Oh, bother.
The Ashen One in Dark Souls is even specifically called out as being a relative weakling, unfit even to be cinder. They are weak even by the standards set by the Chosen Undead and the Bearer of the Curse. They at least were worthy of Linking the Fire.
And while the Soul of Cinder is technically a Physical God, being a deific incarnation of past kings, his entire appearance screams pain and suffering. His armor the Firelink set resembles melted and warped pieces of other armor sets in the game like the Elite Knight set.
And like GS, the Ashen One and the Soul of Cinder more specifically the soul of Gwyn within it are Determinators. GS won't let little things like broken bones and internal organ damage stop him from slaying more goblins. Nothing will stop the Ashen One from overcoming the odds despite their weakness and ultimately ending the Age of Fire on their terms. And nothing will make the Soul of Cinder or rather Gwyn stop trying to preserve the Age of Fire.
Edited by M84 on Jan 9th 2019 at 4:01:03 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Brand New Day updated.
The Schmuck Squad Goblin Slayer Abridged - Episode 2
So I heard Golarion got referred in the abridged version and I can't tell if that reference makes sense or not ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
I mean, I guess it works if you want pyromaniac murderous pest goblins, but goblin slayer goblins are much less funny 
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Okay, wow.
So I made a You Tube playlist of Doom soundtracks a while ago.
Only now I realzed I accidentally added a Goblin Slayer anime soundtrack in the playlist.
Yes, in addition to the main character's general aesthetics, even the music sounds very Doom (2016)-ish.
The soundtrack in question was the Ogre fight music, btw.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
vicarious
I kind of wish they went more ham on the metal for GS soundtrack
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Started to read Year One manga.
Hot damn, this series is blessed with some amazing comic adaptations. The light novel series itself is fairly decent, but the mangas are great.
I don't remember how far I read into the main manga. Probably around the point where Goblin Captain showed up and soon died.
As for the light novels, I reas up to volume 8. I think this might be the last volume I will actually purchase and read.
EDIT: Oh my God, Heavy Warrior helping Female Knight tying her hair into a bun was just so damn adorable.
Edited by dRoy on Jul 8th 2019 at 2:34:53 AM
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Launched a Reality Ensues page for this series, since I figured that it had enough examples.
In a less related note, I also launched a Funny page for Goblin Slayer Abridged.
Random thought:
One of the WMG entries theorized that maybe in the future there might be a super-goblin that is evolved with a single-minded focus on killing humans: a Manslayer. Holy shit, I like the idea of that.
Edited by dRoy on Jul 10th 2019 at 5:12:20 PM
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
I'm still in the 4th episode of the anime, but I can already tell I wanna keep following this story.
So after I finish this, what volume of the light novel do I pick to continue?
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
The anime is mostly volume 1 with some events of volume 2 pulled forward. So volume 2 or 3 should do.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Reading the Reality ensues page just reminded how strange, if not unbelievable it is that the Guild would let so unexperienced adventures go on a mission against Goblins completely unprepared. Just give them a mandatory 2 hours exposition about the dangers in a Goblin nest, and give them some basic tips to prepare, and they likely could have avoided the (almost) total party kill. This especially stange because they don't have that many adventurers in the first place.
I mean don't ge me wrong, this first chapter was very effective in suverting expectations and likely caused a lot of interest in the first place, but still.
Edited by Zarastro on Nov 3rd 2019 at 7:38:27 PM
I mean, the series is much better when it gets away from that 'subverting expectations' and focuses more on being a decent fantasy. When you actually have to think about the world for five minutes, the authorities look hysterically sociopathic and incompetent all in one.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
To be fair, it's not unusual for authorities to get portrayed as incompetent idiots in fiction media.
This is so, but there is a bit of an eye-roll when we hear how 'realistic' and a 'deconstruction' GS can be. Authorities are rarely so stupid and evil to turn a blind eye to a horde of rapacious rape monsters exterminating entire villages on the frontier and slaughtering untrained adventurers by the truckload.
Thats more something the fans say than the people running it.
Edited by doineedaname on Nov 3rd 2019 at 2:34:20 PM
That doesn't mean people can't criticize something for failing a standard its fandom chooses to hold that media towards. Otherwise, why would the subject come up?
I almost always see it brought up as something the author said and so used to bash them by people doing so when they've never said any such thing.
Oh hey! Are we discussing this series again? Awesome, because there are these great videos I wanted to share.
The first video I already saw, but I'll check out the second one later tonight.
x2 Okay, I ain't gonna spend a whole hour watching an Youtube video, can't you just summarize?
This thread seems to have figured out that random rape fetishization is bad, so hooray for that, but folks seem to be having an issue with framing the ridiculous amount of racism on display. I find this odd because the second post in this thread pretty much nailed it.
Babysitter Super Sleuth posted: Goblin Slayer is bad because the way it treats goblins is basically the same way every piece of genocidal propaganda treats their subject of choice, only instead of jews or Africans or Muslims it's goblins, which does the exact same job of normalizing dehumanizing hate except with an extra layer of smug deniability
Like, okay, race essentialism exists in a lot of fantasy, and the extent to which it is an issue varies from work to work. But this is not Goblin Slayer's problem—well, it is a problem, one of many, but it's not the problem. The problem is: goblins in this story are played not just as evil but as Untermenschen, and whether deliberate or not, the work co-ops a crapload of racially and ethnically coded propaganda to get its point across.
Goblins are dangerous, but not strong. They depend on ambush and deceit to overcome their natural cowardice. Goblins are cunning, but not intelligent. They cannot create, only steal. They have no technology, or culture, or even offspring without thieving those means from humanity. They must be exterminated, even the children because every goblin that lives is a parasite on humanity as a whole. The language, framing, and even imagery are damn near one-to-one with many of the tactics used to dehumanize real minorities.
Take this example for a bit further in: the goblins have just failed an attack on the Goblin Slayer's farm, and the Goblin Lord that lead the offensive is fleeing. He begins as the perspective character, ruminating about all the times he's faced an unfortunate turn but lived to fight another day. Most notable is a time from his childhood when an adventurer found him cowering behind cover in the wake of an attack. She spares him out of pity, and the moment her back is turned he bashes her head in with a rock. When the Slayer intercepts the Goblin Lord a fight ensues which ends with the Slayer's sidekick trapping the Lord in a spell. He immediately grovels and begs for clemency, all while musing on how great it'll be to rape her to death once she falls for his trick just like all the other stupid humans. Charming. Anyway, hard experience has girded the sidekick against his deceit, so she doesn't fall for it and the Goblin gets killed. The end.
It's a clear lesson. Empathy shown to the goblin is a weakness because they will always use it to their craven advantage. The metaphor is so blatant that I was convinced there had to be subversion coming down the line, but there wasn't. The story plays this stuff straight, time and again. It is never critical of the hateful slogans it weirds like a club, and I'm honestly not sure if it's even aware of what it's doing.
But again, whether or deliberate or not the sum total is a power fantasy for racial supremacy interspersed with fetish porn and that's... not great.
The video is SIGNIFICANTLY more nuanced and complete while this is just a spicy take summary from when the series was running that happened to fit this occasion.
Edited by doomrider7 on Nov 3rd 2019 at 8:23:52 AM
Fair enough.
Random thought.
So, the Sword Maiden is commonly compared to 2B and Goblin Slayer to Doomguy.
Then I saw an image macro that has SM as the Fire Keeper and GS as either the Ashen One or the Soul of Cinder, from Dark Souls 3.
I was like, whoa. Goblin Slayer and Dark Souls would certainly be somewhat compatible.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.