Tiamat

[Tiiba]

1) Mama dragon went to the Oracle.
2) The Oracle went to Tiamat
3) Tiamat told the Oracle, and he told Mama Dragon, that the culprit is Vaarsuvius.
4) They have a fight, Triangle wins.
5) Tiamat gets mad.

So Tiamat has prophecy, but not foresight?

I'm not sure what the limits of her power are, but the Oracle is never truly caught by surprise. I would expect Tiamat to know that a horrible disaster is coming, and have it all worked out with the IFCC.

[Bird]

Possible that the ambiguous anti-intervention rules of the universe which keep deities from running around on the Prime Material prevented Tiamat from interfering.

[Unisus]

An oracle just happens to get answers specific on the questions. This power is granted by a deity. But that does not mean that the deity automatically knows everything connected to a certain question.

[KillianHawkeye]

Possible that the ambiguous anti-intervention rules of the universe which keep deities from running around on the Prime Material prevented Tiamat from interfering.

Yeah, Tiamat would have had to rely on her Clerics to do something about it on their own, which they were not in a position to do.

[Tiiba]

All I'm saying is, she shouldn't have been surprised.

[137beth]

All I'm saying is, she shouldn't have been surprised.

Where are ya getting the idea that Tiamat was surprised? Remember, when Roy messed up his question about which gate to go to, the Oracle tried to help him for the sake of the world, but couldn't. There's no reason the same thing wouldn't have happened to the ancient black dragon. Tiamat couldn't interfere beyond providing answers to explicitly asked questions.

[Bird]

To follow on ben's point, is it possible that she wasn't surprised, but rather that the rules-of-being-a-god prevented her from chewing out the IFCC until events had already come to pass?

But anyway, I tend to assume that T doesn't know everything, same as the other gods. Eastern Pantheon shouldn't have gotten janked by the Snarl if they did, to give the most obvious example. She may have known that the IFCC deal would happen, but not that it would have resulted in Familicide.

I agree that the oracle's hyper-preparedness makes this a bit messy. Logical holes when it comes to divine actions and knowledge are one of those problems inherent in the genre, I think, same way that time paradoxes are inherent in Doctor Who.

[RunicLGB]

She could easily have been surprised by the sudden interference of the IFCC. She led one of her chosen children directly to take a horrible vengeance which should have been doable without any chance of reprisal.

Right at the moment of victory, that all went to hell. And then outta total left field Familicide happens and Tiamat's like all WTF:smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious::smal lfurious::smallfurious:

[Forikroder]

1) Mama dragon went to the Oracle.
2) The Oracle went to Tiamat
3) Tiamat told the Oracle, and he told Mama Dragon, that the culprit is Vaarsuvius.
4) They have a fight, Triangle wins.
5) Tiamat gets mad.

So Tiamat has prophecy, but not foresight?

I'm not sure what the limits of her power are, but the Oracle is never truly caught by surprise. I would expect Tiamat to know that a horrible disaster is coming, and have it all worked out with the IFCC.

2 is incorrect the oracle went into a trance where he used magic to divine an answer to a question, he used Tiamats power to do so but Tiamat had no conscious part in the process jsut like how Thor doesnt know every spell ever cast by any of his clerics

[Lappy9001]

4) They have a fight, Triangle wins.Tiamat man, she's the man, Tiamat man. :smalltongue:

Also, I don't think she really works with the IFCC. Pretty sure none of the big fiends do, really

[thereaper]

Look, the answer is simple.

Tiamat doesn't know everything. The Oracle doesn't either, for that matter ( "I always seem to get interrupted during bath time" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0329.html)).

They just know whatever the plot requires them to.

[Tiiba]

Where are ya getting the idea that Tiamat was surprised? Remember, when Roy messed up his question about which gate to go to, the Oracle tried to help him for the sake of the world, but couldn't. There's no reason the same thing wouldn't have happened to the ancient black dragon. Tiamat couldn't interfere beyond providing answers to explicitly asked questions.

You think he was trying to help? My impression was that he knew Roy will refuse the hints and used them to make Roy look extra stupid. Even if he didn't know that, he doesn't give a rat's rump about the quest and hates Roy specifically. I wonder if even Xykon's victory would inconvenience him that much.

[Forikroder]

You think he was trying to help? My impression was that he knew Roy will refuse the hints and used them to make Roy look extra stupid. Even if he didn't know that, he doesn't give a rat's rump about the quest and hates Roy specifically. I wonder if even Xykon's victory would inconvenience him that much.

pretty sure Xykon ruling the world would greatly inconvenience him

the rules of drama demand that the oracle would either be killed or forced to live in rags in some out of the way place in the middle of nowhere till hes half-insane before the good guys find him and get riddles out of him

but no Xykon would kill the Oracle once he has the snarl

[Zmeoaice]

Except Xykon can't control the snarl since the ritual only allows the Dark One to control it. And Taimat is allied with the Dark One

[Torrasque]

The oracle does not commune directly with the gods as clerics might do. It is explicitly stated that he is not a cleric, and has been blessed by tiamat with his powers. I see no reason why those powers of foresight should demand that Tiamat personally answers every question, and then foresees every possible outcome from everyone of those questions AND then deigns to react on them, against the agreement of the gods. In fact, that's a ludicrous expectation.
You are basing your conclusions on fallacies.

[Cizak]

You think he was trying to help?

Of course.


My impression was that he knew Roy will refuse the hints and used them to make Roy look extra stupid. Even if he didn't know that, he doesn't give a rat's rump about the quest and hates Roy specifically. I wonder if even Xykon's victory would inconvenience him that much.

No, he seems generally concerned and annoyed about how the only ones trying to stop a "frickin' scary" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0567.html) lich whom he does not want to meet (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html) is about to get the wrong kind of information. Xykon and Redcloak fiddleing with the Gates would be dangerous for everyone.

[Jay R]

All I'm saying is, she shouldn't have been surprised.

Tiamat, and her Oracle, can answer any question when asked. That doesn't mean they already know everything - at best it means that they can find it out when they are asked to do so.

Similarly, all the information in wikipedia is available to me. That doesn't mean I know it all; it merely means I can go get a particular fact when I choose to go look it up.

More importantly, the entire over-arching plot of the strip, connecting Dorukan's dungeon in strip 1 to Draketooth's pyramid where they are now, that brought the OotS together, that brought the LG to face them, that brought Xykon and Redcloak together - all of it, the entire thing - is based on something happening (the Snarl) that none of the gods predicted, and that surprised them all.

Any notion that a god cannot be surprised is wrong. Just wrong.

[KillingAScarab]

The Oracle certainly has proven difficult to surprise. It has been demonstrated (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0571.html) his knowledge doesn't come only from the questions people ask in trances. He knows about Roy's mother's sex life (sex afterlife?) and he knows what the answer will be to a druid's question which will be asked in the future. The big glowy light-show seems to be more for the benefit of the person asking the question, so that they will remember the answer when they trigger the memory charm on Sunken Valley.

To me, it seems more likely that the Oracle has an "always-on" ability to perceive the future and the past. That might be independent of Tiamat, but it could be in the Oracle's best interest for dragons to believe otherwise. I'm also a little more curious now about the "boss" of those lizardfolk who raise or resurrect the Oracle. The one who cast raise dead used an orange aura, while the one who teleported had a grey one.

[multilis]

If you read the prequel, "Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire", you will find out that the oracle was once a human but then he exploded in a supernova and was reincarnated as this Oracle. He always has the right item at right time is just part of his normal persona, since long before Tiamat.

The powers of the oracle are really his alone, rather than his god's, just like how a certain dwarf can still cast spells despite going all vampire... the god part required is just sill religious superstition needed to appease the masses that their meaningless lives have meaning.

[Reddish Mage]

Look, the answer is simple.

Tiamat doesn't know everything. The Oracle doesn't either, for that matter ( "I always seem to get interrupted during bath time" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0329.html)).

They just know whatever the plot requires them to.

Actually, given that we are dealing with a plot with pan-multiverse implications, we have to ask what all the gods and goddesses know, and what they are doing about it. We can't handwave and say the gods know what the plot wants them too, the STORY requires an in-story rationale for what the gods are doing.

So what is known among the community of the gods? I presume there is some common knowledge:

1. The existence of the snarl and its prison
2. The destruction of the Azure Empire

Slightly more controversial
3. (By now at the very least) the existence of cracks in the snarls prison and the protection by the gates (Belkar's opinion is that "the bell was rung" by the Azure Empire's destruction http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0881.html)
4. That there is a threat to the gates. Perhaps even who the players are


Also, at least some lawful good god(dess) knows about V's actions and his association with Roy http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0664.html

Beyond that, we have no idea how much the deities know or what they can do about it. The future maybe just as hazy to them as their prophets, or they may have an advanced knowledge but then they are also at war with each other. Perhaps the gods of good and evil know quite a lot, but they are playing chess while we are seeing a game of checkers.

Whatever the case, perhaps not everything is fixed. After all, the fiends believed there was a real chance that V succeeded in killing Xykon.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0668.html

[Jay R]

OK, let's assume for the moment that the Oracle can see the answer to any specific question, but only if he decides to ask it.

If I were the Oracle, and could know any fact in advance, then I would certainly always ask, "When are the next three times I will be killed?" so I could arrange to be raised.

I would probably also ask, "What can I do that would cause the most pain to my murderers?" so I could, for instance, build a village outside my home to activate Belkar's Mark of Justice.

And for purely practical reasons, I would also ask, "What magic item do I need to carry today?"

And if I knew about the OotS, I would have already read the entire comic book just because I enjoy reading it so much.

Has he been shown to know anything that is not explained by the above motivations?

[KillingAScarab]

Has he been shown to know anything that is not explained by the above motivations?As I pointed out, he knows what Roy's mother is doing in the afterlife. It also would fall under the category of knowledge which Roy cannot remember after being resurrected. Presumably, "beyond the gates" comes with its own memory charm, at least for the dead returned to life. Who knows what the evil adventuring party would have remembered had they lived long enough to plane shift out of there.