I Think Hel Is Wrong

[brian 333]

The idea that the dwarves' deaths at either the teeth of the vampires or by being snuffed out in the destruction of the world is less than heroic seems to me to be incorrect.

Consider: If a dwarf dies fighting a tree or liver failure s/he dies a hero, but the only person s/he was fighting for was hirself. Every dwarf who dies at the hands of the vampires dies fighting not only for hirself, but for the others s/he would harm once vampirized. Every dwarf who dies in the intentional destruction of the world would die to save the many millions of souls which would be extinguished in the event that the Snarl got loose.

Consider: Being defeated is not the same as being dishonored. Many warriors earned great honor with their deaths, and a hopeless fight against an unbeatable foe earns even greater honor. As an example I use the 300 at Thermopylae: a hopeless fight against overwhelming odds and certain defeat, and yet the story has been told and celebrated as a tale of great sacrifice for a greater cause. Would anyone impugn the honor of the Spartans?

Durkon fought valiantly against his foe before he died and, though his soul is being held prisoner, he has not yet given up attempting to fight back. The fact that Malack won does not dishonor him in any way, and being taken prisoner after he was rendered incapable of resistance is also not dishonorable. The dishonorable deeds done since his death have not been done by Durkon but by his jailor, and thus the dishonor is not Durkon's. When Durkon's soul is finally delivered from its prison it's rightful place will be in Thor's halls, not Hel's.

Every dwarf killed by the destruction of the world will be dying to save the souls of every potential victim of the Snarl. Dying to prevent the destruction of every soul on the planet is in no way dishonorable. Therefore, at the very least, the dwarves slain by the destruction of the world will not be dishonored dead, and thus will not belong to Hel.

Therefore, Hel stands to lose more than she gains in the destruction and recreation of the world, and the smarter gods probably won't bother to point it out to her until it's too late to make a difference.

[Kish]

One, the dwarves are not sacrificing--they're being sacrificed. It's not a matter of "would it be dishonorable to stay behind and guard the rear, knowing the Balrog will eat you?"--it's a matter of "would it be an honorless death to be abruptly trussed up and thrown to the Balrog?" And Durkon spelled out what constitutes "honorable" for this--it's "in battle." There is no battle. Just destruction.

Two, what on earth is the value of, "What the storyline of the current book is about striving to prevent wouldn't happen anyway, the Order's desperate attempt to stop Hel from becoming Queen of the Northern Pantheon and enslaving thousands of innocent dwarves is going to be a big joke?" Is there some perspective from which this would make the story better? Because I'm seeing it being far, far worse.

[NerdyKris]

Both the in comic gods have confirmed that this is what would happen, and so has the author. There's really no reason to think that her plan wouldn't work, given that the people who would know didn't feel the need to say "No, that's not how it works.".

Dwarves who die of old age or sickness died dishonorably. A dwarf who has reached old age intentionally takes on missions with a good chance of dying to avoid this. The Giant has confirmed this, regardless of any reader's opinions on how unfair that might sound.

Also, like Kish said, what difference would that even make? The world is NOT going to be destroyed. The story is 99% likely not to end with "And then the Order failed and the gods stepped in and fixed everything for them".

[Kantaki]

I'm pretty sure that if Hel was wrong someone would have pointed it out to her already. Loki for example certainly would have said something sarcastic about his daughter being stupid.

[Fitzclowningham]

I was thinking about what happens to Durkon, what with the end of the world and everything. Durkon died fighting Malack, valiantly, and for every good reason possible, so he would definitely not be going to Hel when the end of the world comes and Durkula was unmade. Except Durkula knows what's coming and will not be on the Prime Material when the end comes. Durkon will be trapped where he is now for as long as Durkula isn't destroyed.

On another note, when the world is remade, Durkula* could return and be the most powerful being on it. He could rule the mortal realm while Hel ruled the Northern pantheon. Scary prospect.**



*Along with whatever other mortals happened to be off-plane at the moment of destruction.

**Obviously, the world won't be unmade, but something like this scenario is probably what Hel is currently planning.

[NerdyKris]

Durkon's soul will go to Hel's domain, as stated by Durkula in the last comic.

[Killer Angel]

Hel is planning this since decades, if not centuries. I don't think she suffers from a form of divine delusion about the way her domain works.

[BaronOfHell]

The only one I could suspect being 'wrong' in this entire ordeal is when Roy and Wrecan concluded killing a high priest will cancel said high priest's god's vote. Anything else is based on experience and familiarity or superior intelligence as far as I can tell, with the rather unlikely possibility that Hel has misdirected her own high priest.

[King of Nowhere]

Well, I think thor and possibly some of the other gods would try to argue for that, but it probably would not work. Some dwarves will be able to make some sort of last action that makes their deaths meaningful, but most of them will just be dead all of a sudden.

On the other hand,



Two, what on earth is the value of, "What the storyline of the current book is about striving to prevent wouldn't happen anyway, the Order's desperate attempt to stop Hel from becoming Queen of the Northern Pantheon and enslaving thousands of innocent dwarves is going to be a big joke?" Is there some perspective from which this would make the story better? Because I'm seeing it being far, far worse.

As far as the current storyline is concerned, it does not matter if the other gods will find some way to claim the dwarves died with honor, because the heroes have no way of knowing that, so they still have to try stopping it.
As far as we know, Dvalin may be faced by a dominated coucil of elders telling him to vote yes, and decide that for once in 1000 years he's going to put reason before honor. But we cannot know, so we cannot afford to ignore the attempt to dominate the elders.
Just as, as far as we know, it may have been fully possible to stick roy's body into a bag of holding and carrying it away, and it may have not activated belkar's mark of justice. but they had no way of knowing, so they had to drag the body along.
Just as it would be perfectly viable to make a story about some terrorist trying to destroy a city with a new secret superweapon, only to discover at the end - when they have been stopped and the weapon disassembled - that said weapon only consisted of the content of an old flipper (probably provided by a brilliant inventor with asperger syndrome in exchange for some plutonium, if you get my quote).
It may be a bit anticlimatic, but if the heroes have a legitimate reason for taking the threat seriously, then the story still stands.
Heck, even some big epic story like the wheel of time got away with that: (spoiler in case someone hasn't read the last book yet) in the last book it became a big point to avoid the horn of valere falling in the hands of a darkfriend, because the heroes would supposedly fight for whoever sounded the horn. And then, after the good guys did manage to recover it and sound it, the heroes of the horn revealed that they woould have never fought for the shadow and that the legends about it were just wrong. the story didn't lose anything because of it

[Mad Humanist]

Durkon's soul will go to Hel's domain, as stated by Durkula in the last comic.

I'm guessing that the critical point is not when the Dwarf dies but when they are judged. Durkon has died but has not been judged and will not be until either the world is destroyed (making Durkon's death tragically dishonourable) or his vampire is destroyed (in which case his death would have been heroic). Of course Thor would try to argue out of it.

[Gift Jeraff]

In the last strip, Durkula was implying that he will plane shift to Hel's planar domain before the world ends.

[dps]

The idea that the dwarves' deaths at either the teeth of the vampires or by being snuffed out in the destruction of the world is less than heroic seems to me to be incorrect.


First of all, where do you get the idea that Hel's plan involves having the vampires kill large number of dwarves? The vampires are planning to dominate the council members to get them to tell Dvalin to vote to destroy the world. And even if they were going to kill and vamp them instead of dominating them, how many members of the council are there, anyway? Probably a few dozen at the most. Hel is planning on gaining millions of dwarven souls through the destruction of the world by the gods; missing out on a few dozen of council member's souls wouldn't make much difference.

And if the yes vote goes through and the world is destroyed, there wouldn't be anything heroic about any of the resulting deaths. Remember, if the vote is yes, the world is to be destroyed immediately. Nobody except those at the Godsmoot would even know what was happening. Everyone's death would be no more heroic than if they got killing in a landslide while sleeping.

Keep in mind that destroying the world wasn't a plan that Hel came up with. Pretty clearly, the gods have considered it a contingency plan to deal with the possibility of the Snarl breaking loose all along--the vote at the Godsmoot is just about whether or not they need to activate that contingency right now. Hel is just trying to make sure that they vote Yes and planning to take advantage of the resulting deaths to increase her personal power.

[Mandor]

Durkon's soul will go to Hel's domain, as stated by Durkula in the last comic.

Right. Because a vampire is incapable of lying, either to tactically infuriate an opponent or just for giggles.
You might be correct; but I would not rely on Durkula's word for that.

"Uh, I'm a vampire. Letting something appear organic when it's actually a cruel unnatural charade is kinda my whole thing"

[King of Nowhere]

i think the "durkon will go to hel's domain" is because his soul is still trapped in the vampire body. when durkula willl be eventually destroied, durkon's soul will doubtess go to thor, but as durkula is planning on surviving the destruction of the world by planeshift. if he then remains in hel's domain, there is absolutely nothing that could ever destroy him, so durkon's soul will never be freed.

[137beth]

Right. Because a vampire is incapable of lying, either to tactically infuriate an opponent or just for giggles.
You might be correct; but I would not rely on Durkula's word for that.

"Uh, I'm a vampire. Letting something appear organic when it's actually a cruel unnatural charade is kinda my whole thing"

I'm pretty sure fHPoH meant that Durkon's soul would be trapped in fHPoH unless and until fHPoH is destroyed, and fHPoH does not believe he will ever be destroyed.

[Wildroses]

Even if you are right and Hel doesn't get all the dwarves I can see her striving to end the world regardless. I get the impression that screwing Thor and Loki over is also important to Hel as becoming powerful. There is some ill conceived wager with Thor which ends when the world ends, and you could tell at the meeting she was relishing making her father squirm. That may be enough without becoming powerful via the dying dwarves.

[wumpus]

Isn't Hel the goddess of Death? I'd think given the option of killing every single being on the planet she would take it even if she doesn't catch up to Odin. I also think that Hel can't win if the clan leaders consult the clans (Durkula is likely working to interfere) and a voluentary death would certainly count as "heroic". Durkula needs to force the clan leaders to convince Dvalin to choose to destroy the world *without* consulting the clans (easier for a high level vampire than most).

No idea if Durkula is even allowed to consider allowing the world to be destroyed without full victory. Elan would certainly point out that such is how they are *supposed* to win (Durkula had the chance for partial victory but blew it, knowing that Hel assumed destruction was at hand and that Durkula's task was to flip the balance to her).

[eilandesq]

If we're assuming that Hel's plan will fail, then "death and destruction" probably means that Durkula and Company will manage to kill a lot of dwarves and blow a lot of stuff up after failing to win the vote--which he has plenty of power to do--before being thwarted and presumably slain to let Durkon come back for the grand finale. Bad stuff is going to happen in the dwarven homeland--it's just a matter of *how* bad.

[dps]

I also think that Hel can't win if the clan leaders consult the clans (Durkula is likely working to interfere) and a voluentary death would certainly count as "heroic".

I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, it's quite possible if the dwaves voluntarily said, "Yes, destroy the world to keep it from being unmade" it would count as heroic. However, the plan is for the fHPoH and his spawn to dominate the council to force them to tell Dvalin to vote to destroy the world, which wouldn't be heroic.