Is Elan racially biased? (and does this act to support Redcloak's point).

[Peelee]

Yet, unlike Redcloak, the Hobgoblins didn't need to fabricate a narrative about cosmic discrimination in order to justiy their desire to plunder Azure City and enslave the humans that couldn't flee.

If the narrative has been fabricated (a point I am not yet willing to concede), it would have been done so by The Dark One, not by Redcloak.

[Ironsmith]

...This is kind of pointless, isn't it?

I mean, let's be honest. Redcloak's not upset about being called green (which he is) or about another group of goblinoids mistakenly being identified as cavemen during what was already a propagandized speech. He's upset about goblin(oid)s being slaughtered for XP without consequence, and about how they were designed for that purpose. "Ooh, you called him green!" is about as related to that as a cockatrice is to Peelee's avatar.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I’m not sure why there’s a thousand-mile-long tunnel

I mean, isn't the underworld full of pointlessly elaborate tunnels?

Though the comic has always been inconsistent about distances between the North and South (e.g. Miko traveling to Dwarven Lands and back in the time it took the OOTS to do the Oracle and Linear Guild stuff).

I agree the distance/timings are fudged, but I also imagine Miko's overland speed is much, much faster than the order.

I don't know the details on how paladin mounts work, but I'd imagine each day Miko would ride Windstrider half to death, unsummons him and then marches herself half to death on foot.

The Order, on the other hand, was probably on the road to perdition for a week before they realized their mistake.
I'm also imaging them stopping to see the world's largest ball of twine.
Then the stop and fail their will saves against smelling the lotus flowers.

[dude123nice]

Elan is using their skin color descriptively, not out of racism. It's like if I referred to someone with red hair as "that ginger dude". It's not out of discrimination (even tho he lacks a soul), it's because it's a feature of his that helps me point him out to others faster. Also if anyone saw a massive army show up on their city's doorstep unannounced, they'd naturally assume it was an invading army.

[tomaO2]

A goblin hating hobgoblins is a racist.
A goblin hating humans (and vice versa) is a speciesist.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0451.html (2nd page; 5th panel)

The title you are looking for is, "Is Elan a Speciesist?".

Also, I think the situation is more like Horde vs Alliance in Warcraft. It's more faction based. The gods just set things up for killing each other indiscriminately. It's equal opportunity slaughter between the two, albeit with the god races getting an advantage.

Here's a seperate question. What happened to the souls of goblins before the Dark One came along? Gods needs souls to survive, but they seem to completely ignore goblin souls and prefer keeping them weak so that more powerful PCs can appear.

[Dion]

This thread is silly.

The gods set up the goblins as XP fodder for the PC races. Good PCs, and even paladins, can slaughter goblins almost indiscriminately without rebuke.

There are a thousand ways that this design decision manifests in stickworld, big and small, and Elan is 100% absolutely certain to be affected by it. He lives his entire life under a system where institutional racism was literally designed into the world by the gods.

Is Elan’s quip about how goblins aren’t heroic because they live in caves and dying for your cave isn’t heroic racist? I honestly don’t know, and I couldn’t care less; I can’t even begin to guess how to decide something like that.

But is Elan racist? Yes, of course he is. Everyone living in stickworld is racist.

[Goblin_Priest]

Well, in O-Chul's story in GDGU, I find a complete absence of hobgoblins complaining that they are living off scraps while the humans live in prosperous lands. That self-victimization narrative belongs to Redcloak.

Hobgoblins seemed to hate humans because

Spoiler: GDGU, SoD

Show

the Sapphire Guard had been raiding their villages and slaughtering their people. The same group that massacred Redcloak's village.

Yet, unlike Redcloak, the Hobgoblins didn't need to fabricate a narrative about cosmic discrimination in order to justiy their desire to plunder Azure City and enslave the humans that couldn't flee.

The Crayons of Time shows that Soon himself ordered the Sapphire Guard to engage in extermination campaigns against goblinoids (#0277). Thus, that cycle of violence has been going on for some generations, and was not originated by any situation of economic unequality.

Well, I don't remember GDGU in fine details, but it's clearly a paladin-centric biased piece of propaganda!