I think that this might have to do with changes in how 'evil' is addressed. Previously, it was fairly common to think that evil was something that originated due to personal flaws, now the view of how an individuals actions are shaped in part by institutions that hold power is a lot more common

At least we have Warhammer 40K, where EVERYONE is just different flavours of evil

@Jack Montana More or less, anger is predictable, not logical. As for the demon-king wanting to coexist, I either missed that part or haven't gotten to it yet, started with the anime and have only slowly worked on the manga when time allowed.

@Tael I guess you can get mad at nature for hurricanes and predators killing someone you know but that feels different then a sadistic person doing on purpose. Also didn't the demon king wanted to co-exist with humans which feels different then most goals, just their nature make its impossible.

@Jak Winter People do get mad at carnivores for being carnivores, just like they get mad at enemy soldiers for killing their allies and cops that shoot dangerous criminals. Frieren only really seems to diverge on a demon's dispassionate temperament, not its goals.

New comic, he must have reached the end of the current Abiotic Factor content. I'm waiting for more as well.

@Xiao Long Yang I mean kinda since demons are more like predator animals then for the evils monsters. You don't get mad at a lion eating human because it's their instincts not malice. So even frieren is subverting.

So fucking RIGHT! It was interesting the first or second time. Now it is the lame standard...

It's kind of why Frieren is so popular, it was just pure classic fantasy.

It's the comments that can't seem to understand nuance. Yes these examples existed sparsely in the past, the point being that what was subversion of fantasy traits is now the norm, it's not a subversion if it's just the status quo now. The Demons good, holy is bad, monster is nice.

Personally, I try to refer to the antoginist in an RPG as the 'Big Bad' and not the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). Because they may not be evil, they just have an opposing viewpoint that is at odds with the parties. Also, the BB could be female, or maybe a sentient & intelligent Gelatinous Cube.

@Not public There is a cool orc game being made with something similar to this called Don't kill them all, where a stereotypical orc tribe is being changed to be more pragmatic, and find passion other then fighting like cooking. Check it out.

@Scryer
One can only hope.

@Albert Johfur; If Jo's South American, there's a good chance he understands even if (IF) he's not religious.

Candy Squirrel; That might be a point if there was ANY actual nuance to be found.

(cont.) In real life, the crusades were essentially a medieval form of "war on terror". Here's a good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/6aFkoX6g1fE?si=yn6h6imoEeD_oT8J

(Cont.) They were mostly geo-political responses to centuries of Arabic aggression and expansion into European territories or territories ruled by European powers.
There's a reason the Arabic world "grew" and Europe suffered with the fall of Rome and Byzantine. (TBC)

@Patrickdxs
The crusades being some sort of evil, unprovocted "raid and pillage" Church conspiracy is a lie that has long sicne been disproven.
The only relation the crusades had to the church was via the Vatican's political relationship with European monarchies. (TBC)

Why not both. Have the war tribe of orcs armed with big DAKKA, then their cook. They are renowned for both battlefield and bakery. To them both are a fight but in different ways.

They are kind when not on the battlefield. And put Canada to shame in warcrimes.... Wait I just described CANADA

Zero, define woke for me.

Bakagrappler the church" are not "good guys". The crusades anyone? Jrpg's have been making religion the enemy since the existence of jrpg's.

I think you might be listening to a lot of talking points from grifters Jo. A lot of the comics lately are just gamergate talking points regurgitated for the millionth time, presented as fact when in reality the "old" still keeps being produced. I honestly thought you would be above the outrage farm

You're in the perfect position to create the stories you want so badly. Start a new webcomic.

I fully endorse the viewpoint Jo has on this. There is a big push to make The Bad Guys into reprobate good guys, like SSKTJL. And to tear down good guys and make them into 1 Dimensional baddies. The last example is pretty much what they've done with the Dragon Quest remake, like WTF!?

Made mistake and the church is evil or at least not good in my last comment can't edit it for some reason.

@User Random11 Ironically enough the complaints is that doesn't subvert the expectations like orgins where the church is not evil and spirits and demons are misunderstood and such. It went classic generic high fantasy that people find boring with marval dialogue which makes this comic feel misguided

Let's just stick to gaming: Ultima VI (1990) as others have pointed out did the Gargoyles/Demon theme 1990. Planescape Torment worked with the succubus concept with Fall-From-Grace (1999). Orcs became noble savages with Blizzard's WC3 (2002).
Modern fantasy... has other problems. Check Veilguard.

@Michael Sypher it's not even this suppose buzzword woke stuff which is just something made up. It just terrible writing or companies catching trends. When Jo complain about concord is just because no one wants overwatch clone,hell it can have the opposite everything of wokeness but still fail.

If it causes you intellectual pain Jo, just imagine how painfully eye-rolling it is for us Christians who actually understand the themes behind Tolkien's fantasy designs... We have to suffer slanderous nonsense being "normalized" a LOT...
Isaiah 5:20, just saying...

Worst part, I've seen a lot of these, on official media, specially that last one.
There's a succubus like this one in a D&D PC game, and for the demon... well, lots of stories. Hmm, there's Hellboy, but he was just raised on Earth, so he likes it beyyer, and is not pacifist at all. lol

Legit though, "Oh its sooo much more nuanced wah wah wah" no its not. Its literally just "GOOD GUYS ACKTUALLY BAAAAAAD", it was nuanced when the Good Guys had bad aspects to them and weren't just objectively evil outside of their aesthetics, while the Bad Guys had a good side buried somewhere.

@Andrea Schone

I'm gonna get side-eyed SO hard for this, but this is kinda why I liked Goblin Slayer. The goblins aren't quirky little gremlins like most fiction, they are capital-E EVIL. Literal vermin like cockroaches, but cockroaches who can rape and pillage.

Expectations have been "subverted" so many times, that it is now more surprising when things AREN'T subverted.

Since Jo is only interested in bitching about "woke" nowadays, I guess I'm done following this comic *removes bookmark*

It is painful obvious that your definition of “classic fantasy” is just World of Warcraft and other video games like it. I doubt you know who Micheal Moorcock or Ursula K. Le Guin are.

This are not even new you can find some examples on the right you label modern fantasy in the 80s. I feel its more on the writing, you can definitely find terrific writing with stuff on the left.

You might be allergic to nuance, Jo.

@Andreas Schone I have watch that series and eagerly wait for the second season. A great great fantasy series along with delicious in dungeon which also does subvert some fantasy stuff like Frieren. Because Demons are more predator animals who kill for food and instincts then people who are malice.

What bothers me the most is that the people who turn barbarian orcs into kind and gentle bakers, and make demons "misunderstood," rarely do it within their own settings and games. Instead, they want to overturn established canon of big-name brands. Otherwise no one is going to look at their trash.

Fantasy races _can_ be used as allegories for subcultures (and other groups), but that doesn't mean they have to be.

I'd hate it if someone made Jotun and they were just overgrown misunderstood swedes lashing out due to oppression by the horrid... danish.

In Ultima VI (1990), you're the good guy, symbol of virtues, and you must defeat the bad guys. Except the bad guys are just trying to survive because your actions in the past are destroying their world. The game is about racism and cultural difference you need to understand. So woke.

I'm a leftist, but frankly, the people who claim orcs being "inherently violent and dumb" is racism can bugger off.

We're talking about fictional races. Saying orcs are dumber than humans is not more racist than saying gorillas are.

I think "demons are just evil" is a bad take too though. You can make the sadistic man-eaters without going "for teh evulz".

What annoys me is the insistence on making everyone the _same_.

I don't mind orcs not being brutal monsters, I just wish they would go more for the "We used to be assholes but societal reform allow us to be better" route as opposed to "we were oppressed by the so-called goodly races and only lashed out to defend ourselves, which got us demonized more."

Is it possible a lot of this subversion nonsense started with a certain dark elf series of books?

Last one is every where in Media these days. If I see a representation of the catholic church in Amine, Manga or a JRPG. I assume they are the real/secret bad guys.
And sadly its also true if you know history. By the renascence the church was full of politicians, not god fearing ministers.

Religion has been a constant excuse to attack skeptics and minorities, because the all powerful god demanded it! It's often seen that the most dedicated are ironically the most morally bankrupt. So for a modern writer living in the US, yeah they aren't gonna like the Church.

Imho, both Faelith and Pollyanna are hotter in the modern version.

Also, a lot of people fall way too much in love with worldbuilding and OCs to actually know how to create an actual story. Most subverted expectations come from trying too hard to look cool without having anything to really say.

@Jack Montana
You wanna watch Frieren in that regard! Because the demons in that anime are INHERENTLY evil. Their whole nature, instincts and such makes them monsters. There was even an episode, in which a human took in a demon child. It explains perfectly, why Frieren wants to kill all demons.

@Zero sounds like you need therapy, man

Problem is, market is so overloaded with media that it's impossible to stand out. So the idea becomes "let's see what page on TV Tropes we can flip." Nobody knows how to tell a story anymore, but that's because they're addicted to YouTube/TikTok garbage.

Also, none of that "classic" fantasy went away? New iterations are just less popular because it's already been done. If you want to actually sell your game/book/whatever, you can't just do "Tolkien, but worse" (or Warhammer, or DOOM, or whatever).

@Chiribito Sardina I mean, these days churches are mostly tax shelters for pedophiles, so...

@T.chicken I find that a bit better since a whole organization is not a hive mind along with races being can be morally good or bad but the culture can influence them.

If you keep subverting expectations long enough, they become the new expectations. I gave up on D&D once this started becoming the norm and people expected me to DM their woke therapy sessions. I don't even know or care what D&D is at this point, it's dead to me.

For some reason @Chiribito Sardina
Castlevania had a take where we had not!Frollo who burned a witch as a take on evil church and terrorize Jew/Cathar/Gypsy expies.
But God isn’t shown as malevolent and even cynical Simon Belmont utilize holy weapons to defeat demons and a kind priest bless water.

I'm ateist, but it hurts to see how the church (almost always is that chuch) eviliced like that. I mean, the chuch made more things than burning people and taxing.

About species/races/whatever, I prefer a general grey morale in which everyone whitout exception is kind of a jerk.

Double subversion is more fun anyway.

--> Nowadays, everything has to be either a complete 180 degrees subversion, or a stand-in for a modern demographic, which unironically results in an extremely stale writing. Case in point, the sheer number of modern fantasy where "humans are the real monsters" is used as a plot point.

@Jack Montana: I think the main difference is the scope. Decades ago, subversion was "the orcs are the bad guys, but not all of them are pure evil", or "demons want to destroy the world, but they may have a code of honor that lets you reason with them". -->

Idk even back then there was already subversion in the early 90s and 2000s with religion being evil and races being misunderstood. Wouldn't call it classic vs modern ideas of fantasy though you can make a argument they don't execute it well today.