Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

[Anteros]

I see my last comment angered a portion of the community. That wasn't my intention and I apologize. I'm glad you got to...."squee".

Going over the top like this, which is... introducing a second gay character, who speaks positively about being gay.

It's more than speaking positively. It's unnaturally gushing in a way that breaks the 4th wall for me. The previous "Ears is gay and everyone is ok with that" comic was much more natural and well done to me, because it actually made sense for it to come up. There were ways to write this comic to send the exact same message that weren't incredibly cringey.

[Keltest]

I see my last comment angered a portion of the community. That wasn't my intention and I apologize. I'm glad you got to...."squee".



It's more than speaking positively. It's unnaturally gushing in a way that breaks the 4th wall for me. The previous "Ears is gay and everyone is ok with that" comic was much more natural and well done to me, because it actually made sense for it to come up. There were ways to write this comic to send the exact same message that weren't incredibly cringey.

Eh, she continues to read exactly like a bored store clerk or barista who has had kind of a rough day and is now making casual conversation with a friendly stranger and is finding something they have in common. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times i have heard a normally apathetic voice at the store i work at go "ohmygosh! Meee too!" at some off hand remark a customer made.

[Anarchic Fox]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Speaking of Fox...

*ears perk* ...Yes? Oh, never mind.

Big Ears has also been talked into various actions, such as not saving Vorpal, and needing Complains to take the first leap before he followed. He did do a backstab when he needed to. I don't blame him for doing so, and I think it was the right move, however, it went against his code, showing he will break his code if the stakes are high enough.

Those examples show that Big Ears is (or was) easy to persuade. He may have a low Will save for a paladin. And it was a moment of character development when he followed Complains, telling Thaco something like, "Never again tell me not to follow my heart." Also, think back to when they adopted class levels. Two characters (Complains and Chief) chose classes to suit their personalities. One (Thaco) chose a class on practical considerations. Big Ears chose his class to best help others.

We also have to keep in mind that he became a paladin just a few days ago.

True, but this goes both ways. We haven't seen much of the "lawful" side of his alignment, but maybe that was a big part of his previous life.

I rate this as being the second most repulsive set of injuries I've seen from this comic. Coming in after the Chief death scene. A big part of me doesn't really care how Ears got better, as long as he got his ears back

Yeah, I was very displeased by that too. I thought, "Seriously Ellipse, did you design an entire dungeon encounter just to force a character into self-mutilation?" (The answer is yes.) But then Ears got a full regeneration with narrative consequences, to my delight. It's very rare to see an unalloyed good event in this comic.

I'm glad you got to...."squee".

Thank you. I hope you get to experience that for yourself someday.

It's more than speaking positively. It's unnaturally gushing in a way that breaks the 4th wall for me. The previous "Ears is gay and everyone is ok with that" comic was much more natural and well done to me, because it actually made sense for it to come up. There were ways to write this comic to send the exact same message that weren't incredibly cringey.

Maybe the angel just has a fulsome personality. Anyway, an important Internet lesson to learn is: what makes you cringe might not make others cringe.

[Anteros]

Maybe the angel just has a fulsome personality. Anyway, an important Internet lesson to learn is: what makes you cringe might not make others cringe.

Which is fine. I'll continue to state my opinions and you may feel free to continue to disagree with them. Your disagreement doesn't mean I don't get to voice my own mind though. Also an important internet lesson to learn.

[Morgaln]

I mean, that's a fairly straightforward compare/contrast scene, and Big Ears' preferences are -contrasted- with Complain's in how the group reacts to them. It's pretty clear messaging that there's a notable difference in how those two passions are treated, with Ears' being the normalized one of the two.

This is actually why I hate that page. Not because being gay was normalized (that is great and as it should be), but because liking women with hair was portrayed as being not normal. Thing is, hair is normal for goblins. We've seen more goblins with hair than those without. Fox, the only female goblin protagonist has hair, and there is a love story involving her and another goblin who happens to be hairless. It just so happens that goblins in the GAP's warcamp don't have hair. So when Fumbles calls Complains weird for liking women with hair, it is the equivalent of a white human disapproving of another white human for liking women with epicanthic folds or dark skin; phenotypes that are perfectly normal for humans, just not their particular subgroup.
We have a word for this. It's racism. If you want to highlight how tolerant your webcomic is, treating a different kind of bigotry as a joke is not the way to go.

[Dragonus45]

This is actually why I hate that page. Not because being gay was normalized (that is great and as it should be), but because liking women with hair was portrayed as being not normal. Thing is, hair is normal for goblins. We've seen more goblins with hair than those without. Fox, the only female goblin protagonist has hair, and there is a love story involving her and another goblin who happens to be hairless. It just so happens that goblins in the GAP's warcamp don't have hair. So when Fumbles calls Complains weird for liking women with hair, it is the equivalent of a white human disapproving of another white human for liking women with epicanthic folds or dark skin; phenotypes that are perfectly normal for humans, just not their particular subgroup.
We have a word for this. It's racism. If you want to highlight how tolerant your webcomic is, treating a different kind of bigotry as a joke is not the way to go.

...that's a bit of a stretch there. I somehow doubt Eli was thinking about things to that level of 4d chess and was just going for a quick joke about how weird standards about things like hair can be.

[Willie the Duck]

If we're thinking of the same strip, I took the hair thing to be one of those 'early-installment weirdness' things, and at the time Goblins didn't have hair.

[Dragonus45]

If we're thinking of the same strip, I took the hair thing to be one of those 'early-installment weirdness' things, and at the time Goblins didn't have hair.

Could also be a cultural thing for their tribe. Perhaps everyone there shaves and hair is seen as undesirable.

[Willie the Duck]

Could also be a cultural thing for their tribe. Perhaps everyone there shaves and hair is seen as undesirable.

It could be, yes. My take is that it was near the beginning of the strip, and a lot of the worldbuilding hadn't been finalized, and agree that it was a throwaway gag. Elli's supposedly inclusion-focused strip fails because we can twist-conjecture a comment to indicate that the Goblins are within-species racist is more than a bit of a stretch.

[Godskook]

This is actually why I hate that page. Not because being gay was normalized (that is great and as it should be), but because liking women with hair was portrayed as being not normal. Thing is, hair is normal for goblins. We've seen more goblins with hair than those without. Fox, the only female goblin protagonist has hair, and there is a love story involving her and another goblin who happens to be hairless. It just so happens that goblins in the GAP's warcamp don't have hair. So when Fumbles calls Complains weird for liking women with hair, it is the equivalent of a white human disapproving of another white human for liking women with epicanthic folds or dark skin; phenotypes that are perfectly normal for humans, just not their particular subgroup.
We have a word for this. It's racism. If you want to highlight how tolerant your webcomic is, treating a different kind of bigotry as a joke is not the way to go.

Treating bigotry as a joke, by **MOCKING** it, is a perfectly good idea, especially in exactly the way it was handled in that scene. Nobody is going to read that scene and go "wow, the goblins are right, girls with hair are super weird". Everyone is instead either going to have a reasonably intelligent response to it, or is going to laugh at how stupid the goblins are for having a stigma about women with hair. It's the absolute -best- way to handle this sort of thing, because the only people who won't "get it" are people like you who're overly focused on making sure comic book characters are all as virtuous as we are, when they're very much not supposed to be. In fact, the opposite is true.

A case-in-point that came up elsewhere today for me was Scott Pilgrim, where both he and Ramona are both deliberately and badly flawed individuals, and that's the point. The reader/viewer is supposed to be repulsed by their bad behaviors and cheer for their character development. Flawed protagonists are -good- things, not bad, after all.

[Vinyadan]

If we're thinking of the same strip, I took the hair thing to be one of those 'early-installment weirdness' things, and at the time Goblins didn't have hair.

I don't think it can be early etc, because it was already after Chief's death, by the lust pillars.

[Draconi Redfir]

how many Goblins with hair have we seen? Fox for sure, maybe Gren? To my knowledge Duv doesn't have any hair...

... think that's about it off the top of my head. all the other goblins i can recall don't have any kind of hair.

[tomaO2]

Back when the Goblins dungeon crawler fundraiser RPG was a thing, you could create goblins for the game that had hair, and a lot of people did. It's not a canon thing, but it shows that there was no issue with having hair.

Most of the named characters in this fancomic were characters made for the event. http://www.acyn.net/RSE_main.html

[Vinyadan]

how many Goblins with hair have we seen? Fox for sure, maybe Gren? To my knowledge Duv doesn't have any hair...

... think that's about it off the top of my head. all the other goblins i can recall don't have any kind of hair.

Fox, Grem, Duv, and a lot of Viper warriors. Goblins - 06/19/2012 (goblinscomic.com)

[Keltest]

Fox, Grem, Duv, and a lot of Viper warriors. Goblins - 06/19/2012 (goblinscomic.com)

It could just be that being attracted to hair is like having a foot fetish or something. Not intrinsically wrong or wildly inappropriate, just kinda strange and maybe a little creepy.

[Morgaln]

Treating bigotry as a joke, by **MOCKING** it, is a perfectly good idea, especially in exactly the way it was handled in that scene. Nobody is going to read that scene and go "wow, the goblins are right, girls with hair are super weird". Everyone is instead either going to have a reasonably intelligent response to it, or is going to laugh at how stupid the goblins are for having a stigma about women with hair. It's the absolute -best- way to handle this sort of thing, because the only people who won't "get it" are people like you who're overly focused on making sure comic book characters are all as virtuous as we are, when they're very much not supposed to be. In fact, the opposite is true.

A case-in-point that came up elsewhere today for me was Scott Pilgrim, where both he and Ramona are both deliberately and badly flawed individuals, and that's the point. The reader/viewer is supposed to be repulsed by their bad behaviors and cheer for their character development. Flawed protagonists are -good- things, not bad, after all.

"The goblins" don't have a stigma about hair. All of the viper clan has hair. A number of their slaves also have hair. Fox has hair. Dies Horribly is clearly approaching a romantic relationship with Fox and there is no indication that her hair is in any way weird or a turn-off for him. From which follows that hair is normal for goblins. It is weird to be attracted to goblins with hair for Fumbles only. Which, again, makes him a bigot. The bigotry is not getting mocked either. It's the bigot that is doing the mocking, and no one calls him on it. So yes, I'm having a reasonably intelligent response. I'm disgusted by Fumble's behavior.

Yes, no one is going to go "wow, the goblins are right, girls with hair are super weird," as you put it. But here we have a guy that is attracted to girls with a different, but perfectly normal, phenotype. And we're told it's normal to mock him for it. Just go to that page, replace "hair" with "black skin" and see if you still think this is not racist.

I do like flaws in characters. My favorite character is Chief, because he actually had flaws that he struggled with and tried to overcome. Fumble's racism is not a flaw he is struggling with. He embraces it and the comic doesn't even treat it as a flaw. In a comic that is supposed to be about and against racism.

Note that this could have been reason for some actual character growth. By word of god, Fumbles is asexual. As such, he can't even understand lust since he doesn't have it. So it would have been a perfect opportunity for a lesson about how you should tolerate others even if you don't understand why they feel like they do. A lesson that would have been perfectly in keeping with the underlying theme of the whole comic. It would also have made it more believable when Fumbles later lectures MinMax and Complains about tolerance towards each other. This way, it just comes off as a hypocrit mouthing off.

[Willie the Duck]

I don't think it can be early etc, because it was already after Chief's death, by the lust pillars.

Okay, then I am not thinking of the right timeframe. I thought it was early in the strip, like back when one of them accidentally imagined the camp seer in a bikini.

[GloatingSwine]

Yes, no one is going to go "wow, the goblins are right, girls with hair are super weird," as you put it. But here we have a guy that is attracted to girls with a different, but perfectly normal, phenotype. And we're told it's normal to mock him for it. Just go to that page, replace "hair" with "black skin" and see if you still think this is not racist.

The point is that by focusing on something that is both abnormal for the human audience and obviously petty it highlights how petty the prejudices that [i]are[i] normal for humans are.

We're not being told it's normal, the comic is clearly making the goblins look silly for doing it because the prejudice they have is so clearly absurd and expressed in such a clearly childish way.

[Dragonus45]

"The goblins" don't have a stigma about hair. All of the viper clan has hair. A number of their slaves also have hair. Fox has hair. Dies Horribly is clearly approaching a romantic relationship with Fox and there is no indication that her hair is in any way weird or a turn-off for him. From which follows that hair is normal for goblins. It is weird to be attracted to goblins with hair for Fumbles only.

Or everyone keeping their head shaved is something specific to their clan. Thinking to deeply about it probably wont get you very far.

Which, again, makes him a bigot. The bigotry is not getting mocked either. It's the bigot that is doing the mocking, and no one calls him on it. So yes, I'm having a reasonably intelligent response. I'm disgusted by Fumble's behavior.

Playing 4d chess against an opponent who never even sat down on the other end of the table.

Yes, no one is going to go "wow, the goblins are right, girls with hair are super weird," as you put it. But here we have a guy that is attracted to girls with a different, but perfectly normal, phenotype. And we're told it's normal to mock him for it. Just go to that page, replace "hair" with "black skin" and see if you still think this is not racist.

Hair is hair. It's one of those things that is so malleable and visually striking that cultures have had wildly different opinions on how to and not to wear it everywhere on earth for ever. It absolutely doesn't equate with what you want to pretend it will.

I do like flaws in characters. My favorite character is Chief, because he actually had flaws that he struggled with and tried to overcome. Fumble's racism is not a flaw he is struggling with. He embraces it and the comic doesn't even treat it as a flaw. In a comic that is supposed to be about and against racism.

Good thing Fumble isn't racist then.

[Draconi Redfir]

Yes, no one is going to go "wow, the goblins are right, girls with hair are super weird," as you put it. But here we have a guy that is attracted to girls with a different, but perfectly normal, phenotype. And we're told it's normal to mock him for it. Just go to that page, replace "hair" with "black skin" and see if you still think this is not racist.

except we're not talking about "black skin". the conversation is clearly about hair. You can't look at a conversation about hair and say "oh it's actually about X" because it's not. you're just flat out wrong. it's a conversation about hair, full stop.


As mentioned above, maybe the hair thing is unique to their clan? or the Vipers at least don't follow it? At first i figured most goblins didn't have hair, but if the Vipers have hair on their warriors, maybe it's less common on females? Duv could be an exception, being a literal Avatar sent by a god, wings and all. If nothing else, maybe our Goblins' clan simply doesn't have a lot of hair in it and it's a cultural thing for them, or a cultural thing for most goblins that the Vipers don't follow since Duv is "above other traditions" or something like that.

[Typewriter]

except we're not talking about "black skin". the conversation is clearly about hair. You can't look at a conversation about hair and say "oh it's actually about X" because it's not. you're just flat out wrong. it's a conversation about hair, full stop.

While I don't think the concerns over the hair thing really make sense I will say that I don't think this is a fair response to what he is saying. He's not saying that the hair thing is an analogy or equivalent to skin color - he's simply pointing out that having character judge others based off of cultural/racial/whatever differences is a similar idea to that of judging people based off of their skin color. We recognize that judgements based off of skin color are racist (and bad) but we don't automatically jump to that same conclusion when it's something silly or familiar to us. If a character in a fictitious setting has a specific opinion on hair and, in that setting, hair is a trait common to a culture that is different than their own then that characters opinion on hair could be argued as opinion on a specific culture which is where the waters get muddied a bit. Again, not saying I necessarily agree - just trying to explain the point I think was trying to be made.

[Traab]

The thing is, its not even about hating someone for having hair, its about not finding that attractive and finding it odd that others would. If you grew up in a culture where you are isolated from other groups and are raised with the mindset that a specific set of features is sexy, then you go elsewhere and see people who dont look that way, its natural to not find that attractive and think its strange when other people do.

[Morgaln]

except we're not talking about "black skin". the conversation is clearly about hair. You can't look at a conversation about hair and say "oh it's actually about X" because it's not. you're just flat out wrong. it's a conversation about hair, full stop.


As mentioned above, maybe the hair thing is unique to their clan? or the Vipers at least don't follow it? At first i figured most goblins didn't have hair, but if the Vipers have hair on their warriors, maybe it's less common on females? Duv could be an exception, being a literal Avatar sent by a god, wings and all. If nothing else, maybe our Goblins' clan simply doesn't have a lot of hair in it and it's a cultural thing for them, or a cultural thing for most goblins that the Vipers don't follow since Duv is "above other traditions" or something like that.

I'm willing to accept that people have different opinions. I am not willing to let you tell me that I am objectively wrong, because I am not (note that this is not equal to being objectively right, this might well be a subjective matter instead). You are also ignoring my point. Bigotry, especially racism, isn't purely about skin color. It is a cultural phenomenon that looks at differences between individuals and applies values and hierarchies to those individuals, depending on various factors they were born with.
In other words, people with certain phenotypes are considered "better" than those with other phenotypes (this is for racism, you can substitute other terms, e. g. sexuality, when talking about other forms of bigotry). This results in treating those of other phenotypes differently, usually negatively. Laughing at someone for liking a different phenotype is negative behavior toward that phenotype. It sends the message that this phenotype is different and should not be considered equal. It is a demonstration that this phenotype is less acceptable.

In the goblins of Goblins, the phenotype variance includes a hair/no hair distinction. And I repeat this again, this is completely normal. Hair is not an exotic feature in goblins. It's not a rare genetic occurence or unusual in any way. And yet, Fumbles treats goblins with hair as inferior. Complains is, in his eyes, weird for thinking someone with hair is attractive. If you don't want to admit the "black skin" comparison is apt (it absolutely is, though), consider this:
Many people have a type for their partners. If someone told you they like blondes, or people with green eyes, or bald men would you think this is weird? They are perfectly normal occurences in humans. Let's substitute the less loaded "brunette" for "hair". Assume you heard two people talking and person A told person B that they like brunettes. Person B then starts to laugh and mock person A , telling them that liking brunettes is weird; so what's the message here? Are brunettes objectively not attractive? Is it unacceptable to like the brunettes? Or is the ******* [Edit. Huh, apparently this gets filtered. I'll describe it as "opening in a certain lower body part" then] the one that refuses to accept brunettes as individuals with the same worth as everyone else?
Remember that we are talking about a page that specifically tried to tell us that differences in sexual preferences are not a big deal and barely worth noting (it did that badly, too, but that's a different matter). However, it did so by saying that the way you look absolutely matters and is a big deal. If you look the "wrong" way (and were talking about hereditary traits here, not things you have a choice over), you're not attractive and not a valid sexual partner. And at the risk of treading the line of the rules narrowly, I will point out that "black skin" was treated exactly that way in the past and that this mindset is still very much present today, even if it is less prevalent now.

[Draconi Redfir]

where are you getting "X phenotype is inherently better then Y phenotype" from?

I saw it as being more like a weird kink, like being into bondage, feet, furriers, or vore or something. Most people who do not share those kinks would look at someone who does have those kinks and think it's weird or uncomfortable, there's no "X supremacy" about it.

It could be that Complains is SPESIFICALLY only into girls with hair, passing over any bald women entirely, which could be seen as strange. Or again, it could be a culture thing. in the clan of the cryptic fall, Goblins just don't have hair, just like how every Viper goblin we've seen has had chalk-white skin. Vipers might find it weird for one of their own to have a preference for women who have blue skin, even if nothing else about them is at all different. that doesn't make the blue skin "wrong", it just makes the one Viper strange for being interested in the woman BECAUSE she has blue skin.


it's a fantasy world where you've got a huge variety in spaient species running around. you can't always pull direct comparisons from reality.

Let's substitute the less loaded "brunette" for "hair". Assume you heard two people talking and person A told person B that they like brunettes. Person B then starts to laugh and mock person A , telling them that liking brunettes is weird; so what's the message here? Are brunettes objectively not attractive? Is it unacceptable to like the brunettes? Or is the ******* [Edit. Huh, apparently this gets filtered. I'll describe it as "opening in a certain lower body part" then] the one that refuses to accept brunettes as individuals with the same worth as everyone else?

I would go with a "No" , none of this. What i would personally say is happening is that it's weird that the person is ONLY interested in brunettes and only BECAUSE they are brunettes. if that same brunette died their hair blonde, the person wouldn't be interested in them anymore, even if they were in a committed relationship up until that point. that's weird, it's kind of shallow. that has nothing to do with Brunettes being somehow inferior.

[DaFlipp]

where are you getting "X phenotype is inherently better then Y phenotype" from?

I saw it as being more like a weird kink, like being into bondage, feet, furriers, or vore or something. Most people who do not share those kinks would look at someone who does have those kinks and think it's weird or uncomfortable, there's no "X supremacy" about it.

Yeah, this was the take I got from the comic too - not that goblins with hair are inferior, but that he was essentially being kinkshamed.

And the selection of "has hair" seemed clear to me as not some great lore-building tidbit, but a joke intended to highlight how utterly arbitrary and pointless it is to judge others for their sexual preferences. It's meant to be absurd - reacting with disgust at someone who likes *people with hair*?! That's almost as absurd as... well, as reacting with disgust at someone who likes his own gender, for example.

[Willie the Duck]

Let's substitute the less loaded "brunette" for "hair". Assume you heard two people talking and person A told person B that they like brunettes. Person B then starts to laugh and mock person A , telling them that liking brunettes is weird; so what's the message here? Are brunettes objectively not attractive? Is it unacceptable to like the brunettes? Or is the ******* [Edit. Huh, apparently this gets filtered. I'll describe it as "opening in a certain lower body part" then] the one that refuses to accept brunettes as individuals with the same worth as everyone else?

That could be an interesting situation. However, it does illustrate just how far this discussion has moved away from what actually happened in the comic. No one in comic said that someone with a certain phenotype was objectively not attractive (or certainly not with the same worth as everyone else), in fact the subjectivity of it was part and parcel of the discussion (with it being not-weird that Minmax liked people with hair being actively part of the strip in question).

Having gone back and looked at the comic in question, I'm less convinced that I like it. They are kinda griefing Complains about his personal attraction profile, which I guess amongst super close friends might be seen as playful banter/faux-bickering, but when you include ally-of-convenience (at least for Complains) Minmax, it seems a little like the high school gang picking on on of the pack for stupid reasons. Overall, though, it just leaves me confused. The comic makes sense in a world where goblins don't have hair, but we've seen goblins with hair. Sure we can come up with all sorts of explanations like only these goblins don't have hair or cultural variation, but that's just us grasping at straws. I'd really love to go back and ask Elli if they simply forgot that there actually were goblins with hair in their world or something.

Remember that we are talking about a page that specifically tried to tell us that differences in sexual preferences are not a big deal and barely worth noting (it did that badly, too, but that's a different matter). However, it did so by saying that the way you look absolutely matters and is a big deal. If you look the "wrong" way (and were talking about hereditary traits here, not things you have a choice over), you're not attractive and not a valid sexual partner. And at the risk of treading the line of the rules narrowly, I will point out that "black skin" was treated exactly that way in the past and that this mindset is still very much present today, even if it is less prevalent now.

I think for me we're at an impasse. I will agree that the messaging of this individual strip, along with everything else about it, is wildly inconsistent, confusing, and whatever message Elli had hoped to put forth is hamstrung by the notion that it be weird for a goblin to be attracted to a non-goblin trait that we know to not actually be non-goblin at all. However, the leap to it being equivalent to "black skin" takes what seems to me like a level of uncharitable interpretation I can't get behind. To me, this is Elli being incompetent at making a point, not a racist or sexually exclusionary point.

[Draconi Redfir]

have we seen any Goblins of their particular tribe with hair? To my knowledge we haven't. Clan of the Cryptic Fall might just be completely bald, like how the Vipers are all chalk-white.

Maybe inter-clan dating isn't really common, so for a clan of all-bald people, being attracted to people with hair is odd, because they rarely if ever exist in the clan. People outside the clan aren't ever really considered.

[BaronOfHell]

It is only Fumbles who says it, in a strip where he acts child like, i.e. he isn't serious. It looks like he tries to annoy Complains more than anything else.
Complains reaction is difficult to read, he is annoyed, so perhaps there is something to it? Certainly not enough of a something for anyone else with knowledge on the matter to barge in.
My take is that since no other goblin were bothered by this, none of our heroes truly care about the matter.

[Morgaln]

I've used a lot of loaded terms so far, which certainly contributed to the (not unexpected) backlash I got. I think I'll move away from the term racism because racism often implies systemic racism (using black skin as an analogy certainly does), and there's no indication that's the case with hairy goblins. I'll rather say that Fumbles discriminates against goblins with hair.
The thing is, if you're telling someone they shouldn't be attracted to a specific person, they you are making a statement about that person. You're basically proclaiming them objectively unattractive, since you say it's weird that anyone would be attracted to them. Not attractive -> inferior to the attractive people. When you tie that unattractiveness to a hereditary trait that person has no control over, you're right at the concept of born inferior.
There is a big difference between "I am not attracted to goblins with hair" and "no one should be attracted to goblins with hair." The first is a subjective preference. That's fine; you like what you like. The second makes an objective statement about goblins with hair and how they should be treated. Fumbles doesn't ask "why are you not attracted to goblins without hair"; he asks "how can you be attracted to hair," strongly implying that you shouldn't be, if you're a goblin. Funnily enough, considering the page in question, homosexuals have been fighting for decades to make people think about homosexuality in terms of the first statement ("I am not homosexual") instead of the second ("No one should be homosexual").
To me it does make a major difference that we're talking about a hereditary trait, which is why I keep going on about it. If we consider kinks like vore or bondage, those are active kinks. Both sides decide to indulge in them with consent. I might find those weird or not, and might even say so, but you do you (heh). However, when I say it's weird to like a specific hereditary trait (hair color, skin color, eye color, facial structure, whatever) I am discriminating against any person that was born that way. Saying things like "no one would want to do it with a blonde" is, at the very least, incredibly rude towards women with blond hair. When you actively discourage others from having relationships with blondes, even if "only" through shaming them, you are definitely entering discriminatory territory.

This would probably not bother me as much if the underlying theme of the comic wasn't about tolerance to begin with, and if the author wasn't so prone to preach about inclusion and acceptance in her twitter accounts. And yet, this kind of casual discrimination does get used in the comic not to point it out but in the same casual way that it prevails in our society. There's a second page I find even worse and absolutely loathe for similar reasons, but I think I've already annoyed enough people here with my long, ranty and controversial posts, so I'll shut up now.

[Dragonus45]

I'm willing to accept that people have different opinions. I am not willing to let you tell me that I am objectively wrong, because I am not (note that this is not equal to being objectively right, this might well be a subjective matter instead).

No, no you actually are just objectively wrong. Cultural preferences for what kind of hair stylings or clothing are considered attractive or unattractive cannot be reasonably compared to something like racism. Especially not in the way you are trying to force the connection in this context.