evil, so if I want to actually understand the narrative that Rich is writing I have to go along with that idea unless Rich actually writes something which I just cannot reconcile with the idea that goblinoids are not inherently Evil. So far that hasn't happened and I really doubt it's going to happen.

Jason

2021-05-03, 10:44 AM

If there is ambiguity in the interpretation of the content of the story one should use Word of God at the time that such content was created as the guideline for filling in the blanks. Although now I expect someone to jump out and complain that this is too vague and easily twisted to always work the way I want it to.Hmm. I would say that Word of God can be useful for determining author intent, but not necessarily for filling in the blanks. This is especially true in an unfinished work, where the author still has an opportunity to put in important points. If an author never gets around to filling in an important point before finishing a work and has to supply out-of-work explanations after the fact to patch the holes the readers spot then he didn't really do his job properly.

In the case of goblinoids being innately predisposed towards Evil there is ambiguity.I agree. Even though nearly every goblin we've seen on stage has been evil, no, that doesn't prove that they're all evil. And since we have seen some goblins who are at least neutral (especially in Start of Darkness and How the Paladin Got His Scar), we would have to conclude that no, they're not all evil. Ogres, on the other hand...

But the reason many people are questioning whether goblins are really oppressed is that we haven't seen a lot of oppression of the goblins on stage - rather the reverse. Redcloak says "If I went into any human settlement I would be attacked as a monster" and the heroes don't disagree with him, but we've never seen an incident like this. We have no way of knowing if this is really true, and really due to racism if it is.
Likewise Thor and Durkon and Roy can agree that goblins are all stuck on bad land and don't have the resources other races do, but we haven't really seen this. It's a case of telling rather than showing, when the writer's rule is generally "show, don't tell".
There are good excuses for not having done this - the goblin rights subplot is not the focus of the comic - but the fact remains that it hasn't been done, and so readers can be excused for finding it questionable.

hamishspence

2021-05-03, 10:52 AM

Redcloak says "If I went into any human settlement I would be attacked as a monster" and the heroes don't disagree with him, but we've never seen an incident like this.

We saw something very much like this in Origin of PCs, with Orcs.

Not so much "attack" (since the people in the settlement were commoners) as "flee in terror and alert adventurers, requesting that they help, by hunting down and slaying them, with the adventurers happy to oblige, without considering the possibility of panicked overreaction being in play."

And in the main strip, when a kobold chases a halfling in town, intent on "delivering justice" all that it takes to have the kobold be attacked without any "who's the wronged party" questions being asked, is an advert:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html

Emberlily

2021-05-03, 10:53 AM

Redcloak says "If I went into any human settlement I would be attacked as a monster" and the heroes don't disagree with him, but we've never seen an incident like this. Likewise Thor and Durkon and Roy can agree that goblins are all stuck on bad land and don't have the resources other races do, but we haven't really seen this. It's a case of telling rather than showing, when the writer's rule is generally "show, don't tell".
There are good excuses for not having done this - the goblin rights subplot is not the focus of the comic - but the fact remains that it hasn't been done, and so readers can be excused for finding it questionable.

I can definitely see this criticism. I wonder if you can look for examples of it by negation, though. For example, the remnants of Redcloak and Right Eye's first village didn't seem to consider becoming refugees in a humanoid settlement even an option, preferring to hide in the swamp and continue fleeing Azurite forces alone. Also, they had to go to an explicitly Evil diner. The latter might have just been a joke but it could also be a reflection of even the neutral goblin Right Eye not being welcome in a typical anachronistic meeting establishment.

edit: added spoiler tag

Jason

2021-05-03, 11:07 AM

We saw something very much like this in Origin of PCs, with Orcs.

Not so much "attack" (since the people in the settlement were commoners) as "flee in terror and alert adventurers, requesting that they help, by hunting down and slaying them, with the adventurers happy to oblige, without considering the possibility of panicked overreaction being in play."

And in the main strip, when a kobold chases a halfling in town, intent on "delivering justice" all that it takes to have the kobold be attacked without any "who's the wronged party" questions being asked, is an advert:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html

Both of those incidents are really more about how Adventurers are willing to kill first and ask questions later than they are demonstrations of anti-humanoid prejudice by the "civilian" population. The townspeople in the orc incident might have had exactly the same reaction to a group of strange humans carrying their battle axes into town.

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 11:11 AM

Hmm. I would say that Word of God can be useful for determining author intent, but not necessarily for filling in the blanks. This is especially true in an unfinished work, where the author still has an opportunity to put in important points. If an author never gets around to filling in an important point before finishing a work and has to supply out-of-work explanations after the fact to patch the holes the readers spot then he didn't really do his job properly.

I agree. Even though nearly every goblin we've seen on stage has been evil, no, that doesn't prove that they're all evil. And since we have seen some goblins who are at least neutral (especially in Start of Darkness and How the Paladin Got His Scar), we would have to conclude that no, they're not all evil. Ogres, on the other hand...

But the reason many people are questioning whether goblins are really oppressed is that we haven't seen a lot of oppression of the goblins on stage - rather the reverse. Redcloak says "If I went into any human settlement I would be attacked as a monster" and the heroes don't disagree with him, but we've never seen an incident like this. We have no way of knowing if this is really true, and really due to racism if it is.
Likewise Thor and Durkon and Roy can agree that goblins are all stuck on bad land and don't have the resources other races do, but we haven't really seen this. It's a case of telling rather than showing, when the writer's rule is generally "show, don't tell".
There are good excuses for not having done this - the goblin rights subplot is not the focus of the comic - but the fact remains that it hasn't been done, and so readers can be excused for finding it questionable.

Speaking as somebody who has done quite a bit of writing, both for D&D and for prose fiction, "show, don't tell" has limits. Sometimes you do need to provide exposition.

I agree that we don't have numerous examples of goblinoid oppression in the main free online comic. In that regard, it is an "informed" situation rather than a "displayed" one. But whenever it comes up as exposition, nobody refutes it. Narratively speaking, there needs to be a certain level of buy-in from the reader: if a character states a non-outlandish opinion, and nobody in-story dismisses it or questions it, the reader is meant to give that statement the benefit of the doubt.

I'm reminded of people saying "Hel's math on dwarf souls doesn't add up" - not because anyone in the comic disagreed, but just because "hey, that doesn't sound right to me, the reader, and there's no proof that it would work," when Hel's statement (and the lack of a refutation) was the intended proof.

TheSummoner

2021-05-03, 11:11 AM

Right, and my argument is that we then run the risk of making them too human in behavior and appearance (displayed attributes that are proven by the narrative), while only making them completely unhuman in morality (informed attributes that might only amount to a paragraph of flavor text from the DM, or throwaway statements from NPCs). That's the danger: that we'll arrive at "this thing is always deadly and you need to kill it to survive, don't try to reason with it" without doing any work to identify what makes it irredeemable. Without any other reasons to go off of, the mind might start to associate "irredeemable evil" with skin color or certain cultural behaviors, and that's the danger I see.

Again, you're coming at this from the standpoint that objective morality is a thing that exists and can be measured. I understand in D&D it very much is, but I'd argue that it's one of the biggest flaws in D&D's design and a rather black and white and childish way to put the world together. Is the dragon "irredeemable evil" or is it a hungry superpredator that has the same biological need to eat that a human does and cares about as much that humans very much want to not be eaten as a human would that a cow very much does not want to be eaten. A goblin is a fictional monster no different than a dragon, it just happens to be smaller and roughly human shaped. Unless the indicated by the author of the specific universe, why would the automatic assumption that being roughly human-shaped makes a fictional monster the equivalent of a human. In the real world, gorillas, chimpanzees or any of the other great apes are bipedal, roughly human shaped, and even capable of learning and limited communication with humans, but we don't morally equate them with humans. The question shouldn't be "is this creature evil as defined by some sort of objective cosmic standard?" but "is this creature dangerous to me/my family/my community?" Being highly aggressive or territorial by nature or seeing humans as prey are enough for conflict to exist and there's no reason that traits that exist in real animals couldn't apply to fictional monsters. Whatever the author decides serves the plot best.

To give another example, one youtube channel I watch portrays goblins as mutated degenerate humans, the result of exposure to high levels of magical basically-radiation. Despite specifically being mutated humans, they're still aggressive opportunistic raiders who are individually weak, but always move and attack in large swarms. They have their own language, religion and even currency and are intelligent enough to communicate with humans - there's even an insane human scholar (who they do not realize is human due to his face being covered) living among them and they trade with bandits. They attack caravans and travelers, find torture entertaining and eat human flesh. Is this a cultural thing or is it just part of their nature as a result of the same mutation that made them what they are? Well, the channel doesn't elaborate on that and doesn't really have to. They goblins are a threat and in the end, that's what makes them relevant to the plot.

As a final point, if an audience/group of players can't distinguish between fictional monsters and real people to the point that they "start to associate "irredeemable evil" with skin color or certain cultural behaviors" that speaks far more about them than the author/DM. It requires the same sort of backwards "logic" people have used to blame metal music or video games for real world violence and such claims have been proven wrong time and time again.

Emberlily

2021-05-03, 11:16 AM

As a final point, if an audience/group of players can't distinguish between fictional monsters and real people to the point that they "start to associate "irredeemable evil" with skin color or certain cultural behaviors" that speaks far more about them than the author/DM. It requires the same sort of backwards "logic" people have used to blame metal music or video games for real world violence and such claims have been proven wrong time and time again.

That fiction has a way to affect people's beliefs through subtext, the assumptions it says or leaves unspoken, its overt messaging, and all that is something that is both documented and something I think the Giant seems to believe with his regrets over past messaging elements and his desire to show new better ones. It's not a matter of being unable to distinguish fiction or fantasy from reality so much as we as malleable biological creatures are vulnerable to having our beliefs shifted, changed, or reinforced by fiction and fantasy. As the meme goes, you are not immune to propaganda.

hamishspence

2021-05-03, 11:21 AM

The townspeople in the orc incident might have had exactly the same reaction to a group of strange humans carrying their battle axes into town.

I think this more typifies the "standard townspeople reaction to armed, PC-race adventurers"

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html

Not "flee" but "put up adverts and raise prices".

Jason

2021-05-03, 11:26 AM

Speaking as somebody who has done quite a bit of writing, both for D&D and for prose fiction, "show, don't tell" has limits. Sometimes you do need to provide exposition. Of course. The Lord of the Rings did it all the time, with major events like Saruman's capture of Gandalf or the Ent's assault on Isenguard being told after the fact from one character to another rather than being "shown directly" to the reader. The film rightly showed these events directly, because film is a visual medium and it worked better in that medium to show it.

I suspect that a web comic similarly needs to be more careful about telling rather than showing, like a film.

Narratively speaking, there needs to be a certain level of buy-in from the reader: if a character states a non-outlandish opinion, and nobody in-story dismisses it or questions it, the reader is meant to give that statement the benefit of the doubt. Agreed, but if a significant portion of your readers are not willing to make that buy-in then that's a sign that more "showing" may be needed.

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 11:40 AM

Again, you're coming at this from the standpoint that objective morality is a thing that exists and can be measured. I understand in D&D it very much is, but I'd argue that it's one of the biggest flaws in D&D's design and a rather black and white and childish way to put the world together.

I am doing nothing of the sort. In fact, I agree with you when it comes to D&D morality.

Is the dragon "irredeemable evil" or is it a hungry superpredator that has the same biological need to eat that a human does and cares about as much that humans very much want to not be eaten as a human would that a cow very much does not want to be eaten. A goblin is a fictional monster no different than a dragon, it just happens to be smaller and roughly human shaped. Unless the indicated by the author of the specific universe, why would the automatic assumption that being roughly human-shaped makes a fictional monster the equivalent of a human. In the real world, gorillas, chimpanzees or any of the other great apes are bipedal, roughly human shaped, and even capable of learning and limited communication with humans, but we don't morally equate them with humans. The question shouldn't be "is this creature evil as defined by some sort of objective cosmic standard?" but "is this creature dangerous to me/my family/my community?" Being highly aggressive or territorial by nature or seeing humans as prey are enough for conflict to exist and there's no reason that traits that exist in real animals couldn't apply to fictional monsters. Whatever the author decides serves the plot best.

You're preaching to the choir. I agree that predators are not inherently evil. I agree that great apes are not human. But fantasy goblins, as typically presented, aren't like dragons or gorillas: they don't have drastic physiology differences, and they don't fill a different role in the ecology/food chain. They are slightly shorter, colored green/yellow, they speak a different language, and they worship a different god. They are quite simply "funny looking humans".

To give another example, one youtube channel I watch portrays goblins as mutated degenerate humans, the result of exposure to high levels of magical basically-radiation. Despite specifically being mutated humans, they're still aggressive opportunistic raiders who are individually weak, but always move and attack in large swarms. They have their own language, religion and even currency and are intelligent enough to communicate with humans - there's even an insane human scholar (who they do not realize is human due to his face being covered) living among them and they trade with bandits. They attack caravans and travelers, find torture entertaining and eat human flesh. Is this a cultural thing or is it just part of their nature as a result of the same mutation that made them what they are? Well, the channel doesn't elaborate on that and doesn't really have to. They goblins are a threat and in the end, that's what makes them relevant to the plot.

This sounds like a very compelling approach to the subject, but it essentially proves my point. In order to make these goblins an objective threat with no elaboration required, it has to mutate them with magical radiation. Regardless of this youtube channel's portrayal, you have to admit that goblins are not by and large portrayed with that degree of "difference."

As a final point, if an audience/group of players can't distinguish between fictional monsters and real people to the point that they "start to associate "irredeemable evil" with skin color or certain cultural behaviors" that speaks far more about them than the author/DM. It requires the same sort of backwards "logic" people have used to blame metal music or video games for real world violence and such claims have been proven wrong time and time again.

I've taken your other statements with a pretty light heart, and I hope my tone has been conversational and easygoing thus far. However, I'm going to come out very strongly against this point.

The things we say and write matter. Don't tell me propaganda doesn't affect the culture it pervades. Don't tell me that decades of sexist jokes haven't affected how men treat women, and how women treat themselves. Don't tell me that prejudiced attitudes can't fester and worsen when the people in power support (either intentionally or subconsciously) certain narratives while discouraging (either intentionally or subconsciously) others.

It's unfair to characterize this with the same brush as overreactions to heavy metal and video games. The things we say and write will almost never inspire someone to go out and Do A Murder. But they will inform our attitudes, our opinions, and whether or not we look at the person who's a different gender/race/culture and see a fellow human with differences or an Other to be (subconsciously) opposed, distrusted, exploited, or disregarded.

Jason

2021-05-03, 11:59 AM

The things we say and write matter. Don't tell me propaganda doesn't affect the culture it pervades. Don't tell me that decades of sexist jokes haven't affected how men treat women, and how women treat themselves. Don't tell me that prejudiced attitudes can't fester and worsen when the people in power support (either intentionally or subconsciously) certain narratives while discouraging (either intentionally or subconsciously) others.
So what is your take on the effect that seeing Belkar really enjoy stabbing people all the time and basically getting away with it or having it played for laughs has had on the average reader of this comic?
Is your attitude towards racism in comics significantly different than your attitude towards violence in comics?

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 12:15 PM

So what is your take on the effect that seeing Belkar really enjoy stabbing people all the time and basically getting away with it or having it played for laughs has had on the average reader of this comic?
Is your attitude towards racism in comics significantly different than your attitude towards violence in comics?

No, I don't think it is.

Belkar's evil and sociopathy is an established element in the comic. Characters talk about it, and it's lampshaded constantly. Heck, even a divine judgment from the Deva shows that Roy has essentially been redeeming an evildoer, at least in the way he mitigates & prevents further murders from Belkar. You can't really say that the narrative supports Belkar's behavior, either explicitly or implicitly, and in fact the narrative itself forces him to "Evolve or Die" into a much more traditional protagonist: personally, my money is on Redemption=Death by the end for him.

The difference, and I think it's a crucial one, is that Belkar's behavior is constantly commented on. There's no blanket ban on showing bad stuff: it's whether or not the narrative addresses the bad stuff that matters. If goblins are just "funny looking humans who are never worth redeeming," and the narrative never explores that further or even comments on it, then yeah -- I have more of a problem with a complacent "evil by default" assumption lounging around in the background of a story than I do with Belkar's behavior being brought to the forefront and dissected.

Haley's sexist comments are another good example. Rich is on record saying he just threw them in without thinking about it, and because the narrative never called her out for her language until much later (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0959.html), that behavior essentially went unchallenged. As a result, The Order of the Stick unintentionally endorsed that kind of gender-charged insult until Rich made a conscious effort to stamp it out going forward.

Telenil

2021-05-03, 12:23 PM

I agree that we don't have numerous examples of goblinoid oppression in the main free online comic. In that regard, it is an "informed" situation rather than a "displayed" one. But whenever it comes up as exposition, nobody refutes it. Narratively speaking, there needs to be a certain level of buy-in from the reader: if a character states a non-outlandish opinion, and nobody in-story dismisses it or questions it, the reader is meant to give that statement the benefit of the doubt.

True, but there is evidence that the goblin are not a race of powerless people living on bad land they can't get out. The most obvious is that Xykon and Redcloak stumbled upon an army they could immediately use to take Azure City. Sure, the goblins needed someone like them to offset the power of the high-level paladins, but that's not the same as 'goblins can't possibly stand their own against the other races'. They simply needed a strong leader to succeed.

Jason

2021-05-03, 12:28 PM

No, I don't think it is.

Belkar's evil and sociopathy is an established element in the comic. Characters talk about it, and it's lampshaded constantly. Heck, even a divine judgment from the Deva shows that Roy has essentially been redeeming an evildoer, at least in the way he mitigates & prevents further murders from Belkar. You can't really say that the narrative supports Belkar's behavior, either explicitly or implicitly, and in fact the narrative itself forces him to "Evolve or Die" into a much more traditional protagonist: personally, my money is on Redemption=Death by the end for him. A pretty safe bet when the Oracle has said Belkar is going to die before the end of the comic.

So if D&D games feature even the protagonists occasionally engaging in racism but regularly portray it as bad then they're good to go, right?

TheSummoner

2021-05-03, 12:30 PM

You're preaching to the choir. I agree that predators are not inherently evil. I agree that great apes are not human. But fantasy goblins, as typically presented, aren't like dragons or gorillas: they don't have drastic physiology differences, and they don't fill a different role in the ecology/food chain. They are slightly shorter, colored green/yellow, they speak a different language, and they worship a different god. They are quite simply "funny looking humans".

According to who?

In one story what you say might be the case. In another, it might be entirely wrong. I'd argue that a gorilla is as close or closer to a human than your standard fantasy goblin is physically. Mentally, they can be anything ranging from savage, cruel, stupid and aggressive to basically human. These are fictional monsters and the rules are what the author says they are.

This sounds like a very compelling approach to the subject, but it essentially proves my point. In order to make these goblins an objective threat with no elaboration required, it has to mutate them with magical radiation. Regardless of this youtube channel's portrayal, you have to admit that goblins are not by and large portrayed with that degree of "difference."

I disagree. The average human in this channel's setting doesn't know that the goblins (and most other humanoid monsters for that matter) are more or less mutated humans. The mutation happened long ago when humanity was an assortment of primitive hunter-gatherer tribes. As far as the most people know, they're a natural species. In fact, if you removed the magical nature of the catalyst for their original mutation, they would be. The only thing it takes for them to be an objective threat is the fact that they abduct humans as a source of food and that's hardly unique.

I've taken your other statements with a pretty light heart, and I hope my tone has been conversational and easygoing thus far. However, I'm going to come out very strongly against this point.

The things we say and write matter. Don't tell me propaganda doesn't affect the culture it pervades. Don't tell me that decades of sexist jokes haven't affected how men treat women, and how women treat themselves. Don't tell me that prejudiced attitudes can't fester and worsen when the people in power support (either intentionally or subconsciously) certain narratives while discouraging (either intentionally or subconsciously) others.

It's unfair to characterize this with the same brush as overreactions to heavy metal and video games. The things we say and write will almost never inspire someone to go out and Do A Murder. But they will inform our attitudes, our opinions, and whether or not we look at the person who's a different gender/race/culture and see a fellow human with differences or an Other to be (subconsciously) opposed, distrusted, exploited, or disregarded.

That fiction has a way to affect people's beliefs through subtext, the assumptions it says or leaves unspoken, its overt messaging, and all that is something that is both documented and something I think the Giant seems to believe with his regrets over past messaging elements and his desire to show new better ones. It's not a matter of being unable to distinguish fiction or fantasy from reality so much as we as malleable biological creatures are vulnerable to having our beliefs shifted, changed, or reinforced by fiction and fantasy. As the meme goes, you are not immune to propaganda.

And people also have a tendency of reading into subtext and creating their own meanings when none exists. I'll only go into it lightly to avoid potentially skewing into the political, but there was a rather noteworthy example in 1985 about the Twisted Sister song "Under the Blade" in which it was claimed that the song encouraged violence towards women. According to the band itself:

The lyrics she quoted have absolutely nothing to do with these topics. On the contrary, the words in question are about surgery and the fear that it instills in people.

People can interpret it in many ways. [She] was looking for sadomasochism and bondage and she found it. Someone looking for surgical references would have found it as well.

For more examples, you could look into the various shootings associated with Catcher in the Rye or every middle school book report ever written.

We are not talking about propaganda, we are talking about stories. Stories in which there are protagonists and antagonists who are by their very nature opposed and create the conflict that drives the plot in the first place. There's no reason that every story should have to be a morality play or a reflection of the real world. No reason that every monster should have to be the equivalent of a human. It's not clever, if anything it's becoming overdone and trite. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a goblin is just a goblin and if the author wanted them to represent humans, they could've just as easily used a different group of humans.

Telenil

2021-05-03, 12:36 PM

I think this conversation is dangerously straying into real-world politics.

Worldsong

2021-05-03, 12:36 PM

I think this conversation is dangerously straying into real-world politics.

That's how you know it's a conversation about goblinoids in the Stickverse.

hungrycrow

2021-05-03, 12:56 PM

That's how you know it's a conversation about goblinoids in the Stickverse.

These threads keep getting locked for review, and the argument just jumps to three more threads.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-03, 12:57 PM

In the case of Han Solo there is no ambiguity. Han Solo shot first, Word of God is wrong if it claims otherwise. Amen. Preach it! :smallcool:

- Gobbotopia practicing slavery is not conclusive evidence that goblinoids are inherently Evil. As compared to Empire of Blood practicing slavery? Why the double standard? :smallconfused:

I think this more typifies the "standard townspeople reaction to armed, PC-race adventurers" {snip}
Not "flee" but "put up adverts and raise prices (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html)". Depends on the setting. I've been in campaigns where news of our party arriving induced hiding in barns and such.
So what is your take on the effect that seeing Belkar really enjoy stabbing people all the time and basically getting away with it or having it played for laughs has had on the average reader of this comic? {snip}
Is your attitude towards racism in comics significantly different than your attitude towards violence in comics? Violence in comics has a long history (Sergeant Rock comes to mind, The Haunted Tank) and every super hero in the Marvel and DC universes. FWIW Belkar's violence seems to be comic relief, in the main ~ making fun of murderhobos and munchkins. Folks who don't play D&D may not get the joke.
And people also have a tendency of reading into subtext and creating their own meanings when none exists.
True with a lot of art.

Sometimes a goblin is just a goblin and if the author wanted them to represent humans, they could've just as easily used a different group of humans. And sometimes, a banana is just a banana. (Dan Akroyd, SNL, in a parody of Sigmund Freud)

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 01:01 PM

A pretty safe bet when the Oracle has said Belkar is going to die before the end of the comic.

So if D&D games feature even the protagonists occasionally engaging in racism but regularly portray it as bad then they're good to go, right?

I mean, "good to go" depends on the context, but essentially yes. I would far prefer a storyline/setting where people's cosmetic differences and prejudices are acknowledged to a setting where the cosmetic differences are glossed over and never addressed...but are still subconsciously used to identify "combatant" from "ally."

According to who?

The vast majority of D&D lore for the last 40 years.

I'd argue that a gorilla is as close or closer to a human than your standard fantasy goblin is physically.

On almost every level except physical size, this is blatantly, factually wrong.

Gorillas have a lot in common with humans in comparison to other animals, but they don't wear clothing, use complex spoken languages, live in created structures, form massive groups numbering in the thousands, trade currency, or do one of a billion other things that make humans wholly unique. Every humanoid in the Monster Manual does those things or a version of them. If you want to argue that goblins are essentially gorillas in your setting, go ahead, but if they're using metal armor and yelling out full sentences in a spoken language, be prepared for people to completely disregard your definition of "sentience."

We are not talking about propaganda, we are talking about stories. Stories in which there are protagonists and antagonists who are by their very nature opposed and create the conflict that drives the plot in the first place. There's no reason that every story should have to be a morality play or a reflection of the real world. No reason that every monster should have to be the equivalent of a human. It's not clever, if anything it's becoming overdone and trite. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a goblin is just a goblin and if the author wanted them to represent humans, they could've just as easily used a different group of humans.

First off: they DID use a different group of humans, they just colored them green and gave them a slightly different backstory. You could literally take every hobgoblin in standard D&D, swap their token for a human, and everything they do would make sense, even if it seemed weird that they were speaking a different language and worshipping a different fantasy god. They still form armies, use weapons, speak languages, and display human emotions to varying degrees. They are not an alien intelligence, nor are they nonsentient animals.

Second: Do you genuinely believe that, in order to treat monstrous humanoids with inherent dignity, the entire story has to become a morality play? Do you really think a story is incapable of addressing something and then moving on, or not dipping its toes in that water to start with?

hamishspence

2021-05-03, 01:02 PM

As compared to Empire of Blood practicing slavery? Why the double standard? :smallconfused:

What double standard? Nobody has any trouble saying "humans aren't inherently evil" despite the Empire of Blood practicing slavery - the evil there is usually regarded as cultural.

Treating the goblins/hobgoblins as "green/orange humans" is quite compatible with the Empire of Blood being regarded as having evil cultural practices rather than being mostly inhabited by inherently evil beings.

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 01:04 PM

As compared to Empire of Blood practicing slavery? Why the double standard? :smallconfused:

I've literally never seen a single person claim that the humans, kobolds, and lizardfolk that make up The Empire of Blood's citizens are all culpable in The Empire's slavery. I have seen that argument numerous, numerous times in regards to the goblinoids that make up Gobbotopia.

Worldsong

2021-05-03, 01:09 PM

As compared to Empire of Blood practicing slavery? Why the double standard? :smallconfused:

The Empire of Blood is, ironically enough, one of my arguments why slavery does not prove inherent Evil in races who practise it.

In #0717 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0717.html) we see what appears to be three human slavers, and yet I've yet to see anyone argue that this means humans are inherently predisposed towards Evil.

Which means that it would be a double standard to claim that goblins are inherently predisposed towards Evil on the basis that they practise slavery.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-03, 01:10 PM

I've literally never seen a single person claim that the humans, kobolds, and lizardfolk that make up The Empire of Blood's citizens are all culpable in The Empire's slavery. I have seen that argument numerous, numerous times in regards to the goblinoids that make up Gobbotopia. Well since it isn't me who does that, so what?

Beyond that: can you tell me, from the perspective of an Azurite slave, where the distinction comes in during their daily labors and beatings?

In the near term (it is important to consider that the conquest is comparatively recent) slavery imposed on the losers is a kind of 'wars have consequences' deal; while their lot isn't likely to change in the nearer term it is possible that a more enlightened leadership style may arise in Gobbotopia as they settle into a more normal status. They are still in the transition phase from their recent conquest.

But that, more enlightened leadeship, is speculation (and perhaps beyond the scope of the seven books the author has chosen to write).

Ionathus

2021-05-03, 01:15 PM

Well since it isn't me who does that, so what?

Beyond that: can you tell me, from the perspective of an Azurite slave, where the distinction comes in during their daily labors and beatings?

In the near term (it is important to consider that the conquest is comparatively recent) slavery imposed on the losers is a kind of 'wars have consequences' deal; while their lot isn't likely to change in the nearer term it is possible that a more enlightened leadership style may arise in Gobbotopia as they settle into a more normal status. They are still in the transition phase from their recent conquest.

But that, more enlightened leadeship, is speculation (and perhaps beyond the scope of the seven books the author has chosen to write).

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're asking.

You asked "isn't it a double standard to say The Empire of Blood is evil for practicing slavery, while saying Gobbotopia isn't?" and that was my response: in both cases, the government is evil for doing so, but the races who make up its people are not necessarily inherently evil because of it.

Metastachydium

2021-05-03, 01:18 PM

But that, more enlightened leadeship, is speculation

There was an explicit hint that Gobbotopia might phase out slavery on the long run, out of sheer pragmatism (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0702.html).

Shadowknight12

2021-05-03, 01:27 PM

I understand and respect that you do not want to be involved in a long discussion, but I respect the points you’ve brought forth and will respond to them in kind.

If that is all it’s saying, and it’s just a minor nudge, then I would agree with you. I’ll state again, a lot of my comments could be addressed and fixed with reasonable ease. The issue I have is the specific counter to Roy saying it’s hard to interrogate inner reasons while you’re fighting, and then Durkon brings up an EXTREMELY manipulative example of when he did just that but which doesn’t disprove Roy as I’ve explained before. The comic would have been served better by being more clear and avoiding Durkon’s snide insults if that really is what Rich is going for.

I respect the attempt to understand my viewpoints, so I will reply in kind and attempt to clarify where I may not have provided enough detail or may have shortened my explanation for brevity:

I do not consider Durkon's example to be manipulative at all, since I do not consider Roy trying to reason with vampire!Durkon to be a special case that he should be exempted from. Roy is not a neutral-aligned, whose first priority is his loved ones above all else, and strangers are a second priority to be judged on a case by case basis. He is good-aligned, and as such, he should be attempting to extend the kindness and opportunities that he extends to his loved ones to strangers as well. Again, this doesn't mean "use diplomacy in mid-combat" but "ask them what led them down this path so that perhaps you can prevent the *next* violent confrontation with goblins and help them as a race."

It's not manipulative to say "you tried to find out what was wrong with your best friend so that you could help him, but it never occurred to you to do the same towards other enemies we've been fighting" when Roy made the conscious choice to be good-aligned and hold himself to a higher standard of morality and behaviour. If he didn't want to be held to such a high standard, he could've simply been neutral and nobody would have faulted him (and his sister Julia did just that).

What Durkon is trying to convey is that it's easy to be kind and good and extend opportunities to those you love, and it's much harder to do so towards strangers, much less strangers trying to kill you and whom you've been taught all your life to see as simply enemies to defeat. But again, Roy chose to be Good. And being Good is hard work.

So I actually like this part about the lands, but I did address it in my original post. It is not wrong for the Gods to create unequal land. The Gods have established they need conflict and souls to survive, because conflict makes stronger souls. The requirement of souls is so intense that very few gods (relatively) have arisen and stayed stable since they started like a billion years ago. If they ever fail to generate enough souls, they die forever. If enough gods die forever then existence is gone forever. And even if they get enough souls to survive, the wrong DIET of souls can make them crazy.

Thank you for your points. They were some of the better put and formulated of the ones I’ve seen.

My point is that it is, in fact, wrong, for the gods to prey on and exploit sentient beings for sustenance. The sentient beings did not agree to this. Simply because someone creates you and you depend on them to exist does not mean they have a right to exploit you however they see fit. I don't want to draw on real world comparisons too much, but if you recontextualize the gods as parents and the mortals as children, no justification for the gods' actions makes what they did okay.

hroþila

2021-05-03, 01:28 PM

There was an explicit hint that Gobbotopia might phase out slavery on the long run, out of sheer pragmatism (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0702.html).
I think that was just a hint that Cliffport isn't going to let a little something like slavery get in the way of its profit.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-03, 01:31 PM

There was an explicit hint that Gobbotopia might phase out slavery on the long run, out of sheer pragmatism (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0702.html). Speculation, but at least there is hope. My caveat would be that it looked more or less like a Cilffport overture, not a goblin-based initiative.

@Ionathus: that didn't answer my question, but no worries, there's enough noise in this thread that it hardly matters. :smallsmile:

Telenil

2021-05-03, 01:44 PM

I respect the attempt to understand my viewpoints, so I will reply in kind and attempt to clarify where I may not have provided enough detail or may have shortened my explanation for brevity:

I do not consider Durkon's example to be manipulative at all, since I do not consider Roy trying to reason with vampire!Durkon to be a special case that he should be exempted from. Roy is not a neutral-aligned, whose first priority is his loved ones above all else, and strangers are a second priority to be judged on a case by case basis. He is good-aligned, and as such, he should be attempting to extend the kindness and opportunities that he extends to his loved ones to strangers as well. Again, this doesn't mean "use diplomacy in mid-combat" but "ask them what led them down this path so that perhaps you can prevent the *next* violent confrontation with goblins and help them as a race."

It's not manipulative to say "you tried to find out what was wrong with your best friend so that you could help him, but it never occurred to you to do the same towards other enemies we've been fighting" when Roy made the conscious choice to be good-aligned and hold himself to a higher standard of morality and behaviour. If he didn't want to be held to such a high standard, he could've simply been neutral and nobody would have faulted him (and his sister Julia did just that).

What Durkon is trying to convey is that it's easy to be kind and good and extend opportunities to those you love, and it's much harder to do so towards strangers, much less strangers trying to kill you and whom you've been taught all your life to see as simply enemies to defeat. But again, Roy chose to be Good. And being Good is hard work.

This goes way beyond what could be expected from a Good person.

Being kind to people who are currently trying to kill you is not noble, it's borderline suicidal. Even if talking is a free action, even if stick people work in such a way that they can't get distracted by their own talking, it might cloud your judgement at a critical time, just like Durkon wrongly believed Redcloak would be interested in a peace deal and nearly killed his party. The time to wonder about your enemy motivations and what to do with his servants is after the defeat of the Evil Overlord, or at least when there are prisonners you can interrogate safely. Doing it in the middle of the battle is pointless at best, and a dangerous distraction at worst.