OOTS #1135 - The Discussion Thread

[DaggerPen]

Given that the flashback to the bet wasn't in crayon, I think it's borderline goofy to suggest it didn't happen as it was depicted. Maybe something just offpanel changed it somehow, but everything that was shown happened.

I also tend to roll my eyes at "not my fault, I was drunk!" as an excuse for anyone who wasn't force-fed alcohol, for anything.

My rule is that I dont excuse people from culpability for anything they did or could have taken reasonable precautions against, but if someone took advantage of someone being drunk, I'm sympathetic. Now, as to whether Thor was drunk enough that his agreeing to the deal isn't on him is its own debate, but I don't rule out the idea that he was plastered enough for something like

[Immediately following where Hel's flashback left off]
"Huh? Dude, you just said a lot of words and I'm wasted. What's up?"
"Hel wants to make a bet with you over whether it's more important to have clerics or souls."
"I'll take that bet, clerics are way more important!"
"Awesome! Let's say that the winner gets [some godly prize]. Everyone agree to the terms?"
"Yeah!"

Thor, sobering up the next morning: "Hey, didn't I make some type of bet with Hel last night? How were we going to settle the winner?"
"Oh, funny story. You see..."
"WHAT?!"
"You were there when I stated the terms! No backsies!"

[I don't think that anything in Hel's flashback was incorrect, but I do note that she cut it off before Thor actually accepted the bet, or said anything more than "Huh?", because it was unrelated to her own narrative. We still have room for Thor's POV to finish the scene.]

[Keltest]

Isn't there? It illustrates her viewpoint, which informs part of Hel's character — that she deserves to be powerful, she's resentful, she's fragile and narcissistic.

The thing is, it does that even if her illusion is a literal factual representation of what happened. In fact, it makes it stronger, because we see that Hel goes into the deal willingly and simply misjudged the consequences. Whereas if it isn't remotely truthful, then Hel just looks insane for imagining the situation.

[Roderick_BR]

Thor's the kind of bro that'll help out a newbie with their exercise set instead of mocking them (within ear shot) to the friends for cool points.

[Rrmcklin]

I don't think "I was drunk" works as an excuse against everything (or even most things) but I feel like it's pretty standard that deals involving highly intoxicated people shouldn't count or be held against them. And we're talking about Loki, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting him extra drunk to do it, though that is admittedly speculation.

[nolongeralurker]

There is a vast gap between "it happened exactly as portrayed" and "every statement that comes out of every character's mouth is 100% reliable and represents the omniscient authorial viewpoint."

I don't think (though I could be wrong, I guess) that anyone was trying to argue that Hel's entire account of the bet has to be completely true, just that the flashback in the illusion happened exactly as shown (which we can make of what we will, since the rest of the bet-making isn't shown). (Personally, I don't even think the illusion must be 100% trusted to have happened that way the way a (regularly-drawn) flashback panel should, though in this case I think there's good reason to trust it). So basically, I agree with you, and I think you were probably misunderstanding someone. In any case, I'm fairly definitely certain that no one (myself included) believed Girard and Miko's statements you quoted. (I thought you were going to say Tarquin's quote about burning the ship was wrong because it didn't/wouldn't happen, if only because killing most of the main characters at the same time would be a weird narrative choice at that point in the story.) Tarquin's other quote is true if you accept that "children" can be a code word/euphemism for "vampire spawn." As for Xykon's quote, I actually thought that was true, depending on how you look at it, philosophically. You're free to differ, of course. I guess whether or not what he says in that strip is true in that particular context depends on whether you count "knowing/saving a paladin who's willing to save your life" as a power or not. In other words, either "power of spells+power of crushing windpipe < power of spells+power of knowing a paladin," so Xykon is right (he just didn't know V had the paladin available), or 'you personally having less power than your enemy personally has may not doom you if you have good friends(/allies) to save you,' so Xykon is wrong.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I don't think "I was drunk" works as an excuse against everything (or even most things) but I feel like it's pretty standard that deals involving highly intoxicated people shouldn't count or be held against them. And we're talking about Loki, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting him extra drunk to do it, though that is admittedly speculation.

Would Loki need to do that, or would he just time it so Thor was already that drunk?

You know in your heart which one is true.

Loki does love letting other people set themselves up.

[martianmister]

We actually saw happening of the bet from Hel's point of view, and Thor said nothing other than "huh," the whole bet is happen between Hel and Loki, with no collaboration from Thor.

[Rrmcklin]

@Rogar, honestly I don't think which one matters for the point I was making.

[DaggerPen]

We actually saw happening of the bet from Hel's point of view, and Thor said nothing other than "huh," the whole bet is happen between Hel and Loki, with no collaboration from Thor.

Huh. I'd actually read that scene as cutting off before Thor agreed, with the idea being that Hel stopped the memory once the part that was relevant to her - eg, her being "duped" - was done with. I think we might see Thor's side of it at some point. Otherwise, it wouldn't be hard for Thor, if he wanted out of the bet, to just go "Hey, I never agreed to that." (Or, for that matter, for Hel to go "He never agreed to that, it's moot, let me have clerics.")

[Derian]

Huh. I'd actually read that scene as cutting off before Thor agreed, with the idea being that Hel stopped the memory once the part that was relevant to her - eg, her being "duped" - was done with. I think we might see Thor's side of it at some point. Otherwise, it wouldn't be hard for Thor, if he wanted out of the bet, to just go "Hey, I never agreed to that." (Or, for that matter, for Hel to go "He never agreed to that, it's moot, let me have clerics.")

That or Loki's really good at making divinely binding contracts without both parties being entirely aware of what they're getting into. Which makes sense because Loki.

I wonder if Thor learned a lesson about getting drunk anywhere while on the same plane as Loki from the bet event. I don't recall in-comic when Thor's been falling-down drunk other than in the pre-world flashback, at least not off the top of my head.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't recall in-comic when Thor's been falling-down drunk other than in the pre-world flashback, at least not off the top of my head.

Here.

Grey Wolf

[KorvinStarmast]

Here.

Grey Wolf

Not falling down drunk, but certainly not drinking responsibly.
Blind darts with lightning bolts sounds like a fund game, D&D wise.

[Derian]

Not falling down drunk, but certainly not drinking responsibly.
Blind darts with lightning bolts sounds like a fund game, D&D wise.

If I was a D&D god, I would totally do that.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Not falling down drunk, but certainly not drinking responsibly.

I figured it'd do the trick, since he is clearly even more drunk there than during the bet.

Grey Wolf

[Lonely Tylenol]

Kudos to whoever it was who said Thor would shrink, to make this conversation easier for Rich to draw.

Ooh! That’s me!

Kind of my thoughts on this as well. It also makes drawing the conversation in varied and interesting ways very tedious. You basically have to over-rely on extreme close-ups to avoid the issue, or forced perspective and wide angles to address it, but this can only really be done so many ways before it starts to get old. Having two entities of roughly equal size just makes it easier to play with the standard conventions of comic conversations.

Now that the conversation’s turned to Minrah’s “thing” to discuss with Thor, I’ll avoid speculating further and retire with my perfect accuracy rate intact.

[Kardwill]

Yes, he didn't take the dinner offer after he lied and effectively stole half the money the clasp cost. That's a wonderful example of showing "still the same old Evil Belkar, but with empathy." Just because he doesn't twirl his mustache anymore doesn't make him less Evil.

Which is something that Haley would totally do (And did : We saw her swindle her teammates out of loot in the earlier chapters), and noone is saying that Haley is evil (although I'd argue she's borderline neutral)

And, importantly, he knew it was bad and felt remorse afterward ("It's bad enough I..."), something old Belkar would have laughed about. He suddenly considered the shopkeeper a person, felt bad for one of his victims, and that was a traumatic experience for him.

I'm not saying he's neutral right now. He's too remorseless about what he did for that. But I'm saying that you don't need an actual redemption to turn neutral. You just need to BE neutral from now on, and he's slowly getting there. It doesn't absolve you of your crimes (you're still guilty of the stuff you did previously and should be punished for it, just like V's regrets doesn't absolve him of the guilt of his own murder spree), but people can change without some sort of huge epiphany. The small stuff is just as important, and that small scene really painted Belkar in a different light : "He's still a jerk, but he doesn't enjoy it anymore"

[hroþila]

Yeah, I'm having a hard time to comprehend how "is able to feel empathy and refrains from taking even further advantage of someone they ripped off" is not less Evil than "fails to feel empathy and gladly takes further advantage of someone they ripped off". Evil is a spectrum. Belkar is firmly within that spectrum and there's little reason to believe he will ever leave it, but he's on a different spot than before.

[Worldsong]

I strongly feel that the gods as a group completely suck, so Thor's taking some heat here for being their representative even if he's one of their less-objectionable members. But he is party to the creation of the world and its inhabitants, and all the injustices that have gone baked into it, so relatively nice as he is, he's not blameless either. Surely a Good god should feel some remorse if they had a hand in causing suffering to innocents, even if it was more negligence than malice.

In Shojo's exposition, the gods agreed to let each god add their own thing to the world without fighting about it, to make sure there wouldn't be any Snarls in the new world.

I wouldn't call it negligence if Thor saw that the evil gods were weaving in injustice but didn't stop them because if he broke the rule of "let every god have a turn" the entire plan to create a new world and imprison the Snarl would fall apart. Of course imprisoning the Snarl was as much for the good of the gods as for the mortals but if the world was woven badly because the gods kept interfering with each other (Thor trying to stop the evil gods from adding injustice, evil gods trying to stop the good gods from adding fairness) the Snarl could have destroyed it all over again and annihilated the souls of everything living on the planet (for many considered a fate worse than death), and if they didn't create the world, well...

Is anyone interested in putting up a defense for the position "The gods should not have bothered with creating a new world"? Honestly it sounds like an interesting position to take even if I don't agree with it myself.

The further we get into the story the more it looks like Shojo didn't know the full story, but given what we've seen of Thor I'd give it good odds that he does actually feel pretty bad about all the injustice in the world. According to Hel Thor told the dwarves about the bet so they could establish a system to avoid going to Hel, which sounds a lot like Thor doing his best to prevent the dwarves getting royally screwed over by a bet made by the gods. It's still not entirely fair to the dwarves but most of them don't seem to mind living honourbound and from what we've seen of Hel so far maybe in the grand scheme of things it's still better if the dwarves have to live honourably than if Hel got her fair share of souls and clerics.

[zimmerwald1915]

Is anyone interested in putting up a defense for the position "The gods should not have bothered with creating a new world"? Honestly it sounds like an interesting position to take even if I don't agree with it myself.

Sure, I'll bite. Creating a world is an extremely serious and profound act, and should be treated as such. It is not something to be done on a whim or a lark, or for your own benefit, but for the creation's. The gods here are capricious and supremely self-interested; the world exists to entertain them and to empower them, not for its own sake. For the creations, never having existed would be preferable, as it would be better than eternal exploitation.

[schmunzel]

Sure, I'll bite. Creating a world is an extremely serious and profound act, and should be treated as such. It is not something to be done on a whim or a lark, or for your own benefit, but for the creation's. The gods here are capricious and supremely self-interested; the world exists to entertain them and to empower them, not for its own sake. For the creations, never having existed would be preferable, as it would be better than eternal exploitation.

I need to refute your heathen claims of creation being better of without a purpose.
All I read is mere complaining, that creation doesnt serve YOUR ideals.

To remedy the situation you would have to get rid of the (fallible) gods and thus you would deny existance to countless beings for no other reason as to begrudge the gods their entertainment.

Or to quote Roy : "our lives may be insignificant to you, but they have all the meaning in the world to us "

Now as a part of said creation you might call him biased. I'll give you that

sch

[Peelee]

Which is something that Haley would totally do (And did : We saw her swindle her teammates out of loot in the earlier chapters), and noone is saying that Haley is evil

Yeah, I'm having a hard time to comprehend how "is able to feel empathy and refrains from taking even further advantage of someone they ripped off" is not less Evil than "fails to feel empathy and gladly takes further advantage of someone they ripped off". Evil is a spectrum. Belkar is firmly within that spectrum and there's little reason to believe he will ever leave it, but he's on a different spot than before.

Good point. I'll concede that it wasn't that bad, and feeling bad about it afterwards was a positive change. Of course, its still in the sense of emptying a lake with a bucket. There certainly is less water in the lake, but you'll forgive me if I'm not preparing for the change in shoreline.

[B. Dandelion]

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Ha ha, but no. I'm looking for things to get FIXED, here. Thor being partially responsible for things having gone wrong means he has a responsibility to help set them right. I want to see him acknowledge that.

[Peelee]

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Ha ha, but no. I'm looking for things to get FIXED, here. Thor being partially responsible for things having gone wrong means he has a responsibility to help set them right. I want to see him acknowledge that.

Why only to Durkon, though?

[B. Dandelion]

Why only to Durkon, though?

Durkon's a proxy for the audience. Although the fact that he's an extraordinarily moral as well as devout individual could arguably make him an ideal mortal candidate to have the rest of things spelled out. He won't be knee-jerk opposed to the gods as a corrupt ruling class the way others might be, but his sense of right and wrong is (I think) too strong to be overwhelmed by awe of the divine either.

[Shining Wrath]

If each god gets to add their part to the world, and the other gods don't get to interfere, Thor is only responsible for the parts he added. By definition. It's as though the world is a collection of short stories with no editor for the collection; Thor writes his short story, Hel writes hers, and neither gets to change one jot nor tittle of the other's tale.

A good god refusing to participate at all means that the aggregate contents of the collection of stories are somewhat more evil.

The question, then, is how many gods does it take to make / remake OotSworld? If the evil gods are going to go ahead and make a world because they are enthusiastic about exploiting mortals, it seems that a neutral or good god would have a responsibility to add some good into the collection of completely independent short stories; otherwise, every tale will be nasty, brutish, and short.

If Hel could have made the world by herself (or Hel and one other evil god from the other two pantheons), and would have gone ahead anyway, a god that cares about the mortals is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Participate in creating a world that will contain much that is evil, or refuse to participate and thereby remove much that would be good from that world.

And the Snarl means that the good gods can't force the evil gods to write their stories any differently, or vice-versa.

Some might say that all the world's a stage, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Roy tells us that even if that's true from a deific viewpoint, from the perspective of one of the characters, that idiot's tale is all they've got. It's their everything.

Also worth noting is that when Macbeth delivered himself of those famous lines he was not in a particularly good mental state; in fact, he was a BBEG about to die monologuing.

[MReav]

I'm going to guess Minrah's 'thing' that she doesn't want to tell Durkon about...

Spoiler: Humour

Show

She's a closet tree-hugger. Which no self-respecting Thor-worshipping dwarf would admit to.

[martianmister]

If each god gets to add their part to the world, and the other gods don't get to interfere, Thor is only responsible for the parts he added. By definition. It's as though the world is a collection of short stories with no editor for the collection; Thor writes his short story, Hel writes hers, and neither gets to change one jot nor tittle of the other's tale.

A good god refusing to participate at all means that the aggregate contents of the collection of stories are somewhat more evil.

Sounds like Marvel comic books.

[Shining Wrath]

Sounds like Marvel comic books.

Both the Marvel and DC universes have some, shall we say, logical inconsistencies. Characters generally are capable of doing exactly what makes for a good story, even if that's different than what they did in some different story. And people like Doctor Doom and Magneto go from "malicious but you can work with them" to "scenery chewing EVULLLLLL" depending on the story.

[martianmister]

Both the Marvel and DC universes have some, shall we say, logical inconsistencies. Characters generally are capable of doing exactly what makes for a good story, even if that's different than what they did in some different story. And people like Doctor Doom and Magneto go from "malicious but you can work with them" to "scenery chewing EVULLLLLL" depending on the story.

Thus born the continuity snarl.

[Fish]

The thing is, it does that even if her illusion is a literal factual representation of what happened. In fact, it makes it stronger...

Sure. It could theoretically all be completely true and Hel could really be the heroine, the damsel in distress who had rightful dominion over the dwarves, but who had it stolen from her. Sure. In theory. It could all be true.

But why would it be? Name me a good reason why Rich would depict the evil goddess who is trying to destroy the world as the helpless victim of bullies who knocked her down and took her stuff. Why he would depict the archvillain of the current book as a sympathetic, honest character who was done wrong through no fault of her own.