Works for me, Saltire. I periodically get the feeling about OOTS that I have about Game of Thrones or Lost—that the author has written themselves into a corner and can’t get out—but then I see how, for example, Burlew handled the vampire question, and I regain faith that he has a satisfactory plan for this whole thing.
jophiel, I guess the explanation is that they’re gods, and therefore are operating on a level of consciousness we can’t contemplate. maybe it is still fresh and interesting for them all. I tend to the omniscience leads to catatonia trope in sci fi, but perhaps it’s different in stickworld?
And once again Burlew astounds.
I guess, but I’m operating from my frame of reference and while it obviously matters to Roy & Co whether or not their world is destroyed, the divine stakes feel pretty minimal right now. Maybe the next strip(s) will change that.
Well. That. Is a thing.
I wonder if all the previous worlds got Snarlized, or if for at least some of them the gods pulled the plug early.
I perceive that the gods have a compulsion to get it right, or rather a compulsion to express their nature, which implies a need for a world that would permit that. For some of the gods, I assume moving on to the next iteration wouldn’t be a big deal. For Thor, it’s unfortunate.
An analogy might be a detective who works for two decades on a case before the perp is caught.
Another speculation: If the Olympians went into the Snarl, maybe they still exist as discrete entities, and they’ve made a world of their own, without any other pantheon’s input to mess it up.
I guess i forgot, what happened to them in stickworld?
According to the almost certainly unreliable narration in the Crayons of Time they were all killed by the creation of the Snarl in world 1.0, (implied to be the only previous world at the time.)
Burlew has said that has the broad outline of the rest of the story written and he knows what the last strip will look like.
Of course, Damon Lindelof and George Martin both made similar comments. Lindelof’s was a flat out lie, Martin’s I’m incredibly suspicious of, Burlew I kinda trust.
But then she has bargaining power : “I won this political chess game so on the next world we do it my way from the start. Or I do it all over again.” Same deal for The Dark One.
I mean there’s nothing to say that all of these worlds were exactly the same every time, we can posit omniscient gods know about version control and incremental changes/bug fixing.
I’m thinking however that Burlew has a more nihilistic/atheistic plan in mind and the OOTS/Hel’s antics will be the ones to make the gods realize that as long as there are gods overseeing the world(s), there will be a Snarl (since he’s the manifestation of their ego) and the final world will be when the gods realize the only way to win is not to play, i.e. build a universe without them in it at all. I.e. our own.
Possibly via collective seppuku and a delegation of their quickly waning powers to the OOTS. Then Roy agonizes for a hundred strips on how to do it Right, along with Durkon (with V and possibly even Red Cloak providing constructive sarcasm) but the gods’ powers start fading long before they’re done laying down their foolproof rules and in the end Elan Almighty just wings it. Hence the platypus.
And now, for something completely different : why do the gods memorialize with butt plugs ?
Thanks. I didn’t want to be the first to point out their unfortunate resemblance.
At that, I don’t think they’d be good ones. Don’t you want the base to be really flared compared to the front, for easier removal? It looks like the front is wider than the base, which is a really bad idea
They also look like some sort cross between a golf ball/tee and a lawn stake. Wonder why he didn’t just go with a plain sphere? Doubtless it’ll have some deeper meaning too.
Eh, you’d think that out of umpteen bajillion worlds, she’s won a few rounds unless she’s just wildly incompetent. The Dark One has no bargaining power unless he gets control of the Snarl and can use it as a weapon. If the rest of the gods rebooted the world right now, he’d be shit out of luck unless new rifts in the prison appeared. He’s a minor deity and fairly weak as far as deities go which is why he’s relying on these machinations.
Like I said, this might all get clarified in the future; just the way I feel about it right now.
I assumed it was just so they could walk around on it for the big reveal.
Well, I’m surprised.
And somewhat disappointed. Like Jophiel, I wonder why the haha think this world matters.
I don’t think the divine stakes have really changed - we already knew that most of the gods were prepared to nope out on this world and start a new one. We just didn’t realize how much practice they had at it.
As for why they keep trying, the Snarl only kills people who are still on the world when it breaks free - presumably, anyone who dies before then stays in their proper afterlife when the world is remade. So the motive for the gods to keep remaking the world over and over is to get as many souls out of the experience as possible before the Snarl inevitably breaks free again. And, hopefully, eventually figure out a way to keep the Snarl locked up forever, so they have a constant supply of souls on tap.
I told her “Well, in the commentary in Blood Runs in the Family, he mentioned in passing that he uses Adobe Illustrator to do the strip. So he probably drew it once, made a stamp or a brush or whatever Illustrator calls it, held the mouse button down, and just went to town like a crazed middle schooler using Microsoft Paint.”
Let’s not even get started on David Gerrold.