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

[Psyren]

The authorial intent is completely irrelevant

Agree to disagree it is

[Telenil]

So, what? The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer? That’s not what being Good is about. Being Good means being held to a higher standard.If war can not lead to a good outcome, that is a problem with war. It can, but not always. Not every problem can or should be solved by the sword. Durkon is advocating for fairness, and, if there is no fairness in war, that’s war’s problem.

Yes and no. I agree that adventurers and paladins should stop raiding goblin villages if the goblin agree to not take any more land, and something can be sorted out with the exiled Azurite. But Redcloak rejected that offer, and therefore, he must be stopped by the sword, irrespective of legitimate grievances the goblin may have.
As I've said a couple of times, the time to be fair is after the war.

[Dion]

The OOTS and Redcloak and Xykon are enemies and try to kill the other side. If that's not technically war, that's close enough.

That’s... not a war. It’s not even sort of like a war. It’s nothing like war.

[Silly Name]

See, the big problem with these last few strips is that war cannot be fair. If a general gives the enemy a fair chance, he is terrible at his job and should be replaced by someone who will not waste an opportunity the enemy might have seized if the roles were reversed. If the goblins lose more due to circumstances they have no control over and cannot change, that means the dwarves are winning.

Perhaps the better takeaway is that the world's various peoples shouldn't try to "win" over each other, and that a system that necessitates conflict isn't exactly a good system?

So it very much comes down to whether or not you want more dwarves beaten by goblins. "Unfair to the goblins" simply dodges the issue, which is that either the dwarves defeat the goblins as completely as they can, to the point goblins are no longer able to pose a threat to their nation, or they willingly create a situation where more of their kind will die. If you want that to stop, you need peace, not a "fairness" that would boil down to generals on the winning side sacrificing their own men. The gods expected the races to fight, surely they also expected some races to win, sometimes decisively. That's what happened, and that's as "fair" as war can ever be.

1) Even if we assume "conflict" to be something that's impossible to remove from OotS-world, there's no reason for why that conflict has to be along racial lines. There was conflict between the Order and Tarquin's empire, and that wasn't a conflict steeped in racial divide, but ideology and politics.

2) It could be argued that one of the main reasons behind those racial conflicts is exactly the lack of good land and resources. If their homeland can't support them, then the goblins will seek out better land, and if the humans' reaction is "Kill the goblins, protect our land!" there will be conflict. Or maybe the goblins will think "Let's kill the humans and take their lands!" In any case, conflict over resources is one of the main reasons behind war, usually.

I think Durkon isn't going to argue in favour of "ok guys, everyone now has exactly the same starting resources. Now let's all go to war and the survivor takes all!" I seriously doubt that's the point Rich wants to make, that we should have "fair wars".

Again, notice what Durkon says at the start of the strip: that Redcloak is right about getting a raw deal, because your god making you and giving you ****ty lands and then immediately abandoning you isn't a good thing to have. But Redcloak is also wrong about how to solve the problem, because Redcloak's methods are only increasing suffering for a bunch of people, and it's pretty clear that Redcloak's ideal world has the goblins on top, not on even footing with everyone else.

[Bootman]

Agree to disagree it is

That's taking it pretty out of context. I gave a specific scenario where authorial intent is irrelevant, which there are current technical issues with the writing that would need to be actively fixed. I would never say authorial intent doesn't matter at all, ever, under any circumstance.

[Dion]

But Redcloak rejected that offer, and therefore, he must be stopped by the sword

You are defending a ridiculous position.

[sarcasm]You’ve left me no choice but to stab you. [/sarcasm]

[Telenil]

Perhaps the better takeaway is that the world's various peoples shouldn't try to "win" over each other, and that a system that necessitates conflict isn't exactly a good system?

Exactly. The problem is not that the goblins can't get as much xp as the dwarves, because that just means the dwarves are winning. The problem is that you gain xp by killing other sentient creatures.

2) It could be argued that one of the main reasons behind those racial conflicts is exactly the lack of good land and resources. If their homeland can't support them, then the goblins will seek out better land, and if the humans' reaction is "Kill the goblins, protect our land!" there will be conflict. Or maybe the goblins will think "Let's kill the humans and take their lands!" In any case, conflict over resources is one of the main reasons behind war, usually.

I think Durkon isn't going to argue in favour of "ok guys, everyone now has exactly the same starting resources. Now let's all go to war and the survivor takes all!" I seriously doubt that's the point Rich wants to make, that we should have "fair wars".

That's how it comes accross. We wouldn't be having this conversation if not for the following exchange:

"Don't forget that it works both ways. If a goblin defeats a dwarf, the goblin gains the levels instead.
- But the goblins started out with less, so that's not usually what happens. What happens is, the dwarf wins because he has a better axe and better armor and has been eating better food his whole life. I don't know, I mean, I don't want the dwarf to lose, but I can see how it's not exactly fair for the goblin.
- I mean... Yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose... but I guess we didn't prevent it either."

[Psyren]

That's taking it pretty out of context. I gave a specific scenario where authorial intent is irrelevant, which there are current technical issues with the writing that would need to be actively fixed. I would never say authorial intent doesn't matter at all, ever, under any circumstance.

Right, and I disagree with your scenario, so no point in going any further.

[Silly Name]

That's how it comes accross. We wouldn't be having this conversation if not for the following exchange:

"Don't forget that it works both ways. If a goblin defeats a dwarf, the goblin gains the levels instead.
- But the goblins started out with less, so that's not usually what happens. What happens is, the dwarf wins because he has a better axe and better armor and has been eating better food his whole life. I don't know, I mean, I don't want the dwarf to lose, but I can see how it's not exactly fair for the goblin.
- I mean... Yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose... but I guess we didn't prevent it either."

I understand your point about how that line can be taken as Durkon wanting a "fair war" situation, but I find the point to be more about how "equal rules for all" doesn't work when one guy shows up to the race in a Ferrari and the other without even wearing shoes. Durkon is rebutting Thor's point that goblins have a fair shot at getting some good things, when in reality they lack the material means to even make a serious attempt at bettering their situation in the first place.

Again, notice how Durkon also doesn't think Redcloak's methods will work to make things better - because, as you've pointed out, if the goblins "win", that means someone else has to "lose". Redcloak is stuck in this zero-sum mentality where he has to take good things by force and overpower other people into submission, because he doesn't want things to be better for everyone, he wants things to be better for the goblins and worse for everyone else. Durkon says it out loud - "I don't want the dwarf to lose" -, because his ideal is not everyone fighting until only one victor remains.

[Rrmcklin]

It bears mentioning that Durkon isn't the one to bring up fairness - Thor did. Thor claimed the system was fair, and Durkon's simply pointed out reasons for why, in practice, that's not actually the case.

And the hypothetical wasn't even necessarily about "war", you could claim it's about a competition or gladiator event and the wording could stay the same. So the take away of "Durkon's point is wrong because war isn't fair, and don't you want your side to win!" is missing what was actually being discussed and why.

[Spartan360]

IMO the goblins were really only handed a hand of cards in poker by their god, ones that promised a flush but when the dealer put down the cards onto the table, they found that they didn't get the win and are now angry with a sense of entitlement towards the other race that kept a pair of 7 and got a full house.

Or in a different terms, they were given a perfectly useable faction traits in an rts but merely failed to take advantage of their numbers before the other races managed to shut down their attempts before using their fighters/adventurers to get some payback for the attacks.

In general, aside from getting the Dark One to help with the Snarl, I see Zero reasoning why the other races, even good alignment people like Roy or even O-Chul should entertain the idea that they have an obligation to kneel over to a race that has been doing little more than slaughter not only members of their race but have also been doing countless acts of villainy for more than couple of decades now, many of which include necromancies and genocides that unsurprisingly many people would find hard to even attempt to forgive.

Really, I even doubt that Redcloak and the goblins would have found the scenario unfair, if at the start they would have started with halfling, gnomes or other goblin neighbours.

[Taevyr]

In general, aside from getting the Dark One to help with the Snarl, I see Zero reasoning why the other races, even good alignment people like Roy or even O-Chul should entertain the idea that they have an obligation to kneel over to a race that has been doing little more than slaughter not only members of their race but have also been doing countless acts of villainy for more than couple of decades now, many of which include necromancies and genocides that unsurprisingly many people would find hard to even attempt to forgive.

Besides Redcloak, who even Roy and Durkon said they disagreed with in the latest comic, I doubt anyone here's arguing that the other races should "kneel over" to the goblins. All we're saying is that they deserve fair treatment, and a fair share of the world.

That's it. That's the entire argument for most of those who are arguing "in favor of the goblins". And yes, it's apparently an idealist, utopian notion, but dammit that's why they should strive for it. Impossible as it may be to reach it in reality, striving for it is still way freaking better than dragging in concepts like the unfairness of war, or all species inherently competing for space, or RTS mechanics as excuses for why treating the goblins with some basic decency is apparently a ridiculous notion. All of that ignores the simple, base argument of just treating them fairly and allowing them the same opportunities the other races got, which includes shutting down both adventurers who'd kill any goblin for XP AND Redcloaks who go far beyond the whole "equal treatment" thing and implode people who try diplomatic solutions.

[Spartan360]

That's really not a fair assessment since we already know it's not a one way attack on a race, Those races hate goblins and goblins hate those races, for understandable reasons might I add. And what opportunities are you talking about? You want to make it easier for the invading goblins to kill other races that originally had better racial or home advantages?

[RossN]

Durkon is rebutting Thor's point that goblins have a fair shot at getting some good things, when in reality they lack the material means to even make a serious attempt at bettering their situation in the first place.

An enormous, well equipped army of hobgoblins overwhelmed and conquered a powerful, well armed, rich human kingdom storming and taking that kingdom's capital via sheer military might. Yes they had 'outside' high level help but so did the humans and the vast bulk of the fighting was done by the hobgoblins.

Now I think it can be reasonably argued that the goblins have been dealt a relatively weak hand, but the comic as written simply doesn't support the idea that they are so weak they have no shot at all. I think that is part of why people who aren't thrilled at the direction of the plot and the ethos supplied are so frustrated. It feels like the narrative is being purposefully weighted to make the goblin case as sympathetic as possible, regardless of what we've already seen or been able to reasonably infer.

[goodyarn]

How about this:

Since lack of good land and elbow room for the Goblins seems to be the original problem here, I would like to point out that there is an ENTIRE PLANET inside/made of the Snarl which is, as far as we can tell, uninhabited. If the Snarl can be tamed with the help of the Dark One, it can be renamed New Gobbotopia and the Goblins can go there and live in Gobbotopical peace without upsetting anybody's sensibilities. How's that? Because THAT's where I think this is all heading.

Snarl + Goblins
Survivors of the Gods' Myopia
Forever

[mjasghar]

That's taking it pretty out of context. I gave a specific scenario where authorial intent is irrelevant, which there are current technical issues with the writing that would need to be actively fixed. I would never say authorial intent doesn't matter at all, ever, under any circumstance.

I’m choosing death of the author and saying you would say that regardless of you saying you wouldn’t.

[SN137]

Worthless thoughts removed

[Nephrahim]

I know people have said they don't want to use SoD materials as evidence, buuutttt:

Spoiler: SoD

Show

The Origin of The Dark One is of them attempting to peacefully take land and being betrayed in turn by human nations, although it is possible there's more to the story then The Dark One's version.

[TRH]

How about this:

Since lack of good land and elbow room for the Goblins seems to be the original problem here, I would like to point out that there is an ENTIRE PLANET inside/made of the Snarl which is, as far as we can tell, uninhabited. If the Snarl can be tamed with the help of the Dark One, it can be renamed New Gobbotopia and the Goblins can go there and live in Gobbotopical peace without upsetting anybody's sensibilities. How's that? Because THAT's where I think this is all heading.

Snarl + Goblins
Survivors of the Gods' Myopia
Forever

I'm almost entirely certain that that's not where we're heading. For all of the debate over authorial intent and the intended direction of the story we've got in this thread, I think we can all agree that Rich is making it loud and clear that the necessary solution to the goblins' plight cannot be quick and easy, and it will involve work on the part of mortals to make sure they can all work through their issues and past violence and injustice in order to live together. Together. So to have the goblins all migrate to another world, to be swept under the rug? It's too neat and easy, and would make the social work and reform we've been discussing unnecessary.

[TRH]

I know people have said they don't want to use SoD materials as evidence, buuutttt:

Spoiler: SoD

Show

The Origin of The Dark One is of them attempting to peacefully take land and being betrayed in turn by human nations, although it is possible there's more to the story then The Dark One's version.

I mean, part of that same story was about how goblins were explicitly made to be slaughtered by clerics to level them up, and we just learned how that's a long way from being the truth. So much so as to be completely untrue, if you ask me. Not to say the goblins don't have problems, but that specific problem is entirely fictitious.

[Leliel]

Even if I acknowledged those
1) The comic appears to treat this as a 1 way street, when we have only ever seen Goblinoids invade and enslave an area occupied by humans
2) A demand for a fair share of the world seems to me to have about the same moral weight as say Europeans demanding an equal share of land from the Americas or Australia, because their land is underpopulated due to epidemics and less advanced subsistence patterns, whilst Europe is overpopulated. It seems to me that that could only be considered moral if this was negotiated peacefully with the original inhabitants. It would also be perfectly moral if they were to tell the Europeans to bugger off, and pay for their food if they wanted any. Or even if they didn't want to be farmers and didn't export food.
3) The goblins have at no point asked for any of this onscreen, but have just invaded,taken land, enslaved and killed.

1) Yes, we've just seen the humans invade and murder an area occupied by goblins. Or hobgoblins. Kind of a semantic point. I'll admit a lot of that is in the supplementary books, but frankly, I wasn't exactly crying for the Azure City Resistance after what they did to that hobgoblin prisoner.

2) That's not what's happening at all. It's more like a bunch of people stuck in a desert want to be out of a desert, and the owners of the farmlands stabbed them when they tried so often that the desert dwellers have given up trying that as a tactic.

3) No, Redcloak has just invaded, taken land, enslaved, and killed. The goblins generally follow his orders, and Redcloak is not a good person, that's the crux of his character. As a counterpoint, we have Oona, who is more like what happens when a goblinoid has land she's happy with - she's just a hunter who'd be fine staying in the snow.

This is a thorny problem; that's the point of this entire subplot. It's a lot more complex than one issue, but no side is innocent - and no side is completely to blame (except Fenris. Fenris sucks).

The sheer bizarreness of morality presented undercuts the story and makes it bad.

I don't think it's weird to give the benefit of the doubt to what is essentially an entire species of abandoned children whose own deadbeat creator left them, without any guidance the other races take for granted, in a wasteland, leaving them with a bad hand of fate to start with.

It's kind of hard to completely condemn a group that was literally cast adrift from the divine realm because of their creator's negligence and laziness. From the implication, it's entirely possible goblins didn't have any clerical magic at all until TDO came along; that's a pretty bad handicap, and it doesn't exist for a good reason.

[dps]

I mean, part of that same story was about how goblins were explicitly made to be slaughtered by clerics to level them up, and we just learned how that's a long way from being the truth. So much so as to be completely untrue, if you ask me. Not to say the goblins don't have problems, but that specific problem is entirely fictitious.

Well, as it happens, Durkon didn't ask you, he asked Thor. And unlike you, Thor didn't say it was completely untrue.

[Spartan360]

But he did say that was the worst way to view it. The Gods made an ecosystem and just like every other eco system in fiction, some weren't as fortunate as others. It does happen but feeling entitled just because you didn't win the lottery isn't really fair to those who did win the lottery and those who didn't win but did gain something.

[Dion]

But he did say that was the worst way to view it.

Newsflash: when people say that, what they mean is “it’s true”.

When things aren’t true, people say so. They don’t parse words.

[SN137]

Destroyed like it all

[skim172]

IMO the goblins were really only handed a hand of cards in poker by their god, ones that promised a flush but when the dealer put down the cards onto the table, they found that they didn't get the win and are now angry with a sense of entitlement towards the other race that kept a pair of 7 and got a full house.

Or in a different terms, they were given a perfectly useable faction traits in an rts but merely failed to take advantage of their numbers before the other races managed to shut down their attempts before using their fighters/adventurers to get some payback for the attacks.

In general, aside from getting the Dark One to help with the Snarl, I see Zero reasoning why the other races, even good alignment people like Roy or even O-Chul should entertain the idea that they have an obligation to kneel over to a race that has been doing little more than slaughter not only members of their race but have also been doing countless acts of villainy for more than couple of decades now, many of which include necromancies and genocides that unsurprisingly many people would find hard to even attempt to forgive.

Really, I even doubt that Redcloak and the goblins would have found the scenario unfair, if at the start they would have started with halfling, gnomes or other goblin neighbours.

The gods in the OOTS-verse are not neutral spectators nor non-interventionist creators. They actively, constantly, physically, and powerfully interfere with the events of mortal lives. Real world concepts of morality and divinity aren't really applicable.

The most uncharitable version of the goblins' creation is that they were established purely to be slaughtered to empower the gods' favored races. Thor's more charitable version is that the goblins were abandoned by their creator god and consequently dropped way down the food chain to become prey for the races who have gods.

In either scenario, the goblins are at a severe disadvantage compared to the rest of the races. They're not just upset because they were unlucky with the draw. Rather - to stick with your poker analogy - they're upset because they're playing with the hand that they were dealt, while everyone else has their own personal dealer who has - since the deal - been constantly supplying them with extra bonus cards. And no matter what the goblins do, they simply can't beat other players who are always playing hands composed of 4 aces, or 5 aces. Or 10 aces, or 12, or 20.

This is not a level playing field, a fair competition, or a game of chance. It never has been and never will be - nor was it ever intended or promised to be. The gods stack the deck - and that's the actual game: who's better at stacking the deck for their chosen players. Without a dealer slipping you cards, you're not really even playing. You're just at the table.

Without a god to protect them and use them, the goblins are essentially non-players. Now that might be fine - but there's an additional dimension to this situation. The other races - and the other gods - can strengthen themselves by killing the goblins over and over. They have a motivation to kill the unprotected, godless goblins. The PCs gain levels, the gods gain souls. Really, they're basically farming the goblins. Let them grow a bit, then harvest them on the regular for XP, lewt, and sweet, sweet worship.

So to go to your RTS analogy - the goblins are not a "faction with perfectly usable traits". They're not a faction in this game at all. They're just a resource. They're the gold/crystals/minerals/lumber/pigs/pylons that the other factions are mining.

Which is why they're upset. I wouldn't say that justifies their reactions - but they were, indeed, short-shrifted from the start.


It is a fallacy to try to view the OOTS-verse via our real world cosmology. Our world is fundamentally not like the OOTS-world. I think most people would agree - whether they believe in the existence of divinity or not - that the influence of the divine in the daily events of individual lives is subtle, and not obvious. Certainly, your local priest or holy man can't dial up Jehovah or Quetzalcoatl on their internal head telephone to ask questions about his daily to-do list (well, most people don't think so, anyway). But the OOTS-verse is a cosmology in which not only can a priest do that, but they are obligated to do so. In return, they are given the power to defy physical and biological laws and reshape space-time within their vicinity, as part of their daily routine.

And if they want to increase their ability to make reality their plaything - then they must kill other living beings. And their religion in fact obligates them to do so, in order to strengthen themselves and the powers of their god(s).


I don't know about you, but my local priest doesn't do that on the regular. At least, not since I left that cult.

[Telenil]

I understand your point about how that line can be taken as Durkon wanting a "fair war" situation, but I find the point to be more about how "equal rules for all" doesn't work when one guy shows up to the race in a Ferrari and the other without even wearing shoes. Durkon is rebutting Thor's point that goblins have a fair shot at getting some good things, when in reality they lack the material means to even make a serious attempt at bettering their situation in the first place.

Again, notice how Durkon also doesn't think Redcloak's methods will work to make things better - because, as you've pointed out, if the goblins "win", that means someone else has to "lose". Redcloak is stuck in this zero-sum mentality where he has to take good things by force and overpower other people into submission, because he doesn't want things to be better for everyone, he wants things to be better for the goblins and worse for everyone else. Durkon says it out loud - "I don't want the dwarf to lose" -, because his ideal is not everyone fighting until only one victor remains.

I get what you are saying, but my whole issue with the last two strips is that this is not a race. Durkon didn't say "this is unfair because one side has a Ferrari and the other not", he said "this is unfair because one side has a tank and the other not". That's not the same thing at all.

The whole exchange is bizarre. Thor reacts as if the Gods had organised a friendly tournament and goblin athletes couldn't get medals, not a brutal conflict where every kill makes you stronger. The conversation may be an attempted nod at real-world issues, but if it is, battles to the death are the wrong narrative to make that point.
If Durkon's real argument is "give the goblins a shot at peacefully having their own kingdom and only resume clubing them if they attack first", fine. But as far as I can see, that's not what he said.

3) No, Redcloak has just invaded, taken land, enslaved, and killed. The goblins generally follow his orders, and Redcloak is not a good person, that's the crux of his character. As a counterpoint, we have Oona, who is more like what happens when a goblinoid has land she's happy with - she's just a hunter who'd be fine staying in the snow.

This is a thorny problem; that's the point of this entire subplot. It's a lot more complex than one issue, but no side is innocent - and no side is completely to blame (except Fenris. Fenris sucks).



I don't think it's weird to give the benefit of the doubt to what is essentially an entire species of abandoned children whose own deadbeat creator left them, without any guidance the other races take for granted, in a wasteland, leaving them with a bad hand of fate to start with.

Because the leader of the goblin is Redcloak and not Oona, any combatant in his forces is a fair target. You shouldn't give the benefit of the doubt to an armed enemy and you are not morally expected to do so. A moral soldier is supposed to treat prisoners well (no forced labor for the conquered population, no pushing prisoners from the top of a tower) and to protect civilians to the extent that is compatible with military operations. He is not supposed to wonder if the enemy has a point or pull his punches if he does.

Everyone agrees that razing a village of goblin civilians or attacking them under a flag of truce is bad - and I must point out that Redcloak himself just tried to murder a negotiator because he couldn't pass up the strategic advantage this would bring, so he is completely hypocritical if he uses the Dark One's fate as a justification. Durkon went beyond the call of duty and endangered his party to try and offer a fair peace to his enemy, and it was the goblin leader who refused. So fighting it is. If you really want to be fair, what you should do is destroy anyone who tries to defend Redcloak, irrespective of their grievances, and after that present the same offer to Redcloak's successor. Assuming something can be worked out with the Azurite, who should receive fair treatment too.

[Some]

I know people have said they don't want to use SoD materials as evidence, buuutttt:

Spoiler: SoD

Show

The Origin of The Dark One is of them attempting to peacefully take land and being betrayed in turn by human nations, although it is possible there's more to the story then The Dark One's version.

Woah, okay, now I'm confused.

I haven't read Start of Darkness, so I checked a Wiki for an overview...

Spoiler: Start of Darkness overview

Show

In the divine realm, the Dark One learns of the other gods' cruel joke, that being that the whole of Goblin-kind was created for the sole purpose of providing Clerics with low-level threats to aid in their level progression.

Until seeing that, it seemed like the claim about goblins being fodder for heroes was completely invented; nothing in the main comic seemed to support it, and I was deeply confused why people just bought Redcloak's vague claim as though it were fact. (Afterall, Redcloak's extremely evil and lies to pretty much everyone, so Redcloak's self-serving claim that seemed to contradict all available evidence didn't seem very credible.)

But if there's a canon reveal that that's true, then.. well, I'm confused. Is it canon? And if so, then is Thor lying? Because Thor said that Fenris made the goblins under a theory of evolutionary-superiority; that seems incompatible with the other gods having made goblins as EXP-fodder.

There're other confusing things, too. For example, the Wiki says that the goblins took out a million humans.. but somehow couldn't get any human land? The goblins took out vastly fewer humans to conquer Azure City, so if they were able to get a million humans in one year before, how did they not conquer most of the major human cities?

And apparently the gods assigned land to the races after creation, denying goblins the good land? But Thor directly stated that the gods couldn't do that when Durkon asked if the goblins could be given land. And it certainly seems like the gods aren't acting to give the humans back Azure City after the goblins' conquest of it, so Thor's claim would seem to be holding up.

What's going on with these apparent inconsistencies?

[masamune1]

Woah, okay, now I'm confused.

I haven't read Start of Darkness, so I checked a Wiki for an overview...

Spoiler: Start of Darkness overview

Show

Until seeing that, it seemed like the claim about goblins being fodder for heroes was completely invented; nothing in the main comic seemed to support it, and I was deeply confused why people just bought Redcloak's vague claim as though it were fact. (Afterall, Redcloak's extremely evil and lies to pretty much everyone, so Redcloak's self-serving claim that seemed to contradict all available evidence didn't seem very credible.)

But if there's a canon reveal that that's true, then.. well, I'm confused. Is it canon? And if so, then is Thor lying? Because Thor said that Fenris made the goblins under a theory of evolutionary-superiority; that seems incompatible with the other gods having made goblins as EXP-fodder.

There're other confusing things, too. For example, the Wiki says that the goblins took out a million humans.. but somehow couldn't get any human land? The goblins took out vastly fewer humans to conquer Azure City, so if they were able to get a million humans in one year before, how did they not conquer most of the major human cities?

And apparently the gods assigned land to the races after creation, denying goblins the good land? But Thor directly stated that the gods couldn't do that when Durkon asked if the goblins could be given land. And it certainly seems like the gods aren't acting to give the humans back Azure City after the goblins' conquest of it, so Thor's claim would seem to be holding up.

What's going on with these apparent inconsistencies?

Thor isn't lying. The Wiki was written before we got Thor's version of events. The Wiki lays out the dogma that the Dark One told his followers.

Either the Dark One misunderstood, or the Dark One is lying.

Or possibly Loki or some other evil god told him that version for a laugh.

[Some]

Thor isn't lying. The Wiki was written before we got Thor's version of events. The Wiki lays out the dogma that the Dark One told his followers.

Either the Dark One misunderstood, or the Dark One is lying.

Or possibly Loki or some other evil god told him that version for a laugh.

So Start of Darkness doesn't actually show these events happening, and it's all just what the Dark One claimed? Like it's the dogma the Dark One put into the Crimson Mantle that Redcloak wears?