Why are 10 million dwarf souls even important?

[Myta]

Is there a reason why the souls of people who already died should not count?
Unless the world is very young, or all species have seen an extrem increase in population recently, the dead should outnumber the living by a large factor. Especially for the shorter lived races (humans). When also considering that there is no equal distribution of souls between the other seventeen gods, but the big ones (Thor, Odin) probably got the biggest share, it should be impossible for Hel to end up with most souls in total.

I cannot see how her plan could work, even assuming that she gets all living dwarfs (which I find highly questionable, considering the loose definition of honorable that was shown to be used), the other gods will simply have more souls at the end of the day (or world).

[Kish]

Is there a reason why the souls of people who already died should not count?
Unless the world is very young

Define "very young." The OotS world is less than two thousand years old, I'm pretty sure, though I'm not hunting the forum for where Rich confirmed its exact age.

, or all species have seen an extrem increase in population recently, the dead should outnumber the living by a large factor. Especially for the shorter lived races (humans). When also considering that there is no equal distribution of souls between the other seventeen gods, but the big ones (Thor, Odin) probably got the biggest share, it should be impossible for Hel to end up with most souls in total.

I cannot see how her plan could work, even assuming that she gets all living dwarfs (which I find highly questionable, considering the loose definition of honorable that was shown to be used)

Elaborate. What would the field-carrying argument that sudden deletion by the gods counted as "honorable death in battle" be?

(Also, plural of dwarf is dwarves. This isn't Pratchett.)

[Kantaki]

Is there a reason why the souls of people who already died should not count?
Unless the world is very young, or all species have seen an extrem increase in population recently, the dead should outnumber the living by a large factor. Especially for the shorter lived races (humans). When also considering that there is no equal distribution of souls between the other seventeen gods, but the big ones (Thor, Odin) probably got the biggest share, it should be impossible for Hel to end up with most souls in total.

I cannot see how her plan could work, even assuming that she gets all living dwarfs (which I find highly questionable, considering the loose definition of honorable that was shown to be used), the other gods will simply have more souls at the end of the day (or world).

Would the total amount of other souls exeed ten million dwarven souls? Certainly. But, The Northern Pantheon gets only a third or so of the total amount and they have to share those souls between at least seventeen gods. Hel on the other hand gets all souls of all dwaves that perish in the end of the world. Considering the world is only a few thousand years old this influx of power could easily elevate Hel over her family.

[dancrilis]

When a person dies they go to the afterlife where they are broken down into there component alignment parts and recycled into the plane to further the cause of those alignments (and the Gods that are affiliated to them).
A soul is created by a God using power to create it.

For Dwarves if they die dishonourably Hel gets the souls.

Or to put it another way.
Start of world to current day.
Call it 100 million souls are alive in total (some former ones have been recycled into the planes again and some are in the afterlife).
12 southern gods, 18 northern gods, ~20 western gods (including elves).
Average souls per God? 2million.
Hel's power boost would be five times higher than any other God on average - and due to other gods sharing them on some planes and a promise of a good afterlife they are not immediately available for power.

As such Hel will have more power at her disposal than any other god at the time the next world is created.

[Peelee]

Define "very young." The OotS world is less than two thousand years old, I'm pretty sure, though I'm not hunting the forum for where Rich confirmed its exact age.

Around 1200, I think. Basing this off memory of Eugene's dates of death on his gravestone. Also not going to hunt for the exact date, but I figured I could at least narrow the range.

[Porthos]

According to the OotS Timeline, the current year is 1184. Presumably that is dated from the start of the world (though this is not a given).

[Myta]

@Kish:
very young: only few generations old.
honorable: I dont remember which strip this was, but there are so many loopholes in honorable death (dying of alcohol because the liver faught bravely, a disease aquired from a splinter from a tree), that it should be easy to find an equally nonsense description of the unmaking of the world. Maybe "sacrificed for fighting the biggest threat imaginable" or "died in the most important battle ever". You could even argue that they already participate in the battle by attacking the prison with their feet (walking on it) or their tools (mining). Yeah its mostly nonsense, but so is calling an alcohol related death honorable. If that works, than this should work easily.

@Kantaki:
not likely. rough numbers:
assume world of 1200 years. assume a stable human population, the same size as dwarfs (probably a lot more in "reality", in the comic, humans are the dominant race nearly everywhere. And 10 million really is not much. You could hardly fill a large world with it. Not even close.). 1200 years is maybe 48 human generations. Maybe more, not sure when humans mate in oots. Lets say 50 generations. This makes 500million human souls. Northern Pantheon gets a third: ~166 million souls. Give everyone 1/17: about 10 million.
Now we have to consider that there probably are a lot more humans then dwarfs, that there also are other races, that the big nothern gods probably get a lot more than only 1/17 etc. Then 10 million is not much anymore. They should have gathered much much more in those 1200 years.

What dancrilis said is a possible explanations, and is basically the answer to my initial question: "Is there a reason why the souls of people who already died should not count?"
If this works as he explained, then yes, the old souls really do not count anymore, since they already have been recycled.

[hamishspence]

(Also, plural of dwarf is dwarves. This isn't Pratchett.)

Actually, Pratchett favours "dwarves" as well. It's the writers of Warhammer that insist on "dwarfs".

[Arvor]

honorable: I dont remember which strip this was, but there are so many loopholes in honorable death (dying of alcohol because the liver faught bravely, a disease aquired from a splinter from a tree) [...]

For reference:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0874.html

[Themrys]

Apparently, Hel rarely gets any souls ever, because Thor always finds a bull**** reason why a dwarf supposedly died in battle. Which means that, to her, ten million dwarf souls are a big deal. Maybe she just overestimates the overall number of souls because she gets so few.

[Myta]

but at a closer look the recycling approach probably still wont work. It would depend a lot on the speed at which souls are recycled, but I think its too slow. We saw Roys grandfather in afterlife, while his father died as an old man. So we can assume that there are at least 4, probably more, generations not recycled. If we assume that the biggest northern god gets maybe 20% of the souls and not 1/17 (I think that assumption is not unrealistic), and also assume that non-dwarf races outnumber dwarf races at least 1:4 (I think this is a bare minimum. considering how big the world and how inhabited it seems to be), then we still would end up with 4*10*4/3/5=10.7

already more than Hel. Since I consider my assumptions as minimal values, the actual number is probably a lot more.

I like Themrys approach. Hel is not used to souls, so she made a huge overestimation of the power of "her" souls.


dwarfs vs dwarves: http://grammarist.com/usage/dwarfs-dwarves/

[Arvor]

No idea about the recycling of souls, but i have to agree that given the precedent cases, it seems likely that Hel would not get the souls due to any bull**** reason made up by Thor.

Not the topic, but i am not entirely sure that Hels plan actually is what she claims it to be.

[Kish]

No idea about the recycling of souls, but i have to agree that given the precedent cases, it seems likely that Hel would not get the souls due to any bull**** reason made up by Thor.

You're assuming that Thor won every time he argued with Hel over a soul; I don't think that's justified.

Beyond that, twenty gold says that neither "Hel's plan was something else than what Hel just exposited" nor "Hel's plan would not have worked even if not disrupted" is going to be revealed.

[hroþila]

Actually, Pratchett favours "dwarves" as well. It's the writers of Warhammer that insist on "dwarfs".

It amuses me to no end that Tolkien inadvertently created* a completely unetymological plural that has largely displaced the more correct one in so many fields.

*for all intents and purposes

[Peelee]

It amuses me to no end that Tolkien inadvertently created* a completely unetymological plural that has largely displaced the more correct one in so many fields.

*for all intents and purposes

The man was good with languages.

[Kantaki]

Regarding Thor's attempts to cheat Hel out of her rightfully earned souls: We see only two examples of this, even if the buffoon certainly tries this when ever possible. But we don't know how often he suceeds. We don't even know if he suceeded in those cases we saw. We do know however that Hel has at least some souls in her domain.

[Adr]

Define "very young." The OotS world is less than two thousand years old, I'm pretty sure, though I'm not hunting the forum for where Rich confirmed its exact age.

Elaborate. What would the field-carrying argument that sudden deletion by the gods counted as "honorable death in battle" be?

(Also, plural of dwarf is dwarves. This isn't Pratchett.)

Actually, the plural of dwarf is dwarrows. Hat tip J.R.R Tolkien

[Myta]

But at least the alcohol related death is stated as a fact (even though Durkon might be wrong, but as a priest he should know this stuff). And the fact that Thor argues with Hel at least implies that there is no automatic judgement, but someone has to decide where the souls goes. My guess would be it decided by the one with more power. Which is not Hel. Which might be the reson for her frustrated look in 874.

[LoRdofCookIES]

I had the same thought and I was planning on a thread of my own, until I did the (rough) math:

1. At strip no 275 we learn that (in the time of the order of the Scribble) the world was made around 1.000 years ago, therefore year 1.186 should be correct.
2. Dwarves in DnD are considered old at around 200. Durkon was stated to be 55 y/o and young. Therefore it's logical to assume that a "generation" of dwarves should be around 100 years.
3. Assuming no severe population increases or decreases we can summise that each generation should be around 10 mil people (as stated by Hel for the current generation).

That puts us around 110 million already dead and claimed dwarven souls.

We also know that the Northern Pantheon consists of 18 Gods, where Odin is the most powerful (as implied by Hel) and we can assume that power comes with the number of souls claimed (as also implied by Hel), therefore Odin should have the most.

Another easy assumption is that there is some way of distributing the souls among them and we also know that dwarves do not want to end up with Hel. That, along with Thor and Loki's scheeme of which we don't know the details yet, makes me think that Hel gets the least number of souls per generation.

So, let's say that Odin gets double what everyone else is getting and Hel gets half.. That would put Odin at around 12 mil souls and Hel at 3 mil.
In this scenario Hel really gets on top of him with the 10 mil bonus from world doom.

Of course this doesn't have to be the exact case or the eaxct numbers, but it shows how due to the small number of generations that have passed this 10 mil bonus could turn the tide for her. After all 10 out of 110 is 9% which is a significant figure.

I rest my case.

[Arvor]

Regarding Thor's attempts to cheat Hel out of her rightfully earned souls: We see only two examples of this, even if the buffoon certainly tries this when ever possible. But we don't know how often he suceeds. We don't even know if he suceeded in those cases we saw. We do know however that Hel has at least some souls in her domain.

True, we do not know how often he succeeds. But we at least know that Durkon thinks it counts as "falling in battle" if a sick dwarf picks a fight with a conifer. And that is what most sick dwarfs actually do.
See here:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html (lower left panel)

Considering this, i think it is save to assume that the aforementioned rate of success is pretty high.

[TheMiningDwarf]

The biggest problem facing the northern pantheon right now is that only the souls of their worshipers of one of the pantheons god. Anyone like Roy who didn't worship a deity will just go to an alignment plane and I'm willing to bet that would be a majority of all people if the world was unmade now. The other gods would get there fair share of course but 10 million souls is a lot compared to the slim pickings the other gods got.

On a somewhat related note if everyone knows that the worshippers of a deity will go to that deities plane when they die and evil gods exist why don't evil people worship evil gods so that they go to their evil gods plane when they die instead of the generic Evil afterlives. The Dark Ones afterlife seemed pretty nice after all.

[Tom Lehmann]

10 million really is not much. You could hardly fill a large world with it. Not even close.

This depends entirely on how productive agriculture is.

The entire human population of our world was ~3 million in 35,000 BCE (hunter-gathering).
It was ~15 million in 10,000 BCE (after the adoption of agriculture in Middle East, India, and China).

It was roughly 350-375 million in 1400 AD (after lots of improvements in agriculture and its spread throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, plus its development in Central America, but also after the plagues hit Europe and the Mongols hit China, which together reduced the human population by ~100 million, which took about 200 years to recover).

Dwarves are only one of many humanoid races and located primarily in the north, where agriculture is not going to be very productive. Agricultural productivity drops dramatically with fairly small increases in latitude once you get above 45 degrees. For example, Sweden and Germany both lie north of 45 degrees. Sweden is 30% larger than Germany but has just 12% of its population.

10 million dwarves may not be a huge % of the entire OOTS-world's population, but it may well be a sizable fraction of the northern continent's population. Depending on how much population growth has taken place over 1,200 years and how evenly souls have been divided among 17 gods, 10 million souls going to one god could well form a plurality.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Another thing to remember is that Hel will also get some of those non-dwarven souls. At least some of the necromancers and assassins on the Northern continent will be her followers, and many others who work in death related fields will fall under her purview, which would include gravediggers, embalmers and funeral directors.

[TheMiningDwarf]

Another thing to remember is that Hel will also get some of those non-dwarven souls. At least some of the necromancers and assassins on the Northern continent will be her followers, and many others who work in death related fields will fall under her purview, which would include gravediggers, embalmers and funeral directors.

Nope according to word of Giant absolutely no one worshipped Hel prior to the HPoH. And any clerics she tried to raise from level 1 like wights or ghouls were killed as the boss as part of a low-level dungeons.

[Darth Paul]

Well... until we see otherwise, 10,000,000 dwarf souls are important because The Giant (speaking through Hel, as a character) says they are.

As a member of the late Nitpickers' Guild, I'm delighted to see us poking holes in Hel's scheme using numbers and assumptions, but we don't really know anything about the fertility rate of dwarfs, i.e. how many dwarfs are born per generation... how old dwarfs are when they start marrying and having children (if Durkon's "first time" was at 55, was that late, early, average?)... what the average family size is... what the total population of dwarfs ever born is, compared to the 10 million alive right now. We're making some educated guesses, but that's all we can do.

@ Tom: those souls will most definitely form a plurality. She's planning to be "Queen of the Northern Pantheon" (see Panel 12 of #1000).

So if Hel is willing to manipulate the Order to get the HPoH into this position, and then stake everything on this spin of the wheel (because, who thinks she will go unscathed if this doesn't work out?), then the payoff MUST be worth it.

[Tom Lehmann]

@ Tom: those souls will most definitely form a plurality. She's planning to be "Queen of the Northern Pantheon" (see Panel 12 of #1000).

Certainly, Hel believes this to be true. Whether she's, in fact, correct is a different matter.

The OP was saying the numbers don't work out (under some assumptions); I'm saying that's not clear either, under assumptions based on historical population numbers.

[The Giant]

I do not understand comments that boil down to, "I don't think the plot works the way the text says it works." I understand that characters can lie or be mistaken, but at a certain point you have to understand that the only way for me to communicate non-visual information to you in the strip is through dialogue.

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. The more important point is that you should assume that the characters are more familiar with the relevant details than you are—and if they say, "Hey, this number is the right number!" than you, as a reader, should accept that as being true within this story unless the story gives you some clue otherwise (like a character saying, "Ten million? That doesn't sound right").

I promise you that the resolution to this story will not be, "Oh, hey, Hel did the math wrong!" In fact, I promise you that the exact number of dwarves will never matter at all, for any reason, ever, and that every single character will continue to act in a way consistent with all of Hel's math being correct and true. And if that bothers you on some math-level of your brain, just pretend that the words "ten million" are a typo and it should say whatever number you would feel would be big enough to make Hel's stated plan "make sense" to you, personally. Because it really doesn't matter. It's not like I could have possibly picked a number that would please everyone anyway.

[Bad Wolf]

I do not understand comments that boil down to, "I don't think the plot works the way the text says it works." I understand that characters can lie or be mistaken, but at a certain point you have to understand that the only way for me to communicate non-visual information to you in the strip is through dialogue.

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. The more important point is that you should assume that the characters are more familiar with the relevant details than you are—and if they say, "Hey, this number is the right number!" than you, as a reader, should accept that as being true within this story unless the story gives you some clue otherwise (like a character saying, "Ten million? That doesn't sound right").

I promise you that the resolution to this story will not be, "Oh, hey, Hel did the math wrong!" In fact, I promise you that the exact number of dwarves will never matter at all, for any reason, ever, and that every single character will continue to act in a way consistent with all of Hel's math being correct and true. And if that bothers you on some math-level of your brain, just pretend that the words "ten million" are a typo and it should say whatever number you would feel would be big enough to make Hel's stated plan "make sense" to you, personally. Because it really doesn't matter. It's not like I could have possibly picked a number that would please everyone anyway.

I'm going to assume that means all dwarves are Scandinavian.

[Murk]

Medieval Scandinavia (due to a.o. the invention of hay) went through quite the population burst, so much that it was easier to colonize/plunder other countries rather than staying at home.
Which means destroying the world isn't that bad: if the world keeps spinning for a few more years, Dwarven Vikings are imminent.

[Palla]

If we assume... (I think that assumption is not unrealistic), and also assume ... (I think this is a bare minimum.... Since I consider my assumptions as minimal values

Your assumptions seem to be based on making numbers up with no apparent grounding in anything other than "Well, that sounds right to you." It doesn't make sense to base this kind of argument on assumptions and made up numbers. Show some historical numbers.

For example, the Wikipedia page on world population estimates between 360-450 million people on Earth in the year 1200. Split the difference and call it 400 million.

Then if we make an assumption (based on actual statistics rather than random guesses) that the OotS world might have the same population, that is 400 million divided between three pantheons, or about 133 million (and some change) to the Northern pantheon, divided among at least eighteen gods would give each god about 7.4 million. That's assuming the demigods don't get a share. But instead of dividing equally, Hel is taking 10 million right off the top of the Northern pantheon's 133 million, leaving 123 million for the other 17 gods to split, giving them about 7.25 million each.

And for all we know the population of the OotS world might be less than that. Either way, Hel winning 10 million new souls is more than any other god can expect to receive.