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

[Hatu]

Well, a big part of the problem is that we can't do that, because The Giant has designed OOTS such that it is impossible to do so.

OOTS is a character-driven comedic parody of traditional D&D campaigns. It's world-building, insofar as it exists at all, is a bunch of incoherent meta-commentary built upon a framework - 3.5e D&D - that already tended to produce absurd and nonsensical settings to begin with. The Giant is on record as saying that 'the setting is not a character.' As a result, the actual setting of OOTS simply is not sufficiently robust to support a storyline that operates at the scale of social policy.

That's not a criticism by the way, there's no reason for a comedic parody with extensive meta-elements to prioritize world-building verisimilitude and every reason for it not to do so. Things like the circumstances of the Western Continent not making any sense or the Hobgoblins just having a huge army ready and willing to immediately bow do to the dude who killed the last guy who was in charge are extremely useful to the comedic story even though they are, from a setting perspective, utterly ridiculous.

Thinking about this has actually helped to reframe my thinking on the trouble with the current plot, which is that the current plot focuses on elements of the setting, particularly the actions of the gods, and not the agency of the characters. The ability of Durkon, Roy, and the other characters to personally enact any sort of society-level change regarding goblin/human relations is functionally nil (at the very least there's nothing Durkon could do with spellcasting that Redcloak can't do himself), nor are they political figures capable of negotiating any kind of agreement. Honestly, I'm not even sure in what capacity exactly Durkon's negotiating on Thor's behalf, since Thor doesn't appear to have control over any states that could make an agreement with the goblins.

Zoom out further and the only there's only five states in the whole world whose politics we can look at all: Azure City, Gobbotopia, and the three states of the Western Continent ruled by Tarquin and his pals.

It's just a big time mismatch between the story and the allegory, one that turns the allegory into an impediment to the story irrespective of whether or not one agrees with the thrust of it because it moves the reader's attention away from the characters and onto setting elements that don't actually function.

I agree. The Giant is trying to make comments on real-world issues through the comic, but he refuses to adapt his comic world to conform to the real situations he wishes to address. So while this is a classic use of allegory and I'm sympathetic to his point, I don't think it's working well.

It's a bit like trying to work a critique of cricket into a baseball movie. While there are obvious similarities, they aren't the same sport so comments about one don't necessarily map directly to the other (if they map at all). To make matters worse, it's against forum rules to discuss cricket in that movie's official discussion thread.

It seems inevitable this sequence is going to stir up strong feelings and frustration among the readers (to say nothing of the mods).

-H

[arimareiji]

I agree. The Giant is trying to make comments on real-world issues through the comic, but he refuses to adapt his comic world to conform to the real situations he wishes to address. So while this is a classic use of allegory and I'm sympathetic to his point, I don't think it's working well.

It's a bit like trying to work a critique of cricket into a baseball movie. While there are obvious similarities, they aren't the same sport so comments about one don't necessarily map directly to the other (if they map at all). To make matters worse, it's against forum rules to discuss cricket in that movie's official discussion thread.

It seems inevitable this sequence is going to stir up strong feelings and frustration among the readers (to say nothing of the mods).

-H

Or maybe we could just leave it up to the Giant to make his own comments and trust that it was a deliberate choice to ask us not to take it as an invitation to make our own. Crazy talk, I know.

[SN137]

Seriously though I just can't deal with my life and am only hanging onto my will to live for a few tenuous reasons.

[Shadowknight12]

there has been no enforcement of it

There has been enforcement of the forum rules.

[SN137]

Because there's nothing for me here Mr Frodo.

[Empiar93]

Whether the parallels are intentional or not, Rich himself believes fictional media is only worthwhile in regards to how it reflects on real life. So I think it’s foolish that we can’t discuss the comics and how they reflect real life events, and I also find the NPC-morality argument outlined above to be evasive at best.

[pearl jam]

No , if you want to comment on REAL WORLD in a comic, that makes REAL WORLD a legitimate subject of discussion when discussing the comic. If we cannot comment on REAL WORLD then this forum then you by extension cannot comment on the comic, which is kind of stupid when this is the comics forum. What kind of a person is that submissive as to accept that someone else can do something, but they can't for no reason? It just makes the comic dumb, and I note that there has been no enforcement of it even when everyone has been extremely unpleasant and sanctomonius and calls you a bad person if you think the comic is dumb and the issues it is discussing (or at least the way they are discussing it) is dumb.

The reason is, they've asked us not to do it. This has also been brought up regarding use of profanity in comic vs. on the forum. There's no reason the rules for the comic and the rules for the forum have to be the same. It's like saying the rules for hosts and the rules for guests in a house have to be the same.

If you were invited to someone's home and they told you that a certain cup was only used by one member of the family and you went ahead and used it anyway, don't be surprised if you don't get invited back. The same goes for these rules. You can rail against the unfairness of it all and refuse to be "submissive," if you choose, but there may be consequences for such choices.


Does this mean that discussing some aspects of the comic can be awkward to do within the frameworks of the rules? I think it's fair to say, "yes."

Would I have exactly the same rules if I were in charge? Possibly not.

I'm just one orc among many others in this playground, though. Ultimately, it's the Giant's playground and he gets to set the rules.

[SN137]

Why are we here Sam editing this text?

[pearl jam]

Personally, I would hesitate to use the term "allegory," I think that's going too far. I think there are certainly strong metaphorical similarities that can be drawn to the real world, but I don't personally believe it's intended to be full blown allegory.

[SN137]

By all rights I shouldn't be here, editing this post mr frodo

[Kish]

If all you want is empty platitudes, it doesn't matter who's responsible; someone else will be the one apologizing.

If you want sincere apologies, you're empowering whoever was responsible for the bad situation in the first place, at the expense of all the people who are still in the situation. Fenris, in particular, was already onboard with killing all of them; is that the kind of person you want deciding whether goblins are "allowed" to even talk about peace?

Indeed. I would add that trying to get Fenris to experience sincere remorse for causing suffering, misery, and injustice sounds like a complete impossibility even if it was a prerequisite for something he desperately wanted to have happen...Which it is not, in this case. (And indeed, I suspect if you wanted to offer him his heart's desire, that would probably be suffering, misery, and injustice for the largest possible number of people.)

[Squire Doodad]

Personally, I would hesitate to use the term "allegory," I think that's going too far. I think there are certainly strong metaphorical similarities that can be drawn to the real world, but I don't personally believe it's intended to be full blown allegory.

Also, keep in mind - this comic has been going on for, what, 18 years? And it's had the main tenets of this plot planned out for quite a while.
Heck, Redcloak's major shift in mindset about Hobgoblins vs Goblins was well over a decade ago. Regardless of why Rich has chosen this topic as something he wants to discuss, it's clearly been on his mind for a long time, and is definitely not a last minute Aesop.

I would argue that main source stems from the early comics and being a reversal of that (the "fight some creatures that have fangs and take their stuff" line comes to mind) than anything else.

[arimareiji]

Also, keep in mind - this comic has been going on for, what, 18 years? And it's had the main tenets of this plot planned out for quite a while.
Heck, Redcloak's major shift in mindset about Hobgoblins vs Goblins was well over a decade ago. Regardless of why Rich has chosen this topic as something he wants to discuss, it's clearly been on his mind for a long time, and is definitely not a last minute Aesop.

I would argue that main source stems from the early comics and being a reversal of that (the "fight some creatures that have fangs and take their stuff" line comes to mind) than anything else.

Not trying to call the Giant an invertebrate bivalve, just making an observation about my own thought process... sometimes something irritates the heck out of me and I don't know why. But the more I ruminate on it, the more I work on and refine the layers of what is bothering me, eventually I'm likely to be able to get a handle on it and expel it. Or at the least, understand it well enough to keep it from continuing to bother me without understanding why.

Extrapolate at your peril. (^_~)

[woweedd]

Indeed. I would add that trying to get Fenris to experience sincere remorse for causing suffering, misery, and injustice sounds like a complete impossibility even if it was a prerequisite for something he desperately wanted to have happen...Which it is not, in this case. (And indeed, I suspect if you wanted to offer him his heart's desire, that would probably be suffering, misery, and injustice for the largest possible number of people.)

As an evil god, made of the beliefs of humans, remorse may be literally impossible for him, yes. Although my reading is that Fenris is less about suffering and more about destruction. He doesn't want to tear down the world to hurt people, he wants to tear down the world because the world EXISTS. Basically, he breaks stuff for the sake of breaking stuff, not necessarily for the goal of suffering. But, then, that's headcanon.

[Rrmcklin]

As an evil god, made of the beliefs of humans, remorse may be literally impossible for him, yes. Although my reading is that Fenris is less about suffering and more about destruction. He doesn't want to tear down the world to hurt people, he wants to tear down the world because the world EXISTS. Basically, he breaks stuff for the sake of breaking stuff, not necessarily for the goal of suffering. But, then, that's headcanon.

In the one moment of him speaking we have, he does also say they should piss on everyone's graves. I think assuming that the suffering caused is at least part of it for him, is warranted. Though obviously not the only possibility.

[GeoffWatson]

Could someone clearly state which real-world group the goblins are supposed to represent?
Everyone seems to understand what it means, but won't say it outright.
I'm missing something, because I don't get it.

[The Patterner]

Well, a big part of the problem is that we can't do that, because The Giant has designed OOTS such that it is impossible to do so.

OOTS is a character-driven comedic parody of traditional D&D campaigns. It's world-building, insofar as it exists at all, is a bunch of incoherent meta-commentary built upon a framework - 3.5e D&D - that already tended to produce absurd and nonsensical settings to begin with. The Giant is on record as saying that 'the setting is not a character.' As a result, the actual setting of OOTS simply is not sufficiently robust to support a storyline that operates at the scale of social policy.

That's not a criticism by the way, there's no reason for a comedic parody with extensive meta-elements to prioritize world-building verisimilitude and every reason for it not to do so. Things like the circumstances of the Western Continent not making any sense or the Hobgoblins just having a huge army ready and willing to immediately bow do to the dude who killed the last guy who was in charge are extremely useful to the comedic story even though they are, from a setting perspective, utterly ridiculous.

Thinking about this has actually helped to reframe my thinking on the trouble with the current plot, which is that the current plot focuses on elements of the setting, particularly the actions of the gods, and not the agency of the characters. The ability of Durkon, Roy, and the other characters to personally enact any sort of society-level change regarding goblin/human relations is functionally nil (at the very least there's nothing Durkon could do with spellcasting that Redcloak can't do himself), nor are they political figures capable of negotiating any kind of agreement. Honestly, I'm not even sure in what capacity exactly Durkon's negotiating on Thor's behalf, since Thor doesn't appear to have control over any states that could make an agreement with the goblins.

Zoom out further and the only there's only five states in the whole world whose politics we can look at all: Azure City, Gobbotopia, and the three states of the Western Continent ruled by Tarquin and his pals.

It's just a big time mismatch between the story and the allegory, one that turns the allegory into an impediment to the story irrespective of whether or not one agrees with the thrust of it because it moves the reader's attention away from the characters and onto setting elements that don't actually function.

I agree with most of the points you made, but I disagree with the conclusion, to me there is no inherent problem with introducing deeper ideas to a parody world, fact is many very good and deep works do mix the two and can make use of the comedy to make points dramas tend to fail at.

I'm not taken out of the story by this, so your statement that agree or disagree this takes away is untrue.

The only time this story has really taken me out of it was after Girards gate exploded and Xykon showed up and didn't kill the Order. That felt forced to me.

[mjasghar]

No because a) that’s not allowed by the rules and b) it’s more about attitudes to the Other of which there are many different examples.

[Shadowknight12]

Could someone clearly state which real-world group the goblins are supposed to represent?
Everyone seems to understand what it means, but won't say it outright.
I'm missing something, because I don't get it.

We can't discuss real-world issues, as per the forum rules.

[GeoffWatson]

No because a) that’s not allowed by the rules and b) it’s more about attitudes to the Other of which there are many different examples.

So everyone is just making **** up and throwing in their own prejudices rather than Rich actually meaning anything in particular?

[pearl jam]

I think it's clear that there are messages he wants to convey through his story, but I don't think it's meant to be allegorical in nature, such that Goblins = "x specific real world counterpart."

There are similarities that can be drawn to real world experience, but it's not meant to be an allegory for any particular specific one, in my opinion.

[Shadowknight12]

So everyone is just making **** up and throwing in their own prejudices rather than Rich actually meaning anything in particular?

There exists an vast array of options between "this is a one to one exact representation of this specific issue" and "this is completely devoid of any connections or references to real world issues".

Things needn't be one or the other.

[Fyraltari]

I think it's clear that there are messages he wants to convey through his story, but I don't think it's meant to be allegorical in nature, such that Goblins = "x specific real world counterpart."

There are similarities that can be drawn to real world experience, but it's not meant to be an allegory for any particular specific one, in my opinion.

The word you are looking for, I think, is "applicability" as coined by Professor Tolkien.

[pearl jam]

The word you are looking for, I think, is "applicability" as coined by Professor Tolkien.

Yes, that seems appropriate.

[Dion]

Edit: yeah, after reading the responses I’m just going to go ahead and nuke my own post now.

Sorry about that.

[arimareiji]

So everyone is just making **** up and throwing in their own prejudices rather than Rich actually meaning anything in particular?

Or as a scientist might phrase it, "extrapolation". (^_~)

[Jason]

All of them.

In the real world, stories of systemic oppression of racial, ethnic, or religious groups are as old as language itself. The Giant isn’t describing something that happened one time to one group. He’s describing something that has happened thousands of times to thousands of groups.

Also none of them. The real world doesn't have an analog to "another sentient species but biologically significantly different." And we certainly don't have "another sentient species literally created by an evil god to Zerg rush the rest of us."

It’s somewhat amusing to see posts here from people who read the story through their own political lenses and then complain vociferously about their strong dislike of politics.

It works the other way too. I'm sure there are forum goers who live and breathe politics elsewhere and find a sense of vindication in the pathway the comic has taken. "See, even a silly comic about pretend elves can't escape talking about racism."

[GeoffWatson]

Thousands?
I can't think of any systematically oppressed group that is also strong enough to conquer a major country.

[Worldsong]

Welp, there we go again.

[arimareiji]

Welp, there we go again.

It's like the converse of opening the refrigerator repeatedly, knowing that you haven't gone to the store and nothing will have magically appeared. "Looks like this trash can is still overfull, I wonder when someone will empty it" (while tossing something else on top, only for it to fall off the pile like the last thing did). (^_~)