I know Goblin Slayer is currently successful both in Japan and overseas so this question might be moot, but what is the plus side of stories like Goblin Slayer and Maoyuu referring their entire casts after their titles as opposed to giving them actual names?

On one hand yes it makes it much easier to remember the character names, but at the same time you lose individuality and it doesn't help in fan conversations when you have to constantly label that the priestess and elf you are referring to are from Goblin Slayer as opposed to the million other anime priestesses and elves.

If it's the title character who is supposed to be mysterious like Goblin Slayer himself, that's a fair point to not have a real name. But I can't help but feel the dialogues are rocky when supposed close groups of friends refer to each other as "female knight" or for Elf to constantly casually call Goblin Slayer "Orcbolg" despite him not liking the name.

but what is the plus side of stories like Goblin Slayer and Maoyuu referring their entire casts after their titles as opposed to giving them actual names?

...It's because all other series actually use names instead of their job title to refer to their characters?

That and, I believe, it goes with the lore of the story. All of them are mere pawns in a greater story that is constantly at the wills and whims of the gods. Read the end of Chapter 15. That basically sums up what Goblin Slayer is about (and how it's debunking that trope).

azurelorochi said:

I know Goblin Slayer is currently successful both in Japan and overseas so this question might be moot, but what is the plus side of stories like Goblin Slayer and Maoyuu referring their entire casts after their titles as opposed to giving them actual names?

On one hand yes it makes it much easier to remember the character names, but at the same time you lose individuality and it doesn't help in fan conversations when you have to constantly label that the priestess and elf you are referring to are from Goblin Slayer as opposed to the million other anime priestesses and elves.

If it's the title character who is supposed to be mysterious like Goblin Slayer himself, that's a fair point to not have a real name. But I can't help but feel the dialogues are rocky when supposed close groups of friends refer to each other as "female knight" or for Elf to constantly casually call Goblin Slayer "Orcbolg" despite him not liking the name.

In Maoyuu's case, I think it had more to do with the fact that the characters were all archetypes because their individual traits weren't supposed to matter, they were stand-ins for wider swaths of people in the historical allegory they were playing out. "Big Sis Maid" basically takes a turn being Martin Luther at one point, but that wasn't the whole of what her character performs.

In Goblin Slayer's case, I'm not entirely sure (and I haven't done much besides watch a few episodes of the anime, so maybe some afterwards of the light novel clear it up or something), but I figure it has to do with the nature of the story being expys of D&D characters the author's friends have played. If there's a high attrition rate, it starts to just be "Bob's fighter" instead of whatever they were supposed to be called. If you've ever played a game of D&D with a killer DM, you'll sometimes get to the point where, after going through 10 characters in a campaign, you have players who get their highly plotted-out backstoried character, William de Galles III, knight of Blackhorn killed, and decide they're rolling up the exact same character, calling him Billy de Galles IV, and saying it's a cousin of his previous character. Sort of like an RTS, if you're just reduced to using them as disposable units on the battle grid, they're nothing more than the role they fill and a serial number.

NWSiaCB said:

...

It's partly that... and partly that most of the characters are NPCs. Priestess is an abandoned PC, and chosen Heroine is Illusion's current PC if I remember correctly. Almost everyone else is an NPC in Truth and Illusion's TTRPG. Why give names to the background characters?

Garrus said:

It's partly that... and partly that most of the characters are NPCs. Priestess is an abandoned PC, and chosen Heroine is Illusion's current PC if I remember correctly. Almost everyone else is an NPC in Truth and Illusion's TTRPG. Why give names to the background characters?

Awww, but I love naming the NPCs. Whenever I play games with a computer handy, I always keep open a tab or two for naming websites like Behind the Name so that I can sort names by ethnicity and name meaning. (Same goes for playing Crusader Kings II - I tab out to look for names that aren't in the standard rotation to name my own children.)

Garrus said:

It's partly that... and partly that most of the characters are NPCs. Priestess is an abandoned PC, and chosen Heroine is Illusion's current PC if I remember correctly. Almost everyone else is an NPC in Truth and Illusion's TTRPG. Why give names to the background characters?

Because some of us care about immersion and simulationism?

I think someone said that the author is not very creative in giving them names so the titles would go fine. But to me I think that's... Ok.

T34/38 said:

I think someone said that the author is not very creative in giving them names so the titles would go fine. But to me I think that's... Ok.

"I'm not good with name so I'm not going to name them at all" doesn't sound like a smart idea.

Because you don't have actual names it just drives the characters to constantly play pronoun games, as if they all treat each other's name as Voldemort or something.

And what about conversations containing 2 or more characters with the same title? 2 talking elves obviously aren't going to be calling each other "Elf A" and "Elf B". So again it's back to the pronoun game.

At a point I think that's more annoying to both write and read, and all could've been solved if you simply gave them actual names. And I'm talking about the main cast, the NPCs can be called "Elf woman" or "Dwarf merchant" and it's fine because they only appear in only one scene, just like how you won't bother to remember the name of McDonalds' clerk. But if you're going to know that clerk personally, not bothering with their name at all is just rude and weird.

What's odd about this is that reading the manga and such I definitely recall names being mentioned like exactly once then never used again. But I can't remember how or even when it supposedly happened but while reading there was definitely a time where I was sure these characters had names.