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REVIEW: Goblin Slayer Novel 7

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None of her friends, she realizes with more clarity than she'd like to, is going to live nearly as long as she will, and ultimately the fifty-to-eighty years she might spend with them will be the total of their lifespans but only the equivalent of about a month for her.

Is this trope getting tiresome and lazy for anyone else? I first got into anime/manga in around 2008, and was introduced to this topic by Spice and Wolf, where Holo frets about her relationship with the mortal Lawrence. It was a great story, but the trope has been repeated over and over again. It's been around for my entire life as an anime fan, and certainly long before that too. It's getting boring.

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Is this trope getting tiresome and lazy for anyone else? I first got into anime/manga in around 2008, and was introduced to this topic by Spice and Wolf, where Holo frets about her relationship with the mortal Lawrence. It was a great story, but the trope has been repeated over and over again. It's been around for my entire life as an anime fan, and certainly long before that too. It's getting boring.

Dude, there are so many stories that nothing is really original anymore. Its called a trope because it works. What matters more is how the series handles said trope.

Can't go wrong with more of "Priestess's Amazing PTSD Adventure (ft. Genocidal Maniac and The Three Cinnamon Rolls)".
Was hoping for more of a mention of Priestess using a spell to directly do damage. After remembering GS saying that imagination is a weapon, she uses Purify to purify a goblin's blood (metal as F). It seems like as GS becomes more like a normal human, Priestess becomes more like GS. Somehow the goblin survives, which makes no sense to me. Maybe her goddess stopped the spell before it could take full effect or something because she was not pleased with Priestess.
Really hoping Priestess gets some sort of self-cast-only Berserk spell or some other sort of aggressive spell. I've never played a tabletop RPG, but can she barbarian-cleric dual-class?[/i]

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although there are allusions to rape, we never see it on the page, with Kagyu once again stating that we don't need to see that.

Once again, head smashing, eye poking, arms slicing, intestines gouging gore is okay, violence against women isn't? Worst thing is, this started with real tension, and it just tapered off to yet another boring slice of life comedy. Another gem ruined by double standards and hypocrisy.

pwnagemaster wrote:

Was hoping for more of a mention of Priestess using a spell to directly do damage. After remembering GS saying that imagination is a weapon,spoiler[ she uses Purify to purify a goblin's blood (metal as F).

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I'm hoping it comes up in volume 8; I didn't want to spoil what could be a major moment in her development. But it was amazing.

RE: Elf Age Trope

I think I first encountered it when I was first getting into serious fantasy reading back in middle school; it was either Elaine Cunningham or Anne Logston who I first saw use it. Anyway, yes, it's an old one, but done well, it's a trope that holds up, in my opinion. In this particular book it helps give High Elf Archer some of her first real character development, really showing us where she's coming from culturally.

@Princess_Irene

RE: Elf Age Trope

It is a major plot point in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (in all his work actually). When that series hit big in the early 1960's, publishers mined older fantasy to supply the new market for high fantasy and came up with some very odd stuff (The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison for example). I don't remember it coming up in those that I read. However, given how much of Tolkien's work was based on traditional folk tales, it is likely the trope is much older.

^Absolutely - I think we can safely trace it to myths of Thomas the Rhymer and other "taken to Elfland" tales if we're looking for Tolkien's inspiration, and that's just looking at Celtic mythology. I was always a swords-and-sorcery girl, so that's why Cunningham and Logston were my first introduction to it; I came to Tolkien a bit late in my reading career.

But the point really is that Kagyu's just continuing a long-standing fantasy trope that dates back to the origins of the genre - it transcends LNs and other Japanese media (or any other specific country of origin).

I was in college in 1965 when the first paperback editions of Lord of the Rings came out and it hit big. It wasn't my first taste of high fantasy, but it was extremely important. I think my first such book was the 1961 version of Three Hearts and Three Dragons by Poul Anderson.

tomdean wrote:

Quote: although there are allusions to rape, we never see it on the page, with Kagyu once again stating that we don't need to see that. Once again, head smashing, eye poking, arms slicing, intestines gouging gore is okay, violence against women isn't? Worst thing is, this started with real tension, and it just tapered off to yet another boring slice of life comedy. Another gem ruined by double standards and hypocrisy.

It's okay if you get off on rape fantasies or the idea of rape in fictional stories but that's a subject that's not going to be everyone's flex for obvious reasons.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

It's okay if you get off on rape fantasies or the idea of rape in fictional stories but that's a subject that's not going to be everyone's flex for obvious reasons.

I've never seen/read any of this franchise, but I believe he was saying that's the problem, that it suffered by trying to appease and appeal to everyone rather than the people who liked what it was at first. Like when a metal band "sells out" and puts out softer, simpler music.

nDroae wrote:

BadNewsBlues wrote: It's okay if you get off on rape fantasies or the idea of rape in fictional stories but that's a subject that's not going to be everyone's flex for obvious reasons. I've never seen/read any of this franchise, but I believe he was saying that's the problem, that it suffered by trying to appease and appeal to everyone rather than the people who liked what it was at first. Like when a metal band "sells out" and puts out softer, simpler music.

But GS was NEVER like that at first though. Seems like they read way more into it than what was really there.

I always felt that goblin slayer used rape as nothing more than a popular marketing stick.
it had nothing substantial & meaning to do with psychological trauma from the get go, the rape scene was there for publicity and attention to get people to read it. I don't know but to me the series has always came across as trashy & edgy maybe i'm wrong.

But i always felt like berserk used rape with a lot more weight, consequence, sympathy & care. or at least it feels that way to me because kentaro miura seems to feel that way as a mangaka as he writes & draws those scenes from my perspective (maybe with 1 exception tho), but with the gs writer i don't get that kind of feel at all.

Yeah, that (Berserk contrast) seems to be the popular consensus, or at least the prevailing opinion from what I've seen (which doesn't represent mass audiences).

Hearing about GS early on, I assumed one or more main characters would survive rape and that being a rape survivor would be part of their identity from then on, but later I took a look at the wiki and apparently the victim was one side character who seems to be broken and defeated afterward, and is completely dropped from the story? So that was disappointing. Even FMA 2003's treatment of Rose was better than that.

Since we are discussing the novels here: We have two ongoing rape survivors, Sword Maiden (from the Water Town) and Noble Fencer. In the case of Sword Maiden she also faced torture with resulting serious vision impairment. She clearly suffers from PTSD and a decreased sense of self worth. However, she functions in society and continues to preform her duties. Noble Fencer is apparently going to be an ongoing character, but is not yet ready to be an adventurer.

As to the young woman from the first chapter, it isn't given to everyone to be able to come back after such trauma. Nietzsche was wrong, sometimes what doesn't kill you destroys you in other ways.

Good to know, thank you. I don't mean permanent defeat is an outcome that shouldn't happen at all in fiction, but that I think it should be in the minority, which it apparently is.