THE GOBWOOD
Goblin, Fantasy, and RPG Blog
I think it is very important to talk about the various different kinds of goblins in folklore, fantasy, entertainment, etc… because, well, why else would we be here? So lets do it. I’m gonna rate goblins of all kinds from various settings but only things that are recognizably goblins. Here we go.
Pathfinder Goblins
This is clearly a good place to start since pathfinder is the tabletop that I play. I like these guys- they’re funny, gently sinister, and their aesthetic is unique yet still totally goblin. I haven’t played the “we be goblins” adventure path but I intend to and expect to enjoy it. Pathfinder goblins have a well-written zany culture which is a great deal of fun and doesn’t take it too far. A pathfinder goblin can be somewhat serious but can also be very silly. Unfortunately, my personal preference is for the serious kind of goblin which is something pathfinder goblins will never completely be. Pathfinder hobgoblins in 1e are aesthetically awful; they’re a thanos-chinned gray shrek that you can’t love. The background stuff is pretty decent but doesn’t match the appearance at all. 1e bugbears aren’t that bad overall but they look like they could be recolored and serve better as demons or undead- creepy but not gobbish. I really dislike the bugbear culture stuff too- as if they’re some kind of semi-spiritual fear devouring creature. I give 1e a 6/10 and almost all of that cred is in the regular goblins- the other kin really drag it down.
Goblins are completely unchanged in 2e because they found a great formula and its right to stick with it. 2e Hoboblins are pretty dissapointing; they’re just taller regular goblins in formal clothes. I hate that, but I do appreciate how it better matches the hobgoblin culture stuff and at least its not as bland as the 1e hobs. The Bugbears in 2e are pretty great! They’re exactly what a bugbear based on pathfinder goblins should be with sufficient aesthetic change and brutishness but without losing the comic element. Pathfinder 2e goblins get 7/10 suffering mostly from the hobgoblins and a lack of seriousness.
DnD Goblins
DND has many editions out so far and their goblins have evolved across those editions. The earliest editions had really bad art and not the best background for its monsters so i’ll just skip all that old stuff. 3rd edition goblins are THE BEST! Their art is unique and totaly goblin, both something you can dismiss but also something that holds a potential terror in it. Imagine beating one up and it looks like a pushover, but imagine one beating you up and its frightening- the perfect aesthetic balance. Their lore is pretty basic, but I love basic goblin! The 3e Hobgoblins are also really cool because they’re so different from the goblins- I love their noses. And the bugbears are also the best- they’re furry and savage but not at all uwu. 3rd edition goblins are hands down the best goblins with classical gobness and unique twists on the theme without going out of bounds or breaking the formula. 3rd edition Goblins get 9/10.
4th edition goblins are pretty great too. The goblins look very much the same and have a lot of tribal/voodoo stuff going on which I totally dig. The Hobgoblins look at lot like their 2e cousins which deserve an honorable mention anyway- they’re both pretty basic for a monster bad guy but it works. The Bugbears in 4e are pretty decent, but the art for them is less detailed and they look more like a better drawn bad guy from an old he-man episode or something. Its not bad but nothing special. I’d give 4e goblins a 5/10.
5e goblins… no. We have to talk about 5e hobgoblins first because it looks like hobgobs were the race they designed all the goblinoids to be based on in 5e, rather than goblins being the base race. These guys aren’t too bad- they remind me a lot of the 3e hobgobs but more like if you made a tiefling out of a hobgoblin (cuz normally tieflings are just devil colored humans with horns and tails right?) Well I don’t much care for teiflings and I feel that they are right up there with anime harem girls for weebness. I wish i liked the 5e hobgobs but I just can’t seem to appreciate them more than average. The 5e bugbears look like their faces were based on 5e hobgoblins, but with tan color scheme and some hairiness. I guess it follows the theme but… it doesn’t add anything special and we already have gnolls to fill this aesthetic. As for 5e goblins… wtf. You just made tan midget hobgoblins that look like a nicolas cage you-dont-say meme out-take. Utter nonsense. Bargrivyek and his whole harem of anime gob-babes are still crying about it. 5e gets 2/10.
Wow Goblins
Despite having played WoW for many years and having named all my wow toons gobsomething and WoW being a part of why I chose the callsign of The Goblin… i hate wow goblins. Firstly, i admit that they got some things right: They’re green, they have pointy ears, pointy noses, and pointy chins and all of these are good gobby things. They also took on the unique twist of being naturally talented combustion engine mechanics in a swords and sorcery world; which is stupid. Gunpowder is a stretch i’ll tolerate but rockets and lasers built with the aptitude of Wile E. Coyote? That’s stupid. Like many of the other races they chose a particular real world ethnicity to base the goblins on- night elves are kinda oriental and kinda druidic, the dranei are pretty much arabic, the humans are just english, the trolls are caribbean, the tauren are native american, and the goblins are from somewhere between Boston Mass and the Jersey Shore wtf!? The classic goblins were supreme cheese, they went in the right direction but just did it poorly. The cataclysm update improved things i guess but is better crap really better? The only decent goblin art is from the fans or sometimes in hearthstone and it is representative of what WoW goblins should have been- sadly its not what they are. WoW Goblins get a 1/10 only because being green is at least worth 1 point.
Warhammer Goblins
Savage, ferocious, and frightening creatures which stalk the darkness, things of nightmare for fear of which children are driven to obedience! These are real goblins. Their lore and history are well written, they have culture and subcultures, superstitions, and ambitions, but are held back only by their stature. These goblins represent the rage of the underdog, the desperation of the weak, and the most noble refusal to yield to inferiority despite it being certain. They are not evil just because they can be, they are evil because they must be! Amazing artwork both official and amateur, these are probably the perfect goblins. 10/10 maximum score!
David Bowie Goblins
The 80’s fantasy film “Labyrinth” is well deserving of its cult following. Any cult about goblins or related to jim henson is a decidedly good thing and the goblins portrayed in this film are really cool. They’re cute, ugly, dirty, adorable, mischevious, inept, and naive. They’re not the kind of goblins that stab people out wandering alone at night but they’re really fun and my most favorite aspect is that they’re all so diverse- big ones, small ones, yippy ones, oafish ones, etc.. and i really like that concept. After all, goblins are meant to be the misfits even among fantasy creatures and i think it really fulfills that archetype to have dramatically variable physiology so even a goblin among goblins isn’t like the others. Lastly, they are lead by one of the greatest goblin Kings to ever live and my predecessor- David Bowie. I mean Jareth. Labyrinth goblins get a 8/10 for their fun and unique take.
Wizarding World Goblins
J.K. Rowling got her goblins, gnomes, and elves mixed up or something. The banking goblins from Gringotts are mostly not gobby enough to qualify and they lack the 2 most important elements to goblinkind: First being green, Second being eagerness to commit mischievous or vile acts. Maybe the super pointy one almost looks th epart but even he’s still not green. The rest? they’re just kids with facial prosthetics and it is very dissapointing. The house elves are better goblins than that and they’re somehow elves? It’s an abominable take on goblins overall but they did get to put warwick davis in yet another role throughout the films so thats worth at least 1 point. 1/10.
Slayable Goblins
Goblin Slayer really laid it out there. Modern fantasy often portrays goblins as silly, sometimes as cute, and occasionally as harmless which, while i sometimes can appreciate a chibi goblin, I largely prefer the bad bois and Goblin Slayer delivered a representation of goblins which exceeded all my expectations. They’re vile, rapacious, disgusting, and worst of all they’re industrious. They are, much like the warhammer gobs, the kind of creature you warn children about so they’ll behave but almost too much more. These gobs are almost more like very intelligent animals- driven by hunger and the need to mate, but with the dangerous ability to plan and problem solve. They’re unclear mystical origins are intriguing and the underlying theme of their ever-present threat is exactly what I hope for in a goblin. I also appreciate how the HobGobs and other variants aren’t really different species- they’re just bigger and tougher goblins so it brings a delightful unity to the goblin race. However, while they hit just the right balance between dangerous and pitiful for the race as a whole, and they do very well to illustrate why you ought to fear them, they kinda went overboard in their nasty behavior. I’m not saying they did anything wrong, or that it is bad fantasy, just that i can’t relate to a goblin who is truly innately evil a.f. which is exactly what these goblins are. Also the goat eyes- that’s a really great touch for what they are but having non-humanoid eyes often serves to make something seem alien to us since eyes are so important to our familiarity and facial recognition- it kinda shows what i’m saying and suggests they fit better into the force of evil category along with demons rather than the desperate survivor category which is where i like my goblins. Goblin Slayer goblins get a 9/10 suffering only from an excess of evil.
The Goblins of Middle Earth
Tolkien goblins are the same thing as tolkien orcs, i always suspected something like this but didn’t fully understand until recently. Orc is the actual creature but “goblin” is the english translation of the word orc in middle earth. This seems odd to us because we all know what orcs are now as if it were a part of our language… and it is for us nerds… but enough about that. We’re gonna focus on the smaller ones and the ones that are referred to as goblins and the ones that look like goblins as we know goblins which primarily covers the boys in the hobbit and the skinnier ones in the lotr series. J.R.R. gets their loathsome nature right but they’re almost too ugly, even gross to look at, which i’m not a big fan of. Part of this may be due to the interpretation of artists going from his eloquent descriptive writing style to prosthetic and CGI and maintaining the excess of impact that novels require in order to get the imagery across when really they could have toned it down because… you’ll literally see the creature and not have to imagine it… but i dunno. Im not really a fan of gross things. The Cartoon gobbos are hardly recognizeable as gobs but they’ll always have a place in my heart along with many animations from that era, and they can drop lyrics like the baddest and sickest! Where theres a whip.. (wha-pssh!) Now I admit I didn’t read the books, except for silmarillion, but I can’t say I really picked up on the goblin culture as distinct from orc culture (because its not… and tolkien said so himself) except for the ones in the mountain pass that had the goblin town. I loved goblin town, it was idyllic as far as goblin communities go. It was absurd and unsafe in its construciton, dark and gloomy, but also functional and built to epic proportion- like helms deep but built with plywood and duct tape epic. I would totally invest in some real estate down down in goblin town. Overall the middle earth goblins seem very basic to me, more basic than basic, and its probably because of the orc thing, but i gotta give credit where its due- its thanks to these guys that we have all the other goblins I love so much. These books served to pretty much single handedly create the archetype that I adore. I’ll go with 6/10 and special praise for raising goblins out of formless fairy tales and giving them identity.
Next up: lego elves- secrets of elvendale goblins
Or maybe I’ll just lose interest and do something else…