Is the Snarl actually evil?

[woweedd]

I see places for Banjo and Giggles in Purple Pantheon.

I don't believe The Snarl can be Evil or Good. It is a personification of godly strife. Even if intelligent enough to be self aware, it is a creation of all the gods, Good and Evil.

...I doubt the Dark One would accept puppets. And they don't have nearly enough worshippers.

[Emanick]

...I doubt the Dark One would accept puppets. And they don't have nearly enough worshippers.

FWIW, I'm unsure if The Dark One would get to veto whether they joined his pantheon. If they've got the purple quiddity, they've got it - not much he can do, except maybe kill them immediately after they've ascended, before they've got time to "consolidate" their power.

Of course, neither puppet is going to ascend. But maybe another purple god will eventually. Who knows?

I don't believe The Snarl can be Evil or Good. It is a personification of godly strife. Even if intelligent enough to be self aware, it is a creation of all the gods, Good and Evil.

Look at its behavior. It murders everything in its path. If it's sapient, that's textbook Chaotic Evil behavior.

[woweedd]

FWIW, I'm unsure if The Dark One would get to veto whether they joined his pantheon. If they've got the purple quiddity, they've got it - not much he can do, except maybe kill them immediately after they've ascended, before they've got time to "consolidate" their power.

Of course, neither puppet is going to ascend. But maybe another purple god will eventually. Who knows?



Look at its behavior. It murders everything in its path. If it's sapient, that's textbook Chaotic Evil behavior.

Well, yes, but your quiddity is based on which pantheon your followers believe you should be in. And, if anything, Banjo and Giggle should make up their own, extremely weak pantheon, possibly with some sort of orange quiddity. Also, they're already gods. If people worship you, you're a god, albeit a very minor one. That said, as regards another deity joining the purple pantheon...Do you think enough Goblins worship Redcloak? ALmost cectrainley not gonna happen, but worth considering.

[Fyraltari]

Depending on the exact meaning of "sponsorship", it is possible that the trnasformation from mortal soul in fleshy suit to divine spirit in a singularity required the intervention of pre-existing gods to happen, giving their quiddity to the newly formed god. So, mortals could believe in another mortal* without ever raising them to actual godhood... or so the gods thought.


*Banjo and Giggles have never had mortal souls

[factotum]

Depending on the exact meaning of "sponsorship", it is possible that the trnasformation from mortal soul in fleshy suit to divine spirit in a singularity required the intervention of pre-existing gods to happen, giving their quiddity to the newly formed god. So, mortals could believe in another mortal* without ever raising them to actual godhood... or so the gods thought.

However, those gods would then need to gain worshippers somehow or else they'd be powerless, so I think it makes a bit more sense to assume that they started out with worshippers and ascended to godhood through the combined prayers of those people.

[Kish]

"you will almost certainly be bored with a lot of the material I'm producing. And more importantly, I won't care.

it's unlikely you are ever going to enjoy it."

Yikes. Really telling people off there! Acrimonious indeed. Wonder what happened to make him so hostile?

He was quite blunt enough that simply reading the words as what they say and not mining them for some hidden, unstated motivation is probably the best way to arrive at actual understanding.

Whether that will bring you to the conclusion you want to reach is another question.

[Paleomancer]

Not trying to get off topic on the sapience thing, but it seems heavily related to the evil thing for some people. I personally think they are unrelated. Yes a wolf is neutral, and yes a wolf will do things that might seem "Evil" to survive, but a wolf's sole existence does not revolve around destruction. Animals don't want "nothing more than destruction".

Remaining aware of forum rules, the concept of Evil and Good as presented in D&D and in this comic is entirely from collective Western notions of morality (“Western” defined as the cultures of Europe and the Middle-East whose exchange of ideas resulted in modern Western societies as we know them). In this system, evil and good are held to be derived from awareness of oneself and our relations with the world and one another, turning us into moral agents who can choose right or wrong. This is so pervasive an idea, most legal systems in the modern day use this very premise as a foundation, regardless of political, social, or religious affiliation. It gets complicated speaking of non-Western traditions like Taoism, where “Evil” and “Good” do not have exact counterparts, but somewhat comparable analogues of positivity and negativity do exist. Hence why, under this tradition, a hurricane (mindless), a young child (inadequate self-awareness and understanding of moral concequences), and a wolf (mostly instinctual and with little capacity for empathy and “culture”) are generally held not to be, and cannot be, evil under this precept, but a human adult can be. Of course, harm can still be perpetuated, but that is a somewhat different and more complicated issue.

As to whether the Snarl is evil, one way or another, we have seen little to support how self-aware it truly is. If it is driven by “instinct” to strike at ordered systems (worlds) it may not have a true “choice” in the way that most organisms do not. If it has no real mind, then it purely a natural process. If it has a mind and seeks to destroy because it can or for some other negatuve reason, it is probably closer to evil.

[Fyraltari]

However, those gods would then need to gain worshippers somehow or else they'd be powerless, so I think it makes a bit more sense to assume that they started out with worshippers and ascended to godhood through the combined prayers of those people.

I don't see how that contradicts what I am saying. As the Dark One proves, belief is all that is actually necessary for a mortal to ascend. However, Thor & Co seems to have been surprised by this ("he did it completely on his own", "somehow he tapped into an entirely new color of divine essence").

I don't see what is particularly surprising about gaining followers, since their are religions worshipping "rocks".

So it is possible that the Gods used to believe that while it was necessary for an ascending mortal to have worshippers, it wasn't enough and that nothing would happen if they did not get personnally involved. Until the Dark One proved them wrong.

That's just theorizing of course.

[woweedd]

I don't see how that contradicts what I am saying. As the Dark One proves, belief is all that is actually necessary for a mortal to ascend. However, Thor & Co seems to have been surprised by this ("he did it completely on his own", "somehow he tapped into an entirely new color of divine essence").

I don't see what is particularly surprising about gaining followers, since their are religions worshipping "rocks".

So it is possible that the Gods used to believe that while it was necessary for an ascending mortal to have worshippers, it wasn't enough and that nothing would happen if they did not get personnally involved. Until the Dark One proved them wrong.

That's just theorizing of course.

I think it's entirely possible that all the ascended gods before, through the power of belief, were slotted into existing pantheons rather then forming their own.

[Fyraltari]

What would "sponsorship" mean in this case?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

What would "sponsorship" mean in this case?

"Providing the quiddity that gave them their divine rank 0", I'd imagine. I mean, it makes sense: if to be a good you need quiddity, and mortal don't have it, and the gods don't know that sufficient belief will generate a random colour quiddity, they might call "sponsor" the process of infusing the belief target with quiddity until it becomes self-sustaining.

How they know it's time to sponsor someone I don't know, though.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

"Providing the quiddity that gave them their divine rank 0", I'd imagine. I mean, it makes sense: if to be a good you need quiddity, and mortal don't have it, and the gods don't know that sufficient belief will generate a random colour quiddity, they might call "sponsor" the process of infusing the belief target with quiddity until it becomes self-sustaining.

How they know it's time to sponsor someone I don't know, though.

Grey Wolf

But that's what I am proposing, not woweedd.

[brian 333]

My real question on this issue is, can The Snarl even touch TDO? It lacks his color. The Dark One could conceivably ally with The Snarl, kill all the goblins and reap their souls, then help The Snarl kill off all the gods.

Thereafter, he could use The Snarl and all the other strands of creation to create a new world, a stronger world, a purple world. The Snarl would be powerless to interfere in it because it would be a five-color world, using the threads of creations past and adding in his own.

[Fyraltari]

My real question on this issue is, can The Snarl even touch TDO? It lacks his color.

Nobody said that you needed to be the same color as something else to destroy it

The Dark One could conceivably ally with The Snarl, kill all the goblins and reap their souls, then help The Snarl kill off all the gods.

Thereafter, he could use The Snarl and all the other strands of creation to create a new world, a stronger world, a purple world. The Snarl would be powerless to interfere in it because it would be a five-color world, using the threads of creations past and adding in his own.

That's not an alliance, that would be the Dark One controling the Snarl, which we heve no reason to believe is possible.

[RaveDave92084]

While "Chaotic Hungry" both fits in my mind and give me a chuckle. I hear echoes of H.P. Lovecraft's Azathoth.

Described as the blind idiot god, mindless god, etc.

Got introduced to this when I played "Call of Cthulu" in the mid to late '80s.

Azathoth is a mindless god that is more powerful than anything else in our universe, and seeing it or being near it will cause madness and death. The un-creation of sanity and existence.

Azathoth sleeps in an endless slumber in the center of a chaotic void and any attempts, in game, to "summon" it will cause immediate devastation over a wide area, 100s to 1000s of miles/kilometers. The game wanted a comparison to the Russian Tunguska Event for these "summonings".

I see the SNARL in a similar vein. Based on depictions so far, I see it as a mindless, angry, savage mad dog type with infinite destructive power. Incapable of actual evil because of mindlessness.

Because of its 4 quiddity creation, it is more real and more powerful than any single quiddity god. Including TDO.

Some quotes about Azathoth:

Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity — the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.
H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

Before his eyes a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of a vast, unplumbed abyss of night wherein whirled suns and worlds of an even profounder blackness. He thought of the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose centre sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a daemoniac flute held in nameless paws
H.P. Lovecraft, The Haunter of the Dark

[Mandor]

I still like the Doctor Who quote.

"Hardly anything is evil, but most things are hungry. Hunger looks very much like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery--or do you think your bacon sandwich loves you back?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyUl3rTt80c

[TARINunit9]

I still like the Doctor Who quote.

"Hardly anything is evil, but most things are hungry. Hunger looks very much like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery--or do you think your bacon sandwich loves you back?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyUl3rTt80c

More evidence that old Doctor No isn't even all that smart. Evil isn't hunger, evil is malice. Galactus who eats planets because that's what he needs for sustenance is a sympathetic antagonist; Unicron who eats planets because he likes watching the little mortals scream in terror is an evil villain

[Fyraltari]

More evidence that old Doctor No isn't even all that smart. Evil isn't hunger, evil is malice. Galactus who eats planets because that's what he needs for sustenance is a sympathetic antagonist; Unicron who eats planets because he likes watching the little mortals scream in terror is an evil villain

He did not said that it was the same thing (dude met Davros after all) he said that when you are something's food it is easy to confuse that thing's hunger for evil.

[martianmister]

More evidence that old Doctor No isn't even all that smart.

Well, considering how he handled Bond, you're probably right.

[Ramza00]

The snarl is a child who does not know its own strength and it wanted its 4 groups of parents to stop fighting. After it "took out" one group of arguing parents the other 3 groups decided to send it to its room with no supper for a boundless number of worlds. The snarl who is a child is now just trying to get out of his room and "play."

[Inst]

Right now, naive Canon is claiming that the Snarl destroys souls. But if you treat the Snarl as another universe, the assumption should be that the Snarl absorbs souls instead, not different from how a god absorbs souls in the afterlife.

The snarl, for that matter, has absorbed at least thousands of worlds the Gods refused to smash. This means that the Snarl has the soul power of hundreds of worlds, including Laser Snail. Being contained in the Divine Prison isn't that bad a deal for the Snarl, given that as an entity capable of challenging the Gods, every time the Gods feed it a world, it gets stronger.

[Bacon Elemental]

Right now, naive Canon is claiming that the Snarl destroys souls. But if you treat the Snarl as another universe, the assumption should be that the Snarl absorbs souls instead, not different from how a god absorbs souls in the afterlife.

The snarl, for that matter, has absorbed at least thousands of worlds the Gods refused to smash. This means that the Snarl has the soul power of hundreds of worlds, including Laser Snail. Being contained in the Divine Prison isn't that bad a deal for the Snarl, given that as an entity capable of challenging the Gods, every time the Gods feed it a world, it gets stronger.

Assuming that thats actually how the Snarl works at all, wouldnt that power quickly* waste away to nothing a la every other kind of soul power?

* on a metauniversal scale of thousands of years

[RatElemental]

Right now, naive Canon is claiming that the Snarl destroys souls. But if you treat the Snarl as another universe, the assumption should be that the Snarl absorbs souls instead, not different from how a god absorbs souls in the afterlife.

The snarl, for that matter, has absorbed at least thousands of worlds the Gods refused to smash. This means that the Snarl has the soul power of hundreds of worlds, including Laser Snail. Being contained in the Divine Prison isn't that bad a deal for the Snarl, given that as an entity capable of challenging the Gods, every time the Gods feed it a world, it gets stronger.

You've got a few dubious assumptions there, including that the snarl absorbs souls, can do anything with them even if it does, and also that gods absorb souls. We have word of giant that souls eventually end up as cookie cutter soul power batteries that just stand around all day being soul power batteries for the gods.

Because I am saying that is specifically what the afterlife does. It makes you into a cookie-cutter clone of everyone of the same alignment. It may take centuries to do so, but all the people at the top of the mountain? Completely indistinguishable from one another. Arguably, that is the purpose of the D&D afterlife—to turn flawed mortal souls into perfect alignment-batteries, through various methodologies. In the Nine Hells, they torture you until you forget everything else. In Celestia, you meditate until you renounce all worldly concerns. In Valhalla, you party until you can't remember your own name. In Limbo, the chaos drives you mad. In Mechanus, you sit in grey cubicle stamping paperwork until you are bored into oblivion. And so on and so forth.

It doesn't say anything about absorbing the souls. Admittedly, they might eventually, but it does also raise the question of what method the snarl is using to turn the souls into alignment batteries for it.

[Mordaedil]

The Snarl seems to be the result of what happens when something is several things at once. Elves being beautiful man-sized people living in the forest and short people making presents on the North pole, at the same time. They are the world's internal consistencies made manifest and as a result undoes itself and the things that create it.

[KorvinStarmast]

The snarl who is a child is now just trying to get out of his room and "play."

Heh, I like your take on that.

In Valhalla, you party until you can't remember your own name.

Sign me up. (Actually, that sounds like a few port calls I made when I was in the Navy, and we partied with utter abandon).