OOTS #1170 - The Discussion Thread

[Keltest]

Also, I love the implicit message here from the brothers to Hel that they, and presumably all the other gods that are probably waiting in a line outside her door, know what she's trying to pull here, and are forcing her to either play along and miss her chance, or admit to wrongdoing and get kicked out of the club entirely. She is well and thoroughly cornered here.

[Rrmcklin]

So, takeaway is, Thor could have contested these dwarves' souls, but chose not to. Either because he felt it was a futile exercise not worth his time, or because he deliberately sacrificed them in order to have a chip in a situation like this. Either way, not a good look.

I mean, I'm sure he could have, but the very obvious implication is that he wouldn't have won the argument. It only works he because Hel has something she considers more important to worry about, and thus isn't putting up a serious fight. The whole hundred years worth of souls may very well be a different matter, though.

And as Loki is here now, I wonder if we might actually find out why he put this whole thing in motion to begin with.

[King of Nowhere]

ah, nothing like the feel of making obstructive burocracy work in your favor to undermine the guy trying to take advantage of said obstructive burocracy.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

There's no way that those cabinets are alphabetized, or date-ordered, or properly sorted.
Loki probably rearranged the files just to be a jerk.

[Guancyto]

I love how Hel is so committed to her get-rich-quick scheme that she's missing things that should be really obvious to her.

The Bet was one too - the usual clerical system is the classic "spend money to make money," but Hel was so intrigued by the possibility of getting something for nothing (you mean I don't have to spend any power on clerics, but get all the souls?) that she didn't even consider how the other shoe might drop.

She might get to be Queen of the Northern Pantheon in the next world - but if there have been millions of worlds, that's bound to be a short-lived honor, and other gods will never forget her usurping the pantheon.

[BriarHobbit]

I am amazed to see Thor as a lawyer. Hel, however, can't just concede all of those "uncontested souls." That will reduce her power base and presumably, her ability to cast spells into the Prime Material plane. This was very funny.

[Rrmcklin]

I love how Hel is so committed to her get-rich-quick scheme that she's missing things that should be really obvious to her.

The Bet was one too - the usual clerical system is the classic "spend money to make money," but Hel was so intrigued by the possibility of getting something for nothing (you mean I don't have to spend any power on clerics, but get all the souls?) that she didn't even consider how the other shoe might drop.

She might get to be Queen of the Northern Pantheon in the next world - but if there have been millions of worlds, that's bound to be a short-lived honor, and other gods will never forget her usurping the pantheon.

On what basis do you have to assume her being the Queen of their pantheon would stop after the next world's tenure? That the hierarchy changes with every world certainly hasn't been implied, and Hel's power move and the implications from it seem unprecedented. Certainly not somethin we have any actual reason to assume would end in a few thousand years.

[deuterio12]

To paraphrase Belkar, "Thank you, Loki, for solving the problem that only exists because of you". He was the one who engineered the best in the first place, remember.

Everybody makes mistakes. But aknowledging one's mistakes and working to fix them is a sign of goodness, not evilness.

Plus it takes more than one to play the game. Thor, Hel(l), all the other gods that could have the right to a dwarf soul, they agreed to go along the bet.

And keeping files doesn't make him Lawful. Putting aside that a Lawful version of Loki is a boggling concept in and of itself, keeping receipts can be very useful no matter what Alignment you are.

Lots of things can be useful long-term, but preparing for the long term in the first place is definitely closer to lawful than chaotic. You don't see many orc warlords or slaads with file cabinets about the activities of other orc warlords and slaads.

[Finback]

I'm not sure who's the better God of Lawyers.

[Crusher]

Hah! I love it!

Ok, this is kind of random, but I was watching a documentary on the Battle of Midway, and essentially this is how the US won. The Japanese had this massive carrier group with excellent pilots and planes, and also had some measure of surprise.

The Japanese carriers were really light on anti-air weaponry, but they were pretty maneuverable, so the doctrine was to defend against aerial attacks first by defensive fighters and secondly through defensive maneuvers. The downside of which was they weren't very good at launching new planes mid-battle because they were busy swerving around to dodge stuff.

The Japanese launched half their main strike force at the US naval base at Midway itself (keeping half in reserve to attack the US carrier fleet if it suddenly showed up, which it did). The attack badly damaged the base, but didn't knock it out.

The Americans then started sending constant small waves of planes to attack the Japanese. The Japanese were able to fend off each wave, shooting many of them down, and the carriers successfully dodged attack after attack. The Japanese fleet was on edge because they were under constant attack, but the results looked heavily in their favor. After like 3 hours of constant attacks, the Japanese had shot down 50+ US planes while losing maybe a dozen of their own and not a single Japanese carrier had been hit.

The problem was that the Japanese carriers had spent three straight hours evasive manuvers and dodging attacks. Which worked great... except that if a carrier is dodging around wildly it can't be launching new planes. When there were brief breaks in the action, the Japanese had to use them landing their returning initial strike group (the one that attacked Midway) so they didn't run out of gas and crash into the sea.

Finally, the US sent in a bigger wave of bombers, protected by the best fighter pilots, and they managed to draw almost all of the remaining Japanese fighters into a huge dogfight a little ways northeast of the carriers. It was a tough fight, and the Japanese pilots probably would have eventually won it, too, but it was a diversion.

The US had sent 3 full squadrons of dive bombers, entirely unescorted, in from the northwest. They caught the Japanese fleet by surprise with minimal air cover and blasted the crap out of them. The Japanese carriers' hangers were full with both the unused (but fully fueled and loaded) second half of the main strike force, as well as the returned bombers (which were in the process of being refueled and reloaded with bombs). For example, the Akagi was only hit by a single bomb (which in theory it should have easily been able to shrug off), but it happened to hit a hanger, blowing up among the planes. The planes' fuel caught fire, and then the bombs started chain detonating, destroying the carrier. All 4 Japanese carriers were destroyed.

Anyway, the point being, sometimes its worth taking extra damage if it means distracting the enemy enough so that they can't bring out the big guns.

[Guancyto]

On what basis do you have to assume her being the Queen of their pantheon would stop after the next world's tenure? That the hierarchy changes with every world certainly hasn't been implied, and Hel's power move and the implications from it seem unprecedented. Certainly not somethin we have any actual reason to assume would end in a few thousand years.

It might not stop after the next world's tenure. It might not stop after the ten next worlds' tenure. (Realistically I don't see her lasting more than a couple, just because she doesn't seem wily or charismatic enough to make it stick, and ruling the Norse pantheon is like herding greased, angry cats at the best of times.)

But gods' memories are forever, and forever is a really long time.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

I'm just going to guess right now this arc is going to end with Hel being parallaxxed/phantom zoned/thrown into the s(n)arlacc pit

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Hah! I love it!

Ok, this is kind of random, but I was watching a documentary on the Battle of Midway, and essentially this is how the US won. The Japanese had this massive carrier group with excellent pilots and planes, and also had some measure of surprise.

The Japanese carriers were really light on anti-air weaponry, but they were pretty maneuverable, so the doctrine was to defend against aerial attacks first by defensive fighters and secondly through defensive maneuvers. The downside of which was they weren't very good at launching new planes mid-battle because they were busy swerving around to dodge stuff.

The Japanese launched half their main strike force at the US naval base at Midway itself (keeping half in reserve to attack the US carrier fleet if it suddenly showed up, which it did). The attack badly damaged the base, but didn't knock it out.

The Americans then started sending constant small waves of planes to attack the Japanese. The Japanese were able to fend off each wave, shooting many of them down, and the carriers successfully dodged attack after attack. The Japanese fleet was on edge because they were under constant attack, but the results looked heavily in their favor. After like 3 hours of constant attacks, the Japanese had shot down 50+ US planes while losing maybe a dozen of their own and not a single Japanese carrier had been hit.

The problem was that the Japanese carriers had spent three straight hours evasive manuvers and dodging attacks. Which worked great... except that if a carrier is dodging around wildly it can't be launching new planes. When there were brief breaks in the action, the Japanese had to use them landing their returning initial strike group (the one that attacked Midway) so they didn't run out of gas and crash into the sea.

Finally, the US sent in a bigger wave of bombers, protected by the best fighter pilots, and they managed to draw almost all of the remaining Japanese fighters into a huge dogfight a little ways northeast of the carriers. It was a tough fight, and the Japanese pilots probably would have eventually won it, too, but it was a diversion.

The US had sent 3 full squadrons of dive bombers, entirely unescorted, in from the northwest. They caught the Japanese fleet by surprise with minimal air cover and blasted the crap out of them. The Japanese carriers' hangers were full with both the unused (but fully fueled and loaded) second half of the main strike force, as well as the returned bombers (which were in the process of being refueled and reloaded with bombs). The Akagi was only hit by a single bomb, but it happened to hit a hanger, blowing up among the planes. The bombs on the parked planes then started chain detonating, also igniting the fuel. All 4 Japanese carriers were destroyed.

Anyway, the point being, sometimes its worth taking extra damage if it means distracting the enemy enough so that they can't bring out the big guns.

The lead-up to Midway was pretty brilliant, too. Joseph J. Rochefort (a slipper-wearing 20-hour-workday-having cryptanalysis genius) and his guys (Station HYPO) had decoded Japan's messages to the point of knowing that they tended to name target places in the Hawai'i region with initials starting with A (for example, Oahu was already known to be AH), and the Japanese were planning on sending a carrier force to AF. Rochefort believed that AF was Midway, but Admiral Nimitz was concerned that Midway could be a false lead, and that if you wanted to throw off enemy cryptanalysis, making a pattern and then breaking it is a time-proven method.

In the end, it was agreed that the navy would broadcast a message that the desalination plants at Midway had broken down.

A bit later, a Japanese intelligence report was saying that "AF is short of water". Midway it was.

Not sure what the point or lesson of this one is, but it's always been a cool story to me.

[whiteflash]

It might not stop after the next world's tenure. It might not stop after the ten next worlds' tenure. (Realistically I don't see her lasting more than a couple, just because she doesn't seem wily or charismatic enough to make it stick, and ruling the Norse pantheon is like herding greased, angry cats at the best of times.)

But gods' memories are forever, and forever is a really long time.

She doesn't seem to think it works based on charisma. It sounds like she thought was going to get it based on being more powerful than all the other gods, which she assumed she was going to be based on the fact that she was about to get eight million souls and eight million dedications all in one swoop. And you'd think if she was wrong about how leadership of the pantheon works, or on how much power she'd have relative to the rest of the Northern Pantheon when the dust cleared, one of the other gods would have pointed it out.

As for that not lasting, I'd assume that as the Queen of the Northern Pantheon, she'd have a bigger share of worshipers than the rest of the Northern Gods, and thus more power. So she'd just need to gain the power to take the helm, and keeping it would take care of itself, unless someone else has a once-in-eternity stroke of good luck.

[Rrmcklin]

It might not stop after the next world's tenure. It might not stop after the ten next worlds' tenure. (Realistically I don't see her lasting more than a couple, just because she doesn't seem wily or charismatic enough to make it stick, and ruling the Norse pantheon is like herding greased, angry cats at the best of times.)

But gods' memories are forever, and forever is a really long time.

This assumes they'll hold a grudge, when, realistically, the only person actually losing anything is Odin.

And you seem to be working under the logic as if the Pantheon is some sort of democracy or if it is the way it is because they all agreed to it. When in actuality, it seems like Odin is the leader because he's the most powerful, hence why Hel becoming the most powerful will put her in charge. And in this hypothetical in which she is the most powerful and free of the bet restricting her, staying that way would likely be fairly easy; Odin apparently managed if for billions of years.

Look, I'm not trying to argue that Hel is the sharpest tool in the box, but certain people have a tendency to make some, frankly, baseless assumptions and then act as if she's dumb for not adhering to those aforementioned assumptions.

[StClair]

I'm looking forward to Loki Dad Jokes.

[Cavenskull]

You're misunderstanding my argument - sorry I must be bad at this ;-)

I don't think anything will work - I'm not at all imagining or stating that Hilgya is getting any benefit out of her belief system.

What I'm postulating (badly I guess) is that IF there was a hypothetical dwarf in the previous year (or file cabinet) who wholeheartedly and righteously believed with his/her whole heart and soul that to die with honor was in fact the most important thing - and then said hypothetical dwarf failed to die honorably - then they would be correctly judged to have been a moral failure and going to Hel would be an appropriate judgement.

When I first read the strip I imagined (without cause perhaps) that Regin Greenhammer might be such a dwarf, and that by making a funny but patently absurd argument to release him, it felt to me that Thor was in fact subverting more than just the bet.

Mainly wanted to say - to me this one felt a little off....

By that logic, Roy should have been kicked out of the good afterlife for his multiple moral failings.

Keep in mind that life gets complicated. For instance, lets assume for a moment that Hilgya is your hypothetical dwarf. Let's also assume that she managed to die during the fight with the vampires, leaving her child alone and helpless against an army of vampires. Is that "death with honor" really so important that it's worth effectively sacrificing her child to achieve it? Or what if she lived, and her child managed to die in the battle instead? Does the fact that she was willing to die with honor absolve her of that death? What if they both died?

Now, what if Hilgya left her child with the other dwarves as recommended, and she flees from a losing battle to make sure she's still alive to take care of her child? Is that failure to die with honor so egregious that her desire to care for a helpless child cannot overcome that lack of honor?

What if we look at another dwarf? Durkon definitely believes in dwarven honor and knows the consequences of a dishonorable death, yet he's fled from many fights. Should that cowardice trump his consistent desire to help his fellow party members, to eventually heal his mother, to generally do good, to stop an evil lich, and to save all of existence?

There are lots of cases where a generally honorable person can occasionally do something dishonorable, and if any dishonorable action trumps all the good that someone did during their life, what's the point in trying to be a decent person?

[Rogar Demonblud]

It should be noted that most of the times the Order is fleeing from a fight, Durkon is literally being dragged away from the scene by Roy. He is NOT running away.

[Guancyto]

She doesn't seem to think it works based on charisma.

Yes, I know she doesn't.

Dwight D. Eisenhower once remarked of leadership, "pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all."

Odin seems to get to be in charge, at this point, by largely not throwing his weight around. There are tons of fiddly god rules, but they seem to be adhered to by consent, and because the alternative is thought to be worse. (Given the timescales involved, it was probably worse before and they've probably worked all this out over a very long time.)

And you seem to be working under the logic as if the Pantheon is some sort of democracy or if it is the way it is because they all agreed to it.

Ha! You do realize that this story arc is literally about a divine referendum, right? Remember? Stopping a vampire dwarf from committing election fraud?

Even without the explicit democratic element, I am working under the assumption that if you piss everyone off by assuming your power lets you do whatever you want (Hel is many things in this comic strip, but a light touch is not one of them), they'll depose you, and if they can't do that they'll undermine you.

I am, of course, only speculating. But I speculate that the Northern Gods will chafe under Hel's yoke much more quickly than Odin's.

[woweedd]

Garl Glittergold would like to talk to you about being THE ONLY Lawful Trickery god.

He's a Gnome. They're...different.

Loki appears to have been infused with a case of the Tom Hiddlestons, because that's more Hiddleston Loki than a truly evil Loki.

Getting the chance to play a hilarious joke AND prove a point to his daughter, plu distracting her form a plan that will destroy the entire world, of which he is rather fond? He'd be a fool not to.

Everybody makes mistakes. But aknowledging one's mistakes and working to fix them is a sign of goodness, not evilness.

Plus it takes more than one to play the game. Thor, Hel(l), all the other gods that could have the right to a dwarf soul, they agreed to go along the bet.



Lots of things can be useful long-term, but preparing for the long term in the first place is definitely closer to lawful than chaotic. You don't see many orc warlords or slaads with file cabinets about the activities of other orc warlords and slaads.

Hel is also Evil and, so far as I cant ell, Thor was the only other one who agreed, and he was drunk out of his mind at the time. Loki has been explicitly referred as Evil, and, as for his Ethos...Well, I could see a Good interpretation of Loki. But a Lawful Loki...That just defies all logic. Even Rich, with his admittedly loose adherence to Norse Mythology, wouldn't make one of the most bluntly Chaotic figures in all of myth Lawful. Good? Maybe, but I doubt it. Lawful? No dice.

[whiteflash]

Yes, I know she doesn't.

Dwight D. Eisenhower once remarked of leadership, "pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all."

Odin seems to get to be in charge, at this point, by largely not throwing his weight around. There are tons of fiddly god rules, but they seem to be adhered to by consent, and because the alternative is thought to be worse. (Given the timescales involved, it was probably worse before and they've probably worked all this out over a very long time.)

But what about my other main point? The point that none of the other gods question that this plan of hers is workable? If just not following Hel even if she's the most powerful member was workable, and the other gods were willing to do it, you'd think the other gods would have pointed that out by now.

You mention that a lot of the reason the gods follow these rules is that they think the alternative is worse. It's true, and I don't think you're paying enough attention to it.

Ha! You do realize that this story arc is literally about a divine referendum, right? Remember? Stopping a vampire dwarf from committing election fraud?

Even without the explicit democratic element, I am working under the assumption that if you piss everyone off by assuming your power lets you do whatever you want (Hel is many things in this comic strip, but a light touch is not one of them), they'll depose you, and if they can't do that they'll undermine you.

I am, of course, only speculating. But I speculate that the Northern Gods will chafe under Hel's yoke much more quickly than Odin's.

They almost certainly will chafe. But it sounds like the rules will keep her in power for the foreseeable future, no matter how they chafe, unless one of the other gods get unreasonably lucky. The other gods might work behind her back to weaken her position, but with the additional worshipers I assume she gets as the highest ranking Northern God, they'll need some sort of large source of power to take the throne the way she did.

Of course, that assumes she doesn't do something really stupid that forces them to throw out the rules out of self-preservation, and maybe that isn't an entirely safe assumption... but if she doesn't do that? If all she is is a selfish leader who puts herself first, she could stay one for quite some time, even by godly standards.

[Cavenskull]

It should be noted that most of the times the Order is fleeing from a fight, Durkon is literally being dragged away from the scene by Roy. He is NOT running away.

That's certainly true, though I thought the idea was to work around Durkon's slow movement, and of course Durkon wasn't resisting being part of the retreat. And for the purposes of the point that's in dispute, all it should take to undo all of Durkon's good deeds is one dishonorable action, like that time he exhibited so much cowardice that he fled from combat with his sworn enemy, even going so far as to literally abandon his weaponry. But as Durkon has proven quite dramatically, you're not defined by who you are on your worst day.

[Guancyto]

"You're almost certainly going to be a terrible leader, you dirty usurper you, and you'll be out on your ear in a world or two and we'll make sure you don't get that powerful again," is not something you tell the soon-to-be despot.

Odin's current spot at the top (if you want to talk about unfounded assumptions, assuming he was leader from the universe's beginning until now is a big one!) seems to be that of a first-among-equals and I don't think we've seen him actually try to boss another god around at all yet. This makes sense - rule-by-power is sustainable when you can kill everyone you don't like, but when everyone else is a god too it's rule-by-consent or titanomachy.

The Northern Gods themselves (as we see them giving their reasoning for their votes) are, just, crazy individualistic, and if Hel attempts to actually capitalize on her new position it seems unlikely to go well.

Which brings us back to what I was saying: she's so focused on getting powerful quickly and getting out of her hole in the ground that she doesn't consider the consequences... which is what got her in that hole in the ground in the first place.

[whiteflash]

"You're almost certainly going to be a terrible leader, you dirty usurper you, and you'll be out on your ear in a world or two and we'll make sure you don't get that powerful again," is not something you tell the soon-to-be despot.

But you seem to be questioning that her plan even could make her the soon-to-be-despot the way she asserts it can. If that assertion isn't true, you'd think they'd point it out to her, and maybe solve the problems she's creating for her own benefit just by talking her down. And since in this hypothetical, she wouldn't be the soon-to-be-despot no matter what happened, there'd be no reason for them not to try.

Odin's current spot at the top (if you want to talk about unfounded assumptions, assuming he was leader from the universe's beginning until now is a big one!) seems to be that of a first-among-equals and I don't think we've seen him actually try to boss another god around at all yet. This makes sense - rule-by-power is sustainable when you can kill everyone you don't like, but when everyone else is a god too it's rule-by-consent or titanomachy.

The Northern Gods themselves (as we see them giving their reasoning for their votes) are, just, crazy individualistic, and if Hel attempts to actually capitalize on her new position it seems unlikely to go well.

Which brings us back to what I was saying: she's so focused on getting powerful quickly and getting out of her hole in the ground that she doesn't consider the consequences... which is what got her in that hole in the ground in the first place.

Wait, where are you getting the impression she intends to rule by power? She seems to want to rule by exploiting the rules to make herself the leader, and then forcing everyone to go along with it to preserve the order they agreed on. She seems to understand that to some degree the leaders of the gods rule by consent, and to have set this plan up to gain that consent. If she wants to become the most powerful deity as part of that plan, it's not because she can force her way using that power, but because (it's implied) the mere fact that she is the most powerful gives her added privileges while they're making decisions.

[Fyraltari]

To paraphrase Belkar, "Thank you, Loki, for solving the problem that only exists because of you". He was the one who engineered the best in the first place, remember. And keeping files doesn't make him Lawful. Putting aside that a Lawful version of Loki is a boggling concept in and of itself, keeping receipts can be very useful no matter what Alignment you are.

I had assumed that Loki and Thor just went and fetched these files from the devas and other relevant afterlife workers

Everybody makes mistakes. But aknowledging one's mistakes and working to fix them is a sign of goodness, not evilness.

Oh, come on! "Let's offer my evil daughter a bunch of souls based on an unjust system" is not a mistake, it's a bareface crime. And Loki shows no sign of repentance.

Plus it takes more than one to play the game. Thor, Hel(l), all the other gods that could have the right to a dwarf soul, they agreed to go along the bet.

Thor was black-out drunk and I see no reason why anyone would need to have agreed to anything. Monkey got nija into this world without anyone's agreement because it was his turn. It's not unlikely that Hel unilateraly implemented the rules of the Bet on her turn.

[woweedd]

"You're almost certainly going to be a terrible leader, you dirty usurper you, and you'll be out on your ear in a world or two and we'll make sure you don't get that powerful again," is not something you tell the soon-to-be despot.

Odin's current spot at the top (if you want to talk about unfounded assumptions, assuming he was leader from the universe's beginning until now is a big one!) seems to be that of a first-among-equals and I don't think we've seen him actually try to boss another god around at all yet. This makes sense - rule-by-power is sustainable when you can kill everyone you don't like, but when everyone else is a god too it's rule-by-consent or titanomachy.

The Northern Gods themselves (as we see them giving their reasoning for their votes) are, just, crazy individualistic, and if Hel attempts to actually capitalize on her new position it seems unlikely to go well.

Which brings us back to what I was saying: she's so focused on getting powerful quickly and getting out of her hole in the ground that she doesn't consider the consequences... which is what got her in that hole in the ground in the first place.

{scrubbed} Back on subject: We don't know how Gods take or keep power. We assume souls, that seems plausible. Narratively, Hel's plan has to be fesibale, becaus,e otherwise, there's no drama. And I think we can assume Odin was chief god at the world's birth, given the crayon flashbacks, which, yes, were unreliable in other regards, but I still take a "trun-until-proven-otherwise" attitude towards, with only one of its claims proving to false thus far.

I had assumed that Loki and Thor just went and fetched these files from the devas and other relevant afterlife workers

Oh, come on! "Let's offer my evil daughter a bunch of souls based on an unjust system" is not a mistake, it's a bareface crime. And Loki shows no sign of repentance.


Thor was black-out drunk and I see no reason why anyone would need to have agreed to anything. Monkey got nija into this world without anyone's agreement because it was his turn. It's not unlikely that Hel unilateraly implemented the rules of the Bet on her turn.

Plus, if ALL the Gods are Evil, as they appear to be suggesting, I see no reason to make Loki an exception.

[Yirggzmb]

Loki appears to have been infused with a case of the Tom Hiddlestons, because that's more Hiddleston Loki than a truly evil Loki.

To be fair, I'm not sure I've really ever seen a truly evil Loki. Discounting actual Ragnarok, even mythological Loki wouldn't be too far out of sorts with OotS Loki or Hiddleston Loki. Sure you're never quite sure which side he's on (probably only his own), but that's just part of the trickster archetype. And even mythological Ragnarok always felt more like a revenge thing than a "for the evuls" thing to me.

[Guancyto]

But you seem to be questioning that her plan even could make her the soon-to-be-despot the way she asserts it can. If that assertion isn't true, you'd think they'd point it out to her, and maybe solve the problems she's creating for her own benefit just by talking her down. And since in this hypothetical, she wouldn't be the soon-to-be-despot no matter what happened, there'd be no reason for them not to try.

Yes, because someone making a play for supreme executive power will respond well to "politically-speaking, we're going to make your life hell if you go through with this and squish you after you've had your fun, so you should probably stop." Come on. The others don't tell her it'll be unfeasible because it'll be unfeasible because of them.

Wait, where are you getting the impression she intends to rule by power? She seems to want to rule by exploiting the rules to make herself the leader, and then forcing everyone to go along with it to preserve the order they agreed on. She seems to understand that to some degree the leaders of the gods rule by consent, and to have set this plan up to gain that consent. If she wants to become the most powerful deity as part of that plan, it's not because she can force her way using that power, but because (it's implied) the mere fact that she is the most powerful gives her added privileges while they're making decisions.

I guess that's the crux of our disagreement! The harder she pushes on the Northern Gods as their leader, the less time she's likely to last, but the more things will go her way. The easier her yoke is, the longer her rule will be. Odin seems to have kept his position for a very long time by not asking much. If Hel can thread the needle just right she can stay in power for a very long time, but the manner of her ascension means the deck is stacked against her in terms of influence from the very start, and the nature of her being means that influence is the most important currency, not power. (That's not to discount the influence she gains from her newfound power, but y'know.)

The reason I think she'll try to be a despot and is bound to fail is speculative, and that's all on me. But it's because of her gloating at the Godsmoot - she was making it incredibly clear that this is a usurpation. Who does that? Nobody does that! Nobody but someone who intends to make it clear that in the new regime, it will be her way or the highway.

[Zhorn]

The moment Thor moved on to the second soul; I had a goofy grin on my face seeing where this was going.

Great comic Giant

[Wysper]

This is one of the most Epic Stories, it fills the gap in my heart left by lack of Epic D&D.