User blog:Megamangohan/My thoughts on The Goblin Slayer

I first heard about the Goblin Slayer, I must say, the show has gotten a lot of controversy and I think the writers did a pretty good job on the show. It has only been three episodes, and I would like to show how I feel about the elements presented in the show.

For those of you who don't know:

In the Goblin Slayer, a warrior of high ranking is honored with the gift of doing the highest jobs available in the community. In episode 3, we learn that one of these jobs is to kill Demons that seek to destroy everything on the planet, very similar to classic villains you see on show today. However the Goblin Slayer takes one of the lowest of jobs, despite being at a high ranking. This is to kill Goblins. While the Goblins aren't nearly as bad as the demons, they still do extreme things such as attacking young women and dancing on their corpses. The goblin slayer claims to do this because he has suffered past experiences dealing with the Goblins, and as such understands the hurt of those being attacked by the Goblins. In episode 3, he also claims that there is less time to slay the Goblins, and more time to slay the demons, despite the severity of the Goblins' attacks being far less. It is possible for humans to become Goblins if filled with negative energy sch as rage, vengeance, jealousy, etc.

My thoughts:

I think episode 1/2 gave a solid introduction on the series. I liked the entire theme surrounding humility. In most shows, we get a person who is the weakest, however desires to become the strongest through a simple messages such as hard work. These people tend to become very prideful, and even puts them at odds similar to the villain, seeking power. There are many top shows that do this. Goku, Vegeta, Naruto, and Luffy are all prime examples of this problem. In short, many of these characters seek to become God, however the Goblin Slayer is already of a high authority, and in that scenario is already similar to a God. He takes his high position of power, and humbles himself instead of boasting his power on other things. This allows him to better understand the pain of the humans that exist below him. I strongly appreciate how this shows empathy for the weak, and the understanding that the weak need just as much help as the strong. I strongly agree that others should appreciate his humility as well.

One might question if this is rational?:

The short answer is yes. He states the Goblins will accomplish their goals faster than the demons will, and this creates a stronger urgency to deal with the Goblins and not the Demons. Even without this, the Demons still have many others on the alert and a will to attack them, but there are very few with action or desire to kill the Goblins, due to the Goblins being at such a low level.

But what if it wasn't the rational thing to do?:

Let's say these details weren't there and this was a fully irrational thing to do. In more realistic terms, the Goblins were going to do less damage than the Demons, but both were doing damage and attacking at the same time. There were also slightly less than enough people to deal with both races, and his choise to join the fight against demons or Goblins would be the full determination between which race would be fully extinct. This is where I fully believe that the Goblin Slayer is trying to go with their story. Let's, for lesson's sake, assume the fact that he is humbling himself based on personal experience rather than empathy for the weak is true. This creates the moral I believe the story is trying to portray the most. Should we act based on what our personal experience tells us, or should we act on what is actually the most important thing that can hurt us, rather than just the pain we went through in the past. Here, I believe The answer is to take the rational. If you have the personal experience of you and everyone who falls into your group of something such as not being able to use the bathroom without being charged, but lack the personal experience of entire health issues being overcharged, and you were only given the chance to take a career of preventing bathroom expenses, just because you had a bad experience of such, or the ability to be able to prevent entire health expenses, what would you choose? In this case, I think it is fine to make either decision, just that personal experience is not contributing to the rationality of said decision. Those that decide based on experience may say that they are not responsible for needing to help such people to begin with. My response is that is true that you were not responsible for BOTH parties in the analogy. In case of The Goblin Slayer, he is actually more responsible for higher jobs than he is at the lower jobs. If you choose to act on experience, and have a better reason, let me know.

Now I want to address one more counter argument that is in support of the Goblin Slayer choosing to kill Goblins. This is an approach to the argument of "mathematically more people are in danger" argument, and it comes in the words of Captain America and T'Challa, from Marvel Comics.

"I Know I should, I know I must,... I don't let people die because it is the lesser of two evils, or because it serves the greater good, I don't compare the act against something else. I see someone who needs help, and I help. You think it's a weakness, but you're wrong... We were dammed the very day we thought it was for men to decide things such as this."

First, I heavily complement these words for tieing into the whole humility concept, as humbling down to do lesser jobs is no sigh=n of weakness. I would also like to point out that the Goblin Slayer isn't doing anything "wrong," which ever choise he chooses to make. Now, the most common misinterpretation with this quote the claim these people are coming from personal experience. The truth is that this quote has no relationship to personal experience, and both of these characters are speaking from a perspective known as principles.

My point: I accept principles as a reason to want to slay Goblins over Demons, I do not accept personal experience as a reason to want to slay Goblins. In other words, In any case where we choose one action over another AND there is no negative consequence for choosing the "better" action, again not the case of the Goblin slayer, I believe that is not an option that is very understandable/excusable. In any case where we choose one action over another AND there is a negative consequence for choosing the "better" action, in the Goblin's case, it is understandable/excusable. I do not believe personal experience needs to be tied into the reasoning.

One more counter: Isn't relating to others on a personal level of experience?:

My response: Yes, One should always try to relate to others in terms of helping them out as much as possible. If one does not have the personal experience of the pains that other person is dealing with, but the person who is trying to help out the person who needs help knows how to help the person that needs help, the statement that the person who was originally going to help out the person that needs help, but now won't under the fact that they don't relate to the needy person due to a lack of personal relationship with said experience, I do not think that statement ALONE, is enough of an excuse to create the refusal of help. In the Goblin Slayer's case, he is exempt from this problem in his own show, as he has both reasons and principles ON TOP of his personal experience to support his claims.

One more criticism of the show: Killing all the Goblins is racist, just because a few Goblins attack and the rest don't.

My response: We don't have enough evidence showing purity in the Goblins. In fact, this is not racist because it is already proven that humans can become Goblins through negative energy, thus destroying the possibility that any of them are pure.

Overall, I am far more positive than negative about the show, and I look forward to the future episodes it has to present to us.