[Kellanved's shadow]

After reading SW this question cam to mind can you kill a god without destroying its temples and/or its priesthood. This question cam to me because of the events at the end of SW. the only way

Spoiler

The Blessed Lady

died was because all the holy items along with the alter

Spoiler

The Stormwall

wer destroyed first. Also in the BH

Spoiler

Poliel

died after she killed all of her followers in seven cities and I assume the alter got destroyed in that confrontation. what do you guys think.

This post has been edited by Kellanved's shadow: 14 January 2016 - 08:15 AM

[Aptorian]

I think it's a very murky subject.

It seems like there are gods that merely a very powerful physical being and there are gods that seem to be more like a manifestation of power.

From the descriptions in BH I don't think Poleils followers dying mattered at all. What killed her was the Hounds or Deragoth. The Ottataral bound her power and she got torn apart. Similarly a bunch of ninjas with ottataral blades murdered Dryjna in her warren.

As far as I see it, all gods can be killed by poking them with sharp things. Some need more powerful sharp things than others, but they all die the same.

The more abstract concept is what death does to a god and whether or not a god is more than just the walking, taking ascendant we see in the books.

Think of the scene in one of the later books, I think it was Dust of Dreams or The Crippled God. We see these echoes of gods in a strange realm where their worshipped persona seems separate from who they are/were as mortals or ascendants. If people continue to worship a god that has died, is the god dead? Can the god come back or is a new god created in the dead gods image?

[Kellanved's shadow]

I guess you are right, it was just an interesting train of thought I had going but there's not enough evidence to support it. and there's plenty to support what your saying.

Quote

Think of the scene in one of the later books, I think it was Dust of Dreams or The Crippled God. We see these echoes of gods in a strange realm where their worshipped persona seems separate from who they are/were as mortals or ascendants. If people continue to worship a god that has died, is the god dead? Can the god come back or is a new god created in the dead gods image?

I never really understood that part it was a little to abstract for me. I mean you meet Dassambre in that world yet you know that Dassambre is definitely somewhere else at that time. Heck he even acts different in that realm then his normal personification.

[Gorefest]

Think as well of Mael/Bugg. Bugg as the personification of Mael on Lether seems to behave very different from the Mael we see or learn about on Quon Tali. The nature of the local/regional followers seems to affect the behaviour of the God. I always picture it as the various pantheons being rather abstract, more like the concepts of the elements (water, dark, light, life, war, etc), whereas the actual personifications that we see walking around and communicating with their followers are more like shadows of these abstract panteonic deities and are very much tainted by their followers. A bit like platonism, i.e. we all have a concept of 'table' as a flat surface supported by one or more legs that can be used to place objects on, but in our observable universe there are lots of vastly differently designed objects that can all be classed or recognised as a table. We all know what is meant when someone says 'table', but if you ask 3 people to draw one you may get 3 totally different drawings. So you can kill a manifestation of a God, but as long as there are believers around, the essence does not die and it either gets resurrected or another entity or Ascendant takes the place of the previously killed entity.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 14 January 2016 - 03:21 PM

[Abyss]

It's VERY subjective and fact specific.
In TCG we have Torrent taking out Olar Ethil, a draconic undead Elder God... with a mildly enchanted Rhivi arrow and bad intentions. And by all appearances he killed her completely and with finality and died in the doing... while in MT, Scabandari, a draconic soletaken armed with a nasty aspected knife, thought it was too much work to kill Silchas, another 'mere' draconic soletaken who was lying on the ground bleeding at the time... then there's Karsa and Fener in TCG... yeah. That.

[Gorefest]

It probably also depends on how much a diety invests of him- or herself into their avatar. Fener was drawn out of his realm onto the world so he was completely vulnerable. Same for Olar Ethil, who isn't so much a God as a really powerful Ascendant anyway but who was fully present on the world and had no metaphysical presence to fall back on. Hood had to deliberately manifest himself fully in the mortal realm before Rake could slay him, i.e. it is likely that trying to kill him in the realm of Death wouldn't have accomplished anything. So yeah, very subjective, but also very dependent on how much the God exposes of themselves in the mortal plane.

[Abyss]

Gorefest, on 14 January 2016 - 04:14 PM, said:

It probably also depends on how much a diety invests of him- or herself into their avatar. Fener was drawn out of his realm onto the world so he was completely vulnerable. Same for Olar Ethil, who isn't so much a God as a really powerful Ascendant anyway but who was fully present on the world and had no metaphysical presence to fall back on. Hood had to deliberately manifest himself fully in the mortal realm before Rake could slay him, i.e. it is likely that trying to kill him in the realm of Death wouldn't have accomplished anything. So yeah, very subjective, but also very dependent on how much the God exposes of themselves in the mortal plane.

And we can complicate those even further...

Fener was manifesting over the Spire battlefield like a big transubstantial warpig in the sky when Karsa split the altar... an altar being a site of worship, not a physical manifestation of the god himself. We've seen Imass wandering around with multiple invested weapons poking out of them, but Ethil, who was aspected to the Imass and undead accordingly, was taken out by one arrow, and a Rhivi arrow at that and no one is going to argue that the Rhivi ancestor spirits are stronger than a draconic Elder God and Torrent not even Rhibi himself but dying... Hood did a complete manifestation and 'died' via Dragnipur, but kept his worshippers in as much as mages whose warren was Hood's started channeling Omtose Phellack instead even tho JagHood was no longer the God of Death when he exited Dragnipur....

[Gorefest]

I think the overruling principle is simply: BECAUSE EPIC. If it looks cool on-screen to kill a God, SE and ICE will kill the bejeebers out of it. If it looks cool to make the God MEGA POWAR TOUGH, you cannot kill it even with the power of laser dinosaurs.

[Kellanved's shadow]

Gorefest, on 14 January 2016 - 03:18 PM, said:

Think as well of Mael/Bugg. Bugg as the personification of Mael on Lether seems to behave very different from the Mael we see or learn about on Quon Tali. The nature of the local/regional followers seems to affect the behaviour of the God. I always picture it as the various pantheons being rather abstract, more like the concepts of the elements (water, dark, light, life, war, etc), whereas the actual personifications that we see walking around and communicating with their followers are more like shadows of these abstract panteonic deities and are very much tainted by their followers. A bit like platonism, i.e. we all have a concept of 'table' as a flat surface supported by one or more legs that can be used to place objects on, but in our observable universe there are lots of vastly differently designed objects that can all be classed or recognised as a table. We all know what is meant when someone says 'table', but if you ask 3 people to draw one you may get 3 totally different drawings. So you can kill a manifestation of a God, but as long as there are believers around, the essence does not die and it either gets resurrected or another entity or Ascendant takes the place of the previously killed entity.

Mael was probably acting differently because it was Mallik he was talking to. He even says to Mallik that he hates his worshipers. In Lether there is no one trying to bind him so that they can use his power or people trying to use his warren. You can understand why he is a bit of a dick in RotCG. I don't think it had to do with his followers there. Although it has been stated that if the Crippled Gods worshipers weren't so broken then he would have healed already so the nature of the worshipers do effect the gods. It is very vague however, SE doesn't really explain just how much of an affect the worshipers can have on their god.

[Felisin Fatter]

I'm pretty sure that 'Rhivi arrow' was one made by Tool for Toc, and thus invested with so much appropriate irony that it was very fatal in this situation specifically. Maybe Kilava and/or Burn quietly blessed Torrent and/or the arrow too? Maybe Kruppe was watching and manipulating reality, he sure has cause. And I think the Tellan ritual had the effect of making (this version of?) Olar Ethil 'stuck' in a physical, unchanging body. Making her as vulnerable as any undead soletaken bonecaster - not very, but still killable. Possible Silverfox' existence made her extra vulnerable, weakening the ritual's effects somehow. And she never saw Torrent as a threat, so her defenses were down.
Fener was cooperating with the ritual, baring his throat for Karsa. Wouldn't have worked otherwise.
Poliel also seemed pretty suicidal at that point.
Hood walked into a sword deliberately.

I think the key is, all those gods didn't have their defenses up, for various reasons. They were not prepared - or, prepared to die.

[nacht]

Sorry's possession by the Rope might be another way a god can play in the mortal space.
Also how Draconus can project himself as Morn.
Or interestingly like a Diver's, a god can split into multiple parts and everyone of these has to be killed for a god to die.
It could be that "one" of these parts is safely hidden somewhere, maybe their warren or maybe in some kind of special dimension.

[Kanese S's]

Kellanved, on 14 January 2016 - 08:14 AM, said:

After reading SW this question cam to mind can you kill a god without destroying its temples and/or its priesthood. This question cam to me because of the events at the end of SW. the only way

Spoiler

The Blessed Lady

died was because all the holy items along with the alter

Spoiler

The Stormwall

wer destroyed first. Also in the BH

Spoiler

Poliel

died after she killed all of her followers in seven cities and I assume the alter got destroyed in that confrontation. what do you guys think.

Poliel was killed because she was manifesting completely... Paran pinned her in place, essentially, with the Otataral, making her unable to access her powers to escape. The hounds of shadow and the deragoth then came and tore her to pieces.