Dec
19th
2018
In Which My Girlfriend and I Talk About Goblin Slayer · 6:05pm Dec 19th, 2018
So, my girlfriend Cynewulf and I wanted to talk about Goblin Slayer. Along the way, we decided to record what was originally going to be a collaborative text blog post into a dry run for a podcast idea we've been kicking around anyway. Content warning: Light to no editing, strong language, discussions of sexual assault, lesbian flirting, my microphone being shit. I promise at some point I'll be fixing that last one. You can listen here.
Alternatively, you can read a google doc of the original post here. Feel free to leave comments/feedback, and I love you all.
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ScarletWeather · 773 views
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Who transcribed the entire conversation?
Also, what was that comment about Applejack not being competent anymore suppose to be about?
Huh. To give you some idea of how tuned in to anime I am at the moment, my first thought when hearing about Goblin Slayer until now has been "When and why did Tivadar of Thorn get his own anime?" Now that I'm enlightened, I'm going to need to give it a look. Starting with episode 2.
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Both of us transcribed it, and it was less a transcript and more "this started as a collab blog post and then we had the conversation after writing it."
I consider myself lucky, as spoilers about the series turned me away from the first episode, and started from the second. I can certainly say that it was a very good decision, both watching the series and skipping the first episode. Kudos for the good advice you provide.
Whyyyyyyyy are lizardmen such awesome PCs
(granted, it's a rhetorical question. They're awesome because they're anthro dragons. Dragons represent.)
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He is not an anthro dragon. He is an anthro dinosaur who can pray to his dinosaur ancestors for spells
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So FYI I'm probably/definitely on the spectrum too, so never feel bad about the reading people thing. I get that. Hard.
Second, while your post was actually really thought out, I think it's worth noting that Cyne and I both watched Goblin Slayer on Crunchyroll, which means we got Japanese audio and english subtitles. That means a lot of the "everyone is feeling distress" may not have been our experience watching, simply because we had a completely different cast of voice actors.
Second note, this thing:
"Mind Break" is a semi-common kink in non-con doujin stuff. It's not uncommon for porn in that vein, especially hentai art, to linger on the outcome of particularly horrific stuff as kind of a "money shot", showing just how destroyed the character is. I'm not really willing to give episode one credit for that, unfortunately. Still, if you got something out of it then definitely more power to you.
I tend to judge things like this with less of a "person bad if they like bad thing" attitude, since several of the things I like are probably Bad on different axes. My probably isn't really with anyone who stands up to say that the first episode didn't personally bother them and more with people who aggressively declare that being bothered by it at all is a mark of some kind of mental weakness or lack of stomach.
I think the visuals were gratuitous and unnecessary...a simple shot of the priestess watching the obvious terrible acts with enough sound to denote the exact act being perpetrated would have held the same gravity without it feeling like rape porn. But I think the horrible gravity of it all going down like that is needed to be shown...that is twice in the goblin slayers life (that is shown to you...god only knows how many things hes seen) that these little green gremlins have completely and terrible destroyed lives, in ways some may consider worse then death...and yet what did the episode start on? Aw man, ONLY a goblin slaying quest. and as a long time DnD player...that stuck with me. You roll up a lvl one character, and you walk up to your first quest and most experienced player's first words will be 'alright, nice and easy goblin quest, lets get a little bit of loot...and some sweet xp'...have you ever seen it framed that adventurers die to goblins? that they ransack villages and leave corpses and raped survivors? until this the only image close to it was the first episode of 'Grimgar: of fantasy and ash' when 6 adventures almost died to a single goblin...and even with the adrenaline laced terror of almost being killed hanging in that scene...i laughed at the ineptitude of the hapless adventurers...In GS...i didn't laugh...i didn't think the goblins simple xp farms...i actually understood the fear that should be held of them...these little monsters serve no purpose but to hurt things...and they are are surprisingly good at that...they need to be wiped out...i empathized with the twisted trauma victim that is our silent hero...and Amanda Hayes was right...the dub for GS just had him so weary...like after i run back to back 16hr shifts...I'm not angry or excited...i just want...just need it to be done...and i need it done successfully...
There is a bit in a later episode between GS and the sword maiden...at the end of that arc....when they are talking about her trauma...how she could help defeat the demonic overlord...but if she saw a goblin, she'd just fall apart...just drop to her knees as ptsd and terror kicked in and shed be unable to fight...and she said asked if hf GS killing all those goblins had changed anything...could he offer her salvation from her trauma...would his crusade end her nightmares...and he basically said no...but if she ever needed goblins slayed, he would come to do so...."even in my dreams?"..."Yes".......Its such a powerful scene, my favorite in the series so far...such raw discussion of trauma by those suffering it from the same cause, but with different ways of coping...and none of it would have had the weight it did if not for episode one leading in with the brutality which caused the trauma in the first place...
so as to my opinion...the scene was sooooo poorly handled...but I think the scene was important to the emotional depth of the world, of the characters, of the flawed system that lets these atrocities go unanswered because goblins 'aren't a threat'...it set a world tone that makes the very very blunt character that is GS somehow sympathetic...you understand his plight...you understand why the priestess hates his methods but kept adventuring with him...I do wish they had taken that scene and handled it with taste and care however....and if this feels rant-y or defensive, i didn't intend it to be...I'm just kinda trying to articulate my thoughts and feelings on a very topic very nebulous in my head...so apologies if it came out poorly