Goblin Slayer (anime! light novel!)

If you want your argument to be taken seriously don't misuse terms. Also, don't say "it's just semantics" when someone points out your mistake.

The things you hate about GS are not unique to the isekai genre or even show up in all isekai works. So it's a mistake to describe it as "isekai stuff".

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2018 at 8:44:28 PM

It's not a misuse. I said "this sure has a lot of Isekai stuff". The counter argument is "it's not only Isekai that has that stuff". Which is 1: something I never disputed and 2: semantics and frankly kind of ridiculous to focus on. I don't know why this is still going on.

If the things you complain about are not unique to isekai or even present in all isekai it is not isekai stuff.

Honestly I'm just offended by the "this is just some normal guy who fell into this world and got, like, jaded and stuff after [random female character he cared about] got killed" statement.

Doesn't really make sense.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 16th 2018 at 6:00:11 AM

Yeah, that didn't sit right with me either.

Whatever man, she still has valid points.

Though to be fair to the Chick Magnet thing, from what I understand the author seems to have gotten the memo and has shoved most of that element onto Priestess, who attracts characters of both genders in later volumes.

I think it's quibbling too much over terminology. There are valid points to "Goblin Slayer is a harem power fantasy", given how wretched this series is with female characters in general. Almost everything is there for the old "dark and brooding anti-hero" formula. It's not enough his village got destroyed. No, his older sister had to exist to be raped, tortured and murdered before him so he can grow into the avenger. The series makes a cursory attempt to go "Oh, it's not healthy" but undermines itself constantly on this, even moreso when everything with a pair of breasts is swooning over him.

The Steel Adventure Party? Like, in concept that's a decent point to show us "even experienced adventurers can fall to Goblins." Instead, it's fetishist what happens to them. There doesn't seem to be any real justification why it had to be an all female adventuring party or why one of them had to be raped to death. hell, the image of the goblin lord as a child viciously beating an adventurer's head with a rock was more effective than any of the gratuitous rape scenes. The writer and/or artist cannot seem to make up their minds how they want to portray things.

Hell, Priestess's early arc culminating the Goblin Lord was, in a nutshell? "Exterminate the subhuman with no mercy because he will rape and kill you should you even consider it." It's distinct enough from the typical fantasy D&D tropes, given Mizuno at least took pains to showcase differing factions and sides as people...even Western D&D has had a lot of exploration of the more monstrous races as legitimate characters and people with...mixed and varying messages.

Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 16th 2018 at 6:20:18 AM

One cannot really call this a Power Fantasy either. GS is not powerful at all.

Well he’s certainly skilled..... or I guess practical at the very least.

He doesn't need to be.

A badass killing evil one-note monsters that have zero redeeming qualities fits the bill.

Oh, you absolutely can. He's not a badass who can blow up kingdoms with a flick of his finger, but it's like the fetishization of the 'perfect human' in Batman. Goblin Slayer is cool. He's the one who knows how dangerous goblins really are. He's got A Plan for them. He saves the day from them. When an army of goblins invade a village, who's the one hope we have? Goblin Slayer, because He Knows Them. When a group of silly women blunder into a goblin nest and get tortured, raped and killed for not knowing what they face, who's there to clean up the mess? Goblin Slayer. Who are all the women falling for? Goblin Slayer. Another silly woman once took pity on a little goblin child instead of killing it, but you won't see Goblin Slayer making that mistake. Goblin Slayer is so awesome he takes out one of the Demon General's 12 generals using a super rare scroll he's carrying around without breaking a sweat.

A power fantasy doesn't need to involve someone being the most powerful guy around. Goblin Slayer might not be powerful, but he's portrayed as the super badass by the series winning an unwanted harem while not trying. Yeah, he won;t save the world, but because of him, the unsung hero Goblin Slayer, the hero who will save the world survived being murdered by goblins.

Like, we see any other world-ending threats that are supposedly so constant as to take up major adventurers' time (as I said, this world seems bizarrely libertarian to the point you'd think some lords or monarchs would start paying adventurers on salary' just to avert the problems that keep cropping up) so seldom that the major threat to civilization itself'' are goblins, and the only man who can stop them is Goblin Slayer. It's a thankless job, but Goblin Slayer doesn't care. He's the unsung hope of civilization and progress.

Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 16th 2018 at 6:28:10 AM

Heh he could do with being more self-destructive.

Seems like a lot of fiction with a badass protagonist would be a Power Fantasy in that case.

I mean, the very, very first episode is "a group of morons blunder into a Goblin nest, and get raped/murdered before this guy is super badass armor stalks out of the shadows to confront the goblins and fucks their shit" before episode 2 is dedicated to "Goblin Slayer fucks their shit even more with a speech about how he's Goblin Boogeyman."

Like...there's a way to do it and a way not to, and it varies. Comics are a tougher discussion because superhero comics will inevitably be written by various authors with different takes and grasps on the character. Mr. Fantastic written by a number of writers is pretty wish fulfillment-y. But Mr. Fantastic written by, say, Mark Waid is unequivocally not.

It's all in how you pull it off. I mean, Parn from Lodoss ends the series taking out a deity of destruction, but he's pretty far from a wish fulfillment power fantasy.

Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 16th 2018 at 6:31:52 AM

Well ya gotta establish a character somehow.

Granted we prolly wouldn’t be having this a serious conversation if someone wasn’t graphically violated onscreen by the little gremlins.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 16th 2018 at 6:32:42 AM

Even his self-destructive tendencies are the usual, romanticized kind you usually find in badass loner heroes. "He's psychologically messed up, man! Nobody gets him but his women. All those other people just don't understand him!"

Goblin Slayer is total wish fulfillment power fantasy.

And they are!

Edited by Rynnec on Oct 16th 2018 at 8:34:49 AM

They are the equivalent of adding scars on a character. Either they are ugly and a detriment to them, or makes them look more badass.

Which leads one to remember that Goblin Slayer is a gorgeous hunk under the armor...

Also, I can't help but note, again, that the worst mistakes he cleans up tend to be made by women.

Have to say that I have never actually seen isekai where main character is jaded because female character got fridged <_<

Like, you can call bullshit on power fantasy and anime tropes(and the offensive parts), but while it is argument about semantics, semantics ARE important for conversation to make sense. It'd be like trying to call snow sand because "two are basically the same thing"

(But yeah, I definitely agree that characters with utterly over the top tragic backstories can still count as power fantasy. In general, power fantasy appeals to folks who like to think their lives suck(even if their life isn't that bad), so imagining themselves as someone whose life actually sucked but are totally awesome is appealing to them)

Edited by SpookyMask on Oct 16th 2018 at 4:40:05 PM

An example of them being a possible detriment is that he pushes away people, can be uncaring to the suffering of others if the origin of their suffering is not goblin related, or he lets his violent obsession overtake him and possibly abandon his comrades.

Some stuff you can get into as actual flaws.

Stuff that is absolutely present in, say, Berserk which revisits "this guy you thought is a total badass is actually utterly broken inside and here's the damage it's done to people who needed him. Not saying Berserk is perfect by any means, but I've seen a lot of attempts at comparison between Guts and GS

And yet those comrades don't abandon him.

Edited by Ikedatakeshi on Oct 16th 2018 at 9:41:50 PM

I don't think he does that though since Goblin Slayer is portrayed as really messed up good guy, so he isn't ever shown doing anything horrible towards humans when compared to stuff towards goblins.

Like, pretty sure you can categorize Goblin Slayer as Power Fantasy, its not bad itself because of it(though it does bring lot of the unfortunate implications most anime/manga in power fantasy category carry), but its bad parts come from the grimderp parts

That is in part because he is slowly improving in a way his inspirations, Batman and the Punisher, never do.

Considering just about any work with a badass protagonist could be considered a power fantasy, it seems odd to criticize GS for supposedly being one.

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2018 at 9:46:02 PM

Batman and Punisher can't improve even if they wanted to, what with comic books and hack writers like Didio.