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

[BlueAmaranth]

This isn't necessarily a question of thinking, "Ah, yes, Not-Walter literally means that Greena will be raped." It's the general tone of the scene, where it's hitting the right notes to give it a rapey vibe. It's a woman who had already been designed to appeal to the male gaze (the boob-curtains), being stripped of her agency and led away into a dangerous place where the male character intends to violate her physically.

You see what I'm saying? No, it's not literally a scene of imminent rape. Yes, it parallels a scene of imminent rape closely enough to call the subject to mind in what, judging by this thread, is a significant fraction of readers. That's foreseeably going to squick some people out, especially people who've been victimized in the past.

If Thunt didn't intend to draw that parallel in readers' minds, then he dropped the ball as a writer.

(The "Hiya, cutie" line really didn't help, either. Scenes involving mind control need to be handled a lot more delicately than that if the author doesn't want to make it weird.)

[spiderwrangler]

Fair point. Association rather than assumption.

[Zathyr]

I'd like to point out that as a comic author one of Thunt's influences was Dave Trampier's "Wormy," a comic about an evil dragon routinely doing evil dragon things, for laughs. I thought this mini-comic seemed to have a very Wormy-esque feel to it. I'm not entirely sure what you'd call the style of humor - it's beyond "dark humor" IMO, into a full reversal of societal norms and building from there. Twisted, I suppose.

[Synch]

This isn't necessarily a question of thinking, "Ah, yes, Not-Walter literally means that Greena will be raped." It's the general tone of the scene, where it's hitting the right notes to give it a rapey vibe. It's a woman who had already been designed to appeal to the male gaze (the boob-curtains), being stripped of her agency and led away into a dangerous place where the male character intends to violate her physically.

You see what I'm saying? No, it's not literally a scene of imminent rape. Yes, it parallels a scene of imminent rape closely enough to call the subject to mind in what, judging by this thread, is a significant fraction of readers. That's foreseeably going to squick some people out, especially people who've been victimized in the past.

If Thunt didn't intend to draw that parallel in readers' minds, then he dropped the ball as a writer.

(The "Hiya, cutie" line really didn't help, either. Scenes involving mind control need to be handled a lot more delicately than that if the author doesn't want to make it weird.)

+1

[RocketScientist]

This isn't necessarily a question of thinking, "Ah, yes, Not-Walter literally means that Greena will be raped." It's the general tone of the scene, where it's hitting the right notes to give it a rapey vibe. It's a woman who had already been designed to appeal to the male gaze (the boob-curtains), being stripped of her agency and led away into a dangerous place where the male character intends to violate her physically.

You see what I'm saying? No, it's not literally a scene of imminent rape. Yes, it parallels a scene of imminent rape closely enough to call the subject to mind in what, judging by this thread, is a significant fraction of readers. That's foreseeably going to squick some people out, especially people who've been victimized in the past.

If Thunt didn't intend to draw that parallel in readers' minds, then he dropped the ball as a writer.

(The "Hiya, cutie" line really didn't help, either. Scenes involving mind control need to be handled a lot more delicately than that if the author doesn't want to make it weird.)

+1

+2

[thesilence]

This isn't necessarily a question of thinking, "Ah, yes, Not-Walter literally means that Greena will be raped." It's the general tone of the scene, where it's hitting the right notes to give it a rapey vibe. It's a woman who had already been designed to appeal to the male gaze (the boob-curtains), being stripped of her agency and led away into a dangerous place where the male character intends to violate her physically.

You see what I'm saying? No, it's not literally a scene of imminent rape. Yes, it parallels a scene of imminent rape closely enough to call the subject to mind in what, judging by this thread, is a significant fraction of readers. That's foreseeably going to squick some people out, especially people who've been victimized in the past.

If Thunt didn't intend to draw that parallel in readers' minds, then he dropped the ball as a writer.

(The "Hiya, cutie" line really didn't help, either. Scenes involving mind control need to be handled a lot more delicately than that if the author doesn't want to make it weird.)

+1

+2

+1 (as in we are adding -1 to the cumulative total). We agree with what SpiderWrangler said earlier - if you are assuming that a torture scene MUST also include rape, it is your fault and not the author's that your mind has gone to such a place.

[Zathyr]

I'm not sure if demons/devils even have gender, by default. Even succubi might not be, although in their case they can change shape to take on any small or medium humanoid of whatever sex they wish.

[BlueAmaranth]

We agree with what SpiderWrangler said earlier - if you are assuming that a torture scene MUST also include rape, it is your fault and not the author's that your mind has gone to such a place.

You seem to be misunderstanding my point. Again: This isn't about anyone assuming that a literal rape is destined to take place during the torture session. This is about the author (I assume unintentionally) drawing uncomfortable parallels through clumsy handling of the scene. I think I made my position clear in the original post.

[Simon]

I think I may have to agree to disagree or something here. I respect that others may have different interpretations of the comic, but I can't see anyway how this is supposed to imply rape more than any other torture scene in anything else (unless all torture = rape?). I don't wish to offend anyone here and I'm worried I will inadvertently. Discussing this topic is making my a bit... uneasy and I feel it's starting to get a bit far off-topic, and maybe more suited to controversial. But anyway, hopefully this bonus comic hasn't dissuaded you from reading and enjoying Goblins, as I'm almost certain it wasn't Thunt's intentions to make anyone feel uncomfortable or suggest anything like this.

[SpeaksManyLanguages]

In this bonus comic, Not-Walter is the 'Villain Protagonist', not the hero. His actions do not need to be good.

He was never presented as a villain really, though. He was the monster that Herbert sent to Minmax+Forgath, and this whole comic is about "monsters" being the heroes of the story, that's in the title. All he did in book 1 after that was appear a second time not to do any harm or pain to anyone, but just to relay Herbert's words. He even cracked some jokes with M+F at that time. Totally a likable character. There was no "villain protagonist" buildup at all, other than "belongs to species of evil creatures". A premise, that this comic is against.

P.S. another +1 for BlueAmaranth as he's continuing my train of thought too.

[mustache_man]

I think I may have to agree to disagree or something here. I respect that others may have different interpretations of the comic, but I can't see anyway how this is supposed to imply rape more than any other torture scene in anything else (unless all torture = rape?).
I don't wish to offend anyone here and I'm worried I will inadvertently. Discussing this topic is making my a bit... uneasy and I feel it's starting to get a bit far off-topic, and maybe more suited to controversial. But anyway, hopefully this bonus comic hasn't dissuaded you from reading and enjoying Goblins, as I'm almost certain it wasn't Thunt's intentions to make anyone feel uncomfortable or suggest anything like this.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but maybe a combination of the way she's dressed, her gigantic balloon boobs, plus the "Heya cutie" when she gets mind controlled. I'm positive it wasn't his intention, but it did give a rapey vibe towards the end. If it was just me, I'd be more inclined to go with the theory that it's all in my head, but given the number of people that had the same complaint, it's safe to say the scene was poorly handled. If a lot of the readers are getting a feeling he does not wish to convey, he dropped the ball somewhere.

[Krulle]

Well, the "Hiya Cutie" I attribute to the "Charm Person" curse....
It seems to be her character falling back to such a wordchoice.

[thinkslogically]

I've just caught up on the last month of the comic, and while I must admit to not feeling much love for either of the short stories I wasn't particularly offended by this one either - it just read (to me) like an immature writer creating a fairly average story. As a result, there's a lot of things in it that I'm not that comfortable with (e.g. the physical portrayal of the "herione" is not cool in my book), but that fall short of being offensive (to me) if you view it in the context of being written in 2006. THunt seems to have done a lot of maturing in that time and I doubt that his intention was to be offensive, however clumsy this particular comic may have ended up being. Saying that, by reposting this comic online again now in an unedited form, THunt is stating his continued support for the contents of the comic and that does sit a little uncomfortably with me...

[Krulle]

Well, he is standing behind his previous works, and may not have re-looked at any possibly difficult parts within those comics.
He considered them an additional gift for ten years of goblinscomic.com online.
I would not think much about what his thoughts were.
Likely he searched for finished, unpublished things as bonus, to prevent any further hindering of finishing comics by adding workload, and this is what he found in his archive.

Especially if it's about interpreting male actions: if there is an interpretation which is positive, then it is very likely we meant that.

One story to go: http://www.goblinscomic.org/06112015/
A story about how Minmax got arrested ended up in an Elven prison...
So the dailies already skipped a day.... (No bonus comic 9 July - skipped, but then we got one unfinished page, which then got updated as fully shaded. I can count that as no target missed until now.)

[RocketScientist]

I think I may have to agree to disagree or something here. I respect that others may have different interpretations of the comic, but I can't see anyway how this is supposed to imply rape more than any other torture scene in anything else (unless all torture = rape?). I don't wish to offend anyone here and I'm worried I will inadvertently. Discussing this topic is making my a bit... uneasy and I feel it's starting to get a bit far off-topic, and maybe more suited to controversial. But anyway, hopefully this bonus comic hasn't dissuaded you from reading and enjoying Goblins, as I'm almost certain it wasn't Thunt's intentions to make anyone feel uncomfortable or suggest anything like this.

I don't see anybody threatening to rage quit the comic over this one old strip that was clumsy and poorly scripted. I know I'm certainly not planning any such thing.

Just as an aside, it doesn't help that the title says he "screams like a little girl." Bang out of the gate he's got a sexist saying. It sets a negative tone that the comic itself, with its creeper vibe doesn't dispel.

[thinkslogically]

I would not think much about what his thoughts were.
Likely he searched for finished, unpublished things as bonus, to prevent any further hindering of finishing comics by adding workload, and this is what he found in his archive.

Sure, but god knows he's had more than his share of issues in the past with this kind of thing and finding that the discussion in this thread has already turned towards the "rapey vibe" doesn't exactly bode well for what Thunts' detractors are going to be posting... That's my main concern with it really. I personally have no enormous objection to this comic - it's not great and it's pretty sexist by current standards, but whatever, it was written a long time ago. I feel like we've stomped over this particular ground more than enough times in the interim period to know that this is unlikely to be a reflection of Thunt's current thinking

Especially if it's about interpreting male actions: if there is an interpretation which is positive, then it is very likely we meant that.

Sure, I find that if you apply that rule to everyone (not just guys) then life goes much more smoothly

[Xavier78]

if you are assuming that a torture scene MUST also include rape, it is your fault and not the author's that your mind has gone to such a place.

Please tell me you are joking? That is, and I mean no offense, the dumbest defense I've ever seen on these forums. She is a Female, so torture with rape is a normal, if not twisted (but isn't torture already twisted?), thing to assume. If Hunt wasn't intending such a thing, HE would have made an attempt to make that VERY clear. Again, I'm not attacking you, just pointing out the very obvious. Let one of his Feminist buddies see this, lets see how they interpret it.

[BlueAmaranth]

if you are assuming that a torture scene MUST also include rape, it is your fault and not the author's that your mind has gone to such a place.

Please tell me you are joking? That is, and I mean no offense, the dumbest defense I've ever seen on these forums. She is a Female, so torture with rape is a normal, if not twisted (but isn't torture already twisted?), thing to assume. If Hunt wasn't intending such a thing, HE would have made an attempt to make that VERY clear. Again, I'm not attacking you, just pointing out the very obvious. Let one of his Feminist buddies see this, lets see how they interpret it.

I obviously don't agree with thesilence that Thunt bears no responsibility for how his work is interpreted, but I also disagree that it's "normal" to assume that torturing a woman = rape. There were a lot of ways that this scene was poorly handled that made it evocative of an imminent rape, but the mere fact of a woman being tortured wasn't the issue.

(An aside, but just so you know, calling human women "females" tends to come across as stilted and dehumanizing. I don't think you meant it that way, but as a general rule "women" is the preferred term when you're using it as a noun.)

[sunphoenix]

I think I may have to agree to disagree or something here. I respect that others may have different interpretations of the comic, but I can't see anyway how this is supposed to imply rape more than any other torture scene in anything else (unless all torture = rape?). I don't wish to offend anyone here and I'm worried I will inadvertently. Discussing this topic is making my a bit... uneasy and I feel it's starting to get a bit far off-topic, and maybe more suited to controversial. But anyway, hopefully this bonus comic hasn't dissuaded you from reading and enjoying Goblins, as I'm almost certain it wasn't Thunt's intentions to make anyone feel uncomfortable or suggest anything like this.

+1 The point I've been trying to make~ the bolded/red part of the post... I don't like cutting up other's posts, seems like taking words out of context, which is rude and self-serving.

[sunphoenix]

Just as an aside, it doesn't help that the title says he "screams like a little girl." Bang out of the gate he's got a sexist saying. It sets a negative tone that the comic itself, with its creeper vibe doesn't dispel.

+1 This, unfortunately.. I MUST agree with as its true... no candy-coating that.

[Synch]

As a writer, it matters little what your intention is. You need to think outside of yourself and consider how your work will be received through implication, intention or otherwise. Boobarella saying Hiya Cutie then about to be dragged off for torturing while being controlled REALLY misses the mark, and makes it much less lighthearted and much more creepy. It may have been innocently done, but it was poorly written.

[BlueAmaranth]

I don't think anyone is arguing that Thunt intended the rapey vibes. Again and again, I and others have said that the rapey vibes were caused by clumsy writing.

Thunt didn't intend to make the scene feel rapey. However, the scene feels rapey. This is because Thunt messed up at writing the scene.

The rapey tone of the scene does not mean that Thunt has poor character. We all understand that Thunt is not the kind of person who would intentionally write this scene with a rapey tone. However, it is still Thunt's fault that he messed up and wrote a scene with a rapey tone, not the reader's fault for picking up on the glaring parallels.

Also, I agree with what Synch said.

[Guus]

EDIT: This may sound a bit rude, for that I apologize. I don't really know how to say what I mean to say in proper English. It's in no way meant to insult or attack someone on a personal level, it's just that I sometimes choose my words wrong. Kind of ironic, really

Honestly, I didn't even pay much attention to the characters itself. It was a joke that took THunt a little too many pages to make, and that made it kind of unfunny, and pretty weird. Still, I appreciate being able to read it.

I like stuff like supernatural and sherlock, shows that imply some pretty nasty stuff. I really enjoy shows like Game of Thrones, and the one and only anime I liked was Hellsing, both pretty gory, rapey and thus in many scenes downright nasty. Still, they're fantasy. In some ways you can say that it's a bad scene, teaching the wrong stuff. On the other hand you can argue that this stuff is something that should be written off as entertainment, how poor anyone might find the joke.

It doesn't matter if what you are portraying is terrible as a writer. Not realizing that you wrote something terribly nasty is so much worse. An artist needs to realize what he or she is saying/writing/singing/whatevermebob. It's ok to write something nasty and realizing that it's nasty. It's something else to write something and not realize what the average reader will read. So no, I hope THunt knew full well what vibe he gave off, rather than not realizing this at all. It happened a few times in the comic as well, and I like to think they were intentional to make certain scenes carry more weight instead of mistakes made out of ignorance. Crossing the line as an artist is a-ok, you just need to know what you are doing.

That being said: I liked the phobia idea. Someone I know is terrified of cars that slightly look like faces, and tough as it may be for her, it's a source of humour as well, as long as both parties realize that humour should be constructive and not destructive. So yeah, I'm ok with just about anything as long as intention and action correlate.

[thesilence]

As a writer, it matters little what your intention is. You need to think outside of yourself and consider how your work will be received through implication, intention or otherwise.

Respectfully, this is foolishness. There will ALWAYS be people out there who will look for any excuse to willfully misinterpret what an author writes, but they are not his audience, they are simply persons who showed up to tear down something that they didn't care about. As a creative type, you cannot be afraid to express yourself for fear that someone won't like it; you are responsible only for conveying your own unique vision, and anyone who doesn't like it is within their rights to do absolutely nothing other than fail to consume (read, buy, promote, etc) your product. You are absolutely not answerable to the words that some malicious hanger-on puts into your mouth in an attempt to frame you for social crimes; you are not even obligated to defend yourself against such fraudulent charges, as it is the responsibility of the general public not to listen to charlatans and malcontents who try to frame the innocent.

In brief, we tire of seeing great men (or women) torn down by the small-minded and spiteful.

[Morgaln]

As a writer, it matters little what your intention is. You need to think outside of yourself and consider how your work will be received through implication, intention or otherwise.

Respectfully, this is foolishness. There will ALWAYS be people out there who will look for any excuse to willfully misinterpret what an author writes, but they are not his audience, they are simply persons who showed up to tear down something that they didn't care about. As a creative type, you cannot be afraid to express yourself for fear that someone won't like it; you are responsible only for conveying your own unique vision, and anyone who doesn't like it is within their rights to do absolutely nothing other than fail to consume (read, buy, promote, etc) your product. You are absolutely not answerable to the words that some malicious hanger-on puts into your mouth in an attempt to frame you for social crimes; you are not even obligated to defend yourself against such fraudulent charges, as it is the responsibility of the general public not to listen to charlatans and malcontents who try to frame the innocent.

In brief, we tire of seeing great men (or women) torn down by the small-minded and spiteful.

I disagree. It should not be required to first ask the intentions of an author before interpreting their work. The work needs to stand on its own and let the reader make their own interpretation based on what is in the work. This is called Death of an Author on tvtropes, and I'll quote the first paragraphs from the article there now since they summarize the concept pretty well:

Death of the Author is a concept from literary criticism which holds that an author's intentions and biographical facts (the author's politics, religion, etc) should hold no weight when coming to an interpretation of their writing; that is, that a writer's interpretation of his own work is no more valid than the interpretations of any of the readers.

Intentions are one thing. What was actually accomplished might be something very different.

Read more: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... z3fZt0zQZZ

Just because someone interprets a work of literature differently than the author might have intended, that doesn't automatically mean that person willfully misinterpreted it and it doesn't make them small-minded, spiteful and malicious. It just means that they saw something in the writing that the author didn't intend and maybe didn't even realize they put in there as a possible interpretation. If I go to the bookstore and pick up a book by an author I don't know anything about, I am not required to do several hours of research on that author before I form an opinion on the book itself. I will judge the book by what is on the pages between its covers. If I don't like what I see, I will not go to the author and ask if I misinterpreted anything, and neither should I need to.
The same goes for a webcomic; if someone comes across the current page of a webcomic by chance, they won't go to the forum and ask for a treatise on the author's life before forming an opinion. They'll judge the page on what they see and they have the right to do so. If they get offended by what they see even though their interpretation differs from the author's, then that is not their fault but the author's for not conveying his ideas properly.

By the way, that also works the other way around. You can just as well ignore uncomfortable parts of a work even though the author intended them. A good example is H. P. Lovecraft; much of his work is terribly racist even for the time it was written in. I can still enjoy his work, but I will not close my eyes to the racist overtones and I can understand everyone who dislikes Lovecraft based on this.