Why the Dark One has a unique quiddity

[ebarde]

I think the main difference between the Dark One to every other ascendant, is that the goblinoids as a species weren't sponsored by any pantheon. all that belief they have still has the same power as every other race sure, but unlike elves or dwarves it wasn't also tied to a pre-existing pantheon. For example the ascendant dwarven king was probably a worshipper of Thor, and that impacted the quiddity he had cause all his dwarven worshippers believed he was related to that pantheon and thus he was sponsored by them. On the other hand not only was the Dark One not worshipping any gods, he was at the very least believed to have directly opposed them and proposed a new option for goblinoids.

It was that belief on the Dark One being an alternative to all other gods that gave him an unique quiddity, because just as Loki is a liar cause everyone believes he's a liar, the Dark One has a different quiddity than the other gods cause all goblinoids believe he is inherently different.

[Rrmcklin]

I mean, yes, those things are true, but they're also not new revelations. You're not stating or bringing up anything new.

[ebarde]

Was that ever explicitedly said in the comic? In my defense it's been like a year lol I was pretty sure Thor said he didn't knew why TDO was special

[Ruck]

I don't think it's entirely explicit, but it can be reasonably inferred. Thor says the Dark One "somehow (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1142.html)" tapped into purple quiddity, but he also mentions that the Dark One ascended to godhood "without sponsorship by any one of the existing pantheons." I think it's been the general working assumption that the reasons you stated-- that the goblins themselves had no patron deity or pantheon before him-- are the reasons he wasn't sponsored and did it on his own, and that doing it on his own is why he has a unique quiddity.

[Fincher]

Wouldn't that be replicable, though? Create a world with a group or species that's pre-disposed to creating their own god, grant them prosperity and leave them to their own devices, and let them sort it out. If it doesn't work for one world, then try again the next one. That at least suggests Thor isn't sure why it happened, since he's not expecting to be able to recreate it.

[Fyraltari]

The "somehow" is pretty explicit that Thor doesn't understand the mecanics of the Dark One getting his own divine essence. It's obvious that him.being raised to godhood by an unaligned people is part of it but nothing guarantees that's the only factor. And therefore, despite some Northern gods being willing to wait for a more amicable god to appear, nothing guarantees this will happen.

Maybe his hatred of the other pantheons was essential to the process, maybe there are only five potential quiddities and once they're tapped into they can't be accessed by somebody else.

[mjasghar]

Think about how the belief and mythology would have worked
If they had worshipped him as an enemy of a specific pantheon he would effectively have become a part of that pantheon because that would have made belief in him part of belief in that pantheon.
Partly because goblinoids are spread around the world they have a common culture etc that goes across pantheon areas - as opposed to dwarves having a main home in the North and elves in the west.

[Precure]

What is interesting about Dark One is, purple is not only his quiddity, it's also his skin color. So, he was different from other goblins since beginning
and there is something weird and unusual about him.

[denthor]

Simple solution red and blue make purple. Those two colors agreed what goblinoid races should be.

[Fyraltari]

Simple solution red and blue make purple. Those two colors agreed what goblinoid races should be.

The gods have auras of a particular color bexause they are constantly emitting magical particles at a certain wavelength in a way akin to Hawking's radiations. For the Dark One's aura to be the result of two colors mixed together, he'd have to be made of two divine essences rather than of a whole new one, undermining Thor's whole gambit.

Also adding blue and red lights together doesn't make purple, it makes pink.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/RGB_illumination.jpg/220px-RGB_illumination.jpg

[Peelee]

Simple solution red and blue make purple. Those two colors agreed what goblinoid races should be.

A.) The colors are just how mortals perceive quiddity not actual colors that necessarily abide by color theory.
2.) Even if they do, we don't know if they would work on additive color theory (all the colors make white, eg light) or subtractive color theory (all the colors make black, eg paint).

[Fyraltari]

A.) The colors are just how mortals perceive quiddity not actual colors that necessarily abide by color theory.
2.) Even if they do, we don't know if they would work on additive color theory (all the colors make white, eg light) or subtractive color theory (all the colors make black, eg paint).

That's not actually true (though that's very close). Read Thor's words (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1141.html) carefully. The colours are how the mortals perceive a stream of particles (this is exactly how colours work in real life). The wavelength of these particles (and therefore the actual colour perceived) is dependent of the god's essence, just like the colour of a heated gaz is dependent on the atomic make-up of that gaz.

Therefore it seems like the gods' auras should obey colour theory (in fact the strip is called "Advanced color theory"), specifically additive colour theory since the gods are emitting rather than reflecting light.

[dancrilis]

My suspicion is that the god colours work like light - but not in relation to mixing to produce an effect - instead in that the violet (which can be easily viewed as purple for general usage such as how Thor was explaining to Durkon) is its own light colour rather then a mixture of red and blue - had Thor used violet instead of purple I suspect the idea of him being mixed colours would not be considered as frequently.

[Metastachydium]

Quiddity is based around the Munsell colour system, where purple is a principal hue (alongside green, blue, yellow and red). That's a fact.

[Peelee]

That's not actually true (though that's very close). Read Thor's words (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1141.html) carefully. The colours are how the mortals perceive a stream of particles (this is exactly how colours work in real life).

Thats close to how colors work in real life - particles at a specific wavelength. However, with light the particles are photons, and with the godly essences, the particles are most decidedly not photons, as Thor states in that same link.

[Fyraltari]

Thats close to how colors work in real life - particles at a specific wavelength. However, with light the particles are photons, and with the godly essences, the particles are most decidedly not photons, as Thor states in that same link.

Yes but the mortals perceive them like photons so, since "colour" is a creation of mortal brains, the fact that they aren't actually photons isn't really relevant.

[halfeye]

That's a fact.

Eh? who said so?

There are six primary colours, three subtractive and three addative, they are red, green and blue (subtractive) and yellow, cyan and magenta (addative), these all depend on human physiology. In nature there are no colours, just a totally variable spectrum of light that goes from high energy gamma radiation to very long wavelength radio waves.

[Peelee]

Yes but the mortals perceive them like photons so, since "colour" is a creation of mortal brains, the fact that they aren't actually photons isn't really relevant.

Unless interactions like mixing aren't perceived like photons, in which case it's exceedingly relevant. And Thor never said anything about that.

[Fyraltari]

Unless interactions like mixing aren't perceived like photons, in which case it's exceedingly relevant. And Thor never said anything about that.

But at that point that's brain stuff not particle stuff. I mean neither colour theories have to do with particle interacting just how the brain reacts to receiving several different signals.

[Metastachydium]

Eh? who said so?


That's A FACT! Deal with it!

[skim172]

Wouldn't that be replicable, though? Create a world with a group or species that's pre-disposed to creating their own god, grant them prosperity and leave them to their own devices, and let them sort it out. If it doesn't work for one world, then try again the next one. That at least suggests Thor isn't sure why it happened, since he's not expecting to be able to recreate it.

Now that is a very intriguing idea. I would guess it can't happen because the gods would be too jealous and petty of creating another god that could be a threat to themselves.

The gods need a certain amount of worshippers to sustain themselves - but they could set aside a "test group" specifically to try to get them to create their own gods. Maybe obliquely influence events in the group's history to try to encourage the worship and apotheosis of a single figure.


Crazy tinfoil speculation: What if it's already happened? What if the goblinoids and the Dark One are precisely the results of just such an experiment?

:smalleek:

[Mike Havran]

Crazy tinfoil speculation: What if it's already happened? What if the goblinoids and the Dark One are precisely the results of just such an experiment?
Doesn't go too well with Thor and other gods not realizing significance of Dark One's new quiddity immediately.

Anyway, I'm inclined to think that should this world fail, the gods may very well focus their next worldbuilding in this direction.

[Devils_Advocate]

Simple solution red and blue make purple. Those two colors agreed what goblinoid races should be.
If secondary colors had to be the result of mixing primary colors, that would mean that the Eastern or Northern Pantheon was the product of two others. If we accept that that isn't the case (even if only in the form of briefly setting aside crackpot theories for the sake of argument), then there's no reason to suppose that such a thing is in play in the case of the Dark One, whose aura color doesn't really require any more justification than anyone else's. (And even if it did, "It's the fully-saturated color most distinct from those already in use" is a perfectly good reason?)


My suspicion is that the god colours work like light - but not in relation to mixing to produce an effect - instead in that the violet (which can be easily viewed as purple for general usage such as how Thor was explaining to Durkon) is its own light colour rather then a mixture of red and blue - had Thor used violet instead of purple I suspect the idea of him being mixed colours would not be considered as frequently.
Another member of Thor's pantheon calls it "violet" (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1143.html), which is probably the more accurate descriptor.


Also adding blue and red lights together doesn't make purple, it makes pink.
Eh, a purple is a darker shade of the same hue, but a pink is lighter and redder. I'd call it more of a pink than a purple, but neither word fits super well. This color gets called "magenta" but it's not really that either.

And if you want to get pedantic about color names, RGB "blue" is indigo. Blue complements orange, not yellow. And the Southern Gods do have blue auras, not indigo or cyan. We're not even working strictly with primary and secondary colors here; some of them are tertiary. Dear gods. But cyan and "magenta" are visually similar to green and red, so red-yellow-green-blue-violet is the set to work with if you want five colors that are all clearly distinct from each other to someone with normal color vision.


Yes but the mortals perceive them like photons so, since "colour" is a creation of mortal brains, the fact that they aren't actually photons isn't really relevant.
Thor didn't mention "photons" at all. There's no contradiction in mortals perceiving one divine aura as red light and another as blue light but not perceiving a mixture of the two the same way that they perceive a mixture of red and blue light. Maybe a mixture of those two auras is just perceived as a mixture of red and blue rather than purple.

So it comes down to how literally to interpret Thor's words. Before dumbing things down -- and thus, probably giving a technically accurate explanation -- he describes his aura as "What your eyes are seeing as the color yellow", suggesting that it's only the sense organs that are directly affected and data from them is thus presumably still interpreted normally, meaning no psychedelic non-purple red-blue. Aw, man...

But dwarven color vision could very well operate on entirely different principles than human color vision. You can't prove that it doesn't!

[KorvinStarmast]

I think it's been the general working assumption that the reasons you stated-- that the goblins themselves had no patron deity or pantheon before him-- are the reasons he wasn't sponsored and did it on his own, and that doing it on his own is why he has a unique quiddity. And as an authorial reference to the movie The Color Purple, perhaps. (And perhaps not).

Of course, I'd really like to see what the indigo quiddity pantheon is all about ... but maybe that's the big reveal in the middle of this book! :smalleek:

[Wizard_Lizard]

Wouldn't that be replicable, though? Create a world with a group or species that's pre-disposed to creating their own god, grant them prosperity and leave them to their own devices, and let them sort it out. If it doesn't work for one world, then try again the next one. That at least suggests Thor isn't sure why it happened, since he's not expecting to be able to recreate it.

And thus.. Kuo Toa were created

[Silly Name]

What is interesting about Dark One is, purple is not only his quiddity, it's also his skin color. So, he was different from other goblins since beginning
and there is something weird and unusual about him.

Gods are also shaped by the belief of their worshippers (see Thor's comment about using to be ginger). I figure that the Dark One not looking like any one specific goblin subrace is because he's worshipped by them all and rather than being constantly pulled between goblin and hobgoblin and bugbear, he looks like all of them and none of them at the same time.

[Squire Doodad]

Quiddity is based around the Munsell colour system, where purple is a principal hue (alongside green, blue, yellow and red). That's a fact.

I went and looked into it; it might not be FOR SURE, but it lines up really well with the Quiddities we've seen. I'm headcanoning this for the time being.

[Precure]

Gods are also shaped by the belief of their worshippers (see Thor's comment about using to be ginger). I figure that the Dark One not looking like any one specific goblin subrace is because he's worshipped by them all and rather than being constantly pulled between goblin and hobgoblin and bugbear, he looks like all of them and none of them at the same time.

He was still purple before he became a god though.

[Silly Name]

He was still purple before he became a god though.

I don't own the prequel books. Are those scenes of him as a mortal actual flashbacks or an illustrated retelling by Redcloak or another goblin? If it's the latter, obviously they'd describe the Dark One as purple skinned because that's part of their belief.

[Precure]

I don't have the books close to dormitory, but I rememver it being in crayons.

[Fyraltari]

I don't own the prequel books. Are those scenes of him as a mortal actual flashbacks or an illustrated retelling by Redcloak or another goblin? If it's the latter, obviously they'd describe the Dark One as purple skinned because that's part of their belief.

It's in crayons but Reclaok's narration claims that his skin colour already marked him as different before he rose to godhood. Of course in the same breath he says that his birth name was lost to history so who knows?

[hungrycrow]

So today's strip is pretty interesting. Apparently the whole neglected goblin race has happened before, a lot, so that in itself can't be the reason TDO has a new quiddity. I wonder what is actually unique about this iteration?

[ziproot]

So today's strip is pretty interesting. Apparently the whole neglected goblin race has happened before, a lot, so that in itself can't be the reason TDO has a new quiddity. I wonder what is actually unique about this iteration?

Obviously it's that goblins are medium-sized. :smalltongue:

[Squire Doodad]

Obviously it's that goblins are medium-sized. :smalltongue:

Small sized goblins can't raise their own quiddity gods, just try to prove otherwise.

[Devils_Advocate]

There's no good reason to assume that what happened with the Dark One is anywhere close to being the inevitable result of this world's conditions rather than a one-in-a-million fluke. I'd place my bets on the latter. (https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-04-15) Thor certainly doesn't assume that it's a repeatable phenomenon that could be easily reproduced just by making another world with the same settings.

Of course, one in a million odds just means that they'd need to make another few million worlds to get the same thing to crop up again. Except that there's also a very small chance each time that the Snarl will somehow kill all of the gods, which, you know, they'd probably prefer not to happen. Heck, that particular danger has already reared its head this time around. Of course, that's... more of a point in favor of pulling the plug on this world immediately...


I figure that the Dark One not looking like any one specific goblin subrace is because he's worshipped by them all and rather than being constantly pulled between goblin and hobgoblin and bugbear, he looks like all of them and none of them at the same time.
But the Dark One's color isn't similar to all three main varieties of goblinoids', it's significantly different from all of theirs. Yellow would be somewhere in the middle, but his hue (light indigo, upon inspection) is right on the other side of ol' the color wheel.

[Squire Doodad]

But the Dark One's color isn't similar to all three main varieties of goblinoids', it's significantly different from all of theirs. Yellow would be somewhere in the middle, but his hue (light indigo, upon inspection) is right on the other side of ol' the color wheel.

As someone pointed out the other day (and I am now reading about), Violet is the fifth color on the Munsell color system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell_color_system).
The five colors are Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Violet. Sounds familiar, eh?


Oh, you're talking about goblin colors, not god colors. Doylesian-ly speaking, I think he's purple to match the quiddity as per the Munsell bit, or maybe it's just a really badass color.
Which would beg the question of why it's a Crimson Mantle and not the Fuchsia Mantle, but maybe red dye really pops against goblin skin.

[Devils_Advocate]

1. Ah, of course, the Dark One was that color because he was going to become a god with a new quiddity! (That's a real word, Spellcheck. I checked.) As sources of prophesy, the gods clearly aren't limited to boring old linear causality. (To anyone who objects "But he was a mortal then!": Think a bit harder about this.)

2. Only the Southern gods, or maybe just their followers, seem to be strongly in favor of their aura color. I think that blood red tends to be popular with various pro-killing deities for fairly obvious reasons. So, not terribly original, but by its very nature that should never be surprising (https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=3023).

3. Every time someone uses "begs the question" in place of "raises the question" I feel Disappointed, But Not Surprised.

[Squire Doodad]

1. Ah, of course, the Dark One was that color because he was going to become a god with a new quiddity! (That's a real word, Spellcheck. I checked.) As sources of prophesy, the gods clearly aren't limited to boring old linear causality. (To anyone who objects "But he was a mortal then!": Think a bit harder about this.)

2. Only the Southern gods, or maybe just their followers, seem to be strongly in favor of their aura color. I think that blood red tends to be popular with various pro-killing deities for fairly obvious reasons. So, not terribly original, but by its very nature that should never be surprising (https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=3023).

3. Every time someone uses "begs the question" in place of "raises the question" I feel Disappointed, But Not Surprised.

Doylesian, not Watsonian. Rich made him purple-skinned because he was to have a purple quiddity.
Meanwhile, in-universe (Watsonian) TDO apparently had purple skin because of an oddity of some sort.

[Devils_Advocate]

Oh, I got what you were saying, and you're probably right. I was just saying that that works fine as an in-universe explanation too. Because of the forces of destiny and stuff.

[Fyraltari]

The way I see it one of two things happened:

1) The Dark One really did have purple skin in life, either necause he was born with it or because of some magical mayhap comparable to what happened to Serini. As a result he tapped into the divine essence that would result in a violet aura through a similar process that gives all the Greenhilts green dweomers because of their name.

Or

2) The Dark One had a normal skin color but because he race was lost to history and in order to push their pan-goblinoid agenda, his priests started to portray him with an unnatural skin-colour in a "he belongs to none of us so he belongs to all of us" way. They chose violet skin because he already had a purple aura.

Edit: as for the Crimson Mantle, maybe it just happened that the cloak he chose to imbue his knowledge in was red and he saw no reason to change it?

[Mike Havran]

So today's strip is pretty interesting. Apparently the whole neglected goblin race has happened before, a lot, so that in itself can't be the reason TDO has a new quiddity. I wonder what is actually unique about this iteration?We know the fantasy setting is not unique, so perhaps the added ''self-awareness'' was required for the goblinoids to understand there is nobody who would fight for them the destiny battle, and that they need to make such being by themselves.

[KorvinStarmast]

We know the fantasy setting is not unique, so perhaps the added ''self-awareness'' was required for the goblinoids to understand there is nobody who would fight for them the destiny battle, and that they need to make such being by themselves. but they didn't, TDO did. This is along the lines of the old "Great Man Theory" in history. Charismatic and driven leader, and all that, who ascended into godhood (which I suspect required a stop at demigod hood before the final entry into "Deity of the Goblins" level up happened. Ding!) The goblins were followers, not agents of change. He was the agent of change. (I think I am getting this from SOD or maybe from the Azure city scene where "don't screw this up" was sent as a message to Redcloak).

Their role now is to feed TDO godnutrients, in the form of the four food groups that Thor explained to Durkon (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html).

[Silly Name]

but they didn't, TDO did. This is along the lines of the old "Great Man Theory" in history. Charismatic and driven leader, and all that, who ascended into godhood (which I suspect required a stop at demigod hood before the final entry into "Deity of the Goblins" level up happened. Ding!) The goblins were followers, not agents of change. He was the agent of change. (I think I am getting this from SOD or maybe from the Azure city scene where "don't screw this up" was sent as a message to Redcloak).


This may be because I detest the Great Man Theory, but I find the goblins as a whole to actually be just as important in this process as the Dark One: if they didn't actively believe in him, even before he properly ascended to godhood... he wouldn't have! The Dark One is obviously the catalyst here, but goblinoids the world over aren't an afterthought of his ascension, they're the thing which makes it possible!

All that said, I think the problem with trying to replicate the Dark One's ascension is that it's complicated. Ever for gods with heightened senses, history is a damn complex thing made of many small, moving parts that interact and feed into each other and it's a mess that can only be made sense of a posteriori and even then you can't be sure of how much certain factors contributed and there all those small factors you may have failed to consider or just plain don't know. Yes, it all flows nicely if you put it down as "A did this, so B did that in response, which caused X", but that sort of thing is a huge oversimplification that fails to take in account factors like society and religion, politics, personal temperaments and even dumb accidents like it raining before a big battle, which contributes to a great general losing and their empire crashing down. But that's not the only thing! Did their troops rest well? Were they malnourished? Was there some blunder in communication during battle? Sabotage? A bad mood? Its hard to be sure, and sometimes you never will be.

So, even if the gods made a carbon copy of OotS-world's starting conditions next time around, they wouldn't be sure that a new Dark One would ascend again. And maybe if they try to meddle to ensure a "proper" sequence of events, their intervention could be exactly what screws it up!

[WanderingMist]

but they didn't, TDO did. This is along the lines of the old "Great Man Theory" in history. Charismatic and driven leader, and all that, who ascended into godhood (which I suspect required a stop at demigod hood before the final entry into "Deity of the Goblins" level up happened. Ding!) The goblins were followers, not agents of change. He was the agent of change. (I think I am getting this from SOD or maybe from the Azure city scene where "don't screw this up" was sent as a message to Redcloak).

Their role now is to feed TDO godnutrients, in the form of the four food groups that Thor explained to Durkon (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html).

Demigodhood is a matter of ancestry, not of ascendance to godhood. Any one who has a god for a parent is a demigod if the other parent is not a god.

[Emanick]

Demigodhood is a matter of ancestry, not of ascendance to godhood. Any one who has a god for a parent is a demigod if the other parent is not a god.

Not by D&D rules. According to Deities and Demigods, a demigod is just the least powerful kind of god (mechanically, only 1-5 divine ranks).

[TRH]

Honestly, Tyr has me worried that some gods don't want to end the cycle if it means changing the way they do things. And it sounds like Fenrir and Njord could reach a similar conclusion on general flightiness alone. So we can't even assume the gods could reach a consensus around trying to encourage a replication of what happened with the Dark One, even if they could reliably pull it off.

[Peelee]

Demigodhood is a matter of ancestry, not of ascendance to godhood. Any one who has a god for a parent is a demigod if the other parent is not a god.

In both D&d sourcebooks and in-comic, demigods are lesser gods.

[Devils_Advocate]

I once read, in a psychology textbook I think, that asking whether individual traits are more the product of heredity or environment is like asking whether a rectangle's area is more the result of its length or its width. Asking whether history is driven more by the actions of special individuals or by the actions of large groups strikes me as much the same.

The Dark One was and is able to have such a large influence due to being a leader. He wouldn't have accomplished what he did without his followers. And they wouldn't have done what they did without their leader. And their leader wouldn't have been who he was and done the things that he did if not for the society that produced him. And the details of that society are the results of things done by other important individuals and so on.

People only engage in coordinated large-scale activities like warfare under some sort of leadership, but organizing under some sort of leadership is something that people are prone to do. It's not like massive groups of people spend generations with no ruler until someone comes along to take charge. Seems a little dubious to say "Centralizing power is cheating, the only valid way to coordinate action on a large scale is through a distributed hivemind".

The Dark One wasn't a typical goblin leader, but that doesn't mean that someone like him wasn't inevitable. And if we're seriously considering what the world would look like without exceptional individuals, well, there probably wouldn't be all of these "adventurers" and goblins wouldn't have had such a problem in the first place. We could hypothetical away everyone above some threshold of exceptionality, but where we drew that line and indeed how we quantified how exceptional someone is would inevitably be arbitrary.

I suppose that deviations from general trends are the unpredictable part of all of this that serves to make things unpredictable. But that covers a lot more than people! Events that redefine the status quo can be influenced by weather, disease, the geography of unknown terrain, and many other factors. And sometimes there's a long period of unpredictable change because circumstances are such that there is no status quo and opportunities for individual accomplishment are unusually high.

[Roland Itiative]

All this talk about colour theory is missing one simple fact. If The Dark One's quiddity was just a mix of red and blue, it wouldn't be a new wavelength at all, therefore the whole idea of it being a new fourth quiddity would hold no water, and he wouldn't be able to make a four quiddity world (or Gates) at all with the other three pantheons. Our brains are not able to distinguish between yellow light that is a specific mix of red and green lights (such as what comes out as yellow from your monitor) and yellow light that is one single wavelength (such as a yellow laser), but there is a difference. One is truly yellow, distinct from both red and green, and the other is just two different wavelengths hitting our optical sensors at the same time from the same angle and creating what's pretty much an illusion that only exists in our brains.

[halfeye]

All this talk about colour theory is missing one simple fact. If The Dark One's quiddity was just a mix of red and blue, it wouldn't be a new wavelength at all, therefore the whole idea of it being a new fourth quiddity would hold no water, and he wouldn't be able to make a four quiddity world (or Gates) at all with the other three pantheons.

You are correct that purple and magenta are non-spectral colours that can't be made from one wavelength of light. I don't know whether quiddities are that closely connected to light, or that closely connected to human colour perception.


Our brains are not able to distinguish between yellow light that is a specific mix of red and green lights (such as what comes out as yellow from your monitor) and yellow light that is one single wavelength (such as a yellow laser), but there is a difference. One is truly yellow, distinct from both red and green, and the other is just two different wavelengths hitting our optical sensors at the same time from the same angle and creating what's pretty much an illusion that only exists in our brains.

That's sort of right, and also, sort of not right at all. Whenever we see yellow, two sets of cones in our eyes are being activated, the red detecting ones and the green detecting ones, this can be done by one wavelength that falls in the boundary between the sensitivities, or two different ones that each land only on the sensitivities of one set of cones. In physics, there is a continuous series of wavelengths, none of which are colours until they interact with eyes. The eyes of mantis shrimps have eleven (or maybe even more, depending on species) different sets of cones, the number of primary addative colours they can see must be enormous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Eyes


They are thought to have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom and have the most complex visual system ever discovered.[13][14][15] Compared with the three types of photoreceptor cells that humans possess in their eyes, the eyes of a mantis shrimp have between 12 and 16 types of photoreceptor cells.

[Jason]

He's the Mule from Asimov's Foundation series - a natural mutation that could not be predicted by definition. An occurrence that is extremely unlikely to occur again, even through billions of cycles of world creation and destruction.

[Emanick]

He's the Mule from Asimov's Foundation series - a natural mutation that could not be predicted by definition. An occurrence that is extremely unlikely to occur again, even through billions of cycles of world creation and destruction.

Until I read the last bit of your post, I assumed you were referring to mantis shrimp. :smalltongue:

[Riftwolf]

I like how much certainty people are putting into the Munsell colour system as the inspiration for the quiddity system when the five colours of quiddity thus presented match 5/6 of the infinity stones (MCU versions). Prove me wrong, people.
I mean it's pretty easy to prove me wrong as OOTS predates the MCU by several years and the first mention of Infinity stones in the MCU wasn't till 2014.

[Metastachydium]

people

I wish! It's mostly just me and, more recently, Squire Doodad.


the Munsell colour system ais the inspiration for the quiddity system

Fixed it for you!


when the five colours of quiddity thus presented match 5/6 of the infinity stones (MCU versions). Prove me wrong, people.

[Glares.] Munsell's five to five. Where's your six quiddity?


I mean it's pretty easy to prove me wrong as OOTS predates the MCU by several years and the first mention of Infinity stones in the MCU wasn't till 2014.

That, too.

[Fyraltari]

I wish! It's mostly just me and, more recently, Squire Doodad.
Which one of you isn't people?



[Glares.] Munsell's five to five. Where's your six quiddity?
Panel 5 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html), of course!

[Metastachydium]

Which one of you isn't people?

Well, sad as it is, some will tell you plants are not people.


Panel 5 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html), of course!

[Glares some more.]

[Peelee]

Well, sad as it is, some will tell you plants are not people.

Well there are plants, and then there are plant people. If a plant tells me they're people, I'll call that plant a person no problem. :smalltongue:

[Metastachydium]

Well there are plants, and then there are plant people. If a plant tells me they're people, I'll call that plant a person no problem. :smalltongue:

Yay! That's really nice of you!

[Riftwolf]

I feel like there should be a name for a fallacy that because something fits what the authors done, that means the author definitely used it as an inspiration. If Rich said during a Q&A 'I based the colours off the Munsell system', that'd be proof as fact. He could just as easily say 'I used the primary and secondary colours, but only needed five and orange was the least aesthetically pleasing'.
But in all seriousness, the orange quiddity won't come into it until Elan throws Banjo off the cliff on Vormir.

[Peelee]

Yay! That's really nice of you!

Thank you, plant person buddy!

[pearl jam]

I mean it's pretty easy to prove me wrong as OOTS predates the MCU by several years and the first mention of Infinity stones in the MCU wasn't till 2014.

Not that this has anything to do with it being Rich's inspiration, but although they first started appearing in the films in 2014, they began introducing them into the comics back in 1972.

[Riftwolf]

Not that this has anything to do with it being Rich's inspiration, but although they first started appearing in the films in 2014, they began introducing them into the comics back in 1972.

Yes but their colour scheme was inconsistent. That's why I specifically said the stones in the MCU.