@cwebber I love everything about this thread.
I see in the link to your Foss and Crafts episode that you reference Amartya Sen - and thus, presumably, the Capability Approach. (I don't remember if the stuff you're doing with Goblins is explicitly tied into this or if it's just a coincidence of naming!)
Anyway this thread made me think of a really good Rutger Claassen article that uses the Capability Approach to redefine agency: