Hel's Plan and Math

[MReav]

Hel mentions that she will receive an influx of 10 million (or more) dwarven souls. I'm going to assume 10 million is a rough estimate of the total influx of souls, but there will not be an excessive amount after this.

Loki mentions that half a billion people believe he's incapable of honesty. Assuming he's talking about the total population of the world and not just the Northern continent, then I'll note there appear to be 12 major gods in the Southern Pantheon, 19 major gods in the Western Pantheon (you see 9 on each side and one in the center), and 17 major gods (not including Hel) in the Northern Pantheon, and 1 in the Goblin Pantheon, that means there are 49 deities for the following calculations.

500,000,000-10'000'000 dwarves = 490'000'000 souls.
12+19+17+1 = 49.
490'000'000/49 = 10'000'000. About the same as the number of souls that Hel will be getting. Likely there will be some bleed off as some people don't worship gods, or they worship demigods, or some other issue, but it's still comparable to the influx that Hel will be getting.

This gets worse for Hel if Loki is merely referring to the Northern Continent as most people might not be familiar with the gods of other pantheons, as the major gods of the Northern Pantheon be getting an average just shy of 29 million souls.

I'm wondering how this affects things, because going by pure numbers, Hel doesn't have much of an advantage (or worse, comes out behind). Is it simply because the sheer number of souls automatically being sorted into her domain will allow her to consolidate power while everyone else is sorting things? Or maybe dwarf souls are considered more for the purposes of Dedication, like if clerics give more Dedication energy and each dwarf is considered a cleric thanks to the rules laid out when the gods created the world.

[Riftwolf]

This was addressed at the time with one of Rich's more eloquent comments,
'rather than making a bunch of assumptions and complaining the comic doesn't fit them, why not make a bunch of different assumptions that do?'
No one in-comic questions her math, notably Heimdall or Loki who'd know. Hel uses the caveat that it *might* make her more powerful than Odin. The characters in the comic act like it'd work, and that's the important part.

[MReav]

This was addressed at the time with one of Rich's more eloquent comments,
'rather than making a bunch of assumptions and complaining the comic doesn't fit them, why not make a bunch of different assumptions that do?'
No one in-comic questions her math, notably Heimdall or Loki who'd know. Hel uses the caveat that it *might* make her more powerful than Odin. The characters in the comic act like it'd work, and that's the important part.

I did include that aspect. My comments about either Dwarf souls counting more or autosorting allowing her to consolidate power are this.

[Fyraltari]

For example, Loki's figure might include the all the dead souls still in the afterlives.

[Squire Doodad]

For example, Loki's figure might include the all the dead souls still in the afterlives.

I'd say he's lowballing it then, but if it's "the souls that are still in loosely "dead person" forms" then "there are half a billion people who have died in the Northern Continent over the last 100 years" seems plausible in a quasi-medieval society.

[Jasdoif]

This was addressed at the time with one of Rich's more eloquent comments,

Indeed.

It's a fictional story. It works because I say it works, and the rest of the story will be written as if it works. I, the author of the comic, am telling you that the math works out in Hel's favor no matter how you try to calculate it.

Do you need an explanation? Fine. Let's say—and I am absolutely making this up on the spot, but it still counts—that getting a dead soul gives a god a burst of power at the moment that it happens, and then a much lower long-term generation of power over the course of centuries (say, 1/1000th as much) until the soul eventually merges into whatever it merges into and stops contributing completely. Therefore, getting 10 million in one day will grant a huge boost of power to Hel that she can use immediately to gain more influence over the world-making process. All the previous souls that died had their power boosts used up by their respective gods doing things like granting spells and making miracles and such, things that Hel barely does. And once she can influence the world-building process, she can set up the rules differently so that she isn't at such a disadvantage anymore, leading to more consistent generation of power going forward.

There. Now all the math doesn't matter, because as of this post, the amount of power granted at one time greatly outweighs the accumulated drip of power over the previous however-many centuries.

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

---

That's kind of boring for this exercise, but later on in the same thread....

Rich isn't saying "ignore plotholes", he's saying that when the story states something, unless you have reason to believe otherwise, assume it's true. And "In the real world 10 million isn't a lot" is not a good reason. You're going with "Hel is mistaken" instead of "The population is smaller than medieval earth".

This, even more so....

This is a world where traveling from one village to the next has a 1-in-6 chance of you being eaten by an owlbear or a gibbering mouther or something. Population densities have no correlation to the real world whatsoever. Heck, according to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 3.5, Faerun has only 68 million human or demihuman inhabitants, and I would bet that OOTS world has a lot fewer people on the Northern Continent than FR has on Faerun, since Faerun is littered with cities comparatively.

Whether this means Loki's figure was grossly exaggerated, or that the Northern continent is far less populated than the Southern and Western continents, is an exercise left for the reader.

Because the writer didn't do this exercise.

I do not crunch numbers when writing dialogue. Do you know how I picked 10 million? I googled the medieval population of Scandinavia and made it about the same.

[Lord Torath]

*Snip OP about Hel's math*

This was addressed at the time with one of Rich's more eloquent comments,
'rather than making a bunch of assumptions and complaining the comic doesn't fit them, why not make a bunch of different assumptions that do?'
No one in-comic questions her math, notably Heimdall or Loki who'd know. Hel uses the caveat that it *might* make her more powerful than Odin. The characters in the comic act like it'd work, and that's the important part.

What Riftwolf said. Assume Loki's "Half-a-Billion" is hyperbole, and not an accurate count, and that the math still works out in Hel's favor.

Edit: And well-ninja'd by the Fey-touched Banana!

[PirateMonk]

Whether this means Loki's figure was grossly exaggerated, or that the Northern continent is far less populated than the Southern and Western continents, is an exercise left for the reader.

The map of the Southern Continent in Good Deeds Gone Unpunished also shows relatively few cities, as well as lots of mountains, so it doesn't seem like it could support that many people, except maybe in the Realm of the Dragon. The Western Continent is war-torn and mostly desert outside of the Elven Lands, so same there. Since Loki says "half a billion people down there", he's probably talking about the living.

I guess the best explanation is that the god who is talking about how he is metaphysically incapable of telling the truth is misrepresenting the world's population, but that's still pretty weird.

[NerdyKris]

I like how you can tell when I watched a show or movie by the examples I used.

[Doug Lampert]

The map of the Southern Continent in Good Deeds Gone Unpunished also shows relatively few cities, as well as lots of mountains, so it doesn't seem like it could support that many people, except maybe in the Realm of the Dragon. The Western Continent is war-torn and mostly desert outside of the Elven Lands, so same there. Since Loki says "half a billion people down there", he's probably talking about the living.

I guess the best explanation is that the god who is talking about how he is metaphysically incapable of telling the truth is misrepresenting the world's population, but that's still pretty weird.

That works, or that he's counting dead people works. If the world is circa 2,000 years old, and there are 10,000,000 dwarfs at a time, and a dwarf generation is probably circa 100 years long, there'd be 200,000,000 dwarfs (alive or dead) plus probably a greater number of other races in the north. It's not hard to get up to well over half a billion alive or dead who live(d) in the north.

And we know that gods still derive power from the dead, so those dead might still have influence.

Thus, it's entirely possible that the population of the north is less than 30,000,000, and that there are still half a billion who think Loki is always a liar.

[Fyraltari]

WAIT! I just remembered a thing!
Hel gets all of the dwarves, but the other gods don't get all of the other races, there are plenty of people who, like the Greenhilts will go to the generic afterlives, not to any god's domain and therefore won't power them. So, even if OP's math is correct, then Hel still comes out on top.

[Shadowknight12]

WAIT! I just remembered a thing!
Hel gets all of the dwarves, but the other gods don't get all of the other races, there are plenty of people who, like the Greenhilts will go to the generic afterlives, not to any god's domain and therefore won't power them. So, even if OP's math is correct, then Hel still comes out on top.

Ding, ding, ding.

A god only gets the souls of their worshipers. Those who worship the entire pantheon might be placed into a neat little pile and then divided evenly among all members, but those who don't worship any gods or follow non-theistic religions like the Creed of Stone simply go to their corresponding afterlife and are therefore "wasted" soul energy. This is why Faerun has special rules, mandating that all divine casters worship a god in order to obtain divine spells (even if they're druids, rangers or paladins) and why it has the vile and abominable Wall of the Faithless as a "punishment" for not worshiping any gods at all.

[Riftwolf]

WAIT! I just remembered a thing!
Hel gets all of the dwarves, but the other gods don't get all of the other races, there are plenty of people who, like the Greenhilts will go to the generic afterlives, not to any god's domain and therefore won't power them. So, even if OP's math is correct, then Hel still comes out on top.

I did start writing a comment to this effect, but then felt like I was getting dragged into a fruitless Internet spat, so I slept instead.

[rbetieh]

Ding, ding, ding.

A god only gets the souls of their worshipers. Those who worship the entire pantheon might be placed into a neat little pile and then divided evenly among all members, but those who don't worship any gods or follow non-theistic religions like the Creed of Stone simply go to their corresponding afterlife and are therefore "wasted" soul energy. This is why Faerun has special rules, mandating that all divine casters worship a god in order to divine spells (even if they're druids, rangers or paladins) and why it has the vile and abominable Wall of the Faithless as a "punishment" for not worshiping any gods at all.

You know, I think this is on the right track but maybe not 100%.

My understanding is the souls power the outer planes https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html
From that, I extrapolate that ORDINARILY a soul gives no God direct power. Ordinarily, Gods get power from Dedication, and Worship, mostly plus some share of the Belief. Hel is an extraordinary case, however because the deal likely allows her to feed on souls directly. This is either because all the souls go to a tiny plane that only powers her and therefore she doesn't need to share, or because she actually eats the souls somehow.

From what I gather, all the Dedication (maybe, I mean if you know you are going to Hel anyways, I wouldn't be surprised if a dwarf yelled out "Hel, be nice" instead) and Worship is still going to Thor, but it doesn't matter because once the world is destroyed, all that is left is souls. The other gods not only need to use those souls to keep the lights on, but also to keep the Devas, Fiends, Archons etc alive. I would bet that over half the souls are consumed that way. Meantime, small plane with few maintainers for Hel with lots of food means when the Gods do manage to start up again, she will be the only one at near full power because she had power to spare.

[Fyraltari]

I did start writing a comment to this effect, but then felt like I was getting dragged into a fruitless Internet spat, so I slept instead.

Teach me your ways, oh Wise One.

[Shadowknight12]

Hel is an extraordinary case, however because the deal likely allows her to feed on souls directly. This is either because all the souls go to a tiny plane that only powers her and therefore she doesn't need to share, or because she actually eats the souls somehow.

There's no need to speculate, we already know why Hel gains the dwarven souls: it's because the dwarves believe that they go to Hel if they die dishonorably. The Giant has confirmed this (it's listed somewhere in the archive of the Giant's quotes) and further states that other Northeners don't go to Hel even if they die dishonorably, because they don't believe that they deserve to go there.

Hel isn't really a special exception to the god rule, it's simply that after the bet with Thor, the dwarves were instructed of this state of affairs by the Northern gods (through their clerics) and they just believed it. If the dwarves had chosen to rebel, like Hilgya, they could sidestep the bet entirely, which is why Hilgya preaches about Loki as a loophole (within dwarven beliefs) that lets them escape that state of affairs.

From what I gather, all the Dedication (maybe, I mean if you know you are going to Hel anyways, I wouldn't be surprised if a dwarf yelled out "Hel, be nice" instead) and Worship is still going to Thor, but it doesn't matter because once the world is destroyed, all that is left is souls.

The Dedication of dishonored dwarves still goes to Hel. We are specifically told she's been feeding on "empty Dedications". We also know people Believe in her, so what she's been lacking is Worship.

[Fyraltari]

There's no need to speculate, we already know why Hel gains the dwarven souls: it's because the dwarves believe that they go to Hel if they die dishonorably. The Giant has confirmed this (it's listed somewhere in the archive of the Giant's quotes) and further states that other Northeners don't go to Hel even if they die dishonorably, because they don't believe that they deserve to go there.

Hel isn't really a special exception to the god rule, it's simply that after the bet with Thor, the dwarves were instructed of this state of affairs by the Northern gods (through their clerics) and they just believed it. If the dwarves had chosen to rebel, like Hilgya, they could sidestep the bet entirely, which is why Hilgya preaches about Loki as a loophole (within dwarven beliefs) that lets them escape that state of affairs.

If it were that simple the Bet would have been called off long ago since neither party like it. The Giant said that for human to go to Hel it would require that particular belief, he didn't say the same of dwarves.

I think it's rather than when a soul powers the Outer Plane they're in, if they are on a god's domain then they fuel that bit of the Plane and the god (and their servants) is the only one allowed to feed on that place. If they live on the non-affiliated part (like the Mountain) they fuel that and the unafilliated Outsiders (like the Deva who judged Roy, or the IFCC) feed on that.

[Shadowknight12]

If it were that simple the Bet would have been called off long ago since neither party like it. The Giant said that for human to go to Hel it would require that particular belief, he didn't say the same of dwarves.

We know that the gods themselves are shaped by belief: Thor says that explicitly. So if the Northeners decided to collectively change who Hel is, they could. The obstacle is that such a thing is so astronomically difficult as to be impossible. The gods can't go against the bet and they will probably actively discourage any mass movement for one of their identities to be changed (look at how Odin ended up from the previous world: even the head of the pantheon can be affected by his worshipers if they decide to eschew him en masse).

[Fyraltari]

We know that the gods themselves are shaped by belief: Thor says that explicitly. So if the Northeners decided to collectively change who Hel is, they could. The obstacle is that such a thing is so astronomically difficult as to be impossible.

And that the gods are still shaped by belief from the previous world as examplifoed by Odin. But Hel's character is not relevant to the mechanic of the Bet, so I don't see why you brought that up.

[Shadowknight12]

And that the gods are still shaped by belief from the previous world as examplifoed by Odin. But Hel's character is not relevant to the mechanic of the Bet, so I don't see why you brought that up.

Hel is explicitly the goddess of disease and the dishonored dead. The bet is part of her identity in this world.

[Riftwolf]

Teach me your ways, oh Wise One.

Basically if a post takes longer than five minutes to think of the correct wording, the Rock and Wyclef Jean interrupt it.

[Fyraltari]

Basically if a post takes longer than five minutes to think of the correct wording, the Rock and Wyclef Jean interrupt it.

The who and what?

[pearl jam]

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a former professional wrestler with the WWE turned Hollywood movie actor.

Wyclef Jean is a musician, formerly a member of The Fugees, and also a solo artist.

I don't know if there is a specific reference involved to why they might be interrupting.

[Riftwolf]

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a former professional wrestler with the WWE turned Hollywood movie actor.

Wyclef Jean is a musician, formerly a member of The Fugees, and also a solo artist.

I don't know if there is a specific reference involved to why they might be interrupting.

Am I the only one who remembers 'It Doesn't Matter'?

[pearl jam]

Am I the only one who remembers 'It Doesn't Matter'?

no.

[Blue Dragon]

I did start writing a comment to this effect, but then felt like I was getting dragged into a fruitless Internet spat, so I slept instead.

"We've never met before, and yet I feel an odd spiritual kinship…"

[Dion]

I'm wondering how this affects things,

You forgot to take into account that she would reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

That causes a reverse field pinch in the tachyon chamber, which will focus the “devotion” particles into a laxer-like beam that she can absorb all at once, causing her to grow as big as Mecha-Godzilla.

This is all carefully explained in the comic, but you sort of have to read between the lines.

[Riftwolf]

You forgot to take into account that she would reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

That causes a reverse field pinch in the tachyon chamber, which will focus the “devotion” particles into a laxer-like beam that she can absorb all at once, causing her to grow as big as Mecha-Godzilla.

This is all carefully explained in the comic, but you sort of have to read between the lines.

But a reverse energy pitch on a single quiddity isochron would overload the theometric stability of the quantum possibility wave! That's like solving the trolley problem by duplicating the trolleys!
Maybe you forgot to carry the one...

[Dion]

Maybe you forgot to carry the one...

All you naysayers can sit and doubt the math, but The Giant has an advanced degree in theoretical cartoon physics from Wylie E. Coyote University.

The Giant spends 100s of hours per strip making sure every aspect of the math is right; how else do you imagine he was able to fit the physics of the Oracle into his carefully crafted cosmology?

[Riftwolf]

All you naysayers can sit and doubt the math, but The Giant has an advanced degree in theoretical cartoon physics from Wylie E. Coyote University.

The Giant spends 100s of hours per strip making sure every aspect of the math is right; how else do you imagine he was able to fit the physics of the Oracle into his carefully crafted cosmology?

Calipers? Skyrim joke