Goblins XVII: The shocking end of the story arc

[Vinyadan]

I think Ellipsis set out to write a webcomic like Order of the Stick, but without quite understanding one of the fundamental qualities of OotS.

OotS has been mapped out since well before the 100th strip went up, with an overall story and a planned end.

Goblins...has not. Ellipsis was open enough about planning nothing from the start, not even that the specific characters who appeared in the first strip (Chief, Complains-Of-Names, Dies-Horribly, and so on) would ever appear again. And unlike OotS, there's no point at which that changed. It doesn't have planned story. It's just about a group of goblin adventurers adventuring. Suddenly, instead of dealing with Kore, they're dealing with an axe demon. And all the while, they're gradually losing pieces of themselves, because they have just enough plot armor to save Ellipsis from having to make up a whole new cast while the story remains super grim and gritty.

From the Wiki:

Thunt completely wrote the story out approximately 7 years ago, roughly when the comic started being colored. It is pretty much set in stone. Some parts of the story are totally written out blow by blow, step by step and other parts are more of a bullet point form. The guard battle in the armory of Brassmoon is an example of it being written out blow by blow.

Also, here: https://www.goblinscomic.com/blog/th...r-weve-arrived

[Kornaki]

Superficially it's not hard to write an argument like that against oots.

Suddenly, instead of adventurers bravely delving into dungeons and fighting bad guys, we get 400 pages of dead people, refugee politics, and goblin city administration. It's like rich just bounces from page to page trying to figure out how to reunite the party after the invasion of azure city.

Of course we know it's not true. But if ellipsis tried to draw exactly the same plot, I think we would all have these gripes. She doesn't transition between the stories at the right moments, or takes too long focusing on one group, or.... Something. It's just worse, probably for both those reasons and others.

[Vinyadan]

So, about the new guy... any opinion? I was thrilled when it appeared, because it looks genuinely new and weird enough to reserve many surprises. Something interesting to explore, with a good link to the plot and the potential to carry it forward.

The only negative I see is that it was strange it didn't ask them to chop the scalp into pieces.

[Draconi Redfir]

i'm cautiously optimistic. i can't find the tweet i'm thinking of, so i might have imagined it or it may have been deleted, but i think this guy might have been a new character only recently thought up, rather then one that was pre-planned like much of the rest of the comic. Vaguely recall a tweet from Ell saying as such, and they might also serve as a love interest for someone? Crossing my fingers things go well either way.


Found an image of what this person used too / will look like though.. Followup tweet suggests they use they/them pronouns

[Ibrinar]

Seems pretty calm for some soul coming fresh out of a long and horrible experiment.

[Kish]

Well, that does suggest the comic might continue and end better than I was expecting.

[Anteros]

Eh. I think I might be done with the comic. I checked the update today, and it's fine individually, but it didn't really do anything except frustrate me that I haven't bothered checking in 2 months and literally nothing has happened in that time. This is the...3rd update in an entire year? and instead of moving the plot we're just thinking up and adding entirely new characters/arcs? I don't think I can take the comic being any more bogged down than it already was.

I think it might be time for me to check out of this thread entirely since I don't think I'll bring anything but negativity, and I don't enjoy the comic at all. I've just been reading out of some sort of attachment to the characters after reading for so long...and even that feels like more like I'm just reading to see what kind of horrible torture Thunt has in store for them rather than a genuine interest in where their story goes.

Yeah. I'm done. Maybe I'll come back to it after a long break and my interest gets the better of me...but honestly I kinda hope I don't. There's nothing here that's worth my time, or stress.

[tomaO2]

Honestly, I don't get why more updates aren't being done. What else is there to do during the lockdown. People with the luxury to work from home are really lucky. I don't get not taking advantage of the situation. We got all this talk about how we are entering a new era of updates, and it goes back to the same old, same old.

From the Wiki:



Also, here: https://www.goblinscomic.com/blog/th...r-weve-arrived

I recall Ears was stated to have never part of the story plan though and that is mind BOGGLING. How was this whole demon plot supposed to work without the person that gets the axe? I could say that another character would have gotten it, except all the characters were originally intended to be killed off until Elli got her "real" main characters.

Also, Brassmoon isn't the best example. Elli planned a TON more than she delivered. All the torture was supposed to have a payoff in the escape fight. It was supposed to show the weaknesses they had learned from the monsters all of these years, but she felt the battle was going too long so she scrapped all of it. As a result, it reads like a ton of torture porn was just added into the story because that is the author's fetish, and that's a believable interpretation, given all the other suffering she's included over the years.

i'm cautiously optimistic. i can't find the tweet i'm thinking of, so i might have imagined it or it may have been deleted, but i think this guy might have been a new character only recently thought up, rather then one that was pre-planned like much of the rest of the comic. Vaguely recall a tweet from Ell saying as such, and they might also serve as a love interest for someone? Crossing my fingers things go well either way.


Found an image of what this person used too / will look like though.. Followup tweet suggests they use they/them pronouns

I don't think it would be this soul. Would be an odd thing to be a stickler about, given what that soul fragment went through.

"Oh thank god I'm saved. It's been a living nightmare, that ******* kept refusing to use my pronouns."

"Was that really your biggest issue?"

"You philistines would never understand the torture of it."

"Um, okay so, your pronouns? Are they..."

"YES."

"Yes? Huh? What?" (was going to ask if they were male or female)

"Yes, they."

That's what I'm asking. What are they."

"They are they."

"No, your pronouns. What are they? I don't understand you. SPEAK COMMON!"

------------------------------------------

Unless maybe this ghost thing goes down the route that it's been so long and doesn't remember the gender. Therefore the GAP calls it they? Doesn't seem intuitive though, while there is plenty of LGBT in D&D, the whole "they" pronoun isn't really a thing. Certainly not a thing the goblins should be familiar with. If Elli wanted a they pronoun, I feel like it might have worked better for those klicks, or be mentioned by the player characters.

Also, all I can say is I expect Complains to be complaining. Why does a singular person refer to him/herself in the plural? It's a natural question to ask.

[Agi Hammerthief]

Eh. I think I might be done with the comic. I checked the update today, and it's fine individually, but it didn't really do anything except frustrate me that I haven't bothered checking in 2 months and literally nothing has happened in that time. This is the...3rd update in an entire year? and instead of moving the plot we're just thinking up and adding entirely new characters/arcs? I don't think I can take the comic being any more bogged down than it already was.

I think it might be time for me to check out of this thread entirely since I don't think I'll bring anything but negativity, and I don't enjoy the comic at all. I've just been reading out of some sort of attachment to the characters after reading for so long...and even that feels like more like I'm just reading to see what kind of horrible torture Thunt has in store for them rather than a genuine interest in where their story goes.

Yeah. I'm done. Maybe I'll come back to it after a long break and my interest gets the better of me...but honestly I kinda hope I don't. There's nothing here that's worth my time, or stress.

you should at least stay till page 50, then comic will no longer show up as „thread you posted in with new posts“
if you occasionally post page 50 will get here faster and then I‘m also out.

[Vinyadan]

That about Ears is true, too. Iirc, Vorpal was supposed to handle the axe, being 1/12 paladin. And I think it occasionally shows: for example, ears making the illogical decision to jump to Hell, which wouldn't have been too odd for Vorpal.

[Iskar Jarak]

Superficially it's not hard to write an argument like that against oots.

Suddenly, instead of adventurers bravely delving into dungeons and fighting bad guys, we get 400 pages of dead people, refugee politics, and goblin city administration. It's like rich just bounces from page to page trying to figure out how to reunite the party after the invasion of azure city.

Of course we know it's not true. But if ellipsis tried to draw exactly the same plot, I think we would all have these gripes. She doesn't transition between the stories at the right moments, or takes too long focusing on one group, or.... Something. It's just worse, probably for both those reasons and others.

Goblins really doesn't feel like it was planned out, at least not well. It reads less like the plan went through multiple drafts and more like Ellipsis just wrote stuff and called it a day, with minimal revision.

Trying to juggle three separate plotlines is no mean feat and it shows. OOTS mostly has only the one plotline, but even when the party was split, the plotlines were well connected. We had Roy bridging the two groups; the bond between the team and a certain amount of them working on the same problem, albeit from different ends. Meanwhile, in Goblins do any of the GAP even remember, let alone care about, Dies Horribly? What is Forgrath even doing? It's bound to eventually tie into Kills Horribly, but as of now it's completely disconnected from anything we care about.

Goblins had a similar thing to GoT -- we start with a group, get invested in them and then they all split up. Except in GoT, we needed those PoV characters to keep us invested and show what's happening in different parts of the world -- that's what GoT is about. (It's noteworthy that despite G.R.R.M's talent, the plot seems to have spiralled out of control.) Goblins is not about grand political schemes; it's about a band of adventurers going on a quest. Except there are multiple bands of adventurers and they have little to nothing to do with each other. Kills Horribly, Duv, Kore and the Demons are all still around and are all the villians of different stories.

Goblins even manages to feel disjointed among the same set of characters. The GAP's inevitable sojourn to Hell is going to be bad; it isn't remotely a logical progression of their journey. Their whole motivation changed because of the Axe of Prissan stuff; the stakes shifted from 'stop/escape Kore' to 'everyone will die' as a result of the expository axe expositing some more. Maybe this exposition will also turn out to be a lie. The Axe of Prissan stuff is all so clunky, tacked on and detrimental to rest of the story, I struggle to believe Goblins has seen multiple drafts.


To echo the sentiment here, I'm mostly done with Goblins. That recent, awful page where Kore just walks off and the GAP forget their personalities was the nail in the coffin.

[Keltest]

I don't think it would be this soul. Would be an odd thing to be a stickler about, given what that soul fragment went through.

"Oh thank god I'm saved. It's been a living nightmare, that ******* kept refusing to use my pronouns."

"Was that really your biggest issue?"

"You philistines would never understand the torture of it."

"Um, okay so, your pronouns? Are they..."

"YES."

"Yes? Huh? What?" (was going to ask if they were male or female)

"Yes, they."

That's what I'm asking. What are they."

"They are they."

"No, your pronouns. What are they? I don't understand you. SPEAK COMMON!"

Unless maybe this ghost thing goes down the route that it's been so long and doesn't remember the gender. Therefore the GAP calls it they? Doesn't seem intuitive though, while there is plenty of LGBT in D&D, the whole "they" pronoun isn't really a thing. Certainly not a thing the goblins should be familiar with. If Elli wanted a they pronoun, I feel like it might have worked better for those klicks, or be mentioned by the player characters.

Also, all I can say is I expect Complains to be complaining. Why does a singular person refer to him/herself in the plural? It's a natural question to ask.

[/FONT]

If its supposed to be a gargoyle, I can actually see non-binary pronouns being a reasonable default stance. They look like statues and are, I think, a flavor of elemental (ie they don't biologically reproduce) so they probably don't even have gender.

[Morgaln]

Goblins really doesn't feel like it was planned out, at least not well. It reads less like the plan went through multiple drafts and more like Ellipsis just wrote stuff and called it a day, with minimal revision.

Trying to juggle three separate plotlines is no mean feat and it shows. OOTS mostly has only the one plotline, but even when the party was split, the plotlines were well connected. We had Roy bridging the two groups; the bond between the team and a certain amount of them working on the same problem, albeit from different ends. Meanwhile, in Goblins do any of the GAP even remember, let alone care about, Dies Horribly? What is Forgrath even doing? It's bound to eventually tie into Kills Horribly, but as of now it's completely disconnected from anything we care about.

Goblins had a similar thing to GoT -- we start with a group, get invested in them and then they all split up. Except in GoT, we needed those PoV characters to keep us invested and show what's happening in different parts of the world -- that's what GoT is about. (It's noteworthy that despite G.R.R.M's talent, the plot seems to have spiralled out of control.) Goblins is not about grand political schemes; it's about a band of adventurers going on a quest. Except there are multiple bands of adventurers and they have little to nothing to do with each other. Kills Horribly, Duv, Kore and the Demons are all still around and are all the villians of different stories.

Goblins even manages to feel disjointed among the same set of characters. The GAP's inevitable sojourn to Hell is going to be bad; it isn't remotely a logical progression of their journey. Their whole motivation changed because of the Axe of Prissan stuff; the stakes shifted from 'stop/escape Kore' to 'everyone will die' as a result of the expository axe expositing some more. Maybe this exposition will also turn out to be a lie. The Axe of Prissan stuff is all so clunky, tacked on and detrimental to rest of the story, I struggle to believe Goblins has seen multiple drafts.


To echo the sentiment here, I'm mostly done with Goblins. That recent, awful page where Kore just walks off and the GAP forget their personalities was the nail in the coffin.

The impression I always got is that she wrote a rough outline of the story 15+ years ago. She then proceeded to turn that story into the comic, without ever going over her outline again to work out the kinks or create a more detailed draft. In regular publishing, that is where you have an editor that steps in and point out all those things that don't quite work out and need smoothing. But webcomics don't usually have an editor, so a webcomic author needs to be extra diligent in editing themselves. Elli however seems to be remarkably unwilling (or possibly unable) to take a step back, take a critical look at her own work and possibly even do changes to that original outline where necessary.
Admittedly, it's not an easy process. Changing a single scene can have repercussions for the whole rest of the story, so it can be a lot of work; and you certainly want to avoid that point where you're so disgusted with your own work that al you can do is start over from the beginning.

[Draconi Redfir]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]I recall Ears was stated to have never part of the story plan though and that is mind BOGGLING. How was this whole demon plot supposed to work without the person that gets the axe?

IIRC Fumbles was supposed to get the axe, due to being 2/11ths of a Paladin.

Unless maybe this ghost thing goes down the route that it's been so long and doesn't remember the gender.

don't think it's that deep. the creature is a gargoyle and literally made of stone. so they might not have any kind of gender to begin with.

do any of the GAP even remember, let alone care about, Dies Horribly?

they have no reason to believe Dies is even alive. as far as they know, they're the only survivors of the warcamp. none of them were present when Klik saved Dies, and Dies dragged him off.

[Fyraltari]

I don't think it would be this soul. Would be an odd thing to be a stickler about, given what that soul fragment went through.

"Oh thank god I'm saved. It's been a living nightmare, that ******* kept refusing to use my pronouns."

"Was that really your biggest issue?"

"You philistines would never understand the torture of it."

"Um, okay so, your pronouns? Are they..."

"YES."

"Yes? Huh? What?" (was going to ask if they were male or female)

"Yes, they."

That's what I'm asking. What are they."

"They are they."

"No, your pronouns. What are they? I don't understand you. SPEAK COMMON!"

Unless maybe this ghost thing goes down the route that it's been so long and doesn't remember the gender. Therefore the GAP calls it they? Doesn't seem intuitive though, while there is plenty of LGBT in D&D, the whole "they" pronoun isn't really a thing. Certainly not a thing the goblins should be familiar with. If Elli wanted a they pronoun, I feel like it might have worked better for those klicks, or be mentioned by the player characters.

Also, all I can say is I expect Complains to be complaining. Why does a singular person refer to him/herself in the plural? It's a natural question to ask.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that being tortured forever would make a non-binary person binary? If so, why?

[tomaO2]

No, I said the opposite. I said it would make a binary person non binary. When you think about the time dilation, that thing would have been suffering for thousands of years. Compare that to living less than a hundred and it's easy to see why all the past memories might have drifted away.

It's possible that Face person doesn't even remember anything before being absorbed. Since Face is basically just a spirit with a face now. I think it's reasonable to not know what gender, or even what species, you are anymore, so why not just call yourself they?

That about Ears is true, too. Iirc, Vorpal was supposed to handle the axe, being 1/12 paladin. And I think it occasionally shows: for example, ears making the illogical decision to jump to Hell, which wouldn't have been too odd for Vorpal.

Huh. So it's actually canon that Fumbles took 1/11th of every class? How does that work with being a teller? Like, being a chief seems to be just a straight stat bonus. Teller gives you magic, so it sounds like an actual class.

Honestly, I would have liked to see Fumbles get the axe. Elli didn't give Fumbles a single, demonstrable, class ability until he became a teller. I honestly never believed that he was a real adventurer. Fumbles really got shortchanged.

[Keltest]

No, I said the opposite. I said it would make a binary person non binary. When you think about the time dilation, that thing would have been suffering for thousands of years. Compare that to living less than a hundred and it's easy to see why all the past memories might have drifted away.

It's possible that Face person doesn't even remember anything before being absorbed. Since Face is basically just a spirit with a face now. I think it's reasonable to not know what gender, or even what species, you are anymore, so why not just call yourself they?



Huh. So it's actually canon that Fumbles took 1/11th of every class? How does that work with being a teller? Like, being a chief seems to be just a straight stat bonus. Teller gives you magic, so it sounds like an actual class.

Honestly, I would have liked to see Fumbles get the axe. Elli didn't give Fumbles a single, demonstrable, class ability until he became a teller. I honestly never believed that he was a real adventurer. Fumbles really got shortchanged.

Being a teller is probably a template or something similar. Its something from the monster side of the GAP rather than the class levels side.

At any rate, Fumbles' (seeming) poor understanding of what being an adventurer meant, and of the world in general, is sort of the point of his character. He doesn't know what he's getting into or where he wants to go. Until recently (in terms of plot) he existed as motivation for the other characters more than a direct participant in the plot.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Huh. So it's actually canon that Fumbles took 1/11th of every class? How does that work with being a teller? Like, being a chief seems to be just a straight stat bonus. Teller gives you magic, so it sounds like an actual class.

We don't know really whether he actually has those partial class levels. Purely theoretically we could tell by his hit points, that's pretty much the only thing his class levels should give him until he hits level 11. (d&d rounds everything down.) But it's hard to tell at any time how badly hurt he is in hp terms.

I agree that teller is probably a template, or even just a straight up base creature block, with a few different abilities from a goblin warrior or a goblin chief. It might be associated with a few hit dice or, if it was ever thought out far enough, a level adjustment.

[Fyraltari]

No, I said the opposite.

Then I really don't understand this:

I don't think it would be this soul. Would be an odd thing to be a stickler about, given what that soul fragment went through.

"Oh thank god I'm saved. It's been a living nightmare, that ******* kept refusing to use my pronouns."

"Was that really your biggest issue?"

"You philistines would never understand the torture of it."

"Um, okay so, your pronouns? Are they..."

"YES."

"Yes? Huh? What?" (was going to ask if they were male or female)

"Yes, they."

That's what I'm asking. What are they."

"They are they."

"No, your pronouns. What are they? I don't understand you. SPEAK COMMON!"

I said it would make a binary person non binary. When you think about the time dilation, that thing would have been suffering for thousands of years. Compare that to living less than a hundred and it's easy to see why all the past memories might have drifted away.

It's possible that Face person doesn't even remember anything before being absorbed. Since Face is basically just a spirit with a face now. I think it's reasonable to not know what gender, or even what species, you are anymore, so why not just call yourself they?

I mean we're blindly guessing but Occam's rzaor suggests they were just non-binary before meeting Kore.

[tomaO2]

The joke skit was assuming that the character was, and still is, non binary.

Then I said "unless", and then I gave an idea as to how the character could have originally been binary, but turned non binary afterwards. I don't really understand why this is so hard to grasp.

[Morgaln]

We don't know really whether he actually has those partial class levels. Purely theoretically we could tell by his hit points, that's pretty much the only thing his class levels should give him until he hits level 11. (d&d rounds everything down.) But it's hard to tell at any time how badly hurt he is in hp terms.

I agree that teller is probably a template, or even just a straight up base creature block, with a few different abilities from a goblin warrior or a goblin chief. It might be associated with a few hit dice or, if it was ever thought out far enough, a level adjustment.

Elli has specifically said that Fumbles really does have 1/11th of each class, so word of god is that it is true. Of course the comic itself gives evidence that it is not true, because the Axe of Prissan does not pass through Fumbles even though he is supposed to be a paladin. So she is contradicting herself here, but point that out and you're more likely to be blocked from her Twitter than anything else.

[Keltest]

Elli has specifically said that Fumbles really does have 1/11th of each class, so word of god is that it is true. Of course the comic itself gives evidence that it is not true, because the Axe of Prissan does not pass through Fumbles even though he is supposed to be a paladin. So she is contradicting herself here, but point that out and you're more likely to be blocked from her Twitter than anything else.

When was Fumbles attacked with the Axe of Prissan?

[John Cribati]

Elli has specifically said that Fumbles really does have 1/11th of each class, so word of god is that it is true. Of course the comic itself gives evidence that it is not true, because the Axe of Prissan does not pass through Fumbles even though he is supposed to be a paladin.

The Axe passes through 18.18181818%of him and cuts the other 81.81818181%.

[Draconi Redfir]

When was Fumbles attacked with the Axe of Prissan?

technically he wasn't. They were fighting what look to be Constructs that mimic their future (and later past) actions. and something about this blew up the axe. Personally i think it has less to do with the fact that it was Fumbles that was being attacked, and more that it hit The Staff of Notangle which "Destroys magical bindings"

[Morgaln]

technically he wasn't. They were fighting what look to be Constructs that mimic their future (and later past) actions. and something about this blew up the axe. Personally i think it has less to do with the fact that it was Fumbles that was being attacked, and more that it hit The Staff of Notangle which "Destroys magical bindings"

Actually, Fumbles was directly attacked with the Axe when he entered Brassmoon and got captured by Saral Caine. On this page: https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/09182006

[Draconi Redfir]

oohh right, forgot about that one.

[Kish]

tomaO2, you have a habit of posting this weird mix of legitimate criticisms of Ellipsis' business practices, and weird-ass rants against "political correctness".

Whatever the fragment of skull is or is not, I think it very unlikely, in light of what Chief said, that it's going to suddenly say that the worst torture being with Kore visited upon it was Kore persistently calling it "he." Or that Complains, or even a character designed to be far more obnoxious than Complains, will try to pull the "you can't use 'they,' it's plural!" thing. And even if I'm wrong on both counts, there's been no indication of such in the comic and so it would make more sense to start complaining after something happens rather than after imagining it and imputing it to the comic.

[Vinyadan]

So, did we just find out how to save Chief? Kill Kore with a cheese grater?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So, did we just find out how to save Chief? Kill Kore with a cheese grater?

"And that's why we tossed the paladin into that wood chipper. Any other questions officer?"

[Vinyadan]

I was rereading the page where the Goblins see Kore from far away. They see Kore from a day's travel away. This means, assuming the Goblins have short legs and are taking a long trip on difficult terrain, 10 km (more like 15-20, however). 10 km is more or less the distance between the ground and a flying commercial airliner. There's no way they would have seen him.

The exception is if they have an impassable chasm to their right and Kore is on the other side, so it would take him a day to reach them, but he's actually much closer. And they could simply be seeing the sun reflecting off the metal.