Goblins XV: Klik Here

[Killer Angel]

aw, i think she's cute

That's because she is.

[Neoriceisgood]

Yeah, there's definitely some ship material here.

It's a bit odd because she's just so ugly though. You don't usually see that in fantasy stories.

I honestly can't tell if she's supposed to be due to Thunt's weird art style.

[Vinyadan]

Rabbits are cute, but they aren't exactly the kind I'd hook up with. I wonder whether she was born with that face, or that's a curse, and, if it were, I would find it much worse than rabbit ears. I probably also have troubles learning to eat with a vertical cut in my upper lip. Anyway, she seems well natured and, first and foremost, sociable, which is a much better value than beauty, especially in the world of Goblins.

[Zejety]

Update.

Spoiler

Show

Please don't let Bowst be lying. Please don't let Bowst by lying. Please don't let Bowst be lying.

[Traab]

Update.

Spoiler

Show

Please don't let Bowst be lying. Please don't let Bowst by lying. Please don't let Bowst be lying.

Agreed, first thought that went through my head.

[BannedInSchool]

I didn't think of that, but I'm 100% with you. God. I do not want to read about it otherwise...

If THunt hadn't already turned off the Internet this would be a good time for him to do so, I imagine.

[Gez]

I don't think Bowst is lying, he really doesn't seem to be clever enough to come up with such an idea. Nor does it seem like this level of deception would be needed for sleeping with her, since they've been alone together for quite a while, Idle seems to have a casual view of sex since she's openly broaching the subject of her sex life with a relative stranger, and she did say she liked him a lot even if she's not looking for a durable relationship.

Oh, and another reason why I don't think he's lying: these curses are weird and also relentless. "You have to die once per day if you don't want to die for real" isn't the kind of stuff you discover by accident. Most likely, there was something in the dungeon of curses that plainly told them what their curses were, like a booming voice or a big sign, and both Bowst and Idle were privy to the exact nature of each other's curses.

[Draconi Redfir]

i kinda-sorta feel like bowst and idle (and possibly Ward) might be like, half-incarnations of the DAP? Like, the first two pairs we saw early in the comic, the Drow proper and the incarnation that met up with Dies were obviously "not right in the head" by the world's standards, having knowledge they couldn't possibly know, and in general acting like they shouldn't physically be there, like players controlling an avatar in a game and hoping around in circles while the NPC's have a conversation with them.

These two/three, assuming they are in any kind of way connected to the DAP (which it's completely possible they are not!) are more "proper" with the world, these characters didn't suddenly appear in town one day not even knowing they were wearing gloves despite looking right at them, these characters were born, grew up, and perpetually existed in the world they inhabit. Like Forgath and Minmax, they're not avatars of people existing in another universe, they're living breathing people who's actions and thoughts may vaguely mirror those given to sheets of paper depicting similar stats and appearances as their own by strange entities in another universe.


Or for those of you who continue to insist that this whole comic is a direct telling of a D&D game (yawn):

They were terrible "roleplayers" as Drow, started learning the basics as the humans/elves who met Dies, and are now on-par with "Forgath" and "min-max" after having many "tutoring sessions" with "Herbert the not-god" which included the curse dungeon. separately from the "players" of "min-max" and "forgath"

[Vinyadan]

You know, I haven't learned the new names yet, and when I read your reactions, I couldn't get why you said "please Bowst don't be lying", because I thought she was the one called Bowst, and I was hoping Idle was the one lying to Forgath with this story of sex&curses. At least she agrees with and enjoys it, so it isn't really reverse Stonewater, but it's still very hard for me to digest - freedom of choice and such: "I'll die if we don't have sex!" seems like a rather terrifying argument. I suppose that she is meant to represent a more sexually liberated woman? We still haven't had a character like that in Goblins, I think, or I forgot about her.

But I guess this does explain a few things about our good old Klik. This was a pretty good summary, and foreboding, too.

And I hope Bowst never gets any potassium bromide, or he's a goner. unless the curse is pretty open-minded.

[Killer Angel]

I've heard of worse curses, anyway...

[Quild]

I agree with Gez on the idea that their curses probably were explained to Bowst and Idle. You don't figure that out.
Now, I'm not sure how the explanation was done.
You're aware of your own curses?
They were explained out loud?

[Vinyadan]

So Bowst has to kill every evening the woman who keeps him alive by giving herself to him. No surprise his mental stats are so low, I would be amazed if he didn't have to make a sanity check every couple hours.

It gets more creepy the more I think about it. THunt was probably right in turning off the internet.

[eschmenk]

I was wondering if Idle could be the sexual predator. She seems nice and trustworthy so far, but if she's not it would be a good way to shock the readers. I don't think Bowst is smart enough to fool Idle, but I think Bowst is dumb enough to be fooled by Idle and don't think that Bowst is playing dumb. So far, I doubt that either of them are.

[Draconi Redfir]

Honestly? Kinda not seeing the big deal here. It's a curse, of course it's going to suck, that's kind of the entire point. It would suck if you were cursed to need to do a thousand jumping jacks a day or your arms fall off. It would suck if you were cursed with eyeballs that slowly grow in size every day and regenerate if removed. All curses suck, that is the point of a curse.

Keep in mind that this is the same guy who got tricked into punching himself in the face. this is the same guy who tried to replace the word "four" with "two", hell, this is the same bloody guy who didn't realize that a dungeon named the Curse-Walk would involve Curses. I'm fairly certain he doesn't have the mental capacity to maliciously trick someone as intelligent as Idle (Who admittedly, doesn't seem to have all of her marbles either, but she's still leauges ahead of Bowst) into doing something like this.

Bleh, i'm sorry. I've made the mistake of reading the forum posts on the goblins forums about the page

[Vinyadan]

I wonder if expecting death everyday makes Idle an extremely profound person.

Anyway, the main reason I feel bad about this page is that a. sex in the comic has only been named when it was somehow forced and b. the connection "I am forced to have sex with her and I am also forced to kill her" reminds me a lot of the number of women killed by their partners.
I do wonder how this point will nestle in the plot, anyway. Really, if THunt had been able to publish the whole comic in a single hit, much discussion about how he handles themes would have been avoided.

BTW, what's the ESRB rating on this?

[Traab]

Honestly? Kinda not seeing the big deal here. It's a curse, of course it's going to suck, that's kind of the entire point. It would suck if you were cursed to need to do a thousand jumping jacks a day or your arms fall off. It would suck if you were cursed with eyeballs that slowly grow in size every day and regenerate if removed. All curses suck, that is the point of a curse.

Keep in mind that this is the same guy who got tricked into punching himself in the face. this is the same guy who tried to replace the word "four" with "two", hell, this is the same bloody guy who didn't realize that a dungeon named the Curse-Walk would involve Curses. I'm fairly certain he doesn't have the mental capacity to maliciously trick someone as intelligent as Idle (Who admittedly, doesn't seem to have all of her marbles either, but she's still leauges ahead of Bowst) into doing something like this.

Bleh, i'm sorry. I've made the mistake of reading the forum posts on the goblins forums about the page

I actually agree with you one how you think of bowst, but the gut reaction was there for me because thunt has a decided tendency to go as massively grim and terrible as possible. But yeah, there is no evidence aside from thunts past history to imply there is anything untoward involved.

[Draconi Redfir]

Keep in mind that the only other instance of sex of any kind (That didn't happen far enough in the past to produce adult children) has been Kin and Goblinslayer. Was it bad? Yes, absolutely, but it was ONE instance of sex in the comic. you can say "All sex in the comic has been bad" yes, but it's hardly fair when it's only been one instance total, that doesn't automatically mean that the seccond instance of Sex will also be bad.

[Traab]

Keep in mind that the only other instance of sex of any kind (That didn't happen far enough in the past to produce adult children) has been Kin and Goblinslayer. Was it bad? Yes, absolutely, but it was ONE instance of sex in the comic. you can say "All sex in the comic has been bad" yes, but it's hardly fair when it's only been one instance total, that doesn't automatically mean that the seccond instance of Sex will also be bad.

Its not just about sex, its about thunt and his horror porn. Dude has to make virtually everything awful. Everything is horrible pain and suffering and betrayal and rage and loss. So jumping to the conclusion that there is something horrible about this arrangement is more about pattern recognition.

[Draconi Redfir]

arright that's a fair point. sorry.

[Traab]

arright that's a fair point. sorry.

Heh, no need to apologize, like I said, i agree with you, its doubtful that anything shady is going on. Everything we have seen so far of bowst shows the only person he is capable of tricking is himself. Its still not ENTIRELY beyond the realm of possibility that we will get another goblinslayer moment where he gleefully confesses that he is tricking her into daily sex. Its just unlikely due to a lack of plate glass windows to hurl him through.

[Lissou]

I think Thunt had a specific story to tell with Kin, and he's told it so I didn't get any bad feelings about this page. Especially since he goes out of his way to tell use Idle is enjoying it. For all we know, the second Idle said she didn't feel like it, he'd choose to die rather than force her. Let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt in this case (I know, I know, Goblins is full of horrible thing but this side story has been cute and funny and heartwarming and I want to believe it won't turn into something quite like this).

[Draconi Redfir]

aye. we should at least give it some time to develop before judging it at all. dang people on the goblins forums are freaking out about it when it hasn't even existed longer then a day.

[Killer Angel]

aye. we should at least give it some time to develop before judging it at all. dang people on the goblins forums are freaking out about it when it hasn't even existed longer then a day.

People on the goblins forums live in a dangerous place. They learned to be suspicious and paranoid.

[Gez]

I don't know why you guys would need for Bowst to be lying to make this awful. If you combine both these adventurers' daily curses, here's the situation:

There is a couple where every day the guy has coerced sex with the girl, and then he murders her. Then she resurrects, ready to repeat the process on the next day.

That they are cursed is irrelevant; these curses are nothing but a writing tool to railroad the story into the situation. Thunt says there is a plot reason for this endless cycle of sex and violence between these two people. The curses are basically like the hymen inspectors of the Stonewater & Melna arc from Dominic Deegan, just a contrivance to get the desired result. And the result is awful.

So it is not a surprise at all that Thunt made a show of not looking at the reaction to this strip. Will the rest of the planned plot line manage to make this less squicky? Given his track record, I wouldn't bet on it. But I'm morbidly curious about where this is headed, and how he will try to redeem the premise.

[Draconi Redfir]

exept that as far as we've seen, they both understand that it's only done because of a curse, and that they wouldn't do it if they did not have said curse.

While both aware that it sucks, the whole process has probably become about as relevent to their psyche as eating or going to the bathroom every day. Yeah they'd rather not do it, but they kind of need too to live, and they've done it so many times now that it's kinda lost it's impact.

There is nothing "awful" about it, does it suck for them? Yeah, sure, but they are fictional charicters, not ones that exist in our reality. Trying to put human morality into the mix just doesn't apply.

[Gez]

Entirely and completely irrelevant to my point.


I have, in fact, said so already; but let me repeat in more details. I'm not talking about the morality of the characters' actions. I'm talking about the story. I'm talking about the elements that Thunt decides to put in the story. The curses, as I already said, are a railroad to obtain this situation. In fact the curses allow to remove agency from the characters; they're doing what they do because they don't have a choice. Consider: if they had a real choice and decided not to obey these curses, then they would both have died and thusly been removed from the story before meeting Forgath, making them non-existent. Their entire point for being in the story has been revealed now: it's to bring about the endless snuff movie scenario with these two hapless fools.

So, again, to my argument, it doesn't matter what they both understand or agree or whatever. I'm not talking about what Bowst and Idle are doing here, I'm talking about what Thunt is doing with them. You can go "but the curse!" as much as you want, it doesn't change anything: who decided that these characters would have these curses? Thunt did. I have a vast collection of official and third-party D&D 3rd/3.5th edition source books, and I can tell you that none of them contain traps inflicting random daily curses such as those inflicted to Bowst and Idle. That's not a D&D thing. That's not an "it's how their world works" thing. It's entirely an "it's what Thunt decided to put in his story" thing.

[Starbuck_II]

The curses are basically like the hymen inspectors of the Stonewater & Melna arc from Dominic Deegan, just a contrivance to get the desired result. And the result is awful.

I want to assume this is a joke and not actually a real part of that web comic. No comic can be that awful (I stopped reading DD years ago, now I am glad I did, I missed the "rape" scenes and the above).


So, now we know that Klik's child has become a demigod. Blood for the Blood God!

[Neoriceisgood]

I want to assume this is a joke and not actually a real part of that web comic. No comic can be that awful (I stopped reading DD years ago, now I am glad I did, I missed the "rape" scenes and the above).

No that's an actual thing that happened. To ensure the rape scene happened Mookie had tribal hymen inspectors giving our heroic rapist no other choice.

[Vinyadan]

Honestly, I don't get what Gez and Draconi are talking about, although it could be a language barrier thing. I mean, I don't get where the debate lies.

The situation for the two adventurers is horrible, especially because they can't get away. They need Ward, and Ward won't leave. They have no way to solve the problem.

It is also extremely uncomfortable for the reader. I mean, I can't call it heart-warming. That girl gets her head chopped off everyday. Personally, I saw it as a somewhat comical device (violence is so diffused in narrative, that a "you'll die if you don't die" curse looked like a joke), but the sexual element made it much more real and relatable. I currently can't laugh at this, and, if I seriously have to consider the situation, it gets, as I said with an euphemism, uncomfortable.

Making the reader or spectator uncomfortable isn't necessarily wrong. I never saw or read Sophie's Choice, but I imagine it is kinda like this: the main character has to handle a situation which the spectator absolutely doesn't want to live. However, the spectator is required identification with the protagonist. Of course, if the thing is artlessly handled, it will enrage the spectator, because he will feel that the author doesn't have the right to ask him to identify with or even to consider such a situation.

What I don't like about the situation here, from a meta level, is how forced it is. When I begun reading Goblins, I found that it was good because of its realism. You saw all the ugly in adventuring, you saw all the ugly in public executions and the handling of subhumans in cells. You saw what it means if a dictator with illusions of predestination accepts death of subjects as a mean to her higher goal. To me, it looks like the comic has a teaching function - violence, when put into action, is real and horrible. But where the hell am I supposed to locate this?
Ok, it's people on the edge, which is always interesting. Ok, it's controversial, and will bring discussion and information about the comic. Ok, it ends up in torture porn, and I often suspect that's what a sizeable number of THunt's public wants. (man do I hope THunt really isn't reading reactions. He sometimes has read the thread here) But I just can't put it into any useful perspective, right now. I mean, people facing challenges are interesting. The egg, for example, was something I liked. And examining how people interact because of previous developments is also interesting. But having people being forced to interact with each other in a very determined way because of previous developments which pretty much take away their free will regarding the two most deeply felt experiences for a man (we usually cannot bear children) just looks bizarre and over the top.

It is a very fine line, but it is there. It is somehow like saying "we want to investigate and show how people act in war". This can go wrong if you, for example, pull off a full-blown propaganda film. In the propaganda film, the choice will have been in only showing the best of one side as to make it superior to the other in any way which is relevant to the spectator. Goblins isn't making propaganda, of course, but there still is a mistake in showcasing the investigation. Even if the investigation is done correctly, it still needs enough freedom in the actions of the characters to be interesting, or enough room (length) to show nuances. The comic format tends to synthesis - you can't write a three-page description of how someone feels, so the nuances must be shown through behaviour. But the behaviour is forced. So what?

Anyway, these are just personal opinions, and they may be wrong; they surely are built on incomplete material.

[-D-]

I want to assume this is a joke and not actually a real part of that web comic.

What you mean, not a real part of the web comic? It's been said (and probably done). The curse exists. And its pretty horrible (as in writing, not the effect).