OOTS #1195 - The Discussion Thread

[Fyraltari]

I do kinda hope that she gets released from The Bet at some point. She's an unrepentant jerk, she's cruel and petty, and her only comfort seems to be inflicting misery on those who can't fight back, but even she doesn't quite deserve the slow wasting away she's been condemned to.

Plus, I think it'd do wonders for her disposition to have some people around who actually want to be there.

And more importantly, the dwarves don’t deserve the Bet either.

Well, yes, but it's Eugene who would call them wizards. That's the part that amuses me

I don’t get it.

[Kantaki]

I understand the need for building up (real world) suspense, given that the party is (right now) discovering that O-chul has been kidnapped. But it seems weird that Julia suddenly has some significance in this story. No idea what in-universe knowledge Roy would gain from this interaction that he didn't already have?

New knowledge? No.
But a new perspective, new insights that he might not consider, that he could only get from someone less involved in the matter.

[Peelee]

I don’t get it.

Eugene is so self-absorbed that the gods themselves are little more than more powerful versions of him.

[Fyraltari]

Eugene is so self-absorbed that the gods themselves are little more than more powerful versions of him.

I get it.
I wonder which god deals with illusion magic. The God of Secrets, maybe.

[gatemansgc]

Useless observation time.

Counting only this book, with comic 1190 as 0, the number of days between comics has followed the Fibonacci sequence if you subtract six from each (7, 7, 8, 9, 11). If this continues, comic 1196 comes out on March 30th.

math is fun <3

[b_jonas]

What would Redcloak want with the crown? It does not have any magical power. Also Eugene’s oath did not mention the crown once.

Xykon killed Fryon because he wanted to steal the crown and Fryon resisted, so it is directly relevant to Eugene's blood oath, whether it's magical or not. Redcloak is probably not relevant, you're probably right about that.

However, I think there's a chance that Xykon lied about the crown not having any magical powers. Xykon's evil aura rubbed into it. Nonmagical crowns don't do that. It was exhibited in a wizard's private collection (that's why Eugene guess that it must be magical). Xykon wears it constantly, it's probably a masterwork item, and it takes up a magic items slot, so Xykon himself might turn it into a magic item just for efficiency. (It's a slotted magic item, and Roy never put it on his head, so it wouldn't act on him. Unless of course it somehow goes to the necklace slot, which is where protection items normally go, in which case Roy was using it right and Xykon was using it wrong in #653. Hmm.) As for Eugene, he knew that Xykon stole something from his master, but didn't know what it was, so he couldn't have mentioned the crown specifically in the oath.

[masamune1]

The difference is that, if Roy saves the world, then that ALSO saves the gods (for how long depends on how things shake out with Redcloak, but still), while the pro-demolition bloc would be specifically dooming the world to save their own. The pro-demolition gods are specifically trying to do something at the expense of others, while Roy's goal is a net positive for all involved. (Even if he blows things with Redcloak, more time before the Snarl is still a better result than less time.)

So they're not really equivalent, because Roy's plan doesn't throw the gods under the bus in return.

The pro-demolition gods would still be saving the souls of those in the current world; they would just be reborn in the new world. Some, like Hel, are motivated by selfish reasons, but others honestly believe there is no way to stop the Snarl and it is better to save as many people as they can before it re-emerges and kills everybody, not just themselves. It's not a straightforward "throw people under the bus" scenario.

I also think that the whole question of whether the gods are morally superior to everyone else or not is a bit redundant in a DnD setting since two-thirds of the gods are intended to be morally neutral or downright evil and everyone knows it, so it strikes me as a little weird that anyone ever had such a view of them in the first place. Eugene is a self-absorbed and morally Neutral character so his argument would / should really have been "they can't be morally superior because morality doesn't really matter / exist".

EDIT: Re-reading the chapter, and I misrepresented Roys' argument slightly, but I still think he is being a bit unfair on the benevolent deities. I wonder how random Joe NPC feels that the fate of the world has taken a turn towards a guy with a hero complex out to avenge his family.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I wonder which god deals with illusion magic.

All of them. The world is just a persistent illusion.

[Peelee]

All of them. The world is just a persistent illusion.

Lunchtime doubly so.

[vegetalss4]

I just want to add that everyone should read discworld.
No need to be obsessed with getting it in english; because assuming all translation are on the same level as the french one, they're all fantastic.

(wait, how many grammar mistakes did I make ?)

A point of evidence against that assumption. The early German translators randomly added an commercial for a brand of canned soup to the middle of Pyramids and refused to take it out. (Pratchett unsurprisingly changed publishers as soon as his contract permitted.)

[Kantaki]

The pro-demolition gods would still be saving the souls of those in the current world; they would just be reborn in the new world.

No they won't?
They get shoved into whatever afterlife suits them best where they turn into glorified batteries the gods can draw power from.
By the time the Pantheons come out of hiding for their next hackjob of a Snarl-prison they're used up.

The only reason those overgrown sorcerors save anyone is cause they got to eat.

Sure, some planes are quite pleasant, but ultimatly they all process souls into god chow.

[Fyraltari]

Xykon killed Fryon because he wanted to steal the crown and Fryon resisted, so it is directly relevant to Eugene's blood oath, whether it's magical or not.

Not the point. Eugene’s Blood Oath does not mention the crown or anything stolen by Xykon. The fact that Xykon killed Fyron over the crown was never relevant to Eugene who has never cared for it in his life.

However, I think there's a chance that Xykon lied about the crown not having any magical powers.

Why would he do that? Xykon is usually very honest about who he is and what he does.

Xykon's evil aura rubbed into it. Nonmagical crowns don't do that.

I don’t know wether there are rules about how objects absorb alignment (and the Giant is known to fuzz the rules a little) but it’s a common fantasy trope to have perfectly mundane places or objects be tainted by exposure to Eeeeeeeevil.

It was exhibited in a wizard's private collection (that's why Eugene guess that it must be magical).

Ain’t no law saying wizard can only collect magical stuff. What if Fyron was also a history enthousiast?

Xykon wears it constantly, it's probably a masterwork item, and it takes up a magic items slot, so Xykon himself might turn it into a magic item just for efficiency. (It's a slotted magic item, and Roy never put it on his head, so it wouldn't act on him. Unless of course it somehow goes to the necklace slot, which is where protection items normally go, in which case Roy was using it right and Xykon was using it wrong in #653. Hmm.)

Xykon is many things but not a munchkin. He sacrifices efficiency for style every day.

The pro-demolition gods would still be saving the souls of those in the current world; they would just be reborn in the new world. Some, like Hel, are motivated by selfish reasons, but others honestly believe there is no way to stop the Snarl and it is better to save as many people as they can before it re-emerges and kills everybody, not just themselves. It's not a straightforward "throw people under the bus" scenario.

On average, the gods are definitely throwing the mortals under the bus, though. Only a few gave reasons that were related to the mortals’ safety.

I also think that the whole question of whether the gods are morally superior to everyone else or not is a bit redundant in a DnD setting since two-thirds of the gods are intended to be morally neutral or downright evil and everyone knows it, so it strikes me as a little weird that anyone ever had such a view of them in the first place.[/quote]
I don’t think any character believes all the gods to be morally superior but those who worship one (or several) gods most likely think this particular deity can do no wrong, else why would they worship them?

I wonder how random Joe NPC feels that the fate of the world has taken a turn towards a guy with a hero complex out to avenge his family.

Given the kind of world this is, probably ‘‘Friday already!?’’

[Ruck]

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

Show

Well, this all probably interacts with the fact that Xykon left some sort of Contingent Suggestion spell or something on the MITD to eat Redcloak and spit out the phylactery if he betrays Xykon. I suppose it's possible that the spell will persist after Xykon is destroyed, but I'm not sure.
(Also, as an aside, there's a solid chance that's also going to be MITD's reveal scene.)

Spoiler: Start of Darkness, I guess, and some speculation

Show

Yeah, especially since so much of MitD's arc is about becoming his own person, I wouldn't be surprised if the culmination of that is him overcoming some kind of Epic Contingency Suggestion or whatever Xykon used.

After all, the great lesson and growth of MitD's arc is that he can be whoever he wants to be.

[bunsen_h]

A point of evidence against that assumption. The early German translators randomly added an commercial for a brand of canned soup to the middle of Pyramids and refused to take it out. (Pratchett unsurprisingly changed publishers as soon as his contract permitted.)

The translators wouldn't have had the authority to refuse or remove the ad; that was a deal that the publishers cooked up. So to speak. The same bizarre interludes were added to at least one of the German-translated Star Trek novels, John M. Ford's The Final Reflection.

[Necris Omega]

Sure, some planes are quite pleasant, but ultimatly they all process souls into god chow.

I'unno how... universal that is. Yeah, the Dwarves are screwed because the gods are bastards and/or beholden to bastardly rules which makes them all bastards even when they'd be otherwise if not for said rules, but... Roy's afterlife was a matter of his alignment, not his faith (which is how it should be IMO (Looking at you Forgotten Realms)). And traditionally, without any divine shenanigans... that was how things worked.

Yeah, your essence within the afterlife would be absorbed into the fabric of the existential expression to which your soul had migrated to, but that was after a hell (or hopefully heaven) of a long time, during which you'd transcend so much of your mortal self it'd be basically unrecognizable. Even then, the description of Celestia was basically "go as high as you want" - there's not even a "requirement" to reach the top if you can find sustained happiness somewhere in between.

End of the day, take the deities out of the equation and I don't think the end result would be any different. Whether or not souls in the afterlife are sustaining gods or just those planar expressions, I think it comes down to the idea that... an idea that grows stagnant stops mattering as much.

Souls being introduced to an idea, a plane or god, either in agreement or consideration, keep those "ideas" fresh. New perspectives, new appreciation, newly apprised worth. I think this is what the "feeding" ultimately amounts to in either case. Gods/planes don't so much as "digest" souls so much as they're fed and sustained by those soul's in their regard to the deity/plane in question. As we see with Thor, eventually it's less, "OMG, THOR!!! !!!" and more Thor being a staple of post-mortality existence. Where's the wonder? Where's the glory? If that's what the gods/afterlives need to persist, because they are founded on the notion of ideas, and even in death the principles of acclimation and novelty apply, then...

Gotta keep thrilling the masses. Which means an endless stream of masses.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Jeez that was mildly existential... but also nice to have some food for thought strips.

[masamune1]

Hopefully the OotS will catch a break and learn that Team Evil has suspended their quest for the Gate on account of the coronavirus.

[Snails]

It is not clear that a soul traveling to and residing in its final destination is a zero sum game. We know that such is nutritious to the gods, but is this necessarily a bad deal for the soul? It seems to me that Celestia offers some significant positives to Roy, in the long run, and that could be true enough for souls going elsewhere.

[Snails]

I don’t think any character believes all the gods to be morally superior but those who worship one (or several) gods most likely think this particular deity can do no wrong, else why would they worship them?

The same reason you would be respectful to any elder who can teach you wisdom or a useful perspective, while not believing the person in question is in any way infallible.

For example, the Greeks went to specific temples to seek inspiration for specific tasks/goals for the place/phase of life they found themselves. Aphrodite for seeking love. Ares when readying for war. Zeus for matters of rulership and law. Apollo for the arts. etc.

[Schroeswald]

Spoiler: Start of Darkness, I guess, and some speculation

Show

Yeah, especially since so much of MitD's arc is about becoming his own person, I wouldn't be surprised if the culmination of that is him overcoming some kind of Epic Contingency Suggestion or whatever Xykon used.

After all, the great lesson and growth of MitD's arc is that he can be whoever he wants to be.

Y'know I didn't even realize this was you at first and I knew that link was to your MitD post before clicking the link. I do agree with you on all this completely though

[NihhusHuotAliro]

No they won't?
They get shoved into whatever afterlife suits them best where they turn into glorified batteries the gods can draw power from.
By the time the Pantheons come out of hiding for their next hackjob of a Snarl-prison they're used up.

The only reason those overgrown sorcerors save anyone is cause they got to eat.

Sure, some planes are quite pleasant, but ultimatly they all process souls into god chow.

As far as I know, that information (that souls are essentially glorified batteries and are not eternal) comes from the author's forum posts, rather than anything within the comic itself. As such, I take it as not canon, or at least, not canon from the point of view of the published material in and of itself, as opposed to the published material in context.

It's the difference between "the Harry Potter books" and "The Harry Potter books plus J.K. Rowling's later writings on the internet". One can be a fan of one and not of the other, or one can be a fan of both, or one can be a fan of neither.

I, for one, am not a fan of the Expanded/Annotated OOTS Canon. It's a distressing story of a world in which souls are not eternal, so no part of a person can truly be forever, unbeknownst to almost everybody. OOTS-existence is effectively the snarl, but slower. The end fate of pretty much every mortal character is the same, and it's nothingness. The struggle to prevent the snarl unmaking everything is, in my personal opinion, entirely pointless so long as souls are not eternal.

However, I am a fan of what I see as the published OOTS Canon (the printed books and the webcomic). It's a story of a world in which souls are eternal, but can be unmade by the snarl and thus the eternal fate of pretty much all who have ever lived is at risk. Those are some really compelling stakes for a story to have, and what happens matters in the longest of all runs. Sigdi sacrificing great wealth to save five souls matters. The gates matter.

This is, of course, a subjective interpretation, and I'm sure that many prefer the expanded canon. (I'm assuming that souls being "god-chow" is not actually confirmed in the comic itself.).

Rich sacrificed most of what made the story compelling to me with strip 1139 (emphasis mine), with the reveal that nearly everything that was ever in OOTS-existence was unmade by the Snarl or by the gods, and that which has been lost unimaginably exceeds that which is. To confirm in the comic that Evisceratus, Goblin Dan's Hydra, Hobgoblin Warrior from Strip 433 Panel 3, That Guy With A Halberd, Ambassador Gourntok, all the unknown stick-figure-people of OOTS-planet, and most of all Wrecan are irrevocably doomed to nothingness would pretty much entirely erase what makes OOTS compelling to me (though that's probably just a "me" thing).

In any case, it's Rich Burlew's story to write as he pleases.

[Schroeswald]

Rich sacrificed most of what made the story compelling to me with strip 1139 (emphasis mine), with the reveal that nearly everything that was ever in OOTS-existence was unmade by the Snarl or by the gods, and that which has been lost unimaginably exceeds that which is. To confirm in the comic that Evisceratus, Goblin Dan's Hydra, Hobgoblin Warrior from Strip 433 Panel 3, That Guy With A Halberd, Ambassador Gourntok, all the unknown stick-figure-people of OOTS-planet, and most of all Wrecan are irrevocably doomed to nothingness would pretty much entirely erase what makes OOTS compelling to me (though that's probably just a "me" thing).

I understand your second half (of what I've bothered to quote and respond to), I disagree completely with it, but I understand it, but I don't understand why you disliked the 1139 reveal (something that made me go holy crap and stopped my archive binge in its tracks for a good couple minutes), how does that remove what makes the strip compelling to you? I'm honestly confused, what about the fact that an uncountable number of world have died makes the story less compelling?

[gatemansgc]

Spoiler: Start of Darkness, I guess, and some speculation

Show

Yeah, especially since so much of MitD's arc is about becoming his own person, I wouldn't be surprised if the culmination of that is him overcoming some kind of Epic Contingency Suggestion or whatever Xykon used.

After all, the great lesson and growth of MitD's arc is that he can be whoever he wants to be.

that was a fascinating post, thanks for linking it.

[goodpeople25]

Xykon killed Fryon because he wanted to steal the crown and Fryon resisted, so it is directly relevant to Eugene's blood oath, whether it's magical or not. Redcloak is probably not relevant, you're probably right about that.

However, I think there's a chance that Xykon lied about the crown not having any magical powers. Xykon's evil aura rubbed into it. Nonmagical crowns don't do that. It was exhibited in a wizard's private collection (that's why Eugene guess that it must be magical). Xykon wears it constantly, it's probably a masterwork item, and it takes up a magic items slot, so Xykon himself might turn it into a magic item just for efficiency. (It's a slotted magic item, and Roy never put it on his head, so it wouldn't act on him. Unless of course it somehow goes to the necklace slot, which is where protection items normally go, in which case Roy was using it right and Xykon was using it wrong in #653. Hmm.) As for Eugene, he knew that Xykon stole something from his master, but didn't know what it was, so he couldn't have mentioned the crown specifically in the oath.

Uh citation on a nonmagical crown taking up a magic item slot?

Also what book/strip does Eugene guess it being magical?

[faustin]

I´m sure others have already noted the flaw in Roy´s argument: As Hel herself pointed out, The Snarl will be free to destroy the current world as it did with so many others. Getting Redcloak on board may be the only chance in who-knows-how-many-cycles to bind it permanently and save everyone.

No they won't?
They get shoved into whatever afterlife suits them best where they turn into glorified batteries the gods can draw power from.
By the time the Pantheons come out of hiding for their next hackjob of a Snarl-prison they're used up.

The only reason those overgrown sorcerors save anyone is cause they got to eat.

Sure, some planes are quite pleasant, but ultimatly they all process souls into god chow.

Wait, what? Where and when did Rich say that?

[NihhusHuotAliro]

I understand your second half (of what I've bothered to quote and respond to), I disagree completely with it, but I understand it, but I don't understand why you disliked the 1139 reveal (something that made me go holy crap and stopped my archive binge in its tracks for a good couple minutes), how does that remove what makes the strip compelling to you? I'm honestly confused, what about the fact that an uncountable number of world have died makes the story less compelling?

The goal is to prevent the Snarl from unmaking the world. The first world failed because nobody knew of the Snarl, and thus nobody had a chance. The current world hasn't failed yet. The failure of so many worlds in between means that, all things considered, existence has failed unnumbered trillions of times, and this Oots-world is a grain of sand to the gigantic beach of unmade realities. In effect, the Snarl has already won. All that remains to OOTS-Existence is the possibility to salvage some tiny sliver of the whole. Instead of saving 50% of oots-planets, they're saving 0.00000000000000000...0001%. Too much has been lost for any remotely happy ending (at least in my opinion, if I was an OOTS-stick-figure person aware of all the previous worlds).

Of course, I'm pretty sure that Rich's whole point, his entire thesis here, is that you don't get anywhere without caring about THIS planet, doing THIS ONE right good thing that you can do, that the small and (in the grand scale of things) insignificant stuff matters and is worth fighting for, regardless of all the wrongs that have and do happen.

Still though, that many worlds... it's too bleak for me. TvTropes calls it Darkness Induced Audience Apathy.

[Peelee]

I´m sure others have already noted the flaw in Roy´s argument: As Hel herself pointed out, The Snarl will be free to destroy the current world as it did with so many others. Getting Redcloak on board may be the only chance in who-knows-how-many-cycles to bind it permanently and save everyone.



Wait, what? Where and when did Rich say that?

Just a tiny bit of editing out parts where he's responding to people, but the text blocks themselves are intact.

that is specifically what the afterlife does. It makes you into a cookie-cutter clone of everyone of the same alignment. It may take centuries to do so, but all the people at the top of the mountain? Completely indistinguishable from one another. Arguably, that is the purpose of the D&D afterlife—to turn flawed mortal souls into perfect alignment-batteries, through various methodologies. In the Nine Hells, they torture you until you forget everything else. In Celestia, you meditate until you renounce all worldly concerns. In Valhalla, you party until you can't remember your own name. In Limbo, the chaos drives you mad. In Mechanus, you sit in grey cubicle stamping paperwork until you are bored into oblivion. And so on and so forth.

A soul, in addition to the personality traits it had in life, also generates a quantity of Soul Power™. The afterlife processes that soul so that it has less personality and the power is more available to the gods/other beings who rule that plane. This is why gods want souls to go to "their" afterlife; more dead souls equals more available power. Destroying a soul simply removes that quantity of power from the multiverse (or converts it to some unusable form, if we assume that there's conservation of energy in play) in addition to eradicating what's left of the personality.

the process of being born and living a life increases the power available in the soul. So it's less like poker (where everyone starts with a fixed amount of cash and then they compete to trade it around), and more like the stock market (where everyone competes to pick the stocks that will grow the most before being cashed out).

[The MunchKING]

Hopefully the OotS will catch a break and learn that Team Evil has suspended their quest for the Gate on account of the coronavirus.

The problem is canonically two out of the big three are immune. They'll just have to leave the beastmaster and her Warg if they die of it.

[RatElemental]

If Xykon were destroyed, Redcloak would inherit the badass magical crown that started the blood oath, the one tained by Xykon's evil alignment. It actually wouldn't be too surprising if Julia could extend the spell to talk to whoever has the crown. She could wake up Redcloak with obnoxious and annoying messages every time he tries to sleep, so that he can never regain his cleric spells.

A couple problems with this:

• The crown is nonmagical and the blood oath is about the murder of Eugene's mentor, not the theft of his crown. The connection to the oath is thus tenuous at best and there is no inherent magic in the crown to smooth that over.
• Clerics don't have to rest to regain spell slots, they just have to pick a certain time of day they spend one hour meditating or praying to get them.

Edit to add:

The struggle to prevent the snarl unmaking everything is, in my personal opinion, entirely pointless so long as souls are not eternal.

This perspective is one that is sort of alien to me. The fact that you'll just get hungry again doesn't make eating a delicious meal pointless. Nor does the fact that, one way or another, every book ever written will eventually be rendered unreadable make the act of writing pointless either. Those soul get to live a life, enjoy art, find love, have kids, accomplish goals, and then move onto an afterlife that aligns with their ideals. We know Celestia in particular has the ascension up the mountain as a voluntary thing, that souls undertake when they outgrow the things that bind them to the world.

[Peelee]

A couple problems with this:

• The crown is nonmagical and the blood oath is about the murder of Eugene's mentor, not the theft of his crown. The connection to the oath is thus tenuous at best and there is no inherent magic in the crown to smooth that over.
• Clerics don't have to rest to regain spell slots, they just have to pick a certain time of day they spend one hour meditating or praying to get them.

• Even if she were able to disrupt Redcloak's meditation, Xykon could just cast Cloister