Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)

[Bootman]

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]

"Stop oppressing my people."

"What about dwarves, eh?"

[Bootman]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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", 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. 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:

1. You understand his mindset on extremely-subjective matters well enough to predict how he will write the story.
2. The way he will write the story is flawed, based on his not understanding the moral principles as well as you do.
3. 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]

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", 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. 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:

1. You understand his mindset on extremely-subjective matters well enough to predict how he will write the story.
2. The way he will write the story is flawed, based on his not understanding the moral principles as well as you do.
3. 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]

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.
You do you.

Spoiler: TR brand spoiler

Show

It's not the critic who counts

[Ghosty]

{scrubbed}

[WanderingMist]

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

Ah, but it isn't, and that's the beauty of it. Let me find the strip very quickly: 840
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.

[Bootman]

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.
You do you.

Spoiler: TR brand spoiler

Show

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]

Ah, but it isn't, and that's the beauty of it. Let me find the strip very quickly: 840
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]

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. I understand that your post came from a positive impulse.

[Empiar93]

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]

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.

You can't just let your attempts at a peaceful resolution be shot down like that.

[Bootman]

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]

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!"?

[dps]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Bootman]

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]

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

[Michaeler]

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]

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]

I think a lesser version of that is already in place.

I think you're severely overreacting.

[Bootman]

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.