Why a God/Plane should refuse a soul.

[Dr.Zero]

Everytingh else notwithstanding, I don't know why people think Evil should be less nitpicking than Good, in a D&D setting.
That is not RL religion, where Hell is the trash bin of Heaven: in D&D all the alignments have the same importance and, in OOTS, the same final result: merging with the plane/being used as battery by some God.

Now, starting with the fact that every God like souls, since they are energy/food, the only reason to kick some soul away is that eating/merging a soul of a different alignment is going to damage the God/Plane.

For the Good plane, merging with something not purely Good might be damaging.
But symmetrically that stands true even for an Evil plane merging with something not purely Evil.

Edit: otoh, Hel seems to have no problem in using souls which should belong to different planes. Which both proves the point about being interested in souls for power and apparently disproves the point about souls of a different alignment damaging the God/plane. So, meh.

Reference to the above post.
Gods are interested in souls, which power them.
At the same time, planes are going to absorb souls.
But (good) Devas are shown to be ok about kicking away Roy's soul if he wasn't LG enough.

My first theory has been mentioned above: merging the wrong soul/plane damages the plane (like adding a negative number, to say so... or mixing **** with good wine, to make a more trivial example).

BUT! Hel doesn't care. So that theory must be wrong.

Nonetheless if only Good God/Planes were so nitpicking (like: you're not over 90% Good we refuse you!) while Evil were not (accepting everything, like "Oh, you were refused according to their strict rules, fine, we have place here!") and this was not going to damage them, in the long run Evil Gods/Plane would end up with way more soul (and power) than Good ones.

My first reaction would be: "Meh, the author didn't think too much about it."

But, if we want to explain that, what could we try?

I admit that I never cared too much about what happened to the souls of the deceaseds in D&D.

I've given a quick glance now, and in 5e it seems that some souls are claimed by some Gods, and the others become larvae which are like at the bottom of a hellish food chain. Cool, that might work to keep a balance even here. But it is not how it works here.

So, what is the most accredited theory which is coherent with all the points we have shown?

If a Good God refuses a soul, I don't see, given the premise (see HEL, again) an Evil God refuse it too, if not forced to. But if Good Gods are so nitpicking, then Evil Gods should be fat with souls by now.

TL;DR
Given:

1) (Good) Gods/planes being nitpicking;
2) souls used as batteries, so in the long run Good and Evil Gods/planes should get an equal share, or condemn themselves to starve or at least to make the opposing Gods more powerful
2.a) (corollary) in the long run Evil and Good Gods must be equally "nitpicking", lest the Evil Gods trump the Good ones in power
3) souls of any alignment can be used by any God (see HEL), as long as there is some sort of agreement between the Gods (so the souls in themselves don't damage the God, even if they are of a different alingment)

how the fate of a soul is decided?

[hroþila]

I think that extracting power from a soul requires some power. If the soul is a good fit, the extraction is efficient and results in a net surplus. If the soul is the wrong alignment, the god in question might well be losing net power.

[Dr.Zero]

I think that extracting power from a soul requires some power. If the soul is a good fit, the extraction is efficient and results in a net surplus. If the soul is the wrong alignment, the god in question might well be losing net power.

Which is not so far from "adding negative", and which was more or less my first theory, so I kinda liked it, but what about Hel, then?

[hroþila]

Which is not so far from "adding negative", and which was more or less my first theory, so I kinda liked it, but what about Hel, then?

The alignment efficiency thing may not be part of the gods' intrinsic nature but part of their agreement to share the world resources fairly/in a way that doesn't lead to conflict. If that's the case, Hel being able to process souls of all alignments as long as they rightfully belong to her would be baked right into the system.

[HorizonWalker]

While Hel is fine with receiving all sorts of souls, it's also important to note that she's incredibly unhealthy now, explicitly because of her diet.

[JeenLeen]

It seems like the metaphysics of this world are set that a soul -- without any influence from a god -- goes to the Plane it should go to. Usually based on alignment, but perhaps also influenced by deity of choice (so a NG might go to LG heaven if their deity lives there) or special traits of this setting (such as "dishonorable-death dwarves" go to Hel, irrespective of alignment or deity).

So that's just a 'hard-coded' rule of the setting.

For Roy's example, I think the deva was talking about shifting him to another Good realm, or was it Neutral? But it wasn't just leaving him meandering to any plane or sent to an evil plane. I don't think the gods would do that since it helps their enemies and it just goes against their nature.

So the Good gods might be happy to receive evil souls for rehabilitation or just to keep them in some sort of heavenly brig so as to keep resources from evil gods. And evil gods would be happy to eat good souls. But they (except for special circumstances) don't get the chance since the souls automatically go to a plane.

NOTE: recall that the gods can 'trade' souls or do something akin to that, as Thor and Loki could negotiate with Hel for the release of souls. Thor doing that might just be part of the rules of the dishonorable-dwarf-deal, but that Loki could also do it seems to imply that other gods, and thus maybe all gods, can. And those souls were able to go to another plane.
But that's a Good god trying to liberate souls (and a Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil god deciding it's not worth his time to try to liberate souls), so that seems in line with his alignment and not in contradiction of anything I wrote above.
A Good god presumably wouldn't do anything that would let Roy get into the clutches of an evil god. Maybe some who emphasize justice would try to send souls to an evil plane if they truly thought they didn't belong in a good plane, but Thor at least isn't like that so we haven't really seen anything from that perspective.

[Grey Watcher]

I assumed it had something to do with the fact the Gods and the Outer Planes are shaped (rather directly) by belief. By curating their membership, they're protecting their identity and nature. Roughly analogous to someone on a diet: they want to manifest or maintain particular qualities (health outcomes, appearance, etc.), so they're selective about what they will and won't take in. Take in too many "off-brand" souls and you will find yourself and your home plane altered in ways you might not like. In this model, the Neutral and Evil gods have just as much reason to be fussy as their Good counterparts: Neutral doesn't want to start becoming an extremist, Evil doesn't want to "go soft," as they'd probably put it.

In fact, Loki might have picked Hel as the target of his bet precisely because she wasn't as picky as the other gods. It's a bit tricky to gauge, since 99% of what we see of her is in the current World, where she's effectively starved and, as much as she doesn't like what she's getting, she kinda has to take it in order to have any sustenance at all. But it might have been the case that, because she was so used to sort of passively getting credit (and therefore worship), she just took a "meh, whatever's fine" attitude towards her income/diet/whatever. Which meant that, since she treated all souls as essentially interchangeable, a deal where she gets a truckload by default seemed appealing. Because let's face it, even if Thor and Loki hadn't told the dwarves about The Bet, and they displayed a natural mix of honorable and dishonorable behavior, she'd still be stuck with "nothing to subsist on but dwarf souls." That particular consequence of The Bet is something she really should've seen coming.

It's just speculation, but it seems to fit the available evidence (at least until and unless we learn more about Hel as she was before The Bet).

[factotum]

Could it not be as simple as: all the gods who are *different* alignments want that soul as well? We've already seen Thor and Loki going in to dispute the assignment of a bunch of souls to Hel, and while they were explicitly doing that in order to throw a spanner in her plans, there must be an agreement between the Gods that allows that sort of thing to happen or else they'd be getting in trouble. So, the Gods want to be sure that any souls that get assigned to them are legitimately theirs to make sure no-one else comes along and grabs them later.

[Rollin]

The glimpse we get of the Outer Planes in #1138 shows three of the four largest afterlives being Evil, though we have no idea what size represents in this image, of course. But if it is some quality proportional to population, it may be that the Evil gods, or some among them, are notably less picky.

(Could the dark gray Neutral Evil plane--established as including Hel's domain in the last panel of #1177--be smaller than its Lawful and Chaotic Evil counterparts as a result of the wager?)

[D.One]

It seems like the metaphysics of this world are set that a soul -- without any influence from a god -- goes to the Plane it should go to. Usually based on alignment, but perhaps also influenced by deity of choice (so a NG might go to LG heaven if their deity lives there) or special traits of this setting (such as "dishonorable-death dwarves" go to Hel, irrespective of alignment or deity).

So that's just a 'hard-coded' rule of the setting.

For Roy's example, I think the deva was talking about shifting him to another Good realm, or was it Neutral? But it wasn't just leaving him meandering to any plane or sent to an evil plane. I don't think the gods would do that since it helps their enemies and it just goes against their nature.

So the Good gods might be happy to receive evil souls for rehabilitation or just to keep them in some sort of heavenly brig so as to keep resources from evil gods. And evil gods would be happy to eat good souls. But they (except for special circumstances) don't get the chance since the souls automatically go to a plane.

NOTE: recall that the gods can 'trade' souls or do something akin to that, as Thor and Loki could negotiate with Hel for the release of souls. Thor doing that might just be part of the rules of the dishonorable-dwarf-deal, but that Loki could also do it seems to imply that other gods, and thus maybe all gods, can. And those souls were able to go to another plane.
But that's a Good god trying to liberate souls (and a Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil god deciding it's not worth his time to try to liberate souls), so that seems in line with his alignment and not in contradiction of anything I wrote above.
A Good god presumably wouldn't do anything that would let Roy get into the clutches of an evil god. Maybe some who emphasize justice would try to send souls to an evil plane if they truly thought they didn't belong in a good plane, but Thor at least isn't like that so we haven't really seen anything from that perspective.

I believe in something in these lines too.

Since the Planes (and Gods) are ideas and ideals colapsed into a singularity, I'd say that souls with similar ideals and beliefs tend to be attracted to them.

[The Pilgrim]

Everybody wants to end up in the Good-Aligned planes. Therefore, the Good Aligned Outsiders get to be picky with their food.

Nobody wants to end up in the Evil-Aligned planes. Therefore, the Evil Aligned Outsiders don't get to be picky with their food.

[Dr.Zero]

I assumed it had something to do with the fact the Gods and the Outer Planes are shaped (rather directly) by belief. By curating their membership, they're protecting their identity and nature. Roughly analogous to someone on a diet: they want to manifest or maintain particular qualities (health outcomes, appearance, etc.), so they're selective about what they will and won't take in. Take in too many "off-brand" souls and you will find yourself and your home plane altered in ways you might not like. In this model, the Neutral and Evil gods have just as much reason to be fussy as their Good counterparts: Neutral doesn't want to start becoming an extremist, Evil doesn't want to "go soft," as they'd probably put it.

And that makes sense, but brings us back to square one: if Evil (or Neutral) are as nitpicking as much Good, to keep their planes consistent, the Deva menacing Roy to send him toward a Neutral plane could have been faced with a guardian of that plane screaming from below: "Hey, don't throw your trash over here! Come here, and get it back!" if Roy wasn't considered fitting enough to be Neutral.

And frankly, the "one strike and you're out" that the Deva was trying to pull out with Roy about Elan's abandonment would be a rule strict enough to forbid every other afterlife to Roy. At least I can't imagine an afterlife where Roy could fit better, even if he abandoned Elan, following that Rule. (If an uncaring Neutral action is enough to forbid you Good afterlife, symmetrically all his caring Good actions should be enough to forbid him Neutral afterlife).

In fact, Loki might have picked Hel as the target of his bet precisely because she wasn't as picky as the other gods. It's a bit tricky to gauge, since 99% of what we see of her is in the current World, where she's effectively starved and, as much as she doesn't like what she's getting, she kinda has to take it in order to have any sustenance at all. But it might have been the case that, because she was so used to sort of passively getting credit (and therefore worship), she just took a "meh, whatever's fine" attitude towards her income/diet/whatever. Which meant that, since she treated all souls as essentially interchangeable, a deal where she gets a truckload by default seemed appealing. Because let's face it, even if Thor and Loki hadn't told the dwarves about The Bet, and they displayed a natural mix of honorable and dishonorable behavior, she'd still be stuck with "nothing to subsist on but dwarf souls." That particular consequence of The Bet is something she really should've seen coming.

It's just speculation, but it seems to fit the available evidence (at least until and unless we learn more about Hel as she was before The Bet).

So let me try so summarize it: the souls, being differently aligned, are having a bad effect on Hel's identity and nature (as for your first part), but they are still somewhere nutritious enough to keep her going.
Like a top model being on a stranded island after a cargo accident which was transporting only fat-rich snacks, where she can only feed on the almost infinite number of those snacks, so still doing that to survive, but knowing she will become fat and with acne and with enough salt and fat in her blood to significantly shortening her lifespan.

That is not bad as a theory, actually.
Aside the fact that Hel should have known about that side effect. What seems to really piss her off is not the nature of her food (again, aside that silly "subsist only on dwarf souls"!) but the scarcity of it.

But it's overall a good theory.

The alignment efficiency thing may not be part of the gods' intrinsic nature but part of their agreement to share the world resources fairly/in a way that doesn't lead to conflict. If that's the case, Hel being able to process souls of all alignments as long as they rightfully belong to her would be baked right into the system.

That too.
Which comes close to a theory I was thinking myself and come back to post and that I won't post anymore now, because you basically did it already.

While Hel is fine with receiving all sorts of souls, it's also important to note that she's incredibly unhealthy now, explicitly because of her diet.

I think it's more the scarcity of the souls that the type, per se.

The glimpse we get of the Outer Planes in #1138 shows three of the four largest afterlives being Evil, though we have no idea what size represents in this image, of course. But if it is some quality proportional to population, it may be that the Evil gods, or some among them, are notably less picky.

(Could the dark gray Neutral Evil plane--established as including Hel's domain in the last panel of #1177--be smaller than its Lawful and Chaotic Evil counterparts as a result of the wager?)

I think that they are all the 17 possible afterlife. So 5 of them being pure Good, 5 pure Evil, 5 pure Law, 5 pure Chaos, and then something else Neutral (yes, I know, the sum is well over 17, but they overlap).

Edit: Oh, I see, you meant the dimension of the circles. Ah, yes, I never noticed that. Indeed it might be an indication of the strength of each afterlife.

[D.One]

And that makes sense, but brings us back to square one: if Evil (or Neutral) are as nitpicking as much Good, to keep their planes consistent, the Deva menacing Roy to send him toward a Neutral plane could have been faced with a guardian of that plane screaming from below: "Hey, don't throw your trash over here! Come here, and get it back!" if Roy wasn't considered fitting enough to be Neutral.

And frankly, the "one strike and you're out" that the Deva was trying to pull out with Roy about Elan's abandonment would be a rule strict enough to forbid every other afterlife to Roy. At least I can't imagine an afterlife where Roy could fit better, even if he abandoned Elan, following that Rule. (If an uncaring Neutral action is enough to forbid you Good afterlife, symmetrically all his caring Good actions should be enough to forbid him Neutral afterlife).

Maybe the real "trash bin planes" would be the ones that tend to neutrality, since it shows lack of commitment toward a strong stance. For example, if Roy was judged Lawful enough, but not Good enough, maybe a LN plane would accept him well.

Edit: I also think the the trend of Evil being less nitpicky might be less about low nitpickery, and more about a PoV that encourages the corruption of good souls, while Good tends to see redemption as something hard, rare, and that must be earned.

[Grey Watcher]

And that makes sense, but brings us back to square one: if Evil (or Neutral) are as nitpicking as much Good, to keep their planes consistent, the Deva menacing Roy to send him toward a Neutral plane could have been faced with a guardian of that plane screaming from below: "Hey, don't throw your trash over here! Come here, and get it back!" if Roy wasn't considered fitting enough to be Neutral.

And frankly, the "one strike and you're out" that the Deva was trying to pull out with Roy about Elan's abandonment would be a rule strict enough to forbid every other afterlife to Roy. At least I can't imagine an afterlife where Roy could fit better, even if he abandoned Elan, following that Rule. (If an uncaring Neutral action is enough to forbid you Good afterlife, symmetrically all his caring Good actions should be enough to forbid him Neutral afterlife).

I think the severity of the action counts for something (as does intent and good-faith effort, as the Deva explains). A stolen candy bar doesn't count the same as abandoning someone in a dangerous situation. He's sort of blaze about a lot of his other faults, and the Deva doesn't call him on some of the BS in his defenses (a couple of them are kinda BS; Roy had no way of knowing the authority was illegitimate at the time, he was simply (and justifiably) angry with Miko personally).

As for whether Roy could end up in a situation of being too bad for Good and too good for Neutral, well, that's one of the wonky things about the D&D cosmology that Rich is borrowing here. You have these distinct, discrete, simple boxes into which you're trying to sort things as complex, ambiguous, internally inconsistent, fluid, and fuzzy as people. It's just not a system that bears terribly close scrutiny. At a certain point, you just have to suspend disbelief and assume that any given person definitely fits into one of these boxes.

I guess think of it like a balance scale: on one side you have Roy's Good actions. On the other you have his non-Good actions. Some actions are heavier than others. You pile everything up on the appropriate side and whichever side is heavier is the one he belongs to (ties probably favor Neutral, but who knows, really).

[Roland Itiative]

I would imagine the reason they refuse souls is simply because of how the gods agreed things should work, so all of them get their share of souls. The agreement could have gone any other way (and, in the case of the dwaves, it did), and any god would be happy having souls from any alignment under their sphere of influence for the purposes of sustenance (they could just make one part of their plane a place to punish those of conflicting alignments, instead of rewarding all souls).

If we assume Eugene was not really Lawful Good anymore at his time of death, maybe they have the Devas judge every soul, specifically because, being Lawful Good entities, they'd stick to the rules, even if it worked against them. The constant bickering between Thor and Hel for souls kinda shows us how a Chaotic bend on the rules (by the way of Loki's proposed alternate rule, not Thor himself) causes unnecessary conflict, and the gods don't really want that kind of thing to happen.

[RatElemental]

As for whether Roy could end up in a situation of being too bad for Good and too good for Neutral, well, that's one of the wonky things about the D&D cosmology that Rich is borrowing here. You have these distinct, discrete, simple boxes into which you're trying to sort things as complex, ambiguous, internally inconsistent, fluid, and fuzzy as people. It's just not a system that bears terribly close scrutiny. At a certain point, you just have to suspend disbelief and assume that any given person definitely fits into one of these boxes.

In this specific case, actually, there is an "in-between" plane he could go to. The peaceable kingdoms of Arcadia lie between Lawful Good Celestia and Lawful Neutral Mechanus, as the somewhat good but not strongly good while still strongly lawful place to go. Similarly there's Acheron for the weakly evil lawful plane, Bytopia as the weakly lawful good plane, the Beastlands as the weakly chaotic good plane, Ysgard as the weakly good chaotic plane, Pandemonium as the weakly evil chaotic plane, Carceri as the weakly chaotic evil plane and Gehenna as the weakly lawful evil plane.

No idea where someone who's neutral good but kinda meh on the good would go, there's no place between the Outlands and the fields of Elysium.

[Grey Watcher]

In this specific case, actually, there is an "in-between" plane he could go to. The peaceable kingdoms of Arcadia lie between Lawful Good Celestia and Lawful Neutral Mechanus, as the somewhat good but not strongly good while still strongly lawful place to go. Similarly there's Acheron for the weakly evil lawful plane, Bytopia as the weakly lawful good plane, the Beastlands as the weakly chaotic good plane, Ysgard as the weakly good chaotic plane, Pandemonium as the weakly evil chaotic plane, Carceri as the weakly chaotic evil plane and Gehenna as the weakly lawful evil plane.

No idea where someone who's neutral good but kinda meh on the good would go, there's no place between the Outlands and the fields of Elysium.

True, true. I was imagining an in-between as being something between even Celestia and Bytopia. No matter how many of them there are, arbitrary boxes are still arbitrary.

[hamishspence]

No idea where someone who's neutral good but kinda meh on the good would go, there's no place between the Outlands and the fields of Elysium.

They could go to the Outlands, but reside in the Gate Town with the portal in it that leads to Elysium.

[Themrys]

The glimpse we get of the Outer Planes in #1138 shows three of the four largest afterlives being Evil, though we have no idea what size represents in this image, of course. But if it is some quality proportional to population, it may be that the Evil gods, or some among them, are notably less picky.

I would assume the Evil gods are less picky.

Though I don't know much about D&D world, I recall someone having mentioned that the planes reflect the respective gods ideas on how the world should work.

You only need one evil person to ruin paradise for everyone. Either he rules as tyrant over all the good-aligned folk since they won't use violence against him ... or they do use violence against him, which still introduces violence into a world the respective good-aligned god wanted to be free of that.
Just look at how Belkar almost managed to make Miko fall - Miko wasn't the perfect paladin, but without the OotS interfering, she could have died honourably in battle and gone to the lawful good afterlife. She didn't fall because of Belkar, but she could have. (and perhaps, without Belkar, she wouldn't have reacted as she did to her lord conspiring with the OotS) Among paladins, Miko was regarded a nuisance. Belkar turned her into a raging fanatic. Now imagine what influence he would have on the afterlife.

However, one good person in an evil place will hardly make a difference. Someone as good and pure as O-Chul might "corrupt" some of your less evil followers (like happened to Xykon with the MitD), but the MitD, although not particularly good at being evil, clearly didn't turn any of Xykon's minions good or even neutral. And even O-Chul's influence on the MitD is only going to be relevant to how things turn out because the MitD is extremely powerful.
If O-Chul had only managed to convert some hobgoblin mook, Xykon would just have killed that mook, problem solved.
Evil has no problem with imprisoning or murdering good people. Throwing a good man into a pool with a shark doesn't taint their evil, it improves it. Evil people have no problem imprisoning someone in a cell with no contact to anyone whatsoever, which efficiently prevents them turning anyone good.


It all makes sense when you imagine the good aligned gods as vegetarians and the evil aligned gods as omnivores: An omnivore can eat a vegetarian meal, a vegetarian can't eat meat.


Thor didn't bargain to get any evil dwarves from Hel. The worst one he got her to give him was one who ran away from a battle, which might have ensured the ones who didn't run away got a honourable death, so ... not that bad. None of them was a violent criminal.
We have, however, seen Hel claiming some souls that were clearly good aligned. I personally think it more likely that she can "digest" them because she's an omnivore rather than because they rightfully belong to her. (If the latter was the case, she'd run a risk keeping any soul Thor claimed for himself.)