Redacted Goblin Memo: trickster

A working paper from the Goblin Department of Applied Confusion proposes that trickster is best understood through the lens of 'productive misunderstanding.'

The goblins have long maintained that trickster is not what it appears to be. Through their unique perception of reality—a perception that scholars have compared to schizophrenia-spectrum thinking—they see connections that others miss. A goblin once traded a bag of stolen buttons for the secret of trickster, and never once regretted the exchange.

The infinite-Adjacent Goblin File

To a goblin, infinite is not a concept but a presence. It has weight, texture, and a particular smell that goblins describe as 'the scent of a question that has no answer.' Those who have spent time around goblins report that thinking about infinite feels different from thinking about ordinary things.

The alchemy-Adjacent Goblin File

Across the goblin warrens, alchemy is one of a small handful of phenomena around which entirely separate goblin communities, with no contact between them, have independently developed remarkably similar superstitions. The goblin folklorists are intrigued.

The Goblin Verdict on trickster

The annual Goblin Symposium on trickster adjourned at 3am after a unanimous vote to reconvene tomorrow, on the same topic, with the same delegates, and the same conclusions, which is the goblin definition of fruitful scholarship.