A hallmark of “Basic D&D” was its simpler rules and briefer descriptions. Unfortunately, the 1983 “Red Book” Dungeon Master’s Rulebook (TSR) found room to sink just a little bit more relative to what had been published in the Basic rulebook in 1978:

 

Perhaps the less that is said about the alignment switch from ‘lawful evil’ to ‘chaotic’, the better. Clearly, if these quick-and-easy alignment labels had any meaning at all, Goblinkind would not be ‘lawful’ in 1978 and ‘chaotic’ a mere five years later. One’s worldviews simply do not change that rapidly, or are we to assume that all of Goblinkind attended college in a foreign country in the intervening years?

On the other hand, perhaps something did happen, because the short-but-snappily-dressed goblin from 1974 suddenly became “very ugly”. Rat-like, no doubt, given that their eyes are red, and “glow when there is little light.” And yet a goblin does not “save” as a Rat, but as a Normal Man. This is telling; one is reminded of the World War II propaganda in which the Chinese (our allies at the time) were depicted as . . . well, human, while the Japanese were depicted as buck-toothed squinty-eyed rat-folk.

(Of course, the demonization of The Other is not exactly uncommon in human history.)

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The entry for goblins in the 1989 AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium (TSR) makes clear that like so many jingoistic, chest-beating racists before them, the authors will stop at nothing to defame an “enemy” race. (In the interests of brevity, we show below only the more offensive parts of the Goblin entry.)

To their credit, the authors again point out the fine mining skills that goblins possess. On the other hand, there are the claims that goblins are pests, have eyes that are dull and glazed, kill for the pleasure of it, spoil their habitat, have simple and crude strategies and tactics, and are borderline retarded (given their Intelligence of 5-10) . . . it should go without saying, a few laudatory words on mining ability are hardly adequate recompense.

The ability of this supposedly stupid and weak race to take huge numbers of slaves has already been called into question, as has their theoretical love of killing. One might wonder why a race that has the ability to capture and feed a huge number of slaves would ever have “lean times” when they would have to eat carrion, until one realizes that the authors were running out of ways to say that goblins were filthy, disgusting creatures, and carrion-eating was probably the first thing that came to mind.

Note that the goblins’ eyes have changed in character from reddish and rat-like to “dull and glazed”. One senses how conflicted the authors had to be over this change – the battle over reference to goblinoid furtiveness and rat-likeness versus reference to goblinoid dullness and stupidity. No doubt this was part of the reason for the repetition of the ways in which goblins live in their own filth – the rat-like part of goblin existence taken care of, they felt free to accentuate supposed goblin stupidity by changing the qualities of their eyes.