Askthepizzaguy
2022-06-30, 03:49 PM
I've been reading back and it occurs to me that since the Dark One was raised to divinity and has a brand new divine color, being in a pantheon of one, it might be possible for something like that to happen again. Specifically, Banjo is not part of an existing pantheon, and other gods seemed pleased at the idea of Banjo becoming one. Odin or Thor, I think?
Now the main problem with this is that the "cause" of Banjoism doesn't really have a lot of followers. So how would Banjo get followers?
The Dwarves are pretty much locked in to the Northern pantheon. The Azurites worship the Southern pantheon. The various nations on the western continent obviously have the Western pantheon. The goblinoids have the Dark One. It would seem as though every group already has a pantheon or patron deity. But, the Western continent has this vast huge desert, and several evil empires which could use a thorough overthrowing, namely the ones lead by Tarquin and his respective allies. It's also been said that the humans and lizardfolk and others are barely scraping by on the meager resources of this continent, on the southern side of the mountains where the land is pretty barren. We also have the Azurites who are looking for a new permanent territory.
Basically, what we need is a whole lot of land, with a whole new government, and a whole new religion with a whole lot of new followers who worship a whole brand new god. And all the pieces are there, except for the whole bit where there's this vast desert that isn't worth much of a darn, because it's just sand.
But Laurin Shattersmith was onto something with the whole rift thing with an ocean and desalination magic. It's possible through epic feats of magic to turn that land into something useful, tear in the fabric of reality nonwithstanding.
Let's say the Order's plan works and the four colors of deity do manage to hold the Snarl at bay, and they can prevent the gates from deteriorating and they can even be fixed as the problems crop up. That doesn't really do anything about the Snarl itself, and four colors of deity magic is on even footing against the original Snarl, which also has four colors of deity magic.
That would be an even fight at best, a standoff. It would represent their absolute best chance to date since the Eastern pantheon was destroyed, but it's still even money, and in the beginning, there WERE four pantheons and the Snarl simply snuffed one of them out.
So even with 4 pantheons versus the Snarl, I'd suggest we're still talking about a best case stalemate, and almost certainly, another pantheon gets wiped out. What you need is five pantheons, and we have four.
Five would represent superior power over the Snarl for the first time ever. Which is why, as absolutely silly as it sounds, Banjo could indeed hold the key to all of this.
What the four pantheons can do is hold off the snarl and seal the rifts. That's a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and we need a permanent solution. While the temporary solution can just be re-applied over and over ad infinitum, that implies all four pantheons will forever and always cooperate despite how fickle they are and how much they dislike each other.
If that peace treaty doesn't hold for whatever reason, the threat of the snarl comes back. So you have to actually solve the snarl problem.
How you get five pantheons, is you take Laurin Shattersmith's idea of turning the desert into usable land, you use the existing rift to the ocean to get the necessary water, and you purify it. Once the snarl is held back by the four colors, this is now possible.
Then you take the displaced Azurites and people struggling to live free from all the nations along the edge of the desert, and give them new lands that no one else has really claimed, so there will be no war of conquest needed to have that land belong to them. This can include the lizardfolk and others who aren't doing so well under the current regimes that Serini Toormuck was referring to, sentient monsters that would have done "better" perhaps under Xykon, folks like that.
Now there's habitable land for them all. But we also have the empires ruled by the Vector Legion, who Elan has already set a plan in motion to overthrow, with the help of the free city of doom and Haley's dad and the resistance of folks who are currently under their dictatorships. Let's say for the sake of the narrative that these efforts will not only be successful, but they will happen off panel, to really rub it in to Tarquin that he was not the main villain of this story, and he was wrong genre savvy in thinking the story would end in a big fight between him and Elan. The people of the western continent expose the machinations of the Vector legion, and overthrow their empires by uniting all these various nation states which have been abused by Tarquin and his allies for a long time.
This results in a much freer, more stable Western continent. And now we have some Azurites and other western brand humans living in New Azure land, and lizardfolk and kobolds and dragon trolls living in other parts, and all kinds of varieties of orcs and goblins and monsters of all flavors living elsewhere, free and prosperous, trading and so forth. But they need to be united, in order for the peace to hold.
What could unite them?
The Cause.
Banjo's cause. Elan could finally give an epic speech that doesn't end up failing completely, where his charisma is used to save the world for good, where he tells the people who have overthrown these evil empires that a new era of peace has begun, but for that peace to hold, everyone needs to trade with everyone else, and not hunt each other down just because they are different species.
And he can deliver this message as the first follower of the Banjo religion, and speak for his deity Banjo.
Elan can tell everyone that Banjoism teaches us that everyone seeks shared prosperity and happiness, and Banjo is the way to reach that impossible dream- by following the cause of protecting others from harm and oppression and not trying to invade each other, kill each other, and take each other's stuff. Elan can explain that the whole reason why the Azurites have new land, why the Lizardfolk have new land, and why these other monsters have new land, and are not ruled by a petty dictator, is because they rose up, united, and put an end to the oppression they had all been living under for so long. And the way to keep what they now have is to respect one another's rights, property, borders, and so forth.
This way, their nations wouldn't be brought down by evil aristocrats with poisons and ninja assassins, or scenery chewing villainous generals, or real vampires that are way less interesting than fictional vampires. Cool half orc ninja girls could date whoever she wanted without being judged by other orcs. And human psions wouldn't have a reason to be jealous of the elves on the northern bit of the continent in the first place, so they could hang out and not have cool caster fights unless they really, really wanted to. And their sons or daughters could become plumbers or polearm salespersons without feeling obligated to join some evil thief guild or other criminal organization. And we could ALL have cool dinosaur rides without having to fight each other in a gladiator pit to the death, unless we really, really wanted to. Maybe bugbear ladies, halfling half-trolls, and floating eyeball monsters could even visit these lands and trade for tasty exotic fruits without being persecuted for it.
What would keep the peace would be their shared belief in the teachings of Banjo. For Banjo is a state of mind, and we are all capable of living in this state of mind, by following his blessed teachings. (Praise Banjo.)
Bugbears who think the Dark One is no big whoop, humans for whom the Western or Southern pantheons have left them feeling forsaken, maybe even human fighters who think the rest of the gods are out of touch and don't have the best interests of all in mind, could sate lack of religious fulfillment by turning to Banjo, who actively undertook a quest to save them all from annihilation personally.
With the Western continent freed, pacified, and prosperous, the grateful citizens of what used to be "The Great Barren Desert" may spontaneously decide to convert to Banjoism, a religion founded for the explicit purpose of ensuring lives are "bountiful for all of (their) days", without picking and choosing which lives matter more than others.
A few million people living under Banjoism is probably enough to cause Banjo (or at least, Elan's cause of Banjoism) to be elevated to the rank of a deity and given life. Since the Dark One got in without needing to be sponsored by an existing pantheon, Banjo shouldn't need to, either.
And since Banjo is helping the people who had been living in the shadows, downtrodden, on all the other existing three continents, and including species which even the evil deities favor, I doubt there would be much dissent even among the otherwise squabbling gods that can't agree on anything except that the Snarl itself is bad.
Banjo, representing everything that is the opposite of the Snarl, would represent a common good that benefits all, the humans, humanoids, goblinoids, lizards, monsters, whoever. And a fifth color to add to the crayon box would certainly be helpful in overcoming the Snarl itself.
As such, Banjo is born into actual divinity, made up of the hopes and dreams of the people who had been served injustice and repaid it with kindness and cooperation and mutual respect and tolerance.
This would take place after the Dark One already agreed to help seal the rifts. Banjo, a fellow pantheon of one deity, one who would treat the goblins and other monsters with respect, would probably be cool with the Dark One, since he is explicitly not a threat to him. Banjo could be an ally that represents actual peace for the goblin people, and one who would challenge the idea of crusading into goblin lands formerly held by Azurites, or attempts to purge the goblins from the map.
The five pantheons would then be united and powerful enough to actually undo the Snarl. Five colors beats four, and best of all, it would represent everything that caused the snarl to begin with being undone. Gods of different alignments, interests, pantheons, and creative ideas, joining together and mutually supporting one another, demonstrating that they've actually atoned for their original sin which caused the snarl in the first place.
Undoing the Snarl might even reveal that the Eastern Pantheon and all the souls trapped by the snarl didn't actually vanish, but were held within the snarl all this time. Who knows.
I just know it would make a better ending than whatever Tarquin had in mind, especially since he gets relegated to the status of "minor villain justly deposed off panel" and it would undo a whole lot of things that were really wrong with the world to begin with, from the gods all the way down to the lowliest hand puppet.
It would probably give Elan's best buddy Roy actual peace of mind for the first time in the entire comic, secure in the belief that the Snarl was solved as a problem and that the gods had finally gotten it through their thick skulls that trying to backstab one another and kick over each other's sandcastles isn't a great idea, and that some internet chat arguments are pointless and shouldn't result in liquefying the messenger and anointing one's legions with the remains.
What attracts me to this idea which is probably not what's going to happen (but who am I to guess):
1) The comic has already firmly established in canon that ascension to godhood can happen, has happened repeatedly, and how.
2) The comic has already, albeit humorously, established that Banjo is capable of becoming a real deity with enough followers.
3) The comic has already established that the gods have more important things to be concerned about than smiting the newest god, even if they disagree with their alignment or philosophy in whole or in part.
4) The comic has already established that four colors of god may not be at all enough to face the Snarl.
5) The comic has already established that the solution to this entire mess is not the Dark One holding the existence of everyone hostage or his followers essentially turning to terrorism and speciesist vengeance. So rewarding the Dark One or Redcloak for their villainy is almost certainly NOT the solution, but it has also established that both are probably going to be a component of the actual solution.
6) This ties up an awful lot of plot threads, involving the resistance against Vector Legion, the homeless Azurites, the likely potential for conflict with Gobbotopia if the Azurites cannot obtain a new homeland, and the existence of many downtrodden species or cultures which are not doing well under the current regime of pantheons, gods, how the world is ordered, or the nations in charge, and gives land and a shared culture to all of them at once, resolving these dangling plot threads through peace and cooperation rather than destruction and mutual fear, like Redcloak wanted.
7) It allows Elan to help save the day once again by specifically not being the hero that solves it by killing his father (As Tarquin wanted) but once again by simply being the shining support character to someone who is a far better fit for the job, like he was to Roy all this time. He can be that by simply talking up how great Banjo is.
Of course, Banjo is the personification of Elan's pure heartedness, goodness, and hopefulness. Even if it's officially Banjo everyone would be following, Banjoism is the religion that Elan started.
Which means that the humble bard saved the world by crafting a decent narrative and telling it well, which is what bards are useful for.
Did I miss something?
Mainly, I am looking for something I overlooked as an outright impossibility. Or, show me where something I said couldn't be suggested was foreshadowed somewhere in the comic itself. I didn't pull any deus ex machinas here, or even mechanes. The basis for everything I said is written in the comic already at some point, going all the way back to comic 80 and including practically all the dangling plot threads, even the stuff that seems silly.
The best part of all of this is that it's all written into the reality of this universe. None of it is even implausible according to how this world words, just seemingly unlikely. The fact that it is silly is totally Elan. The fact that it would still work anyway is also totally Elan. I kinda want to see Roy's reaction to all of this working, if nothing else. Just his facial expression would do.
Feel free to tell me this idea is good, bad, silly, or too wordy. Or not wordy enough. Surprise me.
Now the main problem with this is that the "cause" of Banjoism doesn't really have a lot of followers. So how would Banjo get followers?
The Dwarves are pretty much locked in to the Northern pantheon. The Azurites worship the Southern pantheon. The various nations on the western continent obviously have the Western pantheon. The goblinoids have the Dark One. It would seem as though every group already has a pantheon or patron deity. But, the Western continent has this vast huge desert, and several evil empires which could use a thorough overthrowing, namely the ones lead by Tarquin and his respective allies. It's also been said that the humans and lizardfolk and others are barely scraping by on the meager resources of this continent, on the southern side of the mountains where the land is pretty barren. We also have the Azurites who are looking for a new permanent territory.
Basically, what we need is a whole lot of land, with a whole new government, and a whole new religion with a whole lot of new followers who worship a whole brand new god. And all the pieces are there, except for the whole bit where there's this vast desert that isn't worth much of a darn, because it's just sand.
But Laurin Shattersmith was onto something with the whole rift thing with an ocean and desalination magic. It's possible through epic feats of magic to turn that land into something useful, tear in the fabric of reality nonwithstanding.
Let's say the Order's plan works and the four colors of deity do manage to hold the Snarl at bay, and they can prevent the gates from deteriorating and they can even be fixed as the problems crop up. That doesn't really do anything about the Snarl itself, and four colors of deity magic is on even footing against the original Snarl, which also has four colors of deity magic.
That would be an even fight at best, a standoff. It would represent their absolute best chance to date since the Eastern pantheon was destroyed, but it's still even money, and in the beginning, there WERE four pantheons and the Snarl simply snuffed one of them out.
So even with 4 pantheons versus the Snarl, I'd suggest we're still talking about a best case stalemate, and almost certainly, another pantheon gets wiped out. What you need is five pantheons, and we have four.
Five would represent superior power over the Snarl for the first time ever. Which is why, as absolutely silly as it sounds, Banjo could indeed hold the key to all of this.
What the four pantheons can do is hold off the snarl and seal the rifts. That's a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and we need a permanent solution. While the temporary solution can just be re-applied over and over ad infinitum, that implies all four pantheons will forever and always cooperate despite how fickle they are and how much they dislike each other.
If that peace treaty doesn't hold for whatever reason, the threat of the snarl comes back. So you have to actually solve the snarl problem.
How you get five pantheons, is you take Laurin Shattersmith's idea of turning the desert into usable land, you use the existing rift to the ocean to get the necessary water, and you purify it. Once the snarl is held back by the four colors, this is now possible.
Then you take the displaced Azurites and people struggling to live free from all the nations along the edge of the desert, and give them new lands that no one else has really claimed, so there will be no war of conquest needed to have that land belong to them. This can include the lizardfolk and others who aren't doing so well under the current regimes that Serini Toormuck was referring to, sentient monsters that would have done "better" perhaps under Xykon, folks like that.
Now there's habitable land for them all. But we also have the empires ruled by the Vector Legion, who Elan has already set a plan in motion to overthrow, with the help of the free city of doom and Haley's dad and the resistance of folks who are currently under their dictatorships. Let's say for the sake of the narrative that these efforts will not only be successful, but they will happen off panel, to really rub it in to Tarquin that he was not the main villain of this story, and he was wrong genre savvy in thinking the story would end in a big fight between him and Elan. The people of the western continent expose the machinations of the Vector legion, and overthrow their empires by uniting all these various nation states which have been abused by Tarquin and his allies for a long time.
This results in a much freer, more stable Western continent. And now we have some Azurites and other western brand humans living in New Azure land, and lizardfolk and kobolds and dragon trolls living in other parts, and all kinds of varieties of orcs and goblins and monsters of all flavors living elsewhere, free and prosperous, trading and so forth. But they need to be united, in order for the peace to hold.
What could unite them?
The Cause.
Banjo's cause. Elan could finally give an epic speech that doesn't end up failing completely, where his charisma is used to save the world for good, where he tells the people who have overthrown these evil empires that a new era of peace has begun, but for that peace to hold, everyone needs to trade with everyone else, and not hunt each other down just because they are different species.
And he can deliver this message as the first follower of the Banjo religion, and speak for his deity Banjo.
Elan can tell everyone that Banjoism teaches us that everyone seeks shared prosperity and happiness, and Banjo is the way to reach that impossible dream- by following the cause of protecting others from harm and oppression and not trying to invade each other, kill each other, and take each other's stuff. Elan can explain that the whole reason why the Azurites have new land, why the Lizardfolk have new land, and why these other monsters have new land, and are not ruled by a petty dictator, is because they rose up, united, and put an end to the oppression they had all been living under for so long. And the way to keep what they now have is to respect one another's rights, property, borders, and so forth.
This way, their nations wouldn't be brought down by evil aristocrats with poisons and ninja assassins, or scenery chewing villainous generals, or real vampires that are way less interesting than fictional vampires. Cool half orc ninja girls could date whoever she wanted without being judged by other orcs. And human psions wouldn't have a reason to be jealous of the elves on the northern bit of the continent in the first place, so they could hang out and not have cool caster fights unless they really, really wanted to. And their sons or daughters could become plumbers or polearm salespersons without feeling obligated to join some evil thief guild or other criminal organization. And we could ALL have cool dinosaur rides without having to fight each other in a gladiator pit to the death, unless we really, really wanted to. Maybe bugbear ladies, halfling half-trolls, and floating eyeball monsters could even visit these lands and trade for tasty exotic fruits without being persecuted for it.
What would keep the peace would be their shared belief in the teachings of Banjo. For Banjo is a state of mind, and we are all capable of living in this state of mind, by following his blessed teachings. (Praise Banjo.)
Bugbears who think the Dark One is no big whoop, humans for whom the Western or Southern pantheons have left them feeling forsaken, maybe even human fighters who think the rest of the gods are out of touch and don't have the best interests of all in mind, could sate lack of religious fulfillment by turning to Banjo, who actively undertook a quest to save them all from annihilation personally.
With the Western continent freed, pacified, and prosperous, the grateful citizens of what used to be "The Great Barren Desert" may spontaneously decide to convert to Banjoism, a religion founded for the explicit purpose of ensuring lives are "bountiful for all of (their) days", without picking and choosing which lives matter more than others.
A few million people living under Banjoism is probably enough to cause Banjo (or at least, Elan's cause of Banjoism) to be elevated to the rank of a deity and given life. Since the Dark One got in without needing to be sponsored by an existing pantheon, Banjo shouldn't need to, either.
And since Banjo is helping the people who had been living in the shadows, downtrodden, on all the other existing three continents, and including species which even the evil deities favor, I doubt there would be much dissent even among the otherwise squabbling gods that can't agree on anything except that the Snarl itself is bad.
Banjo, representing everything that is the opposite of the Snarl, would represent a common good that benefits all, the humans, humanoids, goblinoids, lizards, monsters, whoever. And a fifth color to add to the crayon box would certainly be helpful in overcoming the Snarl itself.
As such, Banjo is born into actual divinity, made up of the hopes and dreams of the people who had been served injustice and repaid it with kindness and cooperation and mutual respect and tolerance.
This would take place after the Dark One already agreed to help seal the rifts. Banjo, a fellow pantheon of one deity, one who would treat the goblins and other monsters with respect, would probably be cool with the Dark One, since he is explicitly not a threat to him. Banjo could be an ally that represents actual peace for the goblin people, and one who would challenge the idea of crusading into goblin lands formerly held by Azurites, or attempts to purge the goblins from the map.
The five pantheons would then be united and powerful enough to actually undo the Snarl. Five colors beats four, and best of all, it would represent everything that caused the snarl to begin with being undone. Gods of different alignments, interests, pantheons, and creative ideas, joining together and mutually supporting one another, demonstrating that they've actually atoned for their original sin which caused the snarl in the first place.
Undoing the Snarl might even reveal that the Eastern Pantheon and all the souls trapped by the snarl didn't actually vanish, but were held within the snarl all this time. Who knows.
I just know it would make a better ending than whatever Tarquin had in mind, especially since he gets relegated to the status of "minor villain justly deposed off panel" and it would undo a whole lot of things that were really wrong with the world to begin with, from the gods all the way down to the lowliest hand puppet.
It would probably give Elan's best buddy Roy actual peace of mind for the first time in the entire comic, secure in the belief that the Snarl was solved as a problem and that the gods had finally gotten it through their thick skulls that trying to backstab one another and kick over each other's sandcastles isn't a great idea, and that some internet chat arguments are pointless and shouldn't result in liquefying the messenger and anointing one's legions with the remains.
What attracts me to this idea which is probably not what's going to happen (but who am I to guess):
1) The comic has already firmly established in canon that ascension to godhood can happen, has happened repeatedly, and how.
2) The comic has already, albeit humorously, established that Banjo is capable of becoming a real deity with enough followers.
3) The comic has already established that the gods have more important things to be concerned about than smiting the newest god, even if they disagree with their alignment or philosophy in whole or in part.
4) The comic has already established that four colors of god may not be at all enough to face the Snarl.
5) The comic has already established that the solution to this entire mess is not the Dark One holding the existence of everyone hostage or his followers essentially turning to terrorism and speciesist vengeance. So rewarding the Dark One or Redcloak for their villainy is almost certainly NOT the solution, but it has also established that both are probably going to be a component of the actual solution.
6) This ties up an awful lot of plot threads, involving the resistance against Vector Legion, the homeless Azurites, the likely potential for conflict with Gobbotopia if the Azurites cannot obtain a new homeland, and the existence of many downtrodden species or cultures which are not doing well under the current regime of pantheons, gods, how the world is ordered, or the nations in charge, and gives land and a shared culture to all of them at once, resolving these dangling plot threads through peace and cooperation rather than destruction and mutual fear, like Redcloak wanted.
7) It allows Elan to help save the day once again by specifically not being the hero that solves it by killing his father (As Tarquin wanted) but once again by simply being the shining support character to someone who is a far better fit for the job, like he was to Roy all this time. He can be that by simply talking up how great Banjo is.
Of course, Banjo is the personification of Elan's pure heartedness, goodness, and hopefulness. Even if it's officially Banjo everyone would be following, Banjoism is the religion that Elan started.
Which means that the humble bard saved the world by crafting a decent narrative and telling it well, which is what bards are useful for.
Did I miss something?
Mainly, I am looking for something I overlooked as an outright impossibility. Or, show me where something I said couldn't be suggested was foreshadowed somewhere in the comic itself. I didn't pull any deus ex machinas here, or even mechanes. The basis for everything I said is written in the comic already at some point, going all the way back to comic 80 and including practically all the dangling plot threads, even the stuff that seems silly.
The best part of all of this is that it's all written into the reality of this universe. None of it is even implausible according to how this world words, just seemingly unlikely. The fact that it is silly is totally Elan. The fact that it would still work anyway is also totally Elan. I kinda want to see Roy's reaction to all of this working, if nothing else. Just his facial expression would do.
Feel free to tell me this idea is good, bad, silly, or too wordy. Or not wordy enough. Surprise me.