OOTS #962 - The Discussion Thread

[Zea mays]

His Mum taught him tha' he should always take feeling like that, and bury them inna deep, dark part o' his soul and nev'r ev'r talk about 'em again. That's tha dwarven way.

We've seen what, 3 memories of her so far? And she seems so nice and brave and awesome... if and when we'll be seeing some later memories of a more adolescent Durkon, she might appear less idealized.

[NakedCelt]

Just wanted to add my thanks, compliments, and personal endorsement of the message conveyed by the final panel of the strip.
Might does not make right. You could hurt someone very badly by crashing into them with your car, if they were on a bicycle, but that doesn't mean it's "stupid" to ride a bicycle.
You have an absolute, sovereign, and inalienable right over your own body -- what it looks like, who gets to touch it, who gets to see it. So did the people who were attacked. If you want to make pictures of your body and share them with people who have consented to see them, that is your right. That was their right. If the system which enables you to do that is vulnerable to theft, then it is the system that needs to be upgraded and the system designers who need to be told they are stupid.
There are two possible starting positions from which one could conclude that the victims of the photo theft were stupid. One is if there were something inherently wrong with taking nude pictures of oneself, so that it were less like "riding a bicycle" and more like "deliberately darting out in front of a car". The other is if it were any man's right, anywhere, to look at any image of a woman's body that exists. I consider both these positions abhorrent.

[Amphiox]

Panel 7-8 is interesting. It seems to confirm what many have suspected - that the HPoH had no say itself in being implanted in Durkon. It was Hel's doing. The vampire spirit may have chosen, after the fact, to go along with it (and though it might be an act, it doesn't seem to be entirely *enthusiastic* about the whole deal), but it *could have* chosen otherwise, if it wanted to.

This is also one area where the reference to recent events breaks down. The vampire spirit was put there by a third party and had no say in its current situation. No one accidentally hacks a private account, nor is likely to be forced to by some third party. So in this axis at least, those hackers are more evil than an undead parasitic abomination of nature.

[Amphiox]

Just wanted to add my thanks, compliments, and personal endorsement of the message conveyed by the final panel of the strip.
Might does not make right. You could hurt someone very badly by crashing into them with your car, if they were on a bicycle, but that doesn't mean it's "stupid" to ride a bicycle.

Even worse than this. It is possible to hurt someone with your car accidentally. They could dart in front of you, or be pushed in front you, in a way that you simply cannot react fast enough to avoid it. There is no way you can accidentally hack someone's online photos. There is no way you can accidentally post photos you know were illegally hacked onto a subreddit thread. There is no way you accidentally exhibit illegally hacked photos as a so-called "art exhibit".

If the system which enables you to do that is vulnerable to theft, then it is the system that needs to be upgraded and the system designers who need to be told they are stupid.

There is no system of security that cannot be breached by someone who tries hard enough. System designers make a conscious decision about how secure they want their system to be, and how much energy and resources they will spend on creating that level of security. When they set up their iCloud automatic backup, there is no way they would not have known that some users would have intimate photos on their phones that would get backed up on-line. So this is likely not so much a case of being stupid, as being willfully negligent. They literally knew that there was a risk of intimate photos being hacked, and they *did not care*. They consciously decided that the danger wasn't worth the trouble of installing tighter security.

And that gets to the heart of the issue, which you allude to in your last sentence. To say that "they should have known better" or that "no one should expect their photos to be safe on-line from being hacked" is to tolerate the existence of illegal hacking and illegal distribution of private sexual material. It's basically shrugging and say "yeah, we know hackers exist but we're not interested in trying to stop them, so everyone must fend for themselves." To tolerate is to tacitly condone. It is exactly tantamount to saying that everyone has the right to look at any woman's intimate photos, so long as they can find some technical means of obtaining them, regardless of what the law says or what the women want.

It is more that just victim blaming. It is in fact tacitly supporting criminal activity.

[veti]

There is no system of security that cannot be breached by someone who tries hard enough. System designers make a conscious decision about how secure they want their system to be, and how much energy and resources they will spend on creating that level of security.

"Creating" any given level of security is easy. What's hard is making it usable. Every security measure is a compromise between two fundamentally conflicting requirements: to deny access to one person, while simultaneously allowing access to someone else.

When they set up their iCloud automatic backup, there is no way they would not have known that some users would have intimate photos on their phones that would get backed up on-line. So this is likely not so much a case of being stupid, as being willfully negligent. They literally knew that there was a risk of intimate photos being hacked, and they *did not care*. They consciously decided that the danger wasn't worth the trouble of installing tighter security.

So if they'd implemented security so onerous that nobody used it, and another hypothetical company, let's call it BaceFook, offered a cloud backup service that was so easy that iPhone users flocked to it in their thousands, and they were then hacked... You'd say the Apple designers had done a great job?

As you correctly said, no security is perfect: everything of sufficient perceived value is liable to be breached sooner or later. So there is no such thing as "a decision to implement enough security" - just a judgment call as to where to poise the balance between security and convenience. You're condemning the designers for drawing that line in "the wrong" place. But by your own argument, if they'd drawn it somewhere else, it would still have been hacked eventually.

So get off the "system designers" backs. Yes, they knew their system might be hacked. Same way I know, every time I get into my car, today might be the day a toddler darts out in front of me. But I still drive.

[Red XIV]

No one worships Hel, as was mentioned here. That means literally not one single living person, ever. You have to worship a god in order to be their cleric—except in the case of undead, where she has a direct connection to their negative energy lifeforce. But she can't give them XP.

Given that Hel has even fewer worshipers than Banjo the Clown, shouldn't that make her a rather weak god?

[alaalba_123]

Given that Hel has even fewer worshipers than Banjo the Clown, shouldn't that make her a rather weak god?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0137.html My personal interpretation of this is that the members of the pantheon draw power from each others followers, kind of a belief in the power creates the power whether you worship or hate it sort of deal. After all love(worship) and hate are equally powerful emotions.

Spoiler: Internet security argument

Show

Ok, my personal take here. I am a tech savvy individual. I'm currently taking college courses for a Bachelor's in CompSci. I defend my data in a reasonable manner. I have quite a few passwords I use, all especially formulated to be hard to crack or guess, with completely unique ones on sites where my most important data is stored, so that all my personal data is never compromised by just one account being cracked. My phone is encrypted. I take my data security very seriously. For this reason, I abhor cloud storage, I can't know whether their sever is encrypted, how well it is, what algorithms they used, anything like that. Also, most of their password systems are awful allowing multiple attempts, not alerting anyone of multiple unsuccessful attempts, and generally failing to make a reasonable effort to protect anything I would want to store. I would rather use a flash drive, and encrypt sensitive files.

All, that being said, Apple is to blame 100%. I could write a program to slow it down to 1 attempt every couple of seconds, not allow copy paste into the input, lock the account after 5 unsuccessful attempts, and/or a whole host of other common security protocols, more than one of which has been mentioned upthread. These are not difficult programs. Also, for such a massive security risk to be an automatic "feature" of anything is ludicrous, which is why, given a choice, I never use Apple or Microsoft products.

Any system such as this should have a detailed description of the risks boldly displayed and a basic lesson on password security both on screen during account creation.

[NakedCelt]

So get off the "system designers" backs. Yes, they knew their system might be hacked. Same way I know, every time I get into my car, today might be the day a toddler darts out in front of me. But I still drive.

I take your point. And of course no degree of bad design would exonerate those who used its weakness as an opportunity to attack others. Unfortunately the internet was first set up by a group of scientists who wanted to share information with each other as easily as possible, and design decisions made on that basis still bedevil its architecture. Even given that, there are some appalling security setups out there. I work from time to time with a system "protected" by PINs which you can deduce from the link URLs; that it hasn't been hacked all to buggery long ago I can only ascribe to the dullness of the content (educational video conferences). While any system can be broken by someone with sufficient determination, I think it behooves a system designer to set that bar as high as they feasibly can.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Given that Hel has even fewer worshipers than Banjo the Clown, shouldn't that make her a rather weak god?

I think by being part of the Northern Pantheon, even if no one worships her, they still acknowledge her existence as a part of this pantheon, and she has power from that. I wonder if her plan might have something to so with gaining real worshippers.

[Jay R]

Given that Hel has even fewer worshipers than Banjo the Clown, shouldn't that make her a rather weak god?

She has no living followers. She gets all the dead dwarves that didn't die in battle.

And that is a problem I am perfectly willing to rectify!

Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't! Go Hel! Know? Thor won't!

I can't believe that nobody beat me to this.

It won't work. As long as you're alive, Hel knows that you are refusing her, regardless of what you say.

[Women are inconvenient that way - they won't listen to your words when your actions prove them wrong.]

[Kish]

Given that Hel has even fewer worshipers than Banjo the Clown, shouldn't that make her a rather weak god?

Jokes related to Banjo the Clown* aside, it doesn't appear that number of worshipers really relates much to deity power in the OotS-verse.

*Including formal, explicit statements to the contrary from Elan, yes.

[Mr_Scruffy_Kilz]

The full explanation to why Hel can't use the usual route to make Clerics.

1) She has NO, ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH, NADA when it comes to living worshipers
1a) She has no worshippers because she is Hel, which means all of those who end up in her domain are cowards or diseased.
1b) Which means to end up in her domain, one would have to be completely against adventuring, because that would require risking dying in combat and thereby ending up in Valhalla instead... surrounded... for all eternity... by beings who hate Hel... and spend all day... for all eternity... fighting... making you Afterlife Punching Bag... and Stabbing Bag... and Bashing Bag... and Slashing Bag... and Piercing Bag... and Burning Bag... for all eternity.
1c) So the only way to worship Hel and still end up in her domain is to become her worshiper, walk out into the middle of the square, stab yourself with a rusty nail, let the wound get gangrene or some other infection (perhaps tetanus) , and just as you're about to die, yell "Go Hel! Know? Thor won't." as loud as you can, then cower and renounced your claims while you get killed as a Level 0 by the surrounding non Hel Worshipers or die from infection.

2) Having no worshipers, she can't have any clerics convert, because conversion requires a long process including a spell that needs to be cast by a fellow cleric of the same deity to allow for conversion.

3) Undead suck at gaining xp and are a top target for Clerics to either turn or rebuke.

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No one worships Hel, as was mentioned here. That means literally not one single living person, ever. You have to worship a god in order to be their cleric—except in the case of undead, where she has a direct connection to their negative energy lifeforce. But she can't give them XP.

I am so glad that this was finally affirmed so all the people who were claiming, "No, Giant never stated that, and Durkon was completely wrong." can understand, it wasn't an exaggeration, generalization, nor ignorance of Durkon, but fact (in addition to simple logic that Worshipping Hel and being alive have to be mutually exclusive unless you're trying to get sick so you can commit a slow suicide by attrition)

Given that Hel has even fewer worshipers than Banjo the Clown, shouldn't that make her a rather weak god?

1) She has worshippers, just they're all dead or undead. She has no clergy, because to be a cleric requires levels, which is counter-intuitive with worshipping a Deity whose followers have to either die of sickness (early level Cleric Spell eliminates most diseases) or cowardly non-combative ones (very hard to do when adventuring requires combat to level, even support roles are in combat or risk death in combat) like, fleeing from a fight and falling off a cliff, or fleeing from a fight and drowning or fleeing from a fight and falling into a pit full of poisoned spikes.

2) She gains nemesis influence based on Odin, Freya, and Thor's worshippers (the three Norse deities who oversee Valhalla)

3) She gains limited influence simply from being in the Northern Pantheon (as stated by others)

On the flip side Banjo is starting to get (2) from island who worship his brother and would have gotten (3) as well had that idiot cleric of Freya not chased him off before Thor and Odin could welcome Banjo into the Northern Pantheon

The below people concur with my points

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0137.html My personal interpretation of this is that the members of the pantheon draw power from each others followers, kind of a belief in the power creates the power whether you worship or hate it sort of deal. After all love(worship) and hate are equally powerful emotions.

She has no living followers. She gets all the dead dwarves that didn't die in battle.
It won't work. As long as you're alive, Hel knows that you are refusing her, regardless of what you say.
[Women are inconvenient that way - they won't listen to your words when your actions prove them wrong.]

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Hmm. If Hel literally has no worshippers, could she be thinking of trying the same ploy as the Dark One, to use the Gates to blackmail the other gods into rearranging the world into one where she gets worshippers?

I suspect it sucks to be a god without worshippers...

Sounds like a major possibility... might explain Durkula's comment.

-----------------------------------

*Disclaimer: this is a random thought that has little to do with the strip or with current events, motivated to a significant degree by a desire to have posted SOMETHING. Please feel free to glaze over it and not reply.*

Could Thor, now that sending storms to bother the Mechane has more or less failed, start sending visions to Haley?

No glazing over this, because 1) it actually does have something to do with the strip and current events, and 2) it is a good question (one I can easily answer, but still a good one)

No, sadly, despite her professing to be a worshipper of Thor, Haley's connection to the Thunderer is tenuous at best. She has spoken her allegiance to him, and she has drunk many a tankard to him, which are good starts, but she is still probably one of his lowest worshippers.

However, as the link to the comic where Elan went to the temple of Freya to get Banjo into the Northern Pantheon shows... Thor and Odin were willing to welcome Banjo in, which means Thor might reach out to his fellow lightning flinging deity for assistance.

Durkon and Durkoff?

Hehehehehe. I like that... I'm still calling him Durkula, I denounce his right to the title of HPOH until he relinquishes Durkon from the body, but Durkoff is funny, I might borrow that a few times.

So am I feeling that we should write a rule for "Smite the Tree".

You have to roll four mists (either in one roll, or within 5 consecutive rolls) to make a Raincloud
(which as the comic shows, you have to make a Raincloud before you can roll for Thunderclaps)

[multilis]

Hel might have living worshippers, the world according to Durkon is not entire world. Example - good teenage goblins... sides that others consider disgusting have a way of drawing people because of reaction they get from others.

We've also already had goth sexually attracted to undead mage type of humans...

It is possible that dwarves don't like to acknowledge or talk about anyone who would stoop to worshipping Hel. In real life I remember once reading a newspaper story that claimed "no one" supported X person (because the writer of article strongly didn't like X person), when it was well known that X person at time had support of around 1/3 of the people in the area.

Regular dwarf even if knowing of other dwarfs worship Hel, might justify it to self to say and think "no dwarf worships Hel" that those dwarfs aren't *real* dwarfs but freak monsters... in real life such circular logic against a position that is hated is common.

[Keltest]

Hel might have living worshippers, the world according to Durkon is not entire world. Example - good teenage goblins... sides that others consider disgusting have a way of drawing people because of reaction they get from others.

We've also already had goth sexually attracted to undead mage type of humans...

It is possible that dwarves don't like to acknowledge or talk about anyone who would stoop to worshipping Hel. In real life I remember once reading a newspaper story that claimed "no one" supported X person (because the writer of article strongly didn't like X person), when it was well known that X person at time had support of around 1/3 of the people in the area.

I don't think the plausibility of Durkon being wrong, or at least less than literal has ever been in doubt. Its not hard to believe that there are secret cults to Hel somewhere. But unless Rich is feeling spiteful or something and is deliberately lying to us, which I doubt, she literally has no worshipers.

[multilis]

I don't think the plausibility of Durkon being wrong, or at least less than literal has ever been in doubt. Its not hard to believe that there are secret cults to Hel somewhere. But unless Rich is feeling spiteful or something and is deliberately lying to us, which I doubt, she literally has no worshipers.

Durkon reacts to undead with extreme fanaticism... it is very easy that he might not know about such cults (because dwarfs to an extreme don't want to talk about them) and/or mentally have trouble grasping that a genuine dwarf would genuinely worship Hel... (lots of explanations can be given such as misheard, or is a shapeshifted fake dwarf/vampire, etc)

I only so far see Durkon's opinion on matter and Durkon's opinion does not reflect on whether writer of story is lying, etc... characters in stories are fallible, and Durkon is an obsessively against undead.

[Keltest]

Durkon reacts to undead with extreme fanaticism... it is very easy that he might not know about such cults (because dwarfs to an extreme don't want to talk about them) and/or mentally have trouble grasping that a genuine dwarf would genuinely worship Hel... (lots of explanations can be given such as misheard, or is a shapeshifted fake dwarf/vampire, etc)

did you see the Giant's post?

No one worships Hel, as was mentioned here. That means literally not one single living person, ever. You have to worship a god in order to be their cleric—except in the case of undead, where she has a direct connection to their negative energy lifeforce. But she can't give them XP.

[multilis]

did you see the Giant's post?

no I haven't, or actually maybe I did but not realise the writer. Does seem extremely strange world considering nature of our world that few things are more certain than that at least *someone* at sometime would worship any well known god, especially teenagers. If dwarfs would never do so because a difference in their race/minds, then at least a human (or goblin) might if anything like our world.

The fact that no one else does and repulsive to others is like honey to a bee or smell of rotten meat to a dog to a certain class of people. (eg Instantly become infamous"famous" as only person in existence worshipping Hel, now "immortal" as others will remember, a way to say "[insert nasty swear word]" to world/life because life somehow supposedly wronged you...)

...

As well from a more "sane" and practical standpoint, a "smart" evil cleric of any race knowing (ranks religion, etc) that Hel gets a good share of dwarf god power, might convert to Hel simply for munchkin type reasons... instant boost of power from being the only living cleric and thus probably high priest of a powerful deity and count on her regular help compared to a god like Tiamat who has many followers to spread her help between. Eg Tiamat did not help me enough so I almost died (couldn't have been my fault as I am the smartest necromancer ever), so how about I switch to Hel and become her high priest?

...

Racism against dwarves as a reason: For example a goblin that lost his parents to dwarf attack and knows about Hel and no dwarf worships her, might start as also revenge against dwarves. (At same time having awe and jealousy of Redcloak, and thus wanting to be a high priest with perhaps longer lifespan, etc)...

...

Anti war, pro female, etc... a dwarf goes to Hel if doesn't die fighting... a dwarf that things fighting is wrong might instead worship Hel, sort of like Lilith is popular in fiction, sometimes as the heroine. A male dwarf might imagine her as sexy exotic, a female dwarf as liberation of females in a male dominated god world. Typically the picture flips from sickly evil Hel/Lilith to a extreme beauty and charisma. On our world, femme fatales, etc have big following, see guys comment on youtube how they would love to be the guy seduced and killed by the femme fatale in movie clip... "what a way to go", etc... whole trope of alien seductress in SF, Hel might be powerful sexy alien seductress in other races fiction.

[Acacia OnnaStik]

I don't think Internet security is actually all that relevant to this joke? There have been too many people (and I was kind of nervous that I might see some in this comment thread, so I'm kind of relieved, actually) whose responses have been not "they should have protected the pictures better" but "they should never have taken the pictures in the first place". Because slut-shaming.

Which seems like a much better fit for this punchline. Not "this data is badly protected, so it's your own fault", but "this data exists at all, in any form, so it's your own fault." Hopefully we can ALL agree on that being awful.

[DaggerPen]

Just realized I haven't commented on this yet - a great update. The punchline made me chuckle, and I love the additional backstory on Hel.

As for the number of worshippers and their importance - without giving SOD spoilers, we know that the elves and goblins raised their own gods through the power of worship, but the others were there from the beginning of the world. To me, that implies that worship makes gods stronger, but existing deities get a kind of "floor" of divine juice that they can't dip below, even without worshippers. Plus, Hel does get the Northern Pantheon boost, though with no living worshippers, a handful of undead who get killed before they can do much, and no clerics, I imagine she's a very weak god in general. She might also get bonuses from having more dead souls in her halls, which Durkoff seems to imply here - http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0954.html

So with all this combined, I figure that Hel is probably the weakest of the gods out there, with little keeping her above the minimum of divine existence but mentions in the Northern mythology and the dishonored Dwarven dead (implied to be very few thanks to the "died while wailing away at a tree" loophole - no wonder it's such a big part of dwarven culture). Given the Giant's comments above and

Spoiler: OtOotPCs Spoiler

Show

Durkon's prophecy, I'm guessing that Helps plan is to bring Death and Destruction to the dwarven lands by vampirising whatever clerics Durkoff can manage, and then unleashing a pestilence in order to swell her halls with as many souls as she can manage.

[multilis]

I don't think Internet security is actually all that relevant to this joke?.

I personally am worried about risk of considered "real world politics" for me to talk on this topic, having trouble enough avoiding real life religion when asking why no one worships Hel.

[Atomburster]

Actually, consider that most of the reporters are male, and are News Reporters.

Which means there is actually a fairly good chance they downloaded the images themselves, so not slut-shaming would mean admitting that they did something ethically wrong. To avoid that, the only recourse is to shame the slut- Hey, it's not my fault that those pictures exist, even if i downloaded them..

On a more cynical level, it removes some of the heat from those companies not doing a reasonable job on their security systems, promoting yet more events like these in the future..

## OVER ##

Ok, I have a pretty low opinion on some reporters. It might have to do with only having very biased newspapers where I live. If any of you are actually news reporters who take offence to this, I apologize in advance.

[jidasfire]

I personally am worried about risk of considered "real world politics" for me to talk on this topic, having trouble enough avoiding real life religion when asking why no one worships Hel.

It's also possible that Hel herself neither wants nor needs living followers. Some weirdos might try to reach out to her, but she could certainly refuse them for any number of reasons, and given that, eventually, the calls would stop coming in. If there is no actual benefit to worshiping an evil deity and they don't want you anyway, plus they're widely reviled, that's plenty of reasons for there to be no followers.

[Snails]

iCloud was easy to brute-force because there was no measure taken against repeatedly guessing passwords. They've changed that since they realized this. But I imagine it's not too difficult to get around that.

If true, that would be a serious design flaw on the vendor's part.

[Sange]

It's also possible that Hel herself neither wants nor needs living followers. Some weirdos might try to reach out to her, but she could certainly refuse them for any number of reasons, and given that, eventually, the calls would stop coming in. If there is no actual benefit to worshiping an evil deity and they don't want you anyway, plus they're widely reviled, that's plenty of reasons for there to be no followers.

I don't see why a deity would not want followers. It does increase the deity's power.

[Bulldog Psion]

I just want to say that I hope this comic does not become a sounding board for the latest news item IRL. It's one thing to draw attention to racism or gender issues. However, I can go anywhere online and immerse myself in the latest specific furor anytime I want.

In other words, I like ketchup, but I don't necessarily like ketchup in every gol-durned thing I eat.

I realize that it's Mr. Burlew's comic and he can do whatever he wants with it. I also have no intention of not reading it in the future. I merely wish to express, for my own satisfaction, that the regular inclusion of direct references to current events would lessen my enjoyment from a 10/10 to, probably, an 8/10.

Actually, consider that most of the reporters are male, and are News Reporters.

Which means there is actually a fairly good chance they downloaded the images themselves, so not slut-shaming would mean admitting that they did something ethically wrong. To avoid that, the only recourse is to shame the slut- Hey, it's not my fault that those pictures exist, even if i downloaded them..

Sooooo ... it's now okay to accuse people of unethical behavior purely on the basis of their sex and/or gender? Huh.

[Acacia OnnaStik]

I don't see why a deity would not want followers. It does increase the deity's power.

I just had an idea- what if Hel is the sort to cut off her nose to spite her face? Pantheons are basically a belief-sharing arrangement, right? Maybe Hel prefers to freeload rather than accept worshippers who would also strengthen her hated rivals, until she can eliminate them and keep any worship she acquires for herself alone?

[redzimmer]

Just wanted to add my thanks, compliments, and personal endorsement of the message conveyed by the final panel of the strip.
Might does not make right. You could hurt someone very badly by crashing into them with your car, if they were on a bicycle, but that doesn't mean it's "stupid" to ride a bicycle.
You have an absolute, sovereign, and inalienable right over your own body -- what it looks like, who gets to touch it, who gets to see it. So did the people who were attacked. If you want to make pictures of your body and share them with people who have consented to see them, that is your right. That was their right. If the system which enables you to do that is vulnerable to theft, then it is the system that needs to be upgraded and the system designers who need to be told they are stupid.
There are two possible starting positions from which one could conclude that the victims of the photo theft were stupid. One is if there were something inherently wrong with taking nude pictures of oneself, so that it were less like "riding a bicycle" and more like "deliberately darting out in front of a car". The other is if it were any man's right, anywhere, to look at any image of a woman's body that exists. I consider both these positions abhorrent.

I agree and endorse this sentiment. Also, comic was funny and brings up new and intriguing plot developments.

[Gift Jeraff]

"Durkula" was starting to grow on me, but now I can't help but lean toward "Durkoff."

Sooooo ... it's now okay to accuse people of unethical behavior purely on the basis of their sex and/or gender? Huh.

They're being satirical. At least I hope they are.

[Sange]

I just had an idea- what if Hel is the sort to cut off her nose to spite her face? Pantheons are basically a belief-sharing arrangement, right? Maybe Hel prefers to freeload rather than accept worshippers who would also strengthen her hated rivals, until she can eliminate them and keep any worship she acquires for herself alone?

That would make sense.
If this is true, I think she would have a plan rather like the Dark One's to force the gods to agree to her demand.

[Kish]

"Durkula" was starting to grow on me,

I suggest using white vinegar.