Quote Originally Posted by Quizatzhaderac View Post
I'm of the opinion that the OotS gods are incompetent.
I was thinking this too for the longest time, but after a while, I think it's less that they're incompetent, and more that they're slaves to their own nature which... doesn't seem to be much in their control.

The discussions between Loki and Thor and about Odin and how his nature got borked by some of his followers really paints a picture of gods who are less "supreme authorities" over their portfolios, and more incarnations of those portfolios with little to no say over what form those portfolios take. Whatever power and divine status they derive from their portfolios, so too are they bound by them.

The gods are clearly shaped as much by their worlds and followers and the reverse, and the end result is... imperfect gods create imperfect followers which leads to further imperfections of said gods, rinse and repeat over n generations of worlds...



I guess this doesn't really say that the gods aren't incompetent, so much as explain how they got that way. And they were flawed beings to start with - thus the Snarl and impetus for... everything. But from what we've seen of how they're shaped, it seems doubtful that the dectillion worlds or so they created would have lead to more positive developments than, say... dementia Odins.