Snarl Speculation

[Thrillhouse]

So, given that we are likely pretty close to seeing Gate #4, I thought it would be worthwhile to throw about some random theories regarding what EXACTLY the gates are holding back.

As we can see from this comic: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html

...we don't have the full picture. Not a monster, but a planet. How do we explain this? I don't have any theory to propose, but to get the ball rolling, I figure I could cover the possibilities:

1) The planet IS the Snarl. Given that it is made of "creation threads", it wouldn't be impossible for the Snarl to take this form. This only raises more questions of course: was the Snarl always a planet? Has it changed since the Order of the Scribble sealed it? Why'd it change/how? And so on.

2) The characters aren't on the side of the rift they think they are. I don't know how this would work, but it might be that the Snarl actually exists somewhere within THIS world, and the planet in the rift is the one the gods try to protect. I'm not sure this one's true, if only because it is precariously close to ending the series with "The Snarl is....MANKIND. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN!" Which doesn't strike me as the kind of thing this comic would pull. (Please note that Rich's comments on the Monster in the Darkness more or less rule out the possibility that it is the Snarl, so don't bring that up. It still remains possible, though, that the Snarl is on THIS side of the rift.)

3) There never was a Snarl. This would mean that the gates exist for some other purpose, and that somewhere down the line somebody lied, and the story about the god destroying monster is quite simply a deception. This of course raises more questions, like who exactly lied, and are we to take the comics with claws coming out of the rifts as "fantasies" or as events that actually happened?

And of course, the biggest question of all is, who, if anyone, knows what's really going on? The gods? Xykon? Redcloak? The Dark One? The IFCC? Mr. Scruffy?

Also, here are the "story" of the Snarl comics, to save time looking for them.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0273.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0274.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0275.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html

[Procyonpi]

3) There never was a Snarl. This would mean that the gates exist for some other purpose, and that somewhere down the line somebody lied, and the story about the god destroying monster is quite simply a deception. This of course raises more questions, like who exactly lied, and are we to take the comics with claws coming out of the rifts as "fantasies" or as events that actually happened?


Considering that we've gotten (admittedly slightly different) stories from people with very different alignments and motivations, this seems unlikely to me.

[Thrillhouse]

Yeah, 3 only really works if the GODS are the ones lying...which itself only works if we assume that there was an actual conversation between the Order of the Scribble and the gods on the subject of these rifts. Most, if not all, of the cast has to be duped for that to work. My money is on #1, at the moment.

Also, if anyone in the current story DOES know what's "really going on", my guess would put it with either the IFCC and/or The Dark One. The former only because they are playing a their plan fairly close to the chest, so they may know something about what's in these rifts that others don't. The latter because it would explain the nature of the ritual he devised--he may KNOW that the Snarl is not a creature, and thus his plan might be something more than blackmail.

[Snails]

We have no reason at this point to guess that both the Order of the Scribble and the Crimson Mantle would provide completely wrong, but similar enough, stories.

Mind you, I think it could easily be true that the Scribble and Redcloak are mistaken about or are misinterpreting key details. The very existence of the Snarl implies some very significant kinds of fallibility on the part of the gods.

My personal theory is on two levels.

Note that (below) "inspired by" does not mean "is". It is just a mental model to help suggest more likely guesses, in the hope that I can listen in on the Muse who spoke to the Giant.

On the meta level, the Snarl is inspired by the archetypal tantrum throwing, campaign destroying Bad Player. With failure behind them, the other Players recognized that much of their own sometimes questionable behavior encouraged this particular problem player towards bad ends. Even if that player is not with them right now (wheww!) they would do well to clean up their own act and start a new campaign, themselves working on better standards of behavior.

Of course, there lingers the fear that for life and social reasons, the Bad Player may get invited back in. Will he destroy this campaign, too? Will they need to restart a third campaign with even more explicit rules of etiquette?

In the meantime, the ostracized player had been fiddling with his own campaign ideas -- and that has been a learning and growing experience. Perhaps he can contribute as a Good Player in the future?

On the OotSverse level, the Snarl was exactly as described by the Scribble. The Scribble found an angry and still lashing out Bad Divinity. (The Snarl is not exactly a god, but it seethes with "godstuff".)

Since being truly trapped away, the Snarl has finally had a chance to be reflective and change. The completely massive hole above Azure City suggests that the Snarl could now make some kind of escape attempt, but does not. Redcloak notes that this lack of apparent effort is not quite consistent with expected behavior based on history. Are the other remaining Gates somehow curbing the Snarl as an unexpected side effect? Or is there something else going on?

I consider it basically proven that the Snarl itself has somehow changed. Perhaps it has even grown up into a not stupidly angry kind of divinity?

I would further note that the Tale of the Scribble explicitly says that the Snarl is disproportionately effective against divinities, and not necessarily so lethal to mortals. Obviously the Snarl can still kill low level Commoner folk like a flamethrower cutting grass. But it implies that very tough epic level characters like Kraagor could have a lot more staying power than simple extrapolation might suggest.

Do we actually know that Kraagor is dead? We only know that Soon reports he has been trapped with the Snarl. What if Kraagor and Snarl had a little time to chat?

I say that Kraagor is down on that Inside World, hanging out with his buddy Snarl, moving whole mountain ranges into pleasing arrangements, the happiest dwarf that ever lived. He wishes some day to show his friends back home (fat chance), but in the mean time there is so much wonderful building to do. "Like that mountain? Me and my friend built that."

[The Pilgrim]

Ok, my shot at an Epyleptic Tree...

The OOTS world is a prison for something the Gods don't like. But that's not exactly the Snarl. In fact, the Snarl never existed, it's just a covert story to discourage people from peeping in. If someone peeps in, the Gods kill him and take his soul into custody.

What, or who, is the prisioner? My guess is that it's the Father/Mother of all three pantheons, creator of the First World, who was betrayed by hir children, beaten in an epic war that destroyed the first World, and locked down inside the second (OOTS) World. The monster races where, in fact, originaly created by the Father/Mother to populate the first world. The Usurper Pantheons re-created them in the second world - as cannon fodder for the adventurers - as a further mockering on their Prisoner.

Anyway, if the populance of the OOTS world were to discover whatever is inside the Prison, they would have to be silenced by the Gods en-masse - by destroying the world and building the prison back.

The Order of the Scribble discovered the truth during their final confrontation with the "Snarl". That led to the dispute between Soon and Girard. In the end, they all had to shut up and agree to become the Gods' bitch jailers in order to avoid the world being destroyed.

Now, the question is, will the OOTS shut up like the Scribbles when they discover the truth? or will they say "screw it" to the Gods? Duhn-duhn-duhn...

[Cuthalion]

I would be very, very surprised if Xykon knew all of what was going on.

[Tragak]

Also, if anyone in the current story DOES know what's "really going on", my guess would put it with either the IFCC and/or The Dark One.

In addition, my money wouldn't be on the IFCC, as Sabine got her information from Nale (who doesn't have any more information than we do), and if the IFCC already knew before she told them, they haven't shown it.

[Wrecan]

My speculation...

The Snarl is not destroying reality... it's rewriting reality without all the continuity errors that created him in the first place.

The planet we saw was the planet that was originally "destroyed", from what the gods on our OOTS-world believe. It's got the descendants of all the folks that the Snarl killed the first time around. It has the Greek Gods. It has Soon Kim's wife (who would be ridiculously old, but whatever). It has Kraagor.

The more it rewrites reality, the weaker it gets (since it thrives on continuity errors and plot holes). It's now rewritten a fourth of reality, so it's only three-quarter as powerful as it had been initially. And it may be losing strength. Eighty years ago it still had the strength to stick an arm through and grab Soon Kim's wife and Kraagor. Now, it can barely do that.

My guess is OOTS next stop is Greekworld. Possibly, at the climax of the battle at the current gate, the Snarl will reach through and skewer all of OOTS. (Cliffhanger!) Then they awake in Olympus. They will learn the truth about the Snarl and the Olympians will ask OOTS' help in "destroying" the rest of reality (all the stuff that the Snarl didn't manage to destroy the first time around).

So who knows the whole story? Zeus does. And possibly the Snarl does as well.

[ThePhantasm]

I don't understand. Why would the gods want continuity errors? Why would the Snarl being doing something that will destroy itself?

[Wrecan]

I don't understand. Why would the gods want continuity errors?
They don't want continuity errors. Because they couldn't agree amongst themselves, they ended up with contituity errors. See Order of the Scribble origin.


Why would the Snarl being doing something that will destroy itself?
Because the Snarl is a force of nature. It was created by the gods' snarled up writing and is trying to undo that snarled up bad writing. Again, se Order of the Scribble origin story.

[ThePhantasm]

So if the gods don't want continuity errors, their solution is to destroy reality rather than to fix it? Surely the Order wouldn't be interested in destroying the rest of reality.

[Wrecan]

Whose solution? The gods don't want to destroy reality. But what OOTS learns is reality isn't destroyed. It's rewrritten without the errors (or with less errors). That's my theory anyway.

[ThePhantasm]

You're saying that the Snarl world is the "new" reality and that the old world has to go in order for the new reality to be complete / take over and for the Snarl to be defeated? And that the two realities are basically the same except one is perfect and the other isn't?

[Wrecan]

And that the two realities are basically the same except one is perfect and the other isn't?

I don't know what "basically the same" means. It's the old world with sufficient rewrites so it isn't full of story holes. Of course, right now that is easy, since the world has only one mythos -- the Greek mythos. So there's no conflicts between the Greeks, for instance, wanting sphinxes to be voracious riddlers, and the Sumerians wanting sphinxes to be guardians of temples.