Theory about Roy's Sword/Power.

[jacob.kix]

I had a theory recently while talking with a friend about the gods in OOTS.

We see in Thor's explanation about the snarl that it wiped out an entire pantheon. Depicted as the color green. Know what else is green? Roy's power. This could be completely unrelated, because green is a pretty common color used for mysterious magic in fantasy.

I suspect that Star metal is the bones or remains of the long dead pantheon.

This leads me to believe two possible outcomes:

1) Rather then relying on the dark one for the fourth color, Roy will be able to use the sword to assist in sealing the snarl.
2) They get red cloak to agree to help, and with five colors they are able to destroy the snarl completely.

Just an observation I made, any thoughts?

[Aidan]

We had some discussions about this around the time of Thor revealing the logistics of the colors. Conclusion was pretty much, it's not a particularly strong theory. I used to be a believer in the theory but no longer am, to me it's a bit of a stretch.

If I can find the link to the conversation then I'll post it here.

Edit: here's the link to the previous discussion about this
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569706-But-what-about-the-Starmetal&p=23384891

[Aaron L]

What color is it going to be when he's named Greenhilt?

Besides, I've always thought that the Greenhilt's magical effects were a comic book reference, to Green Lantern and the Star Heart. When Roy fully manifested the green fire he sure as heck looked like a Green Lantern, specifically the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) with the actual magic lantern, whose green energy looked fiery (at least it was drawn that way in the '90s.) And that lantern was carved from pieces of magical meteorite, which were fragments of the Star Heart, a star that contained the essence of all the magic in the universe from the dawn of time, which had been rounded up and put there by the Guardians of the Universe (the little blue guys.)

[factotum]

The dweomer seen on mortal spells and mortal magic items bears no relation whatsoever to a god's quiddity--otherwise the "only three colours" issue would have been solved years ago, because we've seen plenty of mortal casters whose dweomer is not yellow, blue or red. If you want proof of that, just look ar Durkon (has white dweomer despite his god being yellow) or Redcloak (has a red dweomer despite the Dark One being purple).

Perhaps more importantly, why are you so anxious to remove any sort of agency from the protagonists of the strip? If we get to the end and the gods just say, "Oh, we just realised we could have fixed this with your sword from the beginning, Roy, sorry for putting you through all that" then it would SUCK. It has to be the efforts of the characters that fix things or the story's pointless.

[jacob.kix]

The dweomer seen on mortal spells and mortal magic items bears no relation whatsoever to a god's quiddity--otherwise the "only three colours" issue would have been solved years ago, because we've seen plenty of mortal casters whose dweomer is not yellow, blue or red. If you want proof of that, just look ar Durkon (has white dweomer despite his god being yellow) or Redcloak (has a red dweomer despite the Dark One being purple).

Perhaps more importantly, why are you so anxious to remove any sort of agency from the protagonists of the strip? If we get to the end and the gods just say, "Oh, we just realised we could have fixed this with your sword from the beginning, Roy, sorry for putting you through all that" then it would SUCK. It has to be the efforts of the characters that fix things or the story's pointless.


I had not thought about the casting colors, that a good point.

Not sure where you were going with that second paragraph, not really anxious about anything (OOTS related anyway). Just made an observation about color of the spells an posted a few thoughts lol. Though I agree it would be pretty silly for the gods to not realize that the star metal could be used to help defeat the snarl (if that were the case) but given that the OOTS gods seem to have a pretty decent level of ineptitude I wouldn't put it past them to overlook something like this.

Regardless, like others have stated it's a pretty big stretch, it was just something I thought of and posted.

[WolvesbaneIII]

I had a theory recently while talking with a friend about the gods in OOTS.

We see in Thor's explanation about the snarl that it wiped out an entire pantheon. Depicted as the color green. Know what else is green? Roy's power. This could be completely unrelated, because green is a pretty common color used for mysterious magic in fantasy.

I suspect that Star metal is the bones or remains of the long dead pantheon.

This leads me to believe two possible outcomes:

1) Rather then relying on the dark one for the fourth color, Roy will be able to use the sword to assist in sealing the snarl.
2) They get red cloak to agree to help, and with five colors they are able to destroy the snarl completely.

Just an observation I made, any thoughts?

maybe the origin could be correct, but perhaps the powers are not so much.

Perhaps it has the god essence, but has no abilities above some extra damage, as the gods have been dead too long, and now its just a really good sword.

It won't be the answer to the problem, but perhaps it will get the gang to where they need to be so that they get the answer. A middleman if you will.

The soul reaver couldn't heal kain from legacy of kain of his madness, but it did get them to that point eventually in a very convoluted way.

[factotum]

Not sure where you were going with that second paragraph, not really anxious about anything (OOTS related anyway). Just made an observation about color of the spells an posted a few thoughts lol.

Sorry, it's just a hot button of mine that people seem to often propose theories that remove agency from the protagonists and put it in the hands of random chance or of the Gods...it's like they've never heard of deus ex machina. Not aimed at you specifically!

[woweedd]

I had a theory recently while talking with a friend about the gods in OOTS.

We see in Thor's explanation about the snarl that it wiped out an entire pantheon. Depicted as the color green. Know what else is green? Roy's power. This could be completely unrelated, because green is a pretty common color used for mysterious magic in fantasy.

I suspect that Star metal is the bones or remains of the long dead pantheon.

This leads me to believe two possible outcomes:

1) Rather then relying on the dark one for the fourth color, Roy will be able to use the sword to assist in sealing the snarl.
2) They get red cloak to agree to help, and with five colors they are able to destroy the snarl completely.

Just an observation I made, any thoughts?
I mean...They're totally different shades of green to start.


What color is it going to be when he's named Greenhilt?

Besides, I've always thought that the Greenhilt's magical effects were a comic book reference, to Green Lantern and the Star Heart. When Roy fully manifested the green fire he sure as heck looked like a Green Lantern, specifically the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) with the actual magic lantern, whose green energy looked fiery (at least it was drawn that way in the '90s.) And that lantern was carved from pieces of magical meteorite, which were fragments of the Star Heart, a star that contained the essence of all the magic in the universe from the dawn of time, which had been rounded up and put there by the Guardians of the Universe (the little blue guys.)
I mean...I think it glows green because it's being wielded by Roy GREENhilt. It's the color of his soul, basically.

[TRH]

We had some discussions about this around the time of Thor revealing the logistics of the colors. Conclusion was pretty much, it's not a particularly strong theory. I used to be a believer in the theory but no longer am, to me it's a bit of a stretch.

If I can find the link to the conversation then I'll post it here.

Edit: here's the link to the previous discussion about this
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569706-But-what-about-the-Starmetal&p=23384891

At the time, I recall pointing out that one piece of circumstantial evidence supporting the theory that the starmetal has some unexpected significance is that we've just recently been forced to reassess the sword and what it represents. For years and years we thought it was "just" a +5 Undead Bane greatsword, but only in this most recent book did we learn that it's basically an artifact with a suite of additional abilities to rival a Holy Avenger, at least. For that to come in the same arc as this discussion of divine quiddities and the lost color...could very well be a coincidence, yes, but might it not be one?

[ebarde]

I honestly just think needing Redcloak or the Dark One is just too good of a set-up in general to just sorta have have someone else show up with a Quddity to solve the Snarl thing. That being said I do think there will still be some sort of price or concession made to make Thor's plan work. I mean, saying "you just have to do X!" is just asking for some bad karma lol

Also I don't know, it would be kinda weird if Roy's sword got a third significant upgrade? Like, the Giant seems to upgrade the character's gear as it ties to some major character development, I mean both times Roy got a new ability were sorta right afterwards he made some grand realization and grew as a person. So I honestly kinda doubt we'll see this happen yet again, especially for something so plot relevant to the universe and lore at large. Plus, the physics of a long lost pantheon of gods being in a random meteor in some forest, after literal countless words have been destroyed just seems kind of a stretch.

If the greek pantheon plays any role, I'd wager they have something to do with the invisible people I guess? Even then, not really a theory I will stand by

[Jannoire]

Furthermore, there was talk about the casting of a powerful spell. Thor told Durkon, that Redcloak needed to cast an 8th level spell and everything should work.
Correct me, if I'm wrong...

Tell me how Roy, or even his sword, would be capable of that kind of magic...

[Fyraltari]

Technically, all Thor said was that they needed the amount of divine energy of a 9-th level spell.

But I don’t think Roy’s sword has anything to do with the Eastern Pantheon because Wrecan likened it to the way wizards work their magic.

[Draconi Redfir]

plus it would imply that this small chunk of starmetal (which i guess could be thought to be like, a chunk of Ares' armor or something) somehow survived billions of trillions of worlds being created and destroyed over the course of billions of trillions of years, and then wound up on this one particular world.

the best possible explanation i can think of for that is that this small chunk of metal was jettisoned away from the world during the Snarl's killing of the eastern gods, and then proceeded to drift through space for several eternities, always moving away from it's point of origin. At some point though, space itself turned out to loop in on itself, or turns out to be round or something, and it came back from the opposite direction like a boat sailing across the world back to it's point of origin. At which point the OOTS world we know and love.

it's Plausible, but given how freaking big space is... pretty unlikely.

[The MunchKING]

it's Plausible, but given how freaking big space is... pretty unlikely.

Like say... A million to one? :smallbiggrin:

[Grey Watcher]

I think central to this theory is the association fallacy. Just because specific pantheons give off a color doesn't mean that all things with that color are related to that pantheon. Grass is green, but that doesn't mean that everything that is green is must be grass.

In other words, it's not the color green that's important. Green is just a side effect of some not-visible-to-mortals... thing. And it's that which is what is needed.

And, again, I think if it were the Ruby Slipper solution, the gods would've noticed a piece of the divine in the midst of the group they've been specifically watching because they're all tangled up with the Gates.

[Peelee]

I think central to this theory is the association fallacy. Just because specific pantheons give off a color doesn't mean that all things with that color are related to that pantheon. Grass is green, but that doesn't mean that everything that is green is must be grass.

I dread the new theories that will surely follow claiming the Eastern Pantheon lives on in plants.

[Grey Watcher]

I dread the new theories that will surely follow claiming the Eastern Pantheon lives on in plants.

Better than the theories this raises about the Northern Pantheon. :smallamused:

[Kantaki]

Better than the theories this raises about the Northern Pantheon. :smallamused:

Clearly Thor wants his eastern brethren freed from their leafy cages.:smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

[Peelee]

Better than the theories this raises about the Northern Pantheon. :smallamused:

'Cause they're the sun, they're the sun, they can move they can run? ♪They're the gods on the siiiiiiiilver mountain!♫

[Jasdoif]

I think central to this theory is the association fallacy. Just because specific pantheons give off a color doesn't mean that all things with that color are related to that pantheon. Grass is green, but that doesn't mean that everything that is green is must be grass.

I dread the new theories that will surely follow claiming the Eastern Pantheon lives on in plants.Better than the theories this raises about the Northern Pantheon. :smallamused:What, their skin and bones turn into the world? I don't think that's quite it....

[Jannoire]

I dread the new theories that will surely follow claiming the Eastern Pantheon lives on in plants.

Is that why followers of Thor try to attack them?


'Cause they're the sun, they're the sun, they can move they can run? ♪They're the gods on the siiiiiiiilver mountain!♫

So, where's the lady with long green sleeves?

[ebarde]

Maybe the eastern pantheon were the friends we make along the way