Origins of Purple Quiddity?

[Rrmcklin]

I don't have any particular ideas about this, and it may well be that we never get an explanation, but just a thread to discuss why the Dark One was able to tap into, apparently, a completely new Quiddity that the older gods had no idea existed.

For that matter, might as well talk about any other ideas or questions about Quiddity, in general.

[martianmister]

The Dark One is a creature of the Snarl and it's using him to escape and destroy the gods.

[Draconi Redfir]

i think the simplest answer is the most likely. He just sort of... accidentally created it.

Before the dark one arose, the purple quiddity didn't exist in any shape or form. maybe the potential for it didn't even exist.

when he ascended though, BAM, purple quiddity that's all there is too it.

[deuterio12]

I don't have any particular ideas about this, and it may well be that we never get an explanation, but just a thread to discuss why the Dark One was able to tap into, apparently, a completely new Quiddity that the older gods had no idea existed.

For that matter, might as well talk about any other ideas or questions about Quiddity, in general.

That the Dark One spontaneously ascended with his own Quiddity and just mortal support combined with the fact gods need mortal worship to sustain themselves seems to strongly suggest that all the gods were originally mortals themselves in a first world.

And the gods are either keeping it as another of their secrets or may've just forgot it.

[Rrmcklin]

That the Dark One spontaneously ascended with his own Quiddity and just mortal support combined with the fact gods need mortal worship to sustain themselves seems to strongly suggest that all the gods were originally mortals themselves in a first world.

And the gods are either keeping it as another of their secrets or may've just forgot it.

I don't agree with your chain of logic there, or the conclusions.

When the Dark One being a noted anomaly has become so important "they're keeping their origins a secret" makes no sense, and "they forgot" is completely unsatisfying.

[deuterio12]

I don't agree with your chain of logic there, or the conclusions.

When the Dark One being a noted anomaly has become so important "they're keeping their origins a secret" makes no sense, and "they forgot" is completely unsatisfying.

It's Natural that the Dark One would seem like an anomaly because the gods were already monopolizing and competing for most worship, so there wasn't much left for a new god to spontaneously ascend.

Also plenty of gods have made it pretty clear they would be pretty happy with just blowing up the world, the Dark One that dares to challenge them disappearing, and the status quo being maintained.

Plus the gods still need mortal worship to sustain themselves-meaning that the first mortals need to have appeared before the first gods. And the Dark One happens to be the only god with an origin source-mortal worship. There is no other known method of god formation in OoTS.

[Rrmcklin]

It's Natural that the Dark One would seem like an anomaly because the gods were already monopolizing and competing for most worship, so there wasn't much left for a new god to spontaneously ascend.

Also plenty of gods have made it pretty clear they would be pretty happy with just blowing up the world, the Dark One that dares to challenge them disappearing, and the status quo being maintained.

Plus the gods still need mortal worship to sustain themselves-meaning that the first mortals need to have appeared before the first gods. And the Dark One happens to be the only god with an origin source-mortal worship. There is no other known method of god formation in OoTS.

You got a lot of things wrong here.

1) You're missing the point, evidently Quiddity "type" isn't tied into the people worshipping him. The part that is surprising to them is that the Dark One is a new color, not that a new god could even rise because they were "monopolizing" mortal worship. A point has been made that mortals ascending to Godhood is not a thing they haven't seen before (The Elven Gods, Davlin the Demi-god, others probably); that's not what makes the Dark One special.

2) The Dark One isn't involved with whether they destroy the world or not; he has no say in the manner. Even if he did, Thor said the Snarl has gotten out before and destroyed their worlds; they just wait it out in that case.

3) You're talking about a chicken-and-egg scenario. The mortals only exist because the gods created them using multiple Quiddities. That the gods use mortal worship as nutrition now in no way precludes them coming into existence another way; it just means that however they used to sustain themselves is gone.

[Draconi Redfir]

Plus the gods still need mortal worship to sustain themselves-meaning that the first mortals need to have appeared before the first gods. And the Dark One happens to be the only god with an origin source-mortal worship. There is no other known method of god formation in OoTS.

simple answer: The primary gods either just spontaneously popped into existence akin to the big bang, or they've just always been there with no clear "beginning"

Or they just kind of appeared. You know "Ego" from Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Maybe something like that.

[deuterio12]

You got a lot of things wrong here.

1) You're missing the point, evidently Quiddity "type" isn't tied into the people worshipping him. The part that is surprising to them is that the Dark One is a new color, not that a new god could even rise because they were "monopolizing" mortal worship. A point has been made that mortals ascending to Godhood is not a thing they haven't seen before (The Elven Gods, Davlin the Demi-god, others probably); that's not what makes the Dark One special.

The key difference is that those acended "gods" did so under the patronage of other gods, that's why they share their patron's quiddity.

While the Dark One ascended from the goblins that were specifically created to be exp fodder, aka they had no god to support them as their patron. So the goblins just made their own god from scratch.

Once there was a source of worship that no god was willing to slurp in, a new god showed to use it.

2) The Dark One isn't involved with whether they destroy the world or not; he has no say in the manner. Even if he did, Thor said the Snarl has gotten out before and destroyed their worlds; they just wait it out in that case.

And why does the Dark One doesn't get a say in the first place?

Precisely, because he didn't ascend under the patronage of any of the other gods.

3) You're talking about a chicken-and-egg scenario. The mortals only exist because the gods created them using multiple Quiddities. That the gods use mortal worship as nutrition now in no way precludes them coming into existence another way; it just means that however they used to sustain themselves is gone.

Then why design the mortals in such a way that allows such dangerous feedback as Odin going senile?

And if they had other food sources, other origins, why not mention them?

Either way, they're still keeping secrets (or had their minds altered by worshiper feedback like Odin).

[Rrmcklin]

The key difference is that those acended "gods" did so under the patronage of other gods, that's why they share their patron's quiddity.

While the Dark One ascended from the goblins that were specifically created to be exp fodder, aka they had no god to support them as their patron. So the goblins just made their own god from scratch.

Once there was a source of worship that no god was willing to slurp in, a new god showed to use it.

And you're still not acknowledging the point that that even being possible in the first place is treated as mystery, it's not nearly as obvious as you're making it out to be, therefore, there's probably more to it than that.

You say he goblins "made their own god from scratch" as if it's been at all implied they were deliberately trying to do so.

And why does the Dark One doesn't get a say in the first place?

Precisely, because he didn't ascend under the patronage of any of the other gods.

The Dark One doesn't get a say because he's deliberately shut himself off from all the others. Thor made this very clear. It has nothing to do with how he ascended.

Then why design the mortals in such a way that allows such dangerous feedback as Odin going senile?

And if they had other food sources, other origins, why not mention them?

Either way, they're still keeping secrets (or had their minds altered by worshiper feedback like Odin).

Why are you assuming the gods have any power over that?

They didn't mention them because they're either not around anymore/are not important. Where they came from isn't pertinent to the story.

You are proposing a chicken and egg scenario in which the gods exist, because they rose up from mortals, who only exist because the gods created them, which only exist because mortals existed. Such thinking has a fundamental problem that should be obvious to see.

As Draconi said, the simplest answer is either the Gods spontaneously came into existence somehow or have sort of always "been" such that they don't really have an origin, but the current cycle being their origin just doesn't make any sense at all.

[deuterio12]

And you're still not acknowledging the point that that even being possible in the first place is treated as mystery, it's not nearly as obvious as you're making it out to be, therefore, there's probably more to it than that.

You say he goblins "made their own god from scratch" as if it's been at all implied they were deliberately trying to do so.

Ok, let me try to summarize this:
1-First world, no gods.
2-Some people become really popular and start to be worshiped and spontaneously ascend as gods just like the Dark One.
3-There's four initial gods for four differentt quiddities, at that point everybody is worshiping one of them so any new ascenscions are done by people who already have a patron god and thus after ascending share their patron's quiddity.
4-World gets destroyed somehow, gods try to make a new world because they need mortal worship to survive, snarl happens.
5-Zillion iteration of world remaking. Note that assuming there's at least X new gods ascended by iteration, there should be x times a zillion new gods by the comic's time. But since there's less than an hundred, god survival rate isn't that good. Which makes sense since there's only so much worship you can harvest from a single planet worth of mortals. This means competition for mortal worship is fierce, gods that can't keep up when there's too many of them get wiped out until the numbers drop until there's a bit of leftover for new gods to ascend again, but always under one of the pantheon's patronage, so no new quiddities pop up.
6-Current world, this time the gods are feeling particularly cruel and decide to create a sapient faction, the goblinoids, that are meant only to be killed for exp by the god's worshipers. The goblinoids find out there's no use putting their faith in any of the gods already around, but they refuse to just curl up and die, they have a hope for making a better future for themselves and so put their faith in one of their own, so for the first time in a zillion iterations, a new god ascends fully outside the patronage of any other god, and thus has his own quiddity. It was not fully deliberate, but the Dark One was the goblinoids only ray of hope when literally all the gods were against them.

The Dark One doesn't get a say because he's deliberately shut himself off from all the others. Thor made this very clear. It has nothing to do with how he ascended.

The Dark One shut himself off because the gods tried to hide the truth from him (and some were even planning to take him out) because of how he ascended (a member of the species that were meant to be exp fodder, forsaken by all the gods).

Why are you assuming the gods have any power over that?

If they created mortals for the first time, they would.

They didn't mention them because they're either not around anymore/are not important. Where they came from isn't pertinent to the story.

The gods primary objective is their own survival, so alternate food sources is pretty pertinent.

You are proposing a chicken and egg scenario in which the gods exist, because they rose up from mortals, who only exist because the gods created them, which only exist because mortals existed. Such thinking has a fundamental problem that should be obvious to see.

Only if you consider that mortals need gods to be created in the first place.

As Draconi said, the simplest answer is either the Gods spontaneously came into existence somehow or have sort of always "been" such that they don't really have an origin, but the current cycle being their origin just doesn't make any sense at all.

You're right, the cycle theory makes no sense at all, but my argument is that at the start there were no gods, only mortals.

Don't think chicken and egg, think simple farming. Grains started as a wild species, until we showed up and started planting and harvesting it in a controlled fashion. Sometimes we burn down grain fields, sometimes we build other stuff over them, but either way we didn't create grain in the first place.

[Rrmcklin]

Ok, let me try to summarize this:
1-First world, no gods.
2-Some people become really popular and start to be worshiped and spontaneously ascend as gods just like the Dark One.
3-There's four initial gods for four differentt quiddities, at that point everybody is worshiping one of them so any new ascenscions are done by people who already have a patron god and thus after ascending share their patron's quiddity.
4-World gets destroyed somehow, gods try to make a new world because they need mortal worship to survive, snarl happens.
5-Zillion iteration of world remaking. Note that assuming there's at least X new gods ascended by iteration, there should be x times a zillion new gods by the comic's time. But since there's less than an hundred, god survival rate isn't that good. Which makes sense since there's only so much worship you can harvest from a single planet worth of mortals. This means competition for mortal worship is fierce, gods that can't keep up when there's too many of them get wiped out until the numbers drop until there's a bit of leftover for new gods to ascend again, but always under one of the pantheon's patronage, so no new quiddities pop up.
6-Current world, this time the gods are feeling particularly cruel and decide to create a sapient faction, the goblinoids, that are meant only to be killed for exp by the god's worshipers. The goblinoids find out there's no use putting their faith in any of the gods already around, but they refuse to just curl up and die, they have a hope for making a better future for themselves and so put their faith in one of their own, so for the first time in a zillion iterations, a new god ascends fully outside the patronage of any other god, and thus has his own quiddity. It was not fully deliberate, but the Dark One was the goblinoids only ray of hope when literally all the gods were against them.

Which just comes with the issue of "where did those people come from in the first place?" that you seem to be (intentionally) overlooking. This isn't the real "world"/our universe, we have no indication that things that lead to creation and life for us (of which we still don't mostly know) could happen for them.

The Dark One shut himself off because the gods tried to hide the truth from him (and some were even planning to take him out) because of how he ascended (a member of the species that were meant to be exp fodder, forsaken by all the gods).

Why he did it doesn't change the fact that he did it.

If they created mortals for the first time, they would.

Baseless assumption.

The gods primary objective is their own survival, so alternate food sources is pretty pertinent.

Not if it doesn't exist anymore, which I posited at the beginning, which you are conveniently ignoring. You don't seem to understand that circumstances can change, and just because things used to be a certain way and let them survive, doesn't mean those same circumstances exist.

Only if you consider that mortals need gods to be created in the first place.

Which we have every reason to believe, and absolutely no reason to think otherwise. And you haven't provided one.

You're right, your cycle theory makes no sense at all, but my argument is that at the start there were no gods, only mortals.

Don't think chicken and egg, think simple farming. Grains started as a wild species, until we showed up and started planting and harvesting it in a controlled fashion. Sometimes we burn down grain fields, sometimes we build other stuff over them, but either way we didn't create grain in the first place.

As I mentioned before, still completely fails to address the idea of where the "grains" in this case came from at all. You can't have this both ways: you can't say "the gods need mortal worship so couldn't have existed without them" while also ignoring the part about "the mortals can only exist because of the gods combining Quiddity." Your analogy fails on all accounts.

But you seem to have your heels dug in the ground on this, so I don't think pointing any of this out matters.

[Draconi Redfir]

And if they had other food sources, other origins, why not mention them?

counter argument: Why mention them?

"What the gods used to eat" isn't really helpful in the whole "Defeating the Vampires / Snarl / Xykon / Dark One" plotline.


i'm pretty sure by "patronage" or whever it was Thor said, he means "with help". The Elven Gods didn't ascend into the Western Pantheon because the Elves also worshiped the Western gods, more likely they ascended because the Western gods saw potential in some Elven mortals and helped them ascend to godhood. The exact same thing COULD have happened with the Dark One, but none of the other gods took particular interest in him.

the Dark One is different because he ascended all on his own, none of the other gods did anything to help him or influence him in any way. The fact that Goblins were created for EXP probably doesn't matter too much.

[JustinKase]

Wondering if the Purple Quiddity exists due to the Dark One not belonging to any of the 3 other Pantheons. Seems like the other 'new gods/demi-gods' were taken in by the other various Pantheons becoming part of those Quiddity colors.

Or maybe the others that transcended already had an established color due to their prior worship to a particular Pantheon.

[deuterio12]

Which just comes with the issue of "where did those people come from in the first place?" that you seem to be (intentionally) overlooking. This isn't the real "world"/our universe, we have no indication that things that lead to creation and life for us (of which we still don't mostly know) could happen for them.

People still f*** and have children and their children seem to follow the usual laws of biology on inhereting genes so normal evolution is still in the table.

Why he did it doesn't change the fact that he did it.

What other choice did he have? Only to let himself be destroyed right away, in which case he wouldn't get to vote as well. Voting rights was never an option in the table for him.

Baseless assumption.

Again, what's your alternative? That the gods decided "Yeah, let's create a food source that can make us go insane"?

Not if it doesn't exist anymore, which I posited at the beginning, which you are conveniently ignoring. You don't seem to understand that circumstances can change, and just because things used to be a certain way and let them survive, doesn't mean those same circumstances exist.

No, you're the one who's claiming that gods always existed, while I'm precisely claiming that things used to be different (aka no gods).

Which we have every reason to believe, and absolutely no reason to think otherwise. And you haven't provided one.

Again, people still reproduce through normal means and children are different from their parents, all clear signs natural evolution is still on the table.

As I mentioned before, still completely fails to address the idea of where the "grains" in this case came from at all. You can't have this both ways: you can't say "the gods need mortal worship so couldn't have existed without them" while also ignoring the part about "the mortals can only exist because of the gods combining Quiddity." Your analogy fails on all accounts.

But you seem to have your heels dug in the ground on this, so I don't think pointing any of this out matters.

No, you're the one who has dug your heels in the ground, rejecting that no mortal has ever been born in the OoTS world without the gods doing anything.

Heck, Durkon found out recently he has a little bastard from a night of mortal passion, and we know that Thor and Loki were pretty disgusted when they saw their clerics of opposed faiths making out, so clearly the gods didn't bless that concemption, meaning natural biological reproduction is well outside their control.

counter argument: Why mention them?

"What the gods used to eat" isn't really helpful in the whole "Defeating the Vampires / Snarl / Xykon / Dark One" plotline.

Because the actual plotline is "the gods want food", and so alternative food sources are important.

i'm pretty sure by "patronage" or whever it was Thor said, he means "with help". The Elven Gods didn't ascend into the Western Pantheon because the Elves also worshiped the Western gods, more likely they ascended because the Western gods saw potential in some Elven mortals and helped them ascend to godhood. The exact same thing COULD have happened with the Dark One, but none of the other gods took particular interest in him.

the Dark One is different because he ascended all on his own, none of the other gods did anything to help him or influence him in any way. The fact that Goblins were created for EXP probably doesn't matter too much.

It matters, because the Dark One needed a source of worship big enough that wasn't already tied to any of the existing pantheons to develop his own quiddity.

Wondering if the Purple Quiddity exists due to the Dark One not belonging to any of the 3 other Pantheons. Seems like the other 'new gods/demi-gods' were taken in by the other various Pantheons becoming part of those Quiddity colors.

Or maybe the others that transcended already had an established color due to their prior worship to a particular Pantheon.

Indeed, if you're already tied to a god and ascend you end up with their quiddity, while the Dark One grew up in an enviroment that rejected all the existing gods and that gave the room to develop a new one.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Simple.
It existed because the plot needed it to!
oh.
You wanted a proper answer.....
sorry...

[Riftwolf]

Then why design the mortals in such a way that allows such dangerous feedback as Odin going senile?

Mortals have free will, or perhaps need free will to generate meaningful godly sustenance.

[factotum]

deuterio12, if the Gods were all created by mortals in world #1, where did the Snarl come from? Just curious how that fits into your theory.

[Jannoire]

Gods had an argument, destroyed World 1, made world 2 and thus created the Snarl

[D.One]

When Thor talks about the Outer Planes, he explains they are groups of thoughts/ideas that condensed to form a place. He even says the gods are also made of thoughts, and refers to his "divine singularity", so I think the first gods are exactly that: singularities of ideas, the same way a black hole is a singularity made of matter. They emerged/appeared when those ideas attracted each other and concentraded enough.

[Wizard_Lizard]

When Thor talks about the Outer Planes, he explains they are groups of thoughts/ideas that condensed to form a place. He even says the gods are also made of thoughts, and refers to his "divine singularity", so I think the first gods are exactly that: singularities of ideas, the same way a black hole is a singularity made of matter. They emerged/appeared when those ideas attracted each other and concentraded enough.

that sounds as though it makes sense...

[Dion]

that sounds as though it makes sense...

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.

Gods had an argument, destroyed World 1, made world 2 and thus created the Snarl

But where did World 1 come from?

More turtles?

That’s a lot of turtles.

[woweedd]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Probably turtles.

Cultural archetypes?

[Wizard_Lizard]

maybe the snarl destroyed their last food source?
Personally I think that the snarl is an embodiement of rich burlew....
Because, here me out....
The gods (Rich Burlew's creativity) created the first world (story), but he couldn't decide how to make it, and then scrapped (snarled) the idea.

The next world, Rich created with more planning, but even then, he grew tired of it, and snarled it
Each time, he becomes more invested in the story, and so it stays around longer.
He went through loads of ideas, and the graveyard in the astral plane could symbolize a file for all of his unfinished works.

It would even explain why the world is a prison for the snarl... He trapped himself into makibg it

But this idea, this world, has something new... some new source of inspiration, maybe something that he found within himself.

This idea, this story, this world may have what it takes to survive the snarl...

[KorvinStarmast]

But this idea, this world, has something new... some new source of inspiration, maybe something that he found within himself.

An ice cold bottle of Grape Nehi. Purple and very refreshing if you like a sweet soda drink with bubbles that sometimes go up your nose.

(When I was a kid, 1960's-ish, it was 15 cents for a bottle out of the vending machine).

Also a favorite drink of Radar O'Reilly from the TV series M*A*S*H

[D.One]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.

I'd go with the ideas being not "thoughts" the way we view them, but more like concepts, possibilities, something in the lines of "every thing that can be", "every concept that can exist someday".

But turtles would be a good second guess. Of course, we could ask where the turtles came from, and them you have to ask Splinter, not me

[Dion]

Cultural archetypes?

But whose culture?

Suppose you have an infinite stack of turtles (which we know are the fundamental building blocks of every universe before gods come along and start making the sky).

Now, each individual turtle isn’t going to have a culture.

But, suppose each turtle can communicate with the turtle immediately above it, and the turtle immediately below it, and in the infinite expanse of time can communicate with every other turtle in the infinite stack by passing messages along, in a turtles slow and methodical way.

Can we assume that in this great, slow, and infinite conversation between this stack of turtles, there is eventually enough of a shared cultural understanding to bootstrap the universe?

[D.One]

But whose culture?

Suppose you have an infinite stack of turtles (which we know are the fundamental building blocks of every universe before gods come along and start making the sky).

Now, each individual turtle isn’t going to have a culture.

But, suppose each turtle can communicate with the turtle immediately above it, and the turtle immediately below it, and in the infinite expanse of time can communicate with every other turtle in the infinite stack by passing messages along, in a turtles slow and methodical way.

Can we assume that in this great, slow, and infinite conversation between this stack of turtles, there is eventually enough of a shared cultural understanding to bootstrap the universe?

No, because the turtles don't use boots. No bootstrap for them.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.



But where did World 1 come from?

More turtles?

That’s a lot of turtles.

world turtles

[woweedd]

world turtles

If you will...And I will not.