Hel

[FollowerofBanjo]

I'm not trying to critique the Giants art (because its amazing) but i have a question. All the other gods look about like what there described as in there own mythology except Hel. Hel is suppose to have a light and dark, life and death half of herself. But in your rendering she doesn't. I just wanted to know if that's just it if this was your rendering or was it lack of information.
Anyway love your work thanks

[Keltest]

Pretty sure Thor looks nothing like his mythological counterpart save that he isn't bald and has a beard. Not really familiar enough with the other gods to know how well they correspond.

[Lvl45DM!]

I'm not trying to critique the Giants art (because its amazing) but i have a question. All the other gods look about like what there described as in there own mythology except Hel. Hel is suppose to have a light and dark, life and death half of herself. But in your rendering she doesn't. I just wanted to know if that's just it if this was your rendering or was it lack of information.
Anyway love your work thanks

Thor is supposed to have bright red hair.
Heimdall is supposed to be clad in purest white not what looks like red

The Northern Gods are not the Norse gods.

[martianmister]

I'm not trying to critique the Giants art (because its amazing) but i have a question. All the other gods look about like what there described as in there own mythology except Hel. Hel is suppose to have a light and dark, life and death half of herself. But in your rendering she doesn't. I just wanted to know if that's just it if this was your rendering or was it lack of information.
Anyway love your work thanks

His version is closer to Marvel's.

[factotum]

I'm pretty sure that the traditional depiction of Hel has her with a human upper half and the waist and legs of a corpse. How exactly would you represent that in the art style used in OotS? We've seen plenty of walking corpses around, and their lower half looks no different from the lower halves of living people.

[Deliverance]

I'm not trying to critique the Giants art (because its amazing) but i have a question. All the other gods look about like what there described as in there own mythology except Hel. Hel is suppose to have a light and dark, life and death half of herself. But in your rendering she doesn't. I just wanted to know if that's just it if this was your rendering or was it lack of information.
Anyway love your work thanks
You have GOT to be kidding.

The northern gods of OOTS do not resemble norse gods as described in norse mythology except in name and a few very general character traits such as Thor having a hammer and Odin being one eyed and bearded.

Odin, Norse mythology: One-eyed, long-bearded, often spear-wielding, frequently accompanied by his ravens Hugin and Munin and wolves Gere and Freke when not in disguise and wearing a cape and broad hat when in disguise, aged, but tall and strong, a great warrior, leader on the battlefield, magician, and poet.

Odin, OOTS: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0137.html

As for the Thor of norse mythology, thunderer and bane of monsters, two of his most prominent visual characteristics are his flaming red hair and fierce eyes, both notably absent in OOTS Thor.

Loke and Heimdall would not be recognizable as their norse counterparts either were it not for their names.

No, just no. The Giant's northern pantheon is his own creation, freed from the constraints of adhering to historical sources such as the poetic edda and the sagas.

As somebody else wrote, he's probably more inspired by the Marvel comics than anything. :smallbiggrin:

(Whereas, had he been Scandinavian, he'd probably have been inspired by Madsen's Valhalla comics instead.)

[Storm_Of_Snow]

IIRC, the original 1st edition Deities and Demigods illustration has her split vertically in terms of colouration.

But as previously said, the Northern gods of OOTS aren't the Norse pantheon - otherwise, we'd probably have Valkyries swooping in and taking the dead before Hel could get them, rather than Thor having to intercede on the behalf of the recently deceased.

Or maybe the Valkyries do come in, but only for those Dwarves who've died due to alcohol consumption, and rather than the traditional armour, they're dressed like the barmaids at Oktoberfest. :smallamused:

[NerdyKris]

Hey guys, has anyone mentioned that the other gods don't look like their Norse counterparts either? :smallbiggrin:

[Murk]

I don't think the OP meant visually. Sure, he said "look like", but I'm guessing that's because of English problems.

Because while the gods in OoTS might not look like the actual gods, their characters are (if surely over simplified and enhanced for comedic effects) aren't too far away from the originals, I think.


I'm going to leave it at that, because I think this is a very difficult subject to discuss without stranding in real-world religions.

[Alchemist_Fire]

All the other gods look about like what there described as in there own mythology

Rich is on record, somewhere, basically saying that "any similarities between his gods and any real-world deities is purely coincidental, and that his gods are not meant to represent those real-world deities"

[NerdyKris]

No, OOTS Thor is nothing like the real world one.

[Gift Jeraff]

How do you know what her lower half looks like in OOTS?

[Keltest]

How do you know what her lower half looks like in OOTS?

We don't talk about that page anymore.

[Mx56]

Had the OOtS deities been even remotely like their mythological namesakes, all the crayon flashbacks would almost certainly have to include at least one scene of Zeus trying to solve a problem by turning into a swan and then attempting sexual congress with something. It would be weird and I'm glad that's not what we have.

[Pyrous]

Had the OOtS deities been even remotely like their mythological namesakes, all the crayon flashbacks would almost certainly have to include at least one scene of Zeus trying to solve a problem by turning into a swan and then attempting sexual congress with something. It would be weird and I'm glad that's not what we have.

And that is the secret origin of the Snarl.

[NerdyKris]

Had the OOtS deities been even remotely like their mythological namesakes, all the crayon flashbacks would almost certainly have to include at least one scene of Zeus trying to solve a problem by turning into a swan and then attempting sexual congress with something. It would be weird and I'm glad that's not what we have.

You mean the guy who died in his third panel ever? I'm not sure we can say anything about a pantheon whose total dialogue amounted to arguing about the specifics of trolls and elves, and then dying horribly while asking why.

[Rift_Wolf]

You mean the guy who died in his third panel ever? I'm not sure we can say anything about a pantheon whose total dialogue amounted to arguing about the specifics of trolls and elves, and then dying horribly while asking why.

This made me think; why 'why?'. I don't know if this was discussed on the boards at the time, but 'why' is an odd response from zeus. An abomination with the power to kill the Gods has leapt up and started mowing down your previously immortal family. 'how?', 'what?' or even 'who?' make sense. Why suggests Zeus didn't understand the intent behind the slaughter, not how the slaughter was possible.

[hroþila]

I always thought he meant "Why are we actually dying? I thought we were immortal?"

[Deliverance]

This made me think; why 'why?'. I don't know if this was discussed on the boards at the time, but 'why' is an odd response from zeus. An abomination with the power to kill the Gods has leapt up and started mowing down your previously immortal family. 'how?', 'what?' or even 'who?' make sense. Why suggests Zeus didn't understand the intent behind the slaughter, not how the slaughter was possible.
A previously unknown threat slays the pantheon in a few rounds. Zeus knows neither who is doing it, what is doing it, how it is capable of doing it, or why whatever it is is doing it, so I don't see why you single out why as not making sense.

Why (is this happening to me/us) or why (are you doing this to me/us) seems as sensible an exclamation of surprise in the situation as any of the others. (Indeed, arguably why would be more expected than who, how, or what - when somebody wants to kill you, wondering why is a common reaction.)

[Mx56]

You mean the guy who died in his third panel ever? I'm not sure we can say anything about a pantheon whose total dialogue amounted to arguing about the specifics of trolls and elves, and then dying horribly while asking why.
True, though three panels would be more than enough time for mythological Zeus to do several sexually weird and morally reprehensible things.

[dps]

I don't think the OP meant visually. Sure, he said "look like", but I'm guessing that's because of English problems.


:smallconfused:

Since the OP specifically said, "Hel is suppose to have a light and dark, life and death half of herself. But in your rendering she doesn't. I just wanted to know if that's just it if this was your rendering or was it lack of information", I'm pretty sure that FollowerofBanjo does indeed mean "visually". If you're talking about coloration and the artist's rendering of something, what else could you mean?

[Murk]

Since the OP specifically said, "Hel is suppose to have a light and dark, life and death half of herself. But in your rendering she doesn't. I just wanted to know if that's just it if this was your rendering or was it lack of information", I'm pretty sure that FollowerofBanjo does indeed mean "visually". If you're talking about coloration and the artist's rendering of something, what else could you mean?

I assumed a "light and dark" as in character, ehm, personality, alignment, field of operations, for lack of better words. Like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars uses "light and dark" as an expression of almost "good and evil" - that Hel in other stories has a dark side, but also a light side, not per se visually, but in what she does and how she is.
I could very well be wrong about that, but it was my first take on OP's post.

Eh, it doesn't matter that much - the same arguments still apply: the OoTS gods are not meant to be real-life gods, neither visually nor in personality, so, meh.

[Rift_Wolf]

This made me think; why 'why?'.

I guess it's a moot point as it's a visual exposition based on a possibly unreliable narrator who may have had events mythologised to hide what may or may not have actually happened (which possibly will be revealed in later comics, meaning the author won't clarify either way at this point.)

[Mad Humanist]

This made me think; why 'why?'. I don't know if this was discussed on the boards at the time, but 'why' is an odd response from zeus. An abomination with the power to kill the Gods has leapt up and started mowing down your previously immortal family. 'how?', 'what?' or even 'who?' make sense. Why suggests Zeus didn't understand the intent behind the slaughter, not how the slaughter was possible.

Obviously Zeus was offering the Snarl free counselling sessions.

[Indarra]

The Snarl was supposed to be a being of pure chaos. A Lawful Good (not really in the mythology, but he was the god of being this) god may very well have been wondering why. The Snarl had no reason to kill them - we know that "because it's evil" isn't good enough.

[mouser9169]

The Snarl was supposed to be a being of pure chaos. A Lawful Good (not really in the mythology, but he was the god of being this) god may very well have been wondering why. The Snarl had no reason to kill them - we know that "because it's evil" isn't good enough.

Yeah, I would call the Snarl Chaotic Neutral if I were pressed to give an alignment for it.

Note that chaotic neutral does not really mean random or psychotic, as players were often wont to do in previous edition. It means capricious: doing whatever according to the whims of the moment. Killing a god probably takes about as much effort and has as much effect on the Snarl as killing a mosquito does for mere mortals like us, so why not?