If the Dark One is toast, isn't Hel toast too?

[halfeye]

It's something that's been sort of worrying me, why is Hel on board for restarting the world?

We know that the Dark One only started getting worshipers recently, but even so, that's hundreds of years and ALL the goblins. we also know that Hel has been getting very few of the souls that go to the Northern pantheon, and that's only over the thousands of years that this world has existed. So it seems plausible that Hel would have less souls than the Dark One, would also die if the planet is rebooted, so why is she so keen on that?

[hroþila]

Loki is worried she might not make it, but it's not like he actually expects her to die. Either the chances of her not surviving are low and she deems them an acceptable risk, or she can no longer think clearly. It doesn't mean she's less likely to make it than the Dark One either way.

[ebarde]

Hel is not a new deity like the Dark One, so I imagine she has better odds at surviving the same way as Odin survived going through an entire world without followers whatsoever and still managing to be the head god of his pantheon. The Dark One wouldn't have had as many worlds to prepare, as this would be the first time a world get's unmade. It also might be the case that Hel is more well known and feared than the Dark One, considering how non-goblinoids seem very unaware of goblinoid culture and thus wouldn't be familiar with who they worship.

[BloodSquirrel]

The entire point of Hel's plan is that she would be getting a giant boost from getting all of the dwarf souls, and that the boost would be large enough to not only carry her over, but put her in a dominant position.

[JBiddles]

That's the point of Hel's plan - she's at risk when this world ends either way, so she needs to do something to get enough power to make it until the next world is created, so she sets up this plan so that every dwarf dies dishonourably and goes to her.

[Peelee]

That's the point of Hel's plan - she's at risk when this world ends either way, so she needs to do something to get enough power to make it until the next world is created, so she sets up this plan so that every dwarf dies dishonourably and goes to her.

That would happen on worlds end regardless. The worst thing for her is for this world to continue going, since that gets her starvation diet into overtime. She's just calling J. G. Wentworth because it's her money Dwarven soulpower boost and she needs it now!

[Anymage]

The divine diet comes from belief, worship, souls, and devotions. There's certainly widespread belief in Hel, and The Bet keeps enough souls and devotions headed her way. It's an unbalanced diet lacking in worship, but that doesn't intrinsically mean that she'd be hosed if she had to spend some between worlds time. A different god in a similar situation might be messed up, but could survive and recover in the next world.

Of course you did have her visibly fade somewhat after exerting herself. And in the next comic Loki explicitly says that he's worried that Hel might not make it through. So yes, she is depleted and might not make it across if the world just up and ended tomorrow. So neither Hel nor TDO are guaranteed to be toast, but both are in more precarious positions than they'd like to be.

Edit to add:

That would happen on worlds end regardless. The worst thing for her is for this world to continue going, since that gets her starvation diet into overtime. She's just calling J. G. Wentworth because it's her money Dwarven soulpower boost and she needs it now!

As long as the world keeps going she still has a trickle of belief/devotions/souls. It may not be as much as she likes and the lack of worship will be bad for her, but she isn't at risk of starving to death. The issue comes when a world ends and you get absolutely no sustenance coming in, instead having to rely on your larder. A god who doesn't have enough in the way of reserves is at real risk of starving to death.

In pure headcanon mode I'm also sure that there were gods who burned through their reserves carelessly and wound up starving to death that way, which makes Hel's spending power on direct action even more of a risky move on her part. But here I'm just going into speculative theodymanics that are so far from the main plot that I don't think they'll ever be touched on one way or another.

[ebarde]

I think what OP means is that they're wondering if the world ended TDO wouldn't have a better chance then Hel, considering he'd get every goblinoid souls who certainly must outnumber dwarves by a longshot. To which I can think a few explanations, such as him being a very new god that hasn't been around for nearly as many worlds as Hel which could certainly contribute to her staying power, and also he might be severely lacking in other areas other than souls. I don't think the dark one is as feared as Hel for example, who presents an existencial threat to an entire race and who they are taught to fear from a very early age.

[Goblin_Priest]

The entire point of Hel's plan is that she would be getting a giant boost from getting all of the dwarf souls, and that the boost would be large enough to not only carry her over, but put her in a dominant position.

Well, wouldn't TDO *also* get that huge influx of sudden goblinoid souls? Which probably outnumber dwarf souls?

I get why the snarl destroying the world is bad for TDO. But... what if the gods unmake it themselves? What sets TDO apart from Hel? Why is it lethal for him but empowering for her?

[Peelee]

Well, wouldn't TDO *also* get that huge influx of sudden goblinoid souls? Which probably outnumber dwarf souls?

Yes, and apparently not.

[ebarde]

As I posited earlier, there are lots of aspects in which Hel and the Dark One diverge a lot and any one of those could be responsible for the same thing not applying to him. A gods power doesn't come from just the amount of souls, and also I think the Dark One not being part of any pantheon and being created in this very unique circunstance not even the gods seem to quite grasp yet makes it hard for Thor to guess if he'd survive the world's destruction. His existence I feel is also a lot more tied to this world in specific, Odin went insane from a world where magic was next to none-existant, Dark One's portfolio would be even more restricted, as he isn't as abstract as any of the other gods that weren't ascended from a mortal form.

[Kantaki]

I think one big difference are their domains.
Hel is a goddess of death and disease, which will always be relevant, so even without direct worship and very few souls she still gets something* and as long as she makes it to the next world she'll be fine- even more so if no one finds a work around to Loki's bet.

Meanwhile the Dark One is the racial god of goblins.
Even assuming a few centuries worth of souls are enough to carry him over there might very well be no goblins in the next world.
Maybe it's all living machines or something like that.

*Also, she's part of a established pantheon and been around for several world's. Might help a bit too.

[BloodSquirrel]

Well, wouldn't TDO *also* get that huge influx of sudden goblinoid souls? Which probably outnumber dwarf souls?

Presumably not. TDO might only get goblinoid souls from goblinoids that actually worship him, while Hel gets *all* dwarf souls.

[ebarde]

I also don't think Thor knows what will happen to the Dark One. He was giving his best guess, maybe using previous mortals ascended to godhood as a base, but The Dark One is a one in an eternity case and I doubt any of the gods can say for sure what will happen to him if this world dies.

[Clistenes]

Why doesn't Loki try to convince Thor and Hel to undo their deal? I is worried that she won't survive, but he is the one to blame; it was HIS idea, and at that point he couldn't predict that the Dark One would appear... if the Dark One didn't have a purple colored quiddity there wouldn't exist a way to make the current world permanent, and Hel would be screwed...

[ebarde]

That deal seems to be set right up till the end of this world, and I imagine it can only change if the perception of mortals towards Hel drastically does as well. And even then I don't think she really has enough power to completely change her portfolio and basically build her church from the ground up, especially when every mortal hates her guts.

[Clistenes]

That deal seems to be set right up till the end of this world, and I imagine it can only change if the perception of mortals towards Hel drastically does as well. And even then I don't think she really has enough power to completely change her portfolio and basically build her church from the ground up, especially when every mortal hates her guts.

Hel doesn't need to change her portfolio; all she needs is to announce that she can have priests now, and tempt ambitious, unscrupulous, evil people with offers of power and immortality...

If Orcs worship stuff like bulls and muppets, they sure can be convinced to worship a goddess who promises lots of power to help them beat people up... There are also lots of "evil" races like Gnolls, Minotaurs, Ogres and such that worship deities not unlike Hel. And Thrym would probably lend her a hand in setting a foundation for her cult.

[erikun]

Undoing the deal would probably be worse for Hel in this situation. Right now, she has no worshippers but gets free dwarven souls. Removing the deal would mean that she has no worshippers and she gets no dwarven souls. It wouldn't exactly be easy to tell all the dwarves - all those highly loyal, highly devout, highly structured - dwarves that they can go worship Hel and end up in endless torture if they do. The whole dwarven society has been set up to die fighting honorably and asking them to change that just to go to Hel as an afterlife reward sounds like a really hard sell.

They would almost certainly need to set up a new world - one where Hel is not feared by dwarven society in the same way - in order for her to have regular worshippers again. The current batch of dwarves would just stay away from her if given the choice, and right now in the comic is not the time she'd want to be is such a flux like that.

[ebarde]

Hel is also bound by the same rules as Loki and Thor, and if Loki can't lie and Thor's hair color changed because of a comic book it stands to reason that there's not much Hel can do other than keep doing her thing. Every dwarf is told pretty much from birth that if they do dishonorable stuff they'll go to her, and that's not really something the gods can change at this point.

[Grey Watcher]

Presumably not. TDO might only get goblinoid souls from goblinoids that actually worship him, while Hel gets *all* dwarf souls.

Indeed. The Northern pantheon has a God of Monsters who I imagine is a major competitor of the Dark One for goblinoid souls in the North. And I assume there are other deities in the other two pantheons that are likewise competing with TDO in their respective areas. Impossible to know the ratios, but I'm sure it's a factor.

That, and Hel was already getting dwarf souls for some unknown amount of time (decades? centuries? millennia?) before the Dark One even had his apotheosis.

[Metastachydium]

That, and Hel was already getting dwarf souls for some unknown amount of time (decades? centuries? millennia?) before the Dark One even had his apotheosis.

(Minor nitpick: Hel was getting a truly meagre amount of dwarven souls for those centuries (the world is less than two millenia old, so it can't be millenia), while Big Purple gets all the goblinoid souls and goblinoids get killed a lot.)

[Mic_128]

Big Purple gets all the goblinoid souls and goblinoids get killed a lot.

Only if those goblins worship him, though, and we haven't seen enough to suggest that all of them do.

[Metastachydium]

Only if those goblins worship him, though, and we haven't seen enough to suggest that all of them do.

Well, we are yet to see any goblinoid that does not at least formally worship Big Purple. At any rate, he certainly has a faster influx of souls than Hel does.

[halfeye]

Indeed. The Northern pantheon has a God of Monsters who I imagine is a major competitor of the Dark One for goblinoid souls in the North.

Oona said the Dark One wasn't of much interest to the bugbears, but she did imply (as I understood her) that he's their only god. It may be that all the goblinoids who died who weren't sent to the Dark One are still hanging around waiting to go to their final rest and the Dark One can offer them one? Greyview seems to have no afterlife in mind, and the ogres didn't have a god, they're not goblins, but they don't have a god, maybe the Dark One can claim them if he sends along some clerics?

I suspect Thor is mistaken in judging how many goblinoids there are and have been, I think the Dark One is going to do fine.

[Peelee]

Oona said the Dark One wasn't of much interest to the bugbears, but she did imply (as I understood her) that he's their only god.

Correct ; the Giant has said that before the Dark One, goblins didn't worship anyone and had no deity.

I suspect Thor is mistaken in judging how many goblinoids there are and have been, I think the Dark One is going to do fine.

The guy who can remember each and every person in all the world's since they first began? That guy has miscounted the number of goblins in the world?

Thor isn't omniscient or infallible, but that's not a theory I'd put any money on.

[Goblin_Priest]

TDO is young, but Hel has had basically no worship in this world, no souls.

I have a hard time reconciling the alleged fates of both these deities, and why the sudden influx of worshippers is a kingmaker in one case, and futile in the other, and why the one with barely any worship and souls is somewhat waning and unhealthy compared to the other that is growing and healthy, but the former appears to have more chance to survive the interim from what the various gods say.

[Metastachydium]

The guy who can remember each and every person in all the world's since they first began?

Technically, it's each and every person who ever worshipped him.

[The MunchKING]

I'm guessing in the interim Gods get to draw on the Pantheon's reserves of soul power.

So, while Hel would get some of the North's extras, Dark One only has Purple's power.

EDIT:

TDO is young, but Hel has had basically no worship in this world, no souls.

I have a hard time reconciling the alleged fates of both these deities, and why the sudden influx of worshippers is a kingmaker in one case, and futile in the other, and why the one with barely any worship and souls is somewhat waning and unhealthy compared to the other that is growing and healthy, but the former appears to have more chance to survive the interim from what the various gods say.

What you're overlooking is she's gotten quite a lot of souls, just not as many as she'd like. It's mostly the prayer and devotions she's missing out on.

[Archives]

Probably, but the faster they wipe the world, the faster Hel starts getting her normal meal. She's not as bad off as Odin, but waiting prolongs the problem.
As far as the Dark One being toast well... his first response was to pull together a giant army, only to get stabbed and ascend. It seems fairly likely he'd set up an army as a backup plan. If he's backed into a corner, I'd expect every goblin killed over the course of the strip to take and hold an afterlife. THEN he's toast.

[The MunchKING]

Probably, but the faster they wipe the world, the faster Hel starts getting her normal meal. She's not as bad off as Odin, but waiting prolongs the problem.
As far as the Dark One being toast well... his first response was to pull together a giant army, only to get stabbed and ascend. It seems fairly likely he'd set up an army as a backup plan. If he's backed into a corner, I'd expect every goblin killed over the course of the strip to take and hold an afterlife. THEN he's toast.

I mean it's an army of GOBLIN souls. They were a match for low-level PCs when they were alive, and now they are going to try and go against Solars and Deevas?

Overwhelming numbers can only cover so much of a force gap.