Ragnarok in OOTS

[deuterio12]

Not sure if this was pointed out or discussed before, but Surtur lord of Fire Giants (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1012.html) mentioned Ragnarok.

Now that's supposed to be a pretty big fight between gods and monsters in which everything is destroyed/killed and then rebuilt.

Except in OOTS the gods all play nice with each other and the only monster that seems able to threaten them is the snarl.

One could assume that the OOTS cycle of destroying the world and making a new one to keep the snarl contained would count, but Surtur pretty explicitly says that "It's no Ragnarok".

Loki once clashed weapons with Thor, but then quickly stopped fighting whitout drawing any blood, and the rest of the time when they do show up they've actually been pretty close pals, making bets about the fate of millions of souls while drunk and whatnot. The only other time we saw any kind of god fight was when Thor wanted to crush the Dark One's skull, but the supposed evil gods of all people went "nah dude chill out, he's a god just like us despite having another quiddity color, peace."

There was that time when Surtur himself went to eat some souls, and although Thor seems about to fight him, turns out he considered it a lower priority than taking a random phone call. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html)

So what exactly did Surtur mean by "Ragnarok"? The Snarl explicitly doesn't count. The existing gods are all pretty chill with each other, with exactly zero instances of serious god-on-god violence seen in the comic (probably because even just gods getting really pissed at each other may make a new snarl that kills them both), although we see plenty of mortal-on-mortal violence, including tearing off the heads of defeated opponents for utility.

Now thinking about it, that may just be the Ragnarok Surtur mentions, the gods stop being chill with each other and spawn a bunch of snarls and everything is destroyed for real. Surtur eating nachos out of Thor's skull while the godly realms burn.

Anybody else has other ideas about what Surtur may've meant by Ragnarok?

[KorvinStarmast]

Anybody else has other ideas about what Surtur may've meant by Ragnarok? The end of the world for people due to the Snarl has never meant the end of the gods unless you were the Eastern pantheon. The other gods have figured out how to survive an end of the world event as seen in the crayon drawing of Shojo and recent discussions of Thor and Durkon.

This would indicate that the Ragnarok reference was an allusion to a different calamity that parallels {scrubbed}, not to mention contemporary movie titles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor:_Ragnarok), during which the gods and giants fight a climactic battle and it all comes crashing down. While he may be alluding to it "all comes crashing down" for the Northern Pantheon, leaving the OoS with a two quiddity situation at the divine level, (which seems to be bad news for snarl resistance) I'll go with the former as Rich making a Pop Culture Reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor:_Ragnarok).

He's done that before.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: This is an interesting question, but I'd just like to right off the bat remind everyone to keep discussion entirely based in fictional references to Ragnarok, like the aforementioned MCU.

[Kantaki]

Maybe it's just something Surtur expects to happen.
Something Fire Giants believe in/part of their culture.

I mean he most likely was one before he ascended, just like Dvalin and TDO, so it might be something he kept from his time as a mortal.

It's not like he would know better from previous worlds after all.

So my guess is that it's just Fire Giants believing everything will end with a big, allconsuming war between the gods.
Because that's how things go between them maybe?

[deuterio12]

Maybe it's just something Surtur expects to happen.
Something Fire Giants believe in/part of their culture.

I mean he most likely was one before he ascended, just like Dvalin and TDO, so it might be something he kept from his time as a mortal.

It's not like he would know better from previous worlds after all.

So my guess is that it's just Fire Giants believing everything will end with a big, allconsuming war between the gods.
Because that's how things go between them maybe?

But then if Surtur is a recently ascended demigod, the chances of him surviving to the next world are extremely slim, so why would he be voting yes for this world's destruction?

[Emanick]

But then if Surtur is a recently ascended demigod, the chances of him surviving to the next world are extremely slim, so why would he be voting yes for this world's destruction?

He may not have been told that his chances of survival are that low.

He might also be a bit of a nihilist.

[Peelee]

He might also be a bit of a nihilist.

Got a good laugh out of that. Headcannon'd!

[deuterio12]

He may not have been told that his chances of survival are that low.


The main gods all being a bunch of liars to the newcomers besides lying to the mortals? Makes sense.

[woweedd]

The main gods all being a bunch of liars to the newcomers besides lying to the mortals? Makes sense.
I mean, i’m Pretty sure they would react...poorly to the truth.

[Jannoire]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: This is an interesting question, but I'd just like to right off the bat remind everyone to keep discussion entirely based in fictional references to Ragnarok, like the aforementioned MCU.

{Scrubbed}

[ijuinkun]

{Scrubbed}

[hroþila]

I think the difference is that, by necessity, only massively broad lines can be drawn, and although some discussions that are completely harmless will be banned as a result and that can be frustrating, that's still a better outcome than the alternative. At the end of the day, those discussions aren't super necessary in a forum about OotS, so it's not a huge loss.

I do think everything Snorri wrote should count as literature, but if the mods make the call that better safe than sorry, it's reasonable.

[DeTess]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote.}

I'm going to take a guess here, but it's probably because there's people that get very sensitive about those things that where written a couple of centuries ago, including their fiction/non-fiction status. In an ideal world, that wouldn't matter, but this is the internet, and not dealing with these issues quickly and decisively could get the mods an enormous amount of work.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote.}

The difference is that people can be offended by such unprovable declarations, and their attempts at defending that they are not fiction can cause enormous flamewars.

Grey Wolf

[KorvinStarmast]

The difference is that people can be offended by such unprovable declarations, and their attempts at defending that they are not fiction can cause enormous flamewars.

Grey Wolf And this is why we can't have nice things. :smallfrown:


Back to OoTS ideation on Ragnarok: it implies that once the Snarl is defeated or contained in the four color quiddity with purple in it, the gods then get back to the serious business of disagreeing yet again, and have a big old battle ... which creates the second Snarl. :smallbiggrin:

This creates the conditions for the sequel that Elan envisioned, "Orderer Stickier", a rollicking adventure story which presents the mad cap shennanigans of the five deities who survive the calamity. They wander through the cosmos in search of the fifth Quiddity. The five adventurers are

Loki
Dragon
Marduk
Pig
Nergal

Their party leader is, of course,
Belkar, The Sexy Shoeless God of War (with his immortal animal companions Mr Scruffy and Bloodfeast)

In the Astral Plane, no one can hear you breath

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Closed for review.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: We're going to keep this thread closed permanently. Please remember that real-world religions are an Inappropriate Topic, and if you have a question or concern about the Forum Rules, please send a Private Message to a Mod or the Forum Guru, Roland St. Jude.