This is before. In strip 3358, Marion tells the Kids that Falahn "gave up her divinity and bore you two." Strongly implied to be in that order, and as part of a linked process; maybe the only way she COULD give up her divinity was to pass it on.
(And it raises the intriguing possibility that Ch’Thier, Ranna, or both will choose to do the same in the present age. Maybe the reason that gods and magic will be thin on the ground for the next few thousand years is that the gods’ successors will be in infancy, and limited in their influence on the world.)
I have never understood people who say they wish to live forever, or the quest for immortality trope in fiction. A long healthy life, sure, I can get that, but immortality? That is a long time.
Yes, that’s the difference. Living literally forever is curse. Living as long as you want to is not. Sure, lot of people are satisfied with their natural livespan, but lot of people isn’t.
… I suspect that natural livespan wouldn’t be enough for me to find love …
I would accept (or even strive for, if it were a thing one could strive for) immortality as long as it included the exact escape clause you mention.
"Living forever, in perfect health, with no way to end your existence even if you wanted to," on the other hand, is the perfect recipe for absolute soul-searing horror. The real-life concept of Deep Time (in a Cosmological context. Geological Deep Time is for dilettantes; a few billion years ain’t NOTHING) should give any prospective immortal pause.
My understanding is that in most of those tropes, the people who are seeking immortality do it less because they want to live forever, and more because they are scared to die.
Having not lived forever, I can’t quite give an opinion on the subject. However, considering how every year I’ve been alive I’ve expanded my idea of what "old age" is, I can only expect that I’d manage eternity well enough.
Panel one shows one of the great downfalls to Immortality: watching the ones you love (including children, if they don’t share your curse) grow old and die, leaving you in a state of panel where you shut yourself off for a couple hundred decades, until someone drags you back again and the cycle repeats itself
I don’t think that’s so bad either. Watching loved ones die.
For example, my dad was the person I was closest to in my life. He still means more to me than my mother, who is alive. But we both knew he was going to die one day, and then he did. Every time I think of him I feel warmth, like he’s still there somehow.
It’s not a sad feeling. It’s a joyous feeling. Either one day I will join him or simply cease to exist. I’m fine with either outcome since if I don’t exist I won’t be there to mind about it.
Falahn had been around for centuries (millennia?) and knew the cycle of death, and it *still* hit her hard
Not saying it will *always* be like that, or that each death over hundreds of lifetimes will hurt as much, was just saying that the pain will build up when you have buried dozens of loved ones
you’re a god, surely there must be some way to make your boy toy immortal like you. why is a woman’s first decision when their man dies to kill themselves, come on Juliet, go find Rasputin and have him necromancy Romeo into your sexy bone daddy instead of jumping straight on that murder juice.
whenever I date a woman one of the first 50 things I tell them is always "if I die while we’re together you better find a way to bring me back or so help me I will haunt your ass".
A lot, but the ones who stayed have already brought him back from the dead three times. Dating mad scientists is the optimal path through the modern health insurance hellscape!
I’m surprisingly prone to dying despite being lucky enough to exclusively date necromancers, either my dice are faulty or the DM just really has it out for my character.
Maybe having the twins was the way to give it up. she simply pushed all the immortality on them when she got pregnant. gave birth to the goddesess and became mortal at the same time.
Might be she honestly did not know she would be passing the "curse" of godhood to the next generation. She is her own first data point for a newly discovered and purely theoretical technique, after all.
(Also, godhood is not universally a curse; Falahn knows that most of her peers and colleagues, including her own big sister, are happy with their immortality. She is the first one to get so close to mortal lovers that "Can’t live with them; can’t live without them" becomes a literal, existentially crucial problem.)
The difference between a Blessing and a Curse, tends to be if you asked for it or it was just giving to you without your knowledge
The Kids didn’t ask for it, they never experienced being mortal (long lived or not), certainly didn’t experience life *not* being worshiped
That’s an approximate heuristic at best, though an important one to consider whenever you are in a position to be handing out boons.
Lolth wanted godhood desperately, and hers is a curse (to everyone around her, and almost certainly to herself. Nothing about her character exactly screams "happy and devoid of self-hatred.")
Marion DIDN’T want godhood, tried her damnedest to reject it, and ultimately made it a blessing nonetheless, to the world and (we can hope) to herself.
I dunno, it seems more like a form of passing the torch. The key here is that the metaphorical torch should be willingly accepted. A case of giving your kids everything they need, and then getting out of the way to let them shine.
Maybe having the twins was the way to give it up. she simply pushed all the immortality on them when she got pregnant. gave birth to the goddesess and became mortal at the same time.
It’s only now occurring to me, did the afterlife not exist at this point? As a goddess I’d normally expect her to be able to hang out with her mortal love after they died, but then again all these gods are hanging out on earth, instead of needing strong power to summon them to it like some of the previous gods we’ve seen. The afterlife/realm of the gods may be something we see get invented.
Perhaps the souls of departed mortals WERE leaving on a journey, rather than simply ceasing to exist, but the gods had not yet discovered their destination. Then once they found the way there, some of the gods were like, "Ooh; this place is nice. We should build a vacation home here."
And before too long, most of the gods never leave the place, they act like they OWN it by right, and the only way the locals can even afford to live there anymore is to work for one of the gods. Frickin’ gentrification…
Ah, you do remind me that Rich has yet to reveal who the mysterious figure is in the afterlife who freed C’thier. Could it be Momma was still there to lend a hand to her daughters, should they need one?
It’s certainly a guaranteed argument winner for the rest of the marriage.
" But I’d made arrangements to play poker with the guys on that day. "
" Gave up Immortality "
(Pause)
"Yes dear"
Godhood – or, more specifically in this case, the Immortality aspect of it – was bestowed by the adulation of others (who at the time were also mortal, just like the god they elevated).
So if Immortality can be *cast off*, that process must somehow involve negating, perhaps not the adulation itself (since not all gods are loved), but whatever that idolatry *became in the process*, between the transmitter and receiver.
Hmm, didn’t they already have immortality? It was the Godhood that was given to them
Gods don’t have to be loved, it’s more *reverence*. That’s what happened after the Coup d’Drow: the drow and orcs didn’t start to hate Lolth and Gruumsh, they simply stopped revering them as much because of the shit they put their followers through
Yeah, "the shit they put their followers through" was part of what eroded the strong belief in Lolth and Gruumsh. I would wager that another big part of it was just that life in Black Mountain got really weird and busy and complicated. Your new challenges and new enemies were not the sort you were used to, and some of your enemies you WERE used to were now kind of your friends, but only sometimes, and…damn, it’s a lot to think about. Which, in a not-quite-zero-sum way, left less time to think about the gods.
It’s like the way gods die in Pratchett’s Discworld. They require belief to live, but that belief doesn’t just mean "I believe that this god is an objectively real entity." That would have no power. Mortals don’t have to LIKE their gods to keep them strong; hatred and fear are also powerful forms of belief. But the mortals have to CARE, for better or for worse, about the fact that the god exists. Take a god for granted, and you’re killing them, so slowly that the gods themselves might not notice until it’s too late.
Witches and wizards in that setting don’t believe in gods, in the same sense that they don’t believe in chairs. Yes, chairs exist, but so what? Ironically, if the chair stops being a good unobtrusive chair and starts causing you trouble, you WILL believe in it more strongly…which is why Anoia, the minor Goddess of Things that Get Stuck in Drawers, is in no danger of fading away soon.
This dynamic sparked one of my favorite exchanges in the whole series, as a powerful and opinionated witch griped about the dangers of people believing in spirits, which led to believing in demons, which led to believing in gods.
"But all them things EXIST, Esme."
"That ain’t no call to go around BELIEVING in them. It only encourages ’em.”
Similar happened at the end of the "Merlin" movie (mini-series?), the one with Sam Neill: at the end, he tells everyone to turn their backs and stop believing in Morgana, and everyone did, including her ‘faithful’ servant (played by the wonderful Martin Short), and she faded from existence
Second panel https://www.yafgc.net/comic/3363-the-goddess-falahn/
To quote Lady Marion of Heatherdale just in case you missed it, "Even those of us who resisted and tried hard to stay true to our original selves had power and IMMORTALITY thrust upon us by Human, Halfling, even Goblin and Orc minds."
So no, they weren’t Immortal before this, they just had exceptionally long lives compared to the others, even the Elves.
Pick up your copies of YAFGC Volumes 1 - 5 at our online store. Multi-book bundles and sketch editions available.
The things I do for love
Like walking in the rain and the snow when there’s no where to go?
…When you’re feeling like a part of you is dying, and you’re looking for the answer in her eyes.
Was this before or after she had The Twins?
If before, then that means she ‘cast it off’ onto her unsuspecting offspring
This is before. In strip 3358, Marion tells the Kids that Falahn "gave up her divinity and bore you two." Strongly implied to be in that order, and as part of a linked process; maybe the only way she COULD give up her divinity was to pass it on.
(And it raises the intriguing possibility that Ch’Thier, Ranna, or both will choose to do the same in the present age. Maybe the reason that gods and magic will be thin on the ground for the next few thousand years is that the gods’ successors will be in infancy, and limited in their influence on the world.)
Brings a whole new meaning to, "Till death do us part."
No longer do we have to murder the other person to get a divorce. 😀
Dang! But that takes away half the fun!! Or, so I’ve heard…
I remain quiet, because there’s little I can say to add to this. Rich, you have well and truly outdone yourself.
I have never understood people who say they wish to live forever, or the quest for immortality trope in fiction. A long healthy life, sure, I can get that, but immortality? That is a long time.
And doing it alone? That would be worse.
I wouldn’t mind it. I mean, being immortal doesn’t prevent you from stopping your own life if you decided it was time to go.
Yes, that’s the difference. Living literally forever is curse. Living as long as you want to is not. Sure, lot of people are satisfied with their natural livespan, but lot of people isn’t.
… I suspect that natural livespan wouldn’t be enough for me to find love …
I would accept (or even strive for, if it were a thing one could strive for) immortality as long as it included the exact escape clause you mention.
"Living forever, in perfect health, with no way to end your existence even if you wanted to," on the other hand, is the perfect recipe for absolute soul-searing horror. The real-life concept of Deep Time (in a Cosmological context. Geological Deep Time is for dilettantes; a few billion years ain’t NOTHING) should give any prospective immortal pause.
My understanding is that in most of those tropes, the people who are seeking immortality do it less because they want to live forever, and more because they are scared to die.
Having not lived forever, I can’t quite give an opinion on the subject. However, considering how every year I’ve been alive I’ve expanded my idea of what "old age" is, I can only expect that I’d manage eternity well enough.
Panel one shows one of the great downfalls to Immortality: watching the ones you love (including children, if they don’t share your curse) grow old and die, leaving you in a state of panel where you shut yourself off for a couple hundred decades, until someone drags you back again and the cycle repeats itself
I don’t think that’s so bad either. Watching loved ones die.
For example, my dad was the person I was closest to in my life. He still means more to me than my mother, who is alive. But we both knew he was going to die one day, and then he did. Every time I think of him I feel warmth, like he’s still there somehow.
It’s not a sad feeling. It’s a joyous feeling. Either one day I will join him or simply cease to exist. I’m fine with either outcome since if I don’t exist I won’t be there to mind about it.
Falahn had been around for centuries (millennia?) and knew the cycle of death, and it *still* hit her hard
Not saying it will *always* be like that, or that each death over hundreds of lifetimes will hurt as much, was just saying that the pain will build up when you have buried dozens of loved ones
Well, who link the Queen official video Who wants to live forever?
The official one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jtpf8N5IDE
A Highlander one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqFoiM0zxdY
Pick your choice. 🙂
you’re a god, surely there must be some way to make your boy toy immortal like you. why is a woman’s first decision when their man dies to kill themselves, come on Juliet, go find Rasputin and have him necromancy Romeo into your sexy bone daddy instead of jumping straight on that murder juice.
whenever I date a woman one of the first 50 things I tell them is always "if I die while we’re together you better find a way to bring me back or so help me I will haunt your ass".
How many run away?
A lot, but the ones who stayed have already brought him back from the dead three times. Dating mad scientists is the optimal path through the modern health insurance hellscape!
I’m surprisingly prone to dying despite being lucky enough to exclusively date necromancers, either my dice are faulty or the DM just really has it out for my character.
Well that may not be the best parenting, avoid something that seems like a curse to you by foisting it on your kids.
Though maybe she thought gods born as gods rather than forced into it after being mortal originally might take to it better.
Well, we still don’t know how she gave up her own god-hood, nor how she gave it to her kids (or why)
Maybe having the twins was the way to give it up. she simply pushed all the immortality on them when she got pregnant. gave birth to the goddesess and became mortal at the same time.
Might be she honestly did not know she would be passing the "curse" of godhood to the next generation. She is her own first data point for a newly discovered and purely theoretical technique, after all.
(Also, godhood is not universally a curse; Falahn knows that most of her peers and colleagues, including her own big sister, are happy with their immortality. She is the first one to get so close to mortal lovers that "Can’t live with them; can’t live without them" becomes a literal, existentially crucial problem.)
The difference between a Blessing and a Curse, tends to be if you asked for it or it was just giving to you without your knowledge
The Kids didn’t ask for it, they never experienced being mortal (long lived or not), certainly didn’t experience life *not* being worshiped
That’s an approximate heuristic at best, though an important one to consider whenever you are in a position to be handing out boons.
Lolth wanted godhood desperately, and hers is a curse (to everyone around her, and almost certainly to herself. Nothing about her character exactly screams "happy and devoid of self-hatred.")
Marion DIDN’T want godhood, tried her damnedest to reject it, and ultimately made it a blessing nonetheless, to the world and (we can hope) to herself.
I dunno, it seems more like a form of passing the torch. The key here is that the metaphorical torch should be willingly accepted. A case of giving your kids everything they need, and then getting out of the way to let them shine.
Maybe having the twins was the way to give it up. she simply pushed all the immortality on them when she got pregnant. gave birth to the goddesess and became mortal at the same time.
It’s only now occurring to me, did the afterlife not exist at this point? As a goddess I’d normally expect her to be able to hang out with her mortal love after they died, but then again all these gods are hanging out on earth, instead of needing strong power to summon them to it like some of the previous gods we’ve seen. The afterlife/realm of the gods may be something we see get invented.
Invented, or discovered.
Perhaps the souls of departed mortals WERE leaving on a journey, rather than simply ceasing to exist, but the gods had not yet discovered their destination. Then once they found the way there, some of the gods were like, "Ooh; this place is nice. We should build a vacation home here."
And before too long, most of the gods never leave the place, they act like they OWN it by right, and the only way the locals can even afford to live there anymore is to work for one of the gods. Frickin’ gentrification…
The way to ditch immortality: Foist it onto your kids. (not going to cause any problems there!)
Wait, what about the afterlife? Or did they figure that out later?
It’s possible you can’t enter it while your physical form is, well, still alive, it is the *after*life after all
Ah, you do remind me that Rich has yet to reveal who the mysterious figure is in the afterlife who freed C’thier. Could it be Momma was still there to lend a hand to her daughters, should they need one?
I can’t help thinking that’s going to be a burden for her partner. The thought she gave up Immortality for him ! Hoo boy, the guilt !
Not guilt, *pressure*
He had *better* be good in not just the sack 😛
It’s certainly a guaranteed argument winner for the rest of the marriage.
" But I’d made arrangements to play poker with the guys on that day. "
" Gave up Immortality "
(Pause)
"Yes dear"
IN-teresting.
Godhood – or, more specifically in this case, the Immortality aspect of it – was bestowed by the adulation of others (who at the time were also mortal, just like the god they elevated).
So if Immortality can be *cast off*, that process must somehow involve negating, perhaps not the adulation itself (since not all gods are loved), but whatever that idolatry *became in the process*, between the transmitter and receiver.
t!
Hmm, didn’t they already have immortality? It was the Godhood that was given to them
Gods don’t have to be loved, it’s more *reverence*. That’s what happened after the Coup d’Drow: the drow and orcs didn’t start to hate Lolth and Gruumsh, they simply stopped revering them as much because of the shit they put their followers through
Yeah, "the shit they put their followers through" was part of what eroded the strong belief in Lolth and Gruumsh. I would wager that another big part of it was just that life in Black Mountain got really weird and busy and complicated. Your new challenges and new enemies were not the sort you were used to, and some of your enemies you WERE used to were now kind of your friends, but only sometimes, and…damn, it’s a lot to think about. Which, in a not-quite-zero-sum way, left less time to think about the gods.
It’s like the way gods die in Pratchett’s Discworld. They require belief to live, but that belief doesn’t just mean "I believe that this god is an objectively real entity." That would have no power. Mortals don’t have to LIKE their gods to keep them strong; hatred and fear are also powerful forms of belief. But the mortals have to CARE, for better or for worse, about the fact that the god exists. Take a god for granted, and you’re killing them, so slowly that the gods themselves might not notice until it’s too late.
Witches and wizards in that setting don’t believe in gods, in the same sense that they don’t believe in chairs. Yes, chairs exist, but so what? Ironically, if the chair stops being a good unobtrusive chair and starts causing you trouble, you WILL believe in it more strongly…which is why Anoia, the minor Goddess of Things that Get Stuck in Drawers, is in no danger of fading away soon.
This dynamic sparked one of my favorite exchanges in the whole series, as a powerful and opinionated witch griped about the dangers of people believing in spirits, which led to believing in demons, which led to believing in gods.
"But all them things EXIST, Esme."
"That ain’t no call to go around BELIEVING in them. It only encourages ’em.”
Similar happened at the end of the "Merlin" movie (mini-series?), the one with Sam Neill: at the end, he tells everyone to turn their backs and stop believing in Morgana, and everyone did, including her ‘faithful’ servant (played by the wonderful Martin Short), and she faded from existence
Second panel https://www.yafgc.net/comic/3363-the-goddess-falahn/
To quote Lady Marion of Heatherdale just in case you missed it, "Even those of us who resisted and tried hard to stay true to our original selves had power and IMMORTALITY thrust upon us by Human, Halfling, even Goblin and Orc minds."
So no, they weren’t Immortal before this, they just had exceptionally long lives compared to the others, even the Elves.
So, they had naturally long lives in the hundreds of thousands of years?
Thank you
Oh, well.
This could have been an intelligent discussion. Mucat has some interesting insight.
But, as too often happens, NotRichard got there first and reframed the discussion.
t!
With humans, children are a way to achieve immortality. With Falahn, it’s the other way around.