26 Jun-05 Jul 2015: "Not-Walter" screams like a little girl

[Glemp]

I like this Greena character.

► Show Spoiler

It must've been a helljob to get enough information to know sufficient about a demon to summon it specifically, and confront it with it's greatest fear.

Likely she does have one demon already, and she's collecting them, and also getting them to tell her sufficiently about another demon down there to set a trap for that one.

She's much about preparation, let's get the last page to know whether she has foreseen something for the worst-case, a demon winning against its own fear.

► Show Spoiler

Well, let's be fair here, Not-Walter is still terrified of dolls. Greena screwed up by changing them into something he didn't recognise as a doll anymore, hence the Swording With Extreme Prejudice.

[ForgetsOldName]

They look like little pouches. What makes you think there's chopped up angel bits in them? Could just be blood in there, dripping out from the seams.

Dunno, it sounds weird to store liquids in pouches. I think most of it would leak fast unless it was impermeable. That middle one seems to be leaking from the whole bottom, so it seems like they aren't impermeable.

It's been ages since I read this, but I'm not sure if I ever noticed that before. Nice catch!

Thanks! =]

The pouches are definitely right over the blood drips and blood is dripping from them, so there's some relationship. Possibly you have to keep your bloodstains fresh or the spell is spoiled. But if this is the case then Not-Walter will be able to leave after a while and his portal is only temporarily spoiled.

The pouches are probably small wineskins with the seams being deliberately added to facilitate dripping and ripping. Wineskins are just pieces of animal skin sewn together and sealed with pine resin or wax. Modern leather is tanned differently with things you do not want to drink, but I'm not sure if the old stuff was more waterproof or not. Wineskins were typically only used once and the wine aged in the skins, but you can refresh them with more resin if needed.

[Krulle]

There are four pouches, and four stains. i'd say they do belong together.

Also, Greena knew in advance exactly where the summoned creature would create its hellportal.
She knew a lot in advance.
And only one page left to tell us anything... :(

[Glemp]

There are four pouches, and four stains. i'd say they do belong together.

Also, Greena knew in advance exactly where the summoned creature would create its hellportal.
She knew a lot in advance.
And only one page left to tell us anything...

I thought she summoned Not-Walter specifically in that place? Though how she can summon a creature without knowing its name bemuses me...

[extrabigmehdi]

I thought this mni-story is cool, but I learned nothing about not-walter.(Except that he is afraid of dolls, perhaps this matter ...)

[nikohl]

Well, that was kinda tasteless. I mean okay, demons aren't nice people, but bleh. As far as finales go, the demon turning the tides, enslaving Boobarella, and taking her home for bondage death fun seems really tropey as well as ick.

I hadn't seen this short story before as I only have the PDF books and also haven't read through them properly anyway, so this is my first viewing - overall I could've done without it I was rooting for Tits McGee to win but only in a token pass-the-time sort of way. Which story is up next?

[extrabigmehdi]

Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed by what not-walter said at the end : "it's not as if I'm going to strap you ...etc ...".
I thought that demons were more imaginative than this.

[Zathyr]

Secretly, he's just going to bring her back to enjoy some tea and scones, but he has to say things like that out loud to keep up his devil cred.

Possibly.

[kabet52]

Why, oh why did she not have a protection from evil spell up that protects from mind affecting powers. its a first level spell and all her wards on the wall seemed much more powerful than that. I can understand that she doesn't seem to be a traditional spell caster, but it just seems that's just a real basic thing that any person who fights extra-dimensional being would find a way to cover.

[Sessine]

Why, oh why did she not have a protection from evil spell up that protects from mind affecting powers. its a first level spell and all her wards on the wall seemed much more powerful than that. I can understand that she doesn't seem to be a traditional spell caster, but it just seems that's just a real basic thing that any person who fights extra-dimensional being would find a way to cover.

On the other hand, that would have made the story longer than nine pages. It's not meant to be a masterwork, it's a space filler. For the story to work at all, she had to have overlooked some simple factor that could be triggered on the last page. "Charm Person." I didn't see it coming.

Not-Walter is not supposed to be a nice person. All the same, I was cheering for him here, because he was trapped. And what the Bouncy-Girl caster who trapped him wanted was to learn his name so she could enslave him. She wasn't trying to destroy evil, she intended to use him to increase her own power.

A trope? Yeah, sure, but what do you want in a ahort-short. It was a good ending.

[thesilence]

No matter how much we are supposed to hate Greena and expect her to suffer comeuppance, we firmly believe that she should have received an additional Will save with a massive bonus, if not when persuading her to return to Hell with him, then at least when he gloated sarcastically about it at the end. We understand that Greena is meant to be an example of the same sort of evil as Goblinslayer, and that the audience is meant to root for her to suffer eternal torment and agony of the most viscerally horrifying kind, because she dared to try and trap an immortal outsider into mystical bondage for what would have been comparatively a few minutes out of his potential lifespan. (We also understand that Herbert is a lousy DM, and if anyone in this scenario was a PC, he would certainly be ruling either for the demon or against the demonologist, regardless of what the rules say, based solely on his own prejudices, which likely mirror THunt's in this regard.)

Even so, this ending sits poorly with us.

[RocketScientist]

Well, that was kinda tasteless. I mean okay, demons aren't nice people, but bleh. As far as finales go, the demon turning the tides, enslaving Boobarella, and taking her home for bondage death fun seems really tropey as well as ick.

I hadn't seen this short story before as I only have the PDF books and also haven't read through them properly anyway, so this is my first viewing - overall I could've done without it I was rooting for Tits McGee to win but only in a token pass-the-time sort of way. Which story is up next?

I was rather uncomfortable with the Dumb Blonde Joke Walking character, and kind of just wanted her to die. So I don't mind that Not-Walter won. But I'm with you on the ick factor. There are plenty of ways to show Not-Walter as being not-nice without the perv factor. Not impressed.

[Krulle]

Well, traditional torture always included binding the eprson to a wall, chair, bed,... so that's not uncommon, and nothing pervy. It's our INet-mind that interpretes more than there may be.

This story was intended as a bonus for the physical book buyers, so they have something nobody else would have.

I liked the ending, as it showed that Greena did think of a lot of different tricks, and protected herself against that.
But she forgot something simple and straightforward, and that it was simple to overcome her defenses.

Thank you, THunt!

Which story is up next?

Likely A story about the origin of ForTwogath's helmet...

[SpeaksManyLanguages]

Which story is up next?

Yeah, the origin story for Forgath's helmet, 3 pages (Thunt didn't post the "cover page" for "Not-Walter screams", so i believe there won't be a cover for that one too).

Yeah, the story of this bonus overall was pretty simple and straightforward exposition-development-climax-denouement (Demon appears in a new place and studies it ÔÇô the reader gets the surroundings, there is the development with his phobia and the sly slayer-girl exploiting it, the climax with the golem and the denouement of "twist: the tides are turned"). Pit fiend's actions come out kinda childlish, the Slayer doesn't really do anything to slay the baatezu and all of this was a psychological torture to get his true name (and thus enslave him). She had angel blood in pouches from somewhere and probably tortured other baatezu before to get the info on Not-Walter's phobia. I woudn't compare her with GS, but on the other hand, we didn't hear her that much.

So... a simple story for fun-sake that doesn't change anything in the main story and just adds a fact about Not-Walter and shows him acting on his own more, than we've seen (and probably will ever see) in comic. Just the right thing for a print-only bonus.

P.S. Pit Fiends don't have "Charm Person" in SRD, that's more house rules and deus ex machina-style twists, by the way.

[Synch]

Really didn't like this. Not-Herbert overcame his fears a little too easily, beat the demonslayer a little too easily (I know its supposed to be short filler but still, Not-Herbert had almost zero difficulty) and if Thunt likes having strong heroines and claims to be a feminist, why did he draw fap material in a slutty outfit who dies a horrible death? This felt like it was created by a frustrated prepubescent male. Sorry Thunt, missed the mark with this one.

[Krulle]

This comic was published with book 1, quite a while ago.
The story was intended as a bonus, and must be short.
Otherwise you could expand it into a complete comic of it own.

The storyline can even be disregarded as being canon.
For me it's a nice sidestory, expanding a bit the Goblinverse in a humorous way (Not-Walter is afraid of dolls!).
It has no impact on the Goblinsverse otherwise.
We don't even know where in the timeline this goes. Maybe this happened aeons ago.

You're not obliged to read it anyway, it's a free gift because Thunt desires to celebrate 10 years of Goblinscomic online a bit.

From the next story I expect less than this one delivered.
It'll be interesting how "this is a helmet" got onto the head of "this is a Dwarven cleric", but it'll only be three pages long.
Expect a wall of text.

[Lady Dawn]

I kinda like the idea of them going on a cute date with picnic, sightseeing and stuff in the underworld and having an awesome time.
I bet she would hate that when the charm wears off.
Afterwards there can still be the regular kind of torture if NotWalter feels like it.
Cool and unusual punishments just rock.

[Synch]

You're not obliged to read it anyway, it's a free gift because Thunt desires to celebrate 10 years of Goblinscomic online a bit.

Yes I realise its just an extra bonus that must be short, and is not canon. You've repeated yourself about 3-4 times. Does that mean it is to be free from any sort of criticism? If Thunt posts it up on the Goblins website, surely we as fans are allowed to pass judgement on it.

[SpeaksManyLanguages]

Really didn't like this. Not-Herbert overcame his fears a little too easily, beat the demonslayer a little too easily (I know its supposed to be short filler but still, Not-Herbert had almost zero difficulty) and if Thunt likes having strong heroines and claims to be a feminist, why did he draw fap material in a slutty outfit who dies a horrible death? This felt like it was created by a frustrated prepubescent male. Sorry Thunt, missed the mark with this one.

On the "beat a little to easy": by the way, pit fiends in DnD are one of the top-level devils in the Baator hierarchy. If I'm not mistaken, only the 9 lords of hell are above them. They are super-tough and humans aren't expected to beat them at all. Well, technically, Greena didn't even try. She just tortured him with the idea to exploit.

But in any way, I totally agree with your "frustrated prepubescent male" view. It does come off like that.

As far as I know, Thunt doesn't call himself feminist or pro-feminist. He's against bigotry, but that's it, IMHO. The story was drawn in 2006, maybe he would do it a bit different today.

P.S. I think Kruelle is just trying to provide an alternative view, not devaluing your critique.

[Krulle]

Synch, sorry.

you are of course free to criticise the works of anyone online. You did so in a fair manner, and made it obvious that it's your point of view, and not making it look like it is the general opinion of humanity.

Sorry, if my comments came over like criticizing your critique.

Yes, Not-Walter won easily. But then he was fighting a large burning golem where you couldn't make out individual dolls anymore. That is a different opponent, than those creepy crawling little dolls.
Also, she did not prepare to do damage? She should've known that becoming a high level pit fiend does not come without having learnt to overcome problems, even facing own fears.
And the ability to do damage.

Yeah, she placed all bets on one card, and that card wasn't even half as good as she expected.


Also, in the second to last panel it looks like the player of Greena failed a will check. The text looks like she wanted to say something else, but then decided for "I guess that's fair", which sounds to me like "I don't want to go, but it's not choice that I have to.".

[Synch]

Synch, sorry.

You are of course free to criticise the works of anyone online. You did so in a fair manner, and made it obvious that it's your point of view, and not making it look like it is the general opinion of humanity.

Yeah no worries, not offended at all. You were just coming across very defensive, and I don't want people to get the impression that we can't analyse and critique anything here if it happens to be a negative point of view.
I feel honesty really is the best approach; I doubt Thunt reads all of this much, but even so it might give him ideas of what works and what doesn't with his fanbase. I can only hope, because I'd prefer to see less scantily clad Double D bimbos, even if it is intended to be the parody of a stereotype.

It just seemed like a comically ill-prepared demonslayer who fell at the first hurdle. Maybe that was the intention?

Looking forward to the Korgath backstory though.

[nikohl]

Also, in the second to last panel it looks like the player of Greena failed a will check. The text looks like she wanted to say something else, but then decided for "I guess that's fair", which sounds to me like "I don't want to go, but it's not choice that I have to.".

Irrelevant in the context of us finding "Boobarella gets torn apart by demons with implied violation" to be totally blah, which I assumed was what you were still responding to as it was in the quote.

I have no issue with Not-Walter beating the stupidly overconfident and probably non-good woman who tried and failed to trap him. That's positively realistic. (Edit: and I agree with Synch's assessment that she was a comically underprepared "torturess" who had the tables turned on her.). I can overlook the rules that should mean Greena would get mad bonuses to resist "going to hell to be murdered" even at the request of someone she now, as per the spell, considers a friend. She might have shit for WIS and fail those saves against a powerful demon, even though it's a 1st level spell. Fine.

What I don't like is the icky feeling I get when I read the page. There's no actual depiction of "Tits McGee's Demon Bondage Death Adventure" that follows, but it's pretty well implied, and that's not what I come here for

[Glemp]

Looking forward to the Korgath backstory though.

NO, NO, NO. We've moved on from that....;P

As a side note regarding the ending, well, Not-Walter's a demon. He is, by definition, an Evil character who happens not to oppose our protagonists, and he solves problems in Evil ways. Is this any different than the "dogpile your soul" line?

[Synch]

Sorry, honest typo! FORGATH! You know what I meant!

[Krulle]

no, no, we've moved on from that: Twogath!