Aspect Analysis - Goblin Slayer and It's Use of Rape and Violence

Typically with Aspect Analysis, I will talk spoilers. In this case, I am going to avoid it the best I can. The topic of its use of rape has turned a lot of people away with the idea that it is here merely as shock value, but I want to make the point that Goblin Slayer does so much more than that, and I'd like anyone who thought it was their merely for shock and offense to see a different side, and maybe check out the show.

That being said, I do understand that not everyone is able to watch such things, and despite its effectiveness in terms of the narrative may be irrelevant to your willingness to watch it. I do understand if the use of such things in a narrative is just a deal breaker for you.

There is something Goblin Slayer does that almost no other anime out there does as well, and that is how it manages to paint the goblins as weaklings, all while showing how terrifying they can be and the horror they bring in their wake. There is a difference in how goblins are viewed by the average person and how they are viewed by anyone who has suffered at their hands.

Goblins are essentially the weakest of the world's monsters, but they are numerous and portrayed as incredibly evil. On one hand, any experienced adventuring party isn't going to have any trouble dealing with a cave of goblins, on the other hand, you have the first adventuring party you see in the show delve into a goblin cave. Despite the new adventurers being stronger then any individual goblin, small things work against them. They miss a small passage due to the lighting and get jumped from behind, the leader's sword is a bit larger and makes it hard to use in a confined cave, and they rapidly get eliminated one at a time.

That's a great look at the potential dangers of dealing with Goblins, but then there is how the show paints the horror they leave in their wake. See, they don't always kill the women, generally, the women will be raped and toyed with for the goblins amusement. There are a few things I want to get into in regards to this, the first being how effectively the show treats this.

The first being that I have yet to see any character who has witnessed or experienced being ravaged by the goblins just act in a stock way. The first girl basically has her spirit broken and is shipped off to a covenant to recover, later in the series is an elf girl who is filled with hatred and spite, and third person (Who I won't' spoil here) who was never able to overcome her fear for the Goblins despite her strength and accomplishments (Though It is defiantly worth pointing out that the lasting scars of her experience were never able to stop her from doing great things, even if the memories haunt her to this day). Everyone defiantly has the scars of the goblins and their actions left on them, but they show puts in the effort to show that not everyone is going to react in the same way, and in the case of the third it is possible to fight and live on despite all of this.

The second thing is they effectively use this to show the difference between those who know what the Goblins are capable of and those who know only of the Goblins through Stories or those who have slain them without ever really seeing what they can truly do. This is something I didn't realize at first, but I did once there was a scene a villager was talking with the guild receptionist asking about his request for goblins showing up in his village. He asked if it's true that the goblins would rape the women. Up until that point, and long after, not one person who has witnessed what the goblins did, experienced it, or often knew what happened to new adventurers underestimating goblins in the case of the receptionist, has ever actually referred to what the goblins did as rape. The show typically uses euphemisms such as 'making women their playthings'. This random villager disconnected from any actual cases of rape was able to call it that directly. This really emphasizes the difference between the common conception of Goblins and the reality of them, and it does it in a way that I don't think would work they tried the same trick with murder. If people constantly danced around saying 'murder' it would just start to sound silly, but rape is something that seems to make a person inherently more uncomfortable. So the stark contrast between how the average person talks about it and how the rest of the people talk about it does a lot to paint a picture of the situation.

There is one more point to bring up, and that is the Goblin Slayers reaction to speaking with a certain character, and I'll avoid naming her for spoilers. Because of his fixation on Goblins, she feels he may understand what she is going through. The Goblin Slayer reminds her, however, he can't fully understand even though he has witnessed the Goblins actions time and again, he was never a victim of actual rape. He isn't able to save her from her torment entirely, all he can do is Slay Goblins. This both emphasizes the Goblin Slayers own character and views, as well as showcase that even among those affected by the goblins, those directly targeted by their actions and those who merely witness them aren't' going to walk away with the same experience, no matter how close they may be.

There is an attention to detail and care are given to victims of the goblins a lot of shows don't really go into, and it managed to use it to strengthen the shows themes, atmosphere, and the world. It's not just thrown into the story for shock value, and the show does a lot more than others to treat it with a level of seriousness and gravity that it should be.