OOTS #1139 - The Discussion Thread

[hroþila]

So does that mean Hel's bet was actually a smart one?

The worlds have been lasting longer each iteration which implies larger and larger population. And with that many failures its almost a sure bet this one would fail as well. True she would have no power in this world, but she would definitily rule in the next. In fact, it would take thousands of years to get to the point where she wont rule the next one.

I dunno. It is clear that Hel is not pleased with how the bet was going, which doesn't suggest that she was confident she'd come out on top regardless. Maybe the gods made important technical progress with the last world and genuinely believed that would allow them to fix the problem once and for all with this one. Or maybe they have just learned to do a "controlled demolition" so this would be the first time the souls could conceivably be salvaged from the disaster, but no one would know that yet when making the bet.

Hmm, I do ponder something. If the date we've been given about the setting (1100something) is the age of the world, how does the setting handles creatures that live longer than a thousand years? The outer planes denizen are generally immortal, but they don't live on the Prime, so it's not much of a question that they can survive easily through each world's iteration (although it makes me wonder what they know about the world resets), but creatures such as dragons can live... A thousand and a half, I think (venerable at 1200, srd doesn't tell what their total lifespan is)?
Assuming that the world was created some 1100 years ago, there are dragons alive today that were alive at the world's creation.

Assuming the date did mean how long the world survived, of course.

Presumably, the universe and all its contents were created in an aged state.

[Crisis21]

You know, I just realized what an absolutely brilliant bait and switch the comic title "To Remember Them By" is. Speculation for the past few comics has assumed that Thor was taking Durkon and Minrah to see the memorials of the Eastern Gods, except he was taking them to see the memorials for all previous worlds that were destroyed because of the Snarl's existence.

[WindStruck]

And I must scream.

[Snails]

I think you just predicted O-Chul's Last Stand. Seriously.

I considered that possibility. And you could easily be correct.

I find it likely the O-Chul's death at the final showdown will precipitate an important change of heart by the MitD. O-Chul battling the Snarl could potentially be that event, but other scenarios seem more likely to me.

[Snails]

Assuming that the world was created some 1100 years ago, there are dragons alive today that were alive at the world's creation.

Assuming the date did mean how long the world survived, of course.

Perhaps the world is 2000 years old? Or 10000 years old?

Yes, maybe there are a small handful of dragons that were born into this world immediately after creation. Maybe they even have memories of those days. Does that tell us anything important?

[Ruck]

I think people are missing something big... at least one of those Gravestones is premature.

I don't think it's clear enough what the nature of the planet within the rift is for us to say for sure.

[Wanderer]

...The graves of the fallen worlds fill the sky.

I just... there aren't words for this.

[Ruck]

... Oh

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH

The bet was foreshadowing!

Taking the bet wouldn't make any sense at all if Hel didn't know there would be another world where she would have her "winnings"! The conversation as we saw it couldn't possibly have happened unless there were several worlds and the gods all knew it!!

I don't think this is the case, based on Hel's own retelling of the bet #1083.

Hel didn't expect Thor to use the honor loophole to its maximum: She didn't make the bet expecting power in the next world; she made it thinking it would give her power in this one.

[GregTD]

Wow.

Although, oddly similar to the resting place of the Ace Rimmers in Red Dwarf...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUmB0sUUSk

"They all did it. They all became Ace..."

I hadn't thought of that until you wrote it. but that's a really good point

[FireJustice]

I know I'm always poignant and critic of OotS, as some jokes fall flat, some moments are "meh".
But this.

WOW.

Blew my mind.

Well done, Rich sir. You still got it.

[Wowlock]

Soo after eating all those Worlds, with what we have seen from V's familiar's eyes chapters ago, maybe something changed ? I mean are we certain everything is destroyed for good ? Or they just went to a different place in Snarl ?

[danielxcutter]

Oh.

Oh my.

That was unexpected.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Whoa. That's a lot more than 2 worlds. You would think that these gods would have gone insane, over the potentially MILLIONS of years that they've been battling the snarl.

[Rrmcklin]

Soo after eating all those Worlds, with what we have seen from V's familiar's eyes chapters ago, maybe something changed ? I mean are we certain everything is destroyed for good ? Or they just went to a different place in Snarl ?

I mean, that's not nearly as dire, and thus less interesting. Pretty sure the gods would also know if the Eastern Pantheon and all those souls weren't really destroyed.

Whoa. That's a lot more than 2 worlds. You would think that these gods would have gone insane, over the potentially MILLIONS of years that they've been battling the snarl.

The gods are (supposed to be) eternal. Millions of years should be, for all intents and purposes, nothing much to them.

[skim172]

Well ... that explains why the gods can casually discuss ending this world. What is the Order and the denizens of this world but another drop in an immeasurable ocean? Ending one world to prevent the Snarl's escape is a negligible cost. It'd be like us pondering the lives of the microscopic organisms living on our fingernauls. So many lives and they've never done any harm - but it won't stop us from washing our hands before dinner to prevent salmonella.

[Angelalex242]

Reminds me of Final Fantasy Type Zero.

There were 6 billion and change iterations of the world before Class Zero finally got it right.

[bc56]

Oh.

Oh my.

That was unexpected.

My thoughts exactly.

I was kinda shocked even

[nolongeralurker]

Finally got caught up, so here goes:

Random thought - I initially thought the reveal would be that the gods learned later that the first world wasn't actually destroyed after all, which was why they left the monument blank???...

That was legitimately overwhelming. I had to join the forum just to be with other people who got how overwhelming that was.

I know the feeling well, that's part of why I read the discussion threads for Wham Episodes (both current ones, and ones that happened before I even knew this comic existed).

It implies they are getting better at it, though, I mean, they went from 4 minutes to 11 centuries, that's a lot of people who got to enjoy a full life.

*4 years

You can almost hear the hollow sound of "Ooo! I could try out that new idea I had for a coastline!" ringing through the stone and grey mist

Uh, as someone else mentioned, that's not grey mist... that's more monuments. (I was impressed when I realized that, too)

The Order of the Scribble protecting the rifts? Useless. Nobody can protect the rifts. Your petty disagreements are nothing compared to the history of existance.

As other people have suggested, this could be the first world where Gates were made, so if they hadn't been destroyed maybe they would have been able to protect the rifts indefinitely.

I thought they looked like markers on a map, and that it pointed to "where" in space the first world was.

Well they weren't in the Astral plane, but I suppose the monuments could've all been intentionally placed next to each other in the relative position they would've been in? But wouldn't the gods have just keep creating the next world in the same place as the previous?

Either Thor wants Durkon to save the world by resealing the Gates, or Thor wants Durkon to let the Snarl out so it can eat all the gods and end this cycle of destruction and recreation.

How much you wanna bet on the second one?

This does put Loki's argument about waiting for the Snarl to set itself free in a new light, I think. If they blow up the world now, everyone's souls in it get to go to an afterlife. If they wait for the Snarl, the souls get eaten. A small price to pay for Loki, but quite the bill for any god that gives half a damn about their followers.

Reread #998. Loki's arguing not that they let the Snarl destroy the world (and devour the souls), but that they wait until the last Gate is blown (if things come to that) and then they destroy the world (with all the souls going to the correct afterlives), since they'll have enough time to do so then before the Snarl gets loose and does it. I'm annoyed the other gods don't see the clear logic of that, actually.

Also, the longer you spend performing incremental progress, the more likely you are to stumble across a breakthrough. Who knows? Maybe this time there will be a breakthrough in containing the Snarl.

You mean like the Gates (until certain idiots blew them up)?

It seems funny to me that anyone would know about the gods of Greece (East) if that many worlds were created and they were eradicated in the first one as crayons seem to indicate.

They can not talk about the snarl unless someone knows about it. But .... I am easily confused. Each world had the knowledge.

We don't know that each world knew about the dead Eastern gods.

...could this explain the 'monstrous humanoids' situation of this world? The Gods creating an attempt to try and power level some clerics high enough to do something about the snarl before it eats the world again? Sure, you're consigning untold billions to meaningless, painful deaths; but if those are the price paid against the untold mega-trillions the snarl gobbles with every world, the gods might have seen it as a price worth paying to delay or rid themselves of snarl-issues.

I think you're overestimating the amount of people on each world, but your point still stands.

Yes to the first, no to the second, at least that we've seen in-comic. If the Snarl made it so you've never existed, there would be no statue of Kraagor, and no Kraagor's Gate, as his sacrifice to the Snarl is what made Kraagor's Gate possible, and no one would remember him enough to even build a statue of him.

That's not what the person you quoted was talking about at all. Someone suggested that it would've been more ethical if the gods had just stopped making new worlds they knew would probably get destroyed, and this person was pointing out in reply that yes, the people created might get unmade, but they might not (their world might last long enough that they die naturally and end up in an afterlife), and the possibility of surviving is better than never existing at all. (I suppose the original person's argument might be considered to be strengthened if we had evidence that being unmade by the Snarl was such a horribly painful experience that some might think it better to never exist than to risk experiencing that, but we've had no such indication that that's the case.)

That is different enough that why this world is special enough to have ascended gods where a googleplex of previous worlds did not requires some kind of explanation beyond "this world is special", since the last page pretty much took a baseball to the kneecaps of the idea that this world is in any way special.

I for one, as others have mentioned, think this world may be special because it may be only one to have had Gates.

The only faction I'm unsure of are the Fiends. They could either be playing on the Iteration Level (working towards a new iteration without the fiendish rivalry) or on the Outer Level (gods aren't the only ones that covet souls, so the Snarl robs us as well). I can't tell which. If it's the Outer Level, they might be (temporarily and after a fashion) on the Order's side, which could present some interesting wrinkles in the story.

Well, the possibility that the IFCC ends up doing something that benefits the Order (pulling V's soul to protect their body) has come up before (recently, when the Order were all knocked unconscious).

I also don't think the sheer number of dead worlds suggested by the graveyard suggests necessarily that the gods have been getting incrementally better at this; this world could be their best creation by a substantial measure, which would also explain why some of them are so invested in saving it.

Others have mentioned that they got to 3.5 edition (from 1st) in this world - maybe that's why it's so much better?!

So, is it possible the quest is about to shift from "stop Xykon/Redcloak and don't blow the gate" to "defeat the Snarl?"

I don't know, I mean there's that quote from the Giant about the Snarl being a McGuffin (I think?), so probably not?

Probably either out of necessity (to maximize their power for world creation) or convenience (keeping the Snarl secret,) the Gods generally wait until all surviving souls ascend before making a new world.

But I thought souls got less useful the older they were (because otherwise Hel getting a relatively-small amount of souls now wouldn't matter)? (Isn't this canon by Word of Giant somewhere?)

And I must scream.

Nah, it's not like all those souls are suffering eternal torture right now, they just simply don't exist anymore.

I considered that possibility. And you could easily be correct.

I find it likely the O-Chul's death at the final showdown will precipitate an important change of heart by the MitD. O-Chul battling the Snarl could potentially be that event, but other scenarios seem more likely to me.

Why are you guys assuming O-Chul will die (and that he'll do so by facing the Snarl)?? It seems like Belkar has more narrative reason to do that.

ETA: Didn't realize there was an eleventh page yet, so one more thing to add...

Well ... that explains why the gods can casually discuss ending this world. What is the Order and the denizens of this world but another drop in an immeasurable ocean? Ending one world to prevent the Snarl's escape is a negligible cost. It'd be like us pondering the lives of the microscopic organisms living on our fingernauls. So many lives and they've never done any harm - but it won't stop us from washing our hands before dinner to prevent salmonella.

Nah, it's more like killing your pets so you don't starve to death.

[Rrmcklin]

{Original post by Nolongerlurker}

Reread #998. Loki's arguing not that they let the Snarl destroy the world (and devour the souls), but that they wait until the last Gate is blown (if things come to that) and then they destroy the world (with all the souls going to the correct afterlives), since they'll have enough time to do so then before the Snarl gets loose and does it. I'm annoyed the other gods don't see the clear logic of that, actually.

Because that statement clearly wasn't supposed to be logical. Who takes "Let's wait and see if that killer bear gets out of it's cage or not, and if it does, we always have like a few minutes to run and close down the zoo." seriously? Because that's what basically Loki was saying.

[hroþila]

Because that statement clearly wasn't supposed to be logical. Who takes "Let's wait and see if that killer bear gets out of it's cage or not, and if it does, we always have like a few minutes to run and close down the zoo." seriously? Because that's what basically Loki was saying.

What Loki was saying was that the danger wasn't so imminent that they couldn't delay the deed. In your analogy, they have a few minutes to press the easily accessible button that closes down the zoo if the cage, which is looking weak but is still closed, finally happens to open. Also, your analogy needs negative consequences for not waiting and seeing.

(That's assuming Loki is right about that window, of course, but the latest comic hasn't really changed anything in that regard)

[nolongeralurker]

What Loki was saying was that the danger wasn't so imminent that they couldn't delay the deed. In your analogy, they have a few minutes to press the easily accessible button that closes down the zoo if the cage, which is looking weak but is still closed, finally happens to open. Also, your analogy needs negative consequences for not waiting and seeing.

(That's assuming Loki is right about that window, of course, but the latest comic hasn't really changed anything in that regard)

I guess in this analogy the negative consequences are closing down the zoo when the bear hasn't escaped yet and thus ending everyone's trips to the zoo? So "having to leave zoo early" = "world is destroyed by gods, souls go to afterlives" and "bear killing people" = "Snarl destroys world and devours people's souls"? (Of course, dying young is a much more serious matter than having to end your zoo trip early, so waiting to see if the cage breaks may not be the best choice if this situation was IRL, even if the convenient button existed, but you get my point.)

[Thecommander236]

Oh... Oh no... I thought the gods were just being petty and uncaring, but they've seen world after world after world destroyed. They are just numb to the loss now.

That's horrible. There's so many graves. Christ.

[Fish]

Fascinating comic with a great reveal, but I actually think this has the potential to make things clearer rather than murkier.

Some random thoughts:

1. That's a lot of worlds that got memorialized.

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And if those worlds were eaten instead of destroyed, it's a lot of souls to save, if Vaarsuvius needs a way to atone for prior sins.

2. It's interesting that there's a cage or barrier surrounding the graveyard in the Astral Plane.

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Especially since we know of a particular monster who a) has been to the Astral Plane and b) is very good at escaping things. Heck, the monster doesn't even stay in his own box. He seems to leave from and return to that box as he pleases.

3. We can't know for sure whether there are any arisen/ascended god-mortals remaining from previous worlds. We do know that "the remaining gods hid in their Outer Plane homes ... but the chief deities met in secret, hatching a plan." If that part of Soon's tale is to be believed, it was the chief deities who make the new world — this new world? all the new worlds? — but the existence of other deities not involved in the creation of the world is explicitly mentioned. I don't think we can rule out ascended gods from previous worlds. In fact, continually adding new gods may be part of why the gods keep having arguments.

4. The observation that the Dark One and the Snarl have the same color scheme is interesting. What's potentially more interesting is that they have the same goal: destroy the gods who built the Snarl's prison(s). The Snarl would want to destroy them so the gods can't build another prison. If the Snarl were to impersonate a god, or pose as one, it makes perfect sense for that pseudo-god to have that alleged motivation.

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And let's face it, maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if all the existing gods got bumped off. They sure don't seem to be doing a very good job of building Snarl prisons — their nigh-infinite string of failures demonstrates this. Perhaps what is needed is to wipe out the gods and start again, or at least to get somebody else to build the next prison.

This potential ending is actually one I've predicted for quite some time: that Redcloak's ritual will actually work, and gods will be killed, before the final ending of the story.

[gatemansgc]

Avengers: Infinity War has killed the most implied fictional characters of any work of entertainment.

Rich Burlew: Hold my beer.

well, even before that, we had zeno from dragon ball super erase several entire universes and a whole timeline. i wonder how that compares?

[Caerulea]

Oh dear, that's a lot of dead planets.

What I want to know now is: Why keep making worlds? Could they not make a specific snarl prison, and then make a world somewhere else so that the Snarl doesn't know about it?

Maybe they have tried creating empty worlds, or specially designed prisons. It didn't work. They have had a lot of experience.

[Snails]

I would guess that cage/barrier is a minor wrinkle to help maintain the Secret of the Snarl. Because one memorial stone in the vastness of the Astral is likely enough to be overlooked and not understood if found. But one million(?!?) memorials is going to be spotted and inconvenient questions would be asked.

And notice that there is some kind of "barrier" protecting the entrance. We do not know its nature because Thor knows how to get through. The ones who made it, the gods, are presumably sworn to stay quiet about the nature of that barrier to anyone who does not already know about the Snarl.

[Manty5]

Way to re-inject tension after the climactic battle for Durkon, Giant.

[Leliel]

Can I just say-

I already kind of admire the mental fortitude of the gods?

Every time, every time they've tried, for the past few million times, Big, Angry, and Tangled slipped out and destroyed everything, or it became safer to do so.

And yet, not only do they keep trying, they've become more jocular about the whole thing. New coastlines and all that.

And they've kept on getting better.

The divine grit is something to aspire to.

[SSGW Priest]

That triggered my inappropriate laughter syndrome.

[neriractor]

just came here to see if there was people left as in shock by this page as I am, good to know there are.