Flaw in Hel's Plan

[Rrmcklin]

Also, I have to ask, what exactly does it add to the story to go "Hahaha, actually, Hel's plan wouldn't have worked no matter what!" Ignoring how all of the characters act as if it will, and thus we have no actual reason to assume it won't, how does that specific line of reasoning add to thing?

[Jasdoif]

Also, I have to ask, what exactly does it add to the story to go "Hahaha, actually, Hel's plan wouldn't have worked no matter what!" Ignoring how all of the characters act as if it will, and thus we have no actual reason to assume it won't, how does that specific line of reasoning add to thing?

Yeah. I mean, I've seen that kind of thing pay off before, where the purported "master plan" was actually a ploy, a manipulation to create an opportunity or weakness for the real master plan...but what would that be here? The only real advantage I'm seeing is time, in that the Order hasn't been dealing with Xykon; and while "force a stall to give someone else a head start" is certainly valid tactically, it doesn't pull much story weight.

[Squire Doodad]

Also, I have to ask, what exactly does it add to the story to go "Hahaha, actually, Hel's plan wouldn't have worked no matter what!" Ignoring how all of the characters act as if it will, and thus we have no actual reason to assume it won't, how does that specific line of reasoning add to thing?

I mean, it could be used as a setup for a realization that what happened did matter. Like "Hel wouldn't have won either way, but you just saved everyone from a bigger catastrophe".
Can't think of what that would be, though.

[RatElemental]

I mean, it could be used as a setup for a realization that what happened did matter. Like "Hel wouldn't have won either way, but you just saved everyone from a bigger catastrophe".
Can't think of what that would be, though.

"Hel's plan wouldn't have worked, but thanks to you, Durkon, now we still have a chance to work with the Dark One and end this snarl business once and for all."

[Squire Doodad]

"Hel's plan wouldn't have worked, but thanks to you, Durkon, now we still have a chance to work with the Dark One and end this snarl business once and for all."

True, but I can't think of anything that would the Order would have fixed in the Dwarven Lands. Like, something terrible happening that's been prevented (the only thing is the vampires which was the result of Hel's plan), not "Durkon gets to go see his family again" (which while sweet isn't really a horrific doom befalling them all).

[brian 333]

For the vast majority of deities Hel's plan simply doesn't matter. It only matters to us because it has sidetracked the OoTS from their mission.

If instead of Durkon Hilgya had been vamped, the exact same series of events could have occurred and we'd never know until the sequel where Durkon and Roy head to Firmament to clean up the mess.

Sure, we'd have missed out on some awesome stuff, but there would have been other awesome stuff.

[Rrmcklin]

For the vast majority of deities Hel's plan simply doesn't matter. It only matters to us because it has sidetracked the OoTS from their mission.

If instead of Durkon Hilgya had been vamped, the exact same series of events could have occurred and we'd never know until the sequel where Durkon and Roy head to Firmament to clean up the mess.

Sure, we'd have missed out on some awesome stuff, but there would have been other awesome stuff.

Not true: a vampire sired to fill the whole in Hilgya's heart very likely wouldn't have been as cooperative as Durkon's was. This point is brought up in story.

[Worldsong]

For the vast majority of deities Hel's plan simply doesn't matter. It only matters to us because it has sidetracked the OoTS from their mission.

If instead of Durkon Hilgya had been vamped, the exact same series of events could have occurred and we'd never know until the sequel where Durkon and Roy head to Firmament to clean up the mess.

Sure, we'd have missed out on some awesome stuff, but there would have been other awesome stuff.

Does it count if I say it matters to me because I don't want to imagine all those dwarven souls going to Hel?

That said I'm in the faction saying that it's better to assume that Hel is at least competent enough that her plan would have worked if it came to pass as she wished it, rather than there being some sort of note saying "By the way this plan would have failed no matter what."

I mean sure regardless of whether the plan would have worked or not Durkon and the OotS saved their home from destruction so either way they'd have saved the day for everyone living on the current world, but it'd still feel like a bit of an anticlimax if the big bad of the story arc turned out to be so inept that her plan would never have worked anyway.

[deuterio12]

Does it count if I say it matters to me because I don't want to imagine all those dwarven souls going to Hel?

That said I'm in the faction saying that it's better to assume that Hel is at least competent enough that her plan would have worked if it came to pass as she wished it, rather than there being some sort of note saying "By the way this plan would have failed no matter what."

I mean sure regardless of whether the plan would have worked or not Durkon and the OotS saved their home from destruction so either way they'd have saved the day for everyone living on the current world, but it'd still feel like a bit of an anticlimax if the big bad of the story arc turned out to be so inept that her plan would never have worked anyway.

You mean how big bad Xykon is pursuing a plan that is doomed to fail (controling the Snarl) due to being manipulated by big bad Redcloak who in turn is running a desperate gambit (threaten to release the snar over the other gods) that has a higher risk of ending with his own deity dead (the gods will just blow up the world if the Snarl is about to be released then the Dark One has a huge risk of not surviving to the next world due to lack of divine reserves)?

Yeah, Oots big bads are pretty much just fumbling around as a rule of thumb.

This is, the whole thing started when Hel was stupid enough to take a bet from Loki. Aka the god of trickery. And then "all the souls from the dwarves except for a tiny condition" turned out to be "some soul scraps when the other gods can't be bothered to claim the dwarf souls as their own because it turns out that tiny condition can be twisted to cover every dwarf ever".

Hel got played hard, and now she's trying to pull a last ditch effort to salvage things so she doesn't finish this world in last place, except that Thor and Loki now want to keep this specific world going because it has the Dark One for a new divine color, and if it gets blown up chances are that the Dark One goes down with it (which the Dark One doesn't realize himself).

[RatElemental]

Does it count if I say it matters to me because I don't want to imagine all those dwarven souls going to Hel?

That said I'm in the faction saying that it's better to assume that Hel is at least competent enough that her plan would have worked if it came to pass as she wished it, rather than there being some sort of note saying "By the way this plan would have failed no matter what."

I mean sure regardless of whether the plan would have worked or not Durkon and the OotS saved their home from destruction so either way they'd have saved the day for everyone living on the current world, but it'd still feel like a bit of an anticlimax if the big bad of the story arc turned out to be so inept that her plan would never have worked anyway.

Hel's plan doesn't need to have worked in order for her to have destroyed the world, condemning all mortals on it and all future worlds to an early grave (whenever the snarl starts breaking loose for the latter case), as well as the gods to another eternity of repeating the cycle of creation and destruction. Only now they know it could have been different. Sometimes being smart just means you're really good at messing everything up.

[Worldsong]

You mean how big bad Xykon is pursuing a plan that is doomed to fail (controling the Snarl) due to being manipulated by big bad Redcloak who in turn is running a desperate gambit (threaten to release the snar over the other gods) that has a higher risk of ending with his own deity dead (the gods will just blow up the world if the Snarl is about to be released then the Dark One has a huge risk of not surviving to the next world due to lack of divine reserves)?

Yeah, Oots big bads are pretty much just fumbling around as a rule of thumb.

This is, the whole thing started when Hel was stupid enough to take a bet from Loki. Aka the god of trickery. And then "all the souls from the dwarves except for a tiny condition" turned out to be "some soul scraps when the other gods can't be bothered to claim the dwarf souls as their own because it turns out that tiny condition can be twisted to cover every dwarf ever".

Hel got played hard, and now she's trying to pull a last ditch effort to salvage things so she doesn't finish this world in last place, except that Thor and Loki now want to keep this specific world going because it has the Dark One for a new divine color, and if it gets blown up chances are that the Dark One goes down with it (which the Dark One doesn't realize himself).

The important difference there is that with Xykon and Redcloack it's long since been foreshadowed that their plans aren't as likely to work as they think they are. It's a part of the story that Redcloak has long since been planning to use the Snarl for TDO rather than Xykon's attempts at becoming the ruler of the world and it's also a part of the plot that Redcloak's plan isn't nearly as reliable as he'd like to think it is and that he's mainly motivated by the fact that he can't accept that all the sacrifices he's made so far would be for nothing.

With Hel's plan not working it'd be different since every single character who knows about it treats it as a real threat, including the gods themselves. Having her plan suddenly turn out to not work at all would be a whole lot different than with Xykon and Redcloak.

Also neither of those characters are not literal gods, and even if Hel has been deprived of proper nutrition I'd still give a god a couple more points in being aware whether a plan stands a chance of working or not, especially if no other god appears ready to point out to her that there might be a fatal flaw in there.

Hel's plan doesn't need to have worked in order for her to have destroyed the world, condemning all mortals on it and all future worlds to an early grave (whenever the snarl starts breaking loose for the latter case), as well as the gods to another eternity of repeating the cycle of creation and destruction. Only now they know it could have been different. Sometimes being smart just means you're really good at messing everything up.

I'm aware that the world is in danger whether Hel is correct in her assumptions or not. The threat is still there but it'd be really damn silly if it turned out the world was put in danger because one of the gods didn't read the fine print of a bet correctly. Especially since, as stated before, unlike other big bads it hasn't been stated or foreshadowed that her plan might not work, everyone who's aware of it seems to think it's a completely valid threat.

Also, Thor apparently can literally enter Hel's domain to argue with her but apparently didn't feel like at least trying to inform her that the plan wouldn't work. Since he's got little to gain from letting her continue as is that strikes me as a tentative vote in favour of him also believing the threat is real, and he's the person she made the bet with (well, technically she made it with Loki but he's the other participant). The only person more likely than Thor to be aware that the plan wouldn't work is Loki himself and the only reason I'm not using his lack of pointing out the flaw as an argument is because you should never rely on anything Loki says ever.

[KorvinStarmast]

Come to think of it, the greatest flaw in Hel's plan is Hel herself and her impatience.

She tipped her hand at the Godsmoot, to be sure.

It's important to remember that this bet is not operating under a sane, objective definition of "honor" - it's operating under a weird one defined by at least some of the gods who made the bet. You don't need to agree with the Bet's definition of "honor" - it seems that dying from a drunken brawl would count as an honorable death, while succumbing to cancer after years of fighting to survive would be "dishonorable." Few, if any, of us would agree with this definition of honor, but it's the one in operation in this world, and we don't have to agree with it in order to acknowledge that is exists.

You're welcome to consider it honorable to risk your afterlife for others - I certainly do - but unfortunately our opinion doesn't seem to have much to do with how the rules are being applied.

Yes, context matters in seeing this.

Thor and Loki may also be protecting this world to keep The Dark One alive so that they will be able to contain Snarl better (maybe even forever). If the world is destroyed now, TDO will likely not survive until the next one is built and the new quiddity will be lost. Thor calls it a once-in-an-eternity opportunity.

And the heroes have gotten to a high enough level that their actions influence not just world's, but even the state of the multiverse. Which is as it should be in a D&D campaign that gets this high. _{(In 5e, that's almost the exact descriptive of the adventuring at level 17-20, but it's been like that in most editions ... we are not quite at the 'immortal' situation from the BECMI version of D&D)}

Hel got played hard, and now she's trying to pull a last ditch effort to salvage things so she doesn't finish this world in last place, except that Thor and Loki now want to keep this specific world going because it has the Dark One for a new divine color, and if it gets blown up chances are that the Dark One goes down with it (which the Dark One doesn't realize himself).

And that italicized part is IMO a flaw in Hel's plan, though perhaps an indirect one. For the gods who have created millions of worlds, and have had to thanks to the snarl, all gods benefit from a situation where the Snarl can finally be contained. That benefits Hel as well as all of the other gods. Her plan's flaw, in this perspective, is rooted in hr inability to (1) look to the long term, and (2) to look past her own desires.

Sometimes being smart just means you're really good at messing everything up.

V's story line.

[Fish]

Hel's plan doesn't need to have worked in order for her to have destroyed the world...

Correct, in my opinion.

As I continue to point out, if there were evidence available to convince Hel that her plan was, in fact, fatally flawed, then Hel might not have voted to destroy the world at all (because the world now contains her first clerics in who knows how long). Hel likely would have voted “don’t destroy the world” at the Godsmoot, if she bothered to turn up at all, and this whole subplot would not have been needed. Hel might have directed Durkula to making saving the world his top priority the moment Malack was killed —possibly with Durkula working with the Order, but also possibly not. If Durkula didn’t save the world, he wouldn’t have a place to stand while preaching Hel’s gospel. We might have seen Hel turn her instinct for interference to working against Xykon (provided she knows of him).

It’s partly because there isn’t any evidence of a flaw that Hel is trying to destroy the world. (Partly also that “Plane Shift her clerics elsewhere, vote to destroy the world, wait to see what kind of world arises next, and hope she can get her clerics back on it to convert the locals” is a plan with too many moving parts. A cleric in the hand is worth two in the Beastlands and all that.) That’s not proof no flaw exists, of course, but it is suggestive.

[Snails]

It’s partly because there isn’t any evidence of a flaw that Hel is trying to destroy the world. (Partly also that “Plane Shift her clerics elsewhere, vote to destroy the world, wait to see what kind of world arises next, and hope she can get her clerics back on it to convert the locals” is a plan with too many moving parts.) That’s not proof no flaw exists, of course, but it is suggestive.

FWIW, I think the Plane Shift piece is unimportant. She has reason to hope she will have a running head start in ruling the next world even without any clerics, and that would be a sufficient improvement to her situation.

I see it as a bone to her clerics, who, given time to develop personal priorities beyond following orders, might have misgivings about either destroying this world or their accidentally getting their nice new meatsuits destroyed before they had a good chance to enjoy them.

"Don't worry. You can be Plane Shifted away." = "Shut up. Don't think. Follow orders. Trust me. (And I might not even be lying. I do not know myself yet.)"

[Snails]

FWIW, the real flaw is in Loki's plan.

Hel and Thor have a fig leaf of an excuse: they were both too stupid to understand what the bet really meant at the time. That is a pretty sucky excuse for a god, but it is better than nothing.

The flaw in Loki's plan is that the world would be destroyed by the hand of the three pantheons is not an anomaly, but a known likely eventuality when the world was being put together in the first place, when these kinds of binding bets were being placed. Loki should have considered the endgame scenarios.

[brian 333]

I agree that it is unlikely that Hel's plot is a fail. It will require the OoTS to thwart it.

I disagree with that interpretation of dishonorable death that condems all living dwarves to Hel. However, I am not writing the comic, so my opinion isn't worth the price of a cup of weak instant coffee.

When we saw the hall from outside it appeared to have a domed roof. This would mean that the hammer went through the roof of the hall, then through the ceiling of the cavern. Did I see that image wrong?

The point being that the dome might be supporting the ceiling of the cavern.

[Jasdoif]

FWIW, the real flaw is in Loki's plan.

First things first: What is Loki's plan? Or at the very least, what is Loki's goal?

[Rrmcklin]

FWIW, the real flaw is in Loki's plan.

Hel and Thor have a fig leaf of an excuse: they were both too stupid to understand what the bet really meant at the time. That is a pretty sucky excuse for a god, but it is better than nothing.

The flaw in Loki's plan is that the world would be destroyed by the hand of the three pantheons is not an anomaly, but a known likely eventuality when the world was being put together in the first place, when these kinds of binding bets were being placed. Loki should have considered the endgame scenarios.

You don't know that he didn't consider the endgame solution. We don't know why he originally set this up, and it seems likely that unexpected variables (i.e. the Dark One) made him change his priorities from whatever they originally were.

[Schroeswald]

You don't know that he didn't consider the endgame solution. We don't know why he originally set this up, and it seems likely that unexpected variables (i.e. the Dark One) made him change his priorities from whatever they originally were.

But we have no clue how he wanted to deal with it, making his motivations a bit confusing.

[Jasdoif]

But we have no clue how he wanted to deal with it, making his motivations a bit confusing.

Not knowing his motivations is a good reason not to declare efforts stemming from those motivations flawed.

[Schroeswald]

Not knowing his motivations is a good reason not to declare efforts stemming from those motivations flawed.

I agree with you there, I can't say his efforts are flawed, what I can say is that I find it hard to bring his efforts together and figure out what his early motivations were (since TDO was raised to godhood his motivations are intensely clear, get him to work with the other gods to fix up the world and stop the Snarl from ever breaking free).

[Jasdoif]

I agree with you there, I can't say his efforts are flawed, what I can say is that I find it hard to bring his efforts together and figure out what his early motivations were (since TDO was raised to godhood his motivations are intensely clear, get him to work with the other gods to fix up the world and stop the Snarl from ever breaking free).

Well....A proposal I've seen several times throughout the discussion threads is that the bet may have been Loki trying to teach Hel the value of clerics. If that was in fact the goal, than Hel plotting to use a cleric to bend the destruction of the world to her advantage means he's already succeeded, even if she doesn't pull it off and even if he doesn't want her to pull it off.

[sleepy hedgehog]

I'm not sure if Loki even had/needed a plan.
They've made millions of these worlds, and this is just one of the millions that will come after it.
It's not all that different than my friends and I sitting down and playing a board game.
And someone saying, "I bet you can't win without going hard economy."
Other than, it's a little more enforced into the game rules.


Additionally, I'm not sure how much Hel even considers this a flaw.
It's literally causing her to go crazy.
Obviously she'd much rather get all the souls.
But I think (and I'm speculating here) that given the choice, Hel would rather end this world, and give up all of the souls, than let it keep going.

To continue my board game metaphor:
At some point in the game you've realized you've lost.
You've lost so hard, in fact, that it's stopped being fun.
You may as well end this one, and take the loss, so you can't start a new one.
But you may as well make a Hail Mary, an all in attempt, first.
Which is pretty much what Hel is doing.

[Quebbster]

With Loki currently keeping an eye on Hel, there's a decent chance he might explain to her why he set up the Bet in the denouement of the book.

[Bohandas]

What happens when a dwarf dies outside of the jurisdiction of the northern gods? because that could screw up her plan as well as the agreement seems to be specific to the norhern gods

[The MunchKING]

What happens when a dwarf dies outside of the jurisdiction of the northern gods? because that could screw up her plan as well as the agreement seems to be specific to the norhern gods

I don't think there IS an "outside the jurisdiction" as long as a Dwarf is involved...

[RatElemental]

My headcannon for Loki's plan for the end of the bet was that he was planning to try and get the world (and all the souls Hel would stand to rake in suddenly) devoured by the snarl to prevent Hel from gaining too much power without undercutting whatever his motive for the bet was, which I believe to be teaching his daughter a lesson about a balanced diet.

Then the dark one appeared and he saw a chance to end the cycle, and had no qualms ditching the lesson and just letting Hel rot for all eternity because he's Loki.

Voting not to destroy the world, as a happy coincidence, serves both of these goals.

[Bohandas]

I don't think there IS an "outside the jurisdiction" as long as a Dwarf is involved...

In that case wouldn't they have needed to get the western and southern pantheons to agree to the bet as well? What do west and south get out of it that they would agree to go along? Either that or Dwarven sould would have to have been the exclusive purview of the Northern Pantheon.

[Peelee]

In that case wouldn't they have needed to get the western and southern pantheons to agree to the bet as well? What do west and south get out of it that they would agree to go along? Either that or Dwarven sould would have to have been the exclusive purview of the Northern Pantheon.

Roy dying in the Southern Continent didn't mean that the Twelve Gods were in charge of his soul. Dwarves are bound by the bet bet no matter where they are, I'd wager.

[Bohandas]

In that case it raises the question of how the northern gods were able to lock out the other two pantheons from claiming any dwarven souls in the first place.

Like, what if a dwarf worships one of the southern or western gods, rather than a northern god