Things You Never Noticed VII: Wait, This Isnt the MitD Thread?

[Beni-Kujaku]

I noticed that Thor and The Dark One have ended their discussion with their followers the exact same way.

TDO: "Don't screw this up. No pressure, though."
Thor: "No pressure, we're all counting on you."

I don't know, it's almost like the universe is trying to deliberately point towards some form of arbitrary equality between those of us who have green/orange skin, mate quicker and are Usually Neutral Evil and those who aren't.

[Precure]

But we don't know how many people there are in total.

Half a million according to Loki.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1177.html

[Kish]

Half a million according to Loki.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1177.html

No, no, and again: no.

He said "half a billion people down there believe I'm incapable of honesty."

Don't know if "million" is a typo or a misreading, but either way it gets No #1.
Is Loki talking about all the people on the planet, not just the ones who worship the Gods of the North? Was it really ever on Malack's mind that Loki is incapable of honesty? No #2.
Was that actually a census that should be quoted as an authoritative statement, or did Loki casually toss off a large number when yelling at Thor? The former seems insupportable to me: No #3. See also the case of Shojo, the 72-year-old octogenerian.

[Precure]

No, no, and again: no.

He said "half a billion people down there believe I'm incapable of honesty."

Don't know if "million" is a typo or a misreading, but either way it gets No #1.

Typo. It's supposed to be 500 million.

Is Loki talking about all the people on the planet, not just the ones who worship the Gods of the North? Was it really ever on Malack's mind that Loki is incapable of honesty? No #2.

As we know that dwarven popuation is 10 million, it makes most sense to treat it total population rather than just northerners, because that makes dwarves 16 percent of the continental population.

Was that actually a census that should be quoted as an authoritative statement, or did Loki casually toss off a large number when yelling at Thor? The former seems insupportable to me:

He's a god, and those people are basically his bread and butter, his livelihood.

No #3. See also the case of Shojo, the 72-year-old octogenerian.

I mean, that was just Mr. Burlew messing up the chronology, no?

[Dasick]

There is a massive gap you do not seem to recognize between "this makes sense to me" and "this is a fact."

It's heavily implied that there's some sort of an equilibrium between the gods, but as Grey Wolf points out, it doesn't have to be a 1:1 equilibrium

Was that actually a census that should be quoted as an authoritative statement, or did Loki casually toss off a large number when yelling at Thor? The former seems insupportable to me

We see that at least between Thor and Hel, there's quite a strict census on dwarf souls. I imagine the devas or whatever passes as divine helpers for the various gods keep a tight ship on bureaucracy because the gods need a strict balance of the soul pyramid stuff and make sure they're not expending more energy granting divine spells than they rake in in soul power. I imagine Loki has to suffer through many a boring meeting talking about trends and statistics and ROI and whatever (we see devas bothering Thor all the time)

[Peelee]

I mean, that was just Mr. Burlew messing up the chronology, no?

If I show you a picture of an old guy, would you be able to tell me if he's in his 70s or 80s?

Roy said what he thought. That doesn't mean he's right.

[Kish]

As we know that dwarven popuation is 10 million, it makes most sense to treat it total population rather than just northerners, because that makes dwarves 16 percent of the continental population.

"We"? Kindly speak for yourself.

How many numbers are "ten million or more"? I really hope you're aware that the correct answer is not "one."

And even if Rich had said "there are exactly ten million dwarves," instead of Hel tossing off "ten million dwarves or more" followed by Rich saying that he doesn't consider that number at all important and instructing readers to just fill in whatever makes the storyline make sense to them...

...there is some truly amazing chutzpah in: It makes most sense to make this assumption, because it's the one that points to my already asserted conclusion.

[Precure]

Both 500 million and 10 million are numbers given to us in the story. Both Loki and Hel could be wrong about those numbers in a significant way, that's technically possible, but we can say that same thing for every other information we've got from this comic, and in view of occam's razor, it makes more sense that those numbers are roughly correct.

[Bacon Elemental]

Half a billion people as an estimate for a global population is also in the same ballpark (if somewhat higher) as global population estimates during the medieval period so it's a very reasonable number for Loki to throw out for Stickworld IMO

[Beni-Kujaku]

...there is some truly amazing chutzpah in: It makes most sense to make this assumption, because it's the one that points to my already asserted conclusion.

It's more like "it makes most sense to make this assumption because there's no other more probable assumption to make."

"10 million or more" may not be only exactly 10,000,000, but I wouldn't say 10 million if I thought I could get 100 million, especially if I wanted to brag to Daddy, uncle and all the other gods. It's at least improbable that Hel thinks she can get much more than 20 million dwarves out of that, or she would have said so. You don't give precisions like that for an extremely rough estimate. Same thing, if Loki says "half a billion", then it's most probably more than 100 millions and less than a billion, otherwise he would have rounded up to "a billion" or to "100 millions". Hel thinks she will get more souls than all other Northern Gods (maybe even Odin, or similar to him) by simply saying "I'll get 10^7 dwarven souls or more", which means that if we divide all the other souls believing in the Northern Pantheon by seventeen (giving the absolute least possible to each of them), it will be less (probably much less, but we have no way of knowing) than 10^7 (otherwise bragging like that would make no sense). Hence, the number of people believing in the Northern Pantheon is at most 170 millions (plus all the dwarven souls, so maybe 180 millions.) Let's say at most 200 millions, being very conservative.

And with that first figure, saying that the whole world has about 500 millions potential believers, spread across three pantheons, is absolutely not stupid. It would make the pantheons about balanced (not exactly, but enough that they choose to have one final vote per pantheon in the Godsmoot), and would fit with Loki's word. Of course, Loki wouldn't say an exact number, if only because it would be long and boring to do. There could be 400 million, or 650 million people in this world, but since we have three numbers that match with each other (rough estimate of dwarven population, number of important gods in the northern pantheon, rough estimate of the world population), it's fair to think that they are roughly trustworthy.

[Kish]

It's more like "it makes most sense to make this assumption because there's no other more probable assumption to make."

If that was true it wouldn't actually be an improvement. But since you find that argument compelling, I am possibly about to blow your mind (more likely about to mildly annoy you by rejecting a premise you don't consider up for question, but hey): If the best estimate of the number of dwarves we have is based on, "If we assume Loki was speaking with precise mathematical accuracy while yelling at Thor, and that he meant the entire world's population and not the population of the North, and also that he was counting goblins, elves, and other sapient races which explicitly have their own gods, and also Hel was similarly precisely mathematically accurate when she was gloating at the Godsmoot even though she explicitly stuck a handwave into her speech and also the author said he didn't care about the accuracy of her numbers..."

...then the correct answer to how many dwarves are is, "Unknown." Something that only Precure--and perhaps you--seems to have a problem saying.

"Give me a better assumption or my assumption stands" is an attitude I've seen on this forum a few times, and it's just as utterly illogical now as the first time. "I don't know" is neither an obscene phrase nor somehow an admission of failure. If you don't have knowledge but you do have an assumption, then the choice available to you is to be Socrates or one of the explicitly less wise men* in Athens: do you know you know nothing?

*This is obviously an even more loaded choice should one not want to be a man.

[Lord Torath]

I mean, from a scientific perspective, "ten million" has a single significant digit, which means the true value could be anywhere from 5,000,000 to 14,999,999. That's a ten-million-dwarf range of uncertainty.

As for "half a billion", well, that could be 0.5 billion, again a single significant digit, meaning a range from 0.45 billion to 0.549 billion. Or, it could be 1/2 a billion, which, if you're rounding to the nearest 1/2 billion, means the true value could be anywhere between 1/4 billion and just under 3/4 billion. I would also assume that that number represents only the Northern pantheon's share of the population, putting the world population anywhere from 3/4 billion to 2 1/4 billion "people". But that assumes each pantheon has an equal share of the population. Also, are humanoids (orcs, kobolds, goblinoids, gnolls, nymphs, faeries, etc) included in that number? We don't know.

There are so many unconfirmed assumptions going into that number as to make it useless for any meaningful discussion.

[Peelee]

I mean, from a scientific perspective, "ten million" has a single significant digit, which means the true value could be anywhere from 5,000,000 to 14,999,999. That's a ten-million-dwarf range of uncertainty.

Which is why scientific notation is typically used when applicable.

[Beni-Kujaku]

If the best estimate of the number of dwarves we have is based on

Yeah, I consider what is written in a comic correct in the frame of the comic, unless I have reasons to believe it's not. That's called the Occam's Razor, and it's basically equivalent to the scientific method. "Formulate an hypothesis based on available informations that doesn't contradict them and that uses as few assumptions as possible. As long as no new information contradicts this hypothesis, then it can be used to infer new results from this point onwards. If something contradicts it, find a new hypothesis which includes the new facts and build from there."
Maybe the Snarl doesn't exist and Thor, as well as all other characters in the comic are lying about it. Maybe Tarquin isn't Elan's father. Maybe Roy is actually Sabine in disguise and Sabine has levels in Psion to explain the moments both of them were in the same room. I could read the comic that way, but then what's the point if I can't emotionally invest in a story where nothing is confirmed except word of god, and even then, with the exception that it could be retconned anytime?

Now, you'll notice that I'm absolutely not considering that either Loki nor Hel are mathematically accurate. They are clearly approximating. But the way they are approximating still gives us an estimate of the real number, because if they didn't think the real number would be close, then they would have chosen another wording.

[Dasick]

Half a billion people as an estimate for a global population is also in the same ballpark (if somewhat higher) as global population estimates during the medieval period so it's a very reasonable number for Loki to throw out for Stickworld IMO

Iirc, Rich came up with the 10 million number by just googling what medieval population of scandinavia was and going with it

[Metastachydium]

Had Tarquin been right, he might have ended up wrong earlier. How so, you might wonder. It's simple enough: Tarquin thought that Elan was the Protagonist, Leader and main Hero. Now, had that been true, the confrontation with Xykon would have likely been forced early anyhow, but the Bony Bastard would have faced an Order led by Elan. Therefore, he might have given him a personalized little speech about good heroes, great villains and Hollywood-style climactic fights –and it is not impossible that Elan would have reacted the same way to viewing the world in terms of narrative logic like that as he reacted to Tarquin explaining him how he (T.) envisions their dynamic.

Alternatively, Elan might have been receptive an the two could have become friends, but that sounds off.

[Tubercular Ox]

Belkar is an homage to Basic Edition halflings. He has an ability to hide that's superior in natural terrain and he uses thrown attacks from hiding in at least one important fight.

Rich tried to tell me with the halfing rock joke and I even looked up Basic Halflings to understand the Attack Rank G joke, but it didn't click until just now.

Spoiler: details for people who don't know Basic

Show

A Halfling in Basic Edition has a 90% chance of hiding in natural terrain and a 33% chance of hiding in dungeon terrain. The Halfling class gets +1 to all projectile attacks. Thrown weapons get bonuses from both strength and dexterity (melee weapons get only strength and missile weapons get only dexterity), and Halflings are encouraged to have high Strength and Dexterity because it gives them XP bonuses. They also get +1 to initiative, AC improved by 2 if their foe is bigger than a human, and the best saves in the game (shared with dwarves), if someone wants to tell me if those get a hat-tip somewhere.

[ZhonLord]

So, it finally clicked that Dorukan isn't just summoning random lovers here.. He's specifically calling in Lirian.

[Lord Torath]

I had always though that Serini's goggles had two different lens colors, and assumed they each did something different magically for her vision (maybe the red gives her infravision while the blue detects illusions or something).

Nope! They're both clear (panel 7).

[Metastachydium]

I had always though that Serini's goggles had two different lens colors, and assumed they each did something different magically for her vision (maybe the red gives her infravision while the blue detects illusions or something).

Nope! They're both clear (panel 7).

Huh. So it merely amplifies the image of the red eye behind it? Nice find!

[Starlit Dragon]

For complicated reasons, I first binged the comic in the experimental web browser of an amazon kindle, which does not have color. Which meant that I assumed Tarquin had blond hair until I bought one of the books.

[Vinyadan]

Nale, when he fights Elan in Azure city, says he would hire a cleric to resurrect Elan and kill him again in revenge for something he said. Hilgya, who was Nale's cleric, resurrects Durkon to immediately kill him in revenge for something he said.

Disproportionate revenge for quasi-imagined slights! Just like in the leaflets!

[Metastachydium]

Strip no. 450, panel no. 1. And let me tell you, I'm baffled. So, there's a figure lying in the middle of the picture, all alone. When I first noticed, I figured it's a hobgoblin, but then it dawned on me: how or why would a hobgoblin die so alone right there without anyone to animate him? Naturally, I concluded that it must, then, be Roy.

BUT THERE'S A TWIST! I zoomed in. The lying figure wears blue indeed; but the head is orange! (Which is most likely just an inconsequential error and it's really Roy; but I didn't notice before he's there, so this still counts.)

[Precure]

No, it's brown.

[Metastachydium]

No, it's brown.

I mean, it doesn't look brown to me.

[Ruck]

In the infinitely-scalable PDF, it's definitely Roy.

[Metastachydium]

In the infinitely-scalable PDF, it's definitely Roy.

The PDF is infinitely scalable? Way. Cool. (Also, thanks!)

[Peelee]

The PDF is infinitely scalable? Way. Cool. (Also, thanks!)

Vector graphics are neat.

[Metastachydium]

Vector graphics are neat.

True enough. I've been meaning to get hold of Illustrator, or at least the Corel thing for a while now.

[Ruck]

The PDF is infinitely scalable? Way. Cool. (Also, thanks!)

Admittedly, my Adobe reader stops scaling at 6400%, but that's as I understand it.