WMG / The Order of the Stick: Divine Beings

• Jossed Theories
• Confirmed Theories
• Theories on the Order
• Theories on Team Evil
• Theories on the Linear Guild
• Theories on Divine Beings

Banjo will cast the deciding vote and save the world

• We know he actually counts as a deity; he managed to weakly smite Roy early on, and Odin was considering accepting him to the pantheon.
• If he requests membership again, Odin probably would allow him; they are desperate to get the vote they need.
• And since he and Giggles are rivals (similar to Thor and Loki), Giggle's followers (which is a whole island of Orcs) technically power him as well.
• Since the two of them came into being after the new world was created, like the Dark One, they might count as purple gods

The IFCC want the Gates to be destroyed

• So, their plan is more or less this: destroy all Gates, forcing gods to remake the world again, and do it without leaving their own traces, so that gods couldn't suspect and pwn them as punishment. Three pantheons can wait for Snarl to calm itself, but The Dark One cannot. So they show themselves to him and offer him something (most likely souls) to sustain himself during interim period, at least temporarily making him dependent on them. This places them in control of purple quiddity, and with this they can make demands to pantheons, for whatever their next stage is.
  • Except how can they benefit from one world's destruction and a new one's creation, if all outsiders' memories are wiped each time it happens? Even if they think this would work, all it would take to scuttle this idea would be for Loki or Tiamat (or Rat, assuming he's not still too angry to speak to the guy) to tell the Dark One that the IFCC won't even remember him during the interim.
    • Seems like they have some sort of contingency for this, since they really wanted Hel to succeed in destroying the world. Maybe the artifact they were talking about is meant to prevent the mind wipe.

The Snarl is actually Kratos.

• That's why it killed the Eastern Pantheon... and why it saved Zeus for last.
  • Jossed. The Snarl is just the personification of strife amongst the pantheons.

The Snarl is one of the nine forces.

• It hates everyone, it has been shown to be an omnicidal manic (or a beast, we don't know how smart it is.) it was suggested that there being more then one gate intact has stopped it noticing the rifts, so when the last gate is being fought for, it will be happily trying to to kill everyone too!

The Eastern Gods aren't quite Dead

Or have been reincarnated in the form of the Order of the Stick. Roy=Zeus, Belkar=Ares, V=Athena, Elan=Hermes, Haley=Aphrodite(?), Durkon=Hephaestus (which would probably piss him right off).

• How about Artemis = Haley (Archer, Sneaky, intimacy issues...)
• Elan=Apollo. Both are allegedly attractive, and linked to music and storytelling.
  • Actually, Roy is more remmeniscant of Hades, the Only Sane Man of the Greek pantheon.
• V could be Hermes, who has a connection to magic and an androgynous son. Durkon could be Athena, since cleric is a wisdom-based class.
• So Belkar really IS a God of war, albeit a sexy and shoeless one.

The Order of the Stick will lose and the last strip will be the gods going "Damn, we have to make the world again?"

Because of all the tropes out there, hero saves the day is short far too many subvertions.

• It will be a happy ending for Elan.
  • He'll be spared as High Priest of Banjo.
    • Elan would be miserable anyway, without his friends, especially Roy and Haley.
• Probably Jossed, because there have already been untold millions of worlds where the heroes failed and the gods had to recreate things. It's not much of a subversion when it's already established that it's the sort of outcome that happens all the time.

The Snarl will be released and unmake the world, and several of the characters will ascend to godhood in order to remake it.

Most likely, the new pantheon will include at least Vaarsuvius (who will obtain ultimate power), Redcloak (who has it as his entire goal), Elan (the Oracle said he'd have a happy ending), and Banjo the Clown.

• My theory is that Banjo, being a puppet god, is controlled by whoever's hand is in the puppet. So Elan will be saved because he is Banjo. And that might not include Redcloak; the Dark One is already a god and that's all Redcloak needs.
• Redcloak might well replace the Dark One as a God maybe. A lot of 'The Dark One isn't on the up and up' theories are floating around, and if Redcloak finds out he let all those Goblins die for nothing I wouldn't put it beyond him to unleash the Snarl on his former master.
• I hope that the heroes and even the Gods fight a final battle with the Snarl after it is released. The heroes Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence and fill the vacancy left by the Gods who perished in the battle and use their power to rebuild the Multiverse that was destroyed in the battle. The catch is that they do not and possibly even cannot understand the world's workings and they recreate the world differently than it was before. This leads to a 4th-edition-based world. The heroes decide that the new world is so wonderful that they reincarnate themselves to become adventurers, except for a few others who become the new Gods including Vaarsuvius who becomes the new Corellon-type God.
  • Redcloak's opinion about paladins made him invent the forth edition paladins(that doesn't have to be lawful good)!!

Banjo the Clown is really The Chessmaster who is controlling all of the other characters

Think of the irony: Banjo is the only literal puppet in the strip, but all of the other characters are actually "puppets" to him!

The Dark One isn't quite on the up and up.

Redcloak claims that goblins and the other monster races were created for the sole reason of grinding XP for the hero races. But then we have Kobolds and Lizardmen who have deific patrons (and the Kobold's deific patron is Tiamat, one of the original deities), which makes me wonder if the Dark One is conveniently ignoring things like, say, human bandits and roleplaying as sources of XP.

• Depends on your house rules as to whether "Good Acting" applies. Besides, it's not saying that the monster races are the only source of XP — just that the only reason they EXIST is as one of the many sources of XP.
  • Roleplaying XP clearly exists in the Order of the Stick universe.
  • I kinda get the whole Animatrix "Second Renaissance" vibe where, despite being presented as fact, it just sounds too... propagandized, to really seem true. There's probably a good deal of truth, but a lot was exaggerated, and some details omitted.
• To me, the Dark One has to be evil- because the only thing that justifies fantasy heroes killing their enemies is when they are evil (or mindless). To think that Redcloak's story is true and humans just started killing goblins for its sake is taking morality issues a little too far (especially for a humorous strip.) In the early D&D editions, it was made clear that monsters CANNOT change their alignment, unlike humans and demihumans; goblins are just born evil and are always evil, which justifies killing them off. I dunno if this applies to the current edition, but it should. Sure, there can be rare exceptions (just as there monster mutations) so heroes cannot have to be careful, but in general, goblins deserve to die; the XP they give is inconsequential.
  • And I say just having an Evil alignment isn't enough to deserve being killed if you're not doing anything actively evil. Which is presumably what happened to Redcloak's village: they were all Evil, but weren't doing anything evil.
    • And the Book of Exalted Deeds would agree with you. Besides, Burlew loves subverting tropes. Always Chaotic Evil is a trope.
    • Or the Dark One used to be just like Redcloak but never had a My God, What Have I Done? Redloak had when a hobgoblin saved his life, as a result he became a Knight Templar, as a result turned the monster races into the Always Chaotic Evil they are now, he enlist Redcloak to fix his mistakes (or finshed what he started aka kill all PC races)
    • We know the Dark One's backstory, though, and it's nothing like that.
    • Yes because we all know gods don't lie or history is never fudge or anything like that.
• Perhaps he was telling the truth about the origin of the monstrous humanoids, but unlike, say, the Iron Golems orc fans, the jungle island orcs, or the lizardfolk and kobolds of the Western Continent, he refuses to consider alternatives.
• Goblins had a deific patron, sort of: Fenris. Too bad he has a personality of 6-year old ADHD kid, and the moment he discovered they aren't going to pwn every other race he lost interest and ditched them.

The Snarl will be released, and the heroes will take it down. Or maybe not...

When Shojo was telling the story of the Snarl's creation, he mentioned that the Gods were extremely vulnerable, even stating that "some theorized since that gods were even MORE vulnerable to the Snarl than a mortal of the same level would have been". This could hint that when the series approaches the end, the heroes will be of a high enough level to compete with the Gods. Furthermore, someone (which could be Redcloak, Xykon, or even Vaarsuvius as theorized above) will succeed in releasing the Snarl. The result: a no-holds-barred brawl with the fate of the world. The obvious result would be the heroes winning, and the world saved. However, as stated in one of the above entries, the "heroes save the day" trope doesn't have that many subversions, and Rich has never been one to follow the standard route for tropes, so it's entirely possible that he's planning on being one of the few subversions.

• Alternatively: The Snarl is released, and the world ends — but all or some (most likely including Elan) of the Order influence the creation of the world after that. If Elan is involved, he makes sure that the old Order is in some way brought back just the way it was.

The IFCC will use V's soul to get information on the Gates once they have it

Seems likely after 637. Also, remember that if V ends the Soul Splice right now, they'll each only have it for about 5 minutes.

• They definitely want something out of him beyond just "testing" the splice.
• 668 confirms that what they want out of him has something to do with the Gates...

The agents of hell need a willing Good/Neutral soul for some sort of summoning or power upgrade.

By entering the contract wherein V's soul goes to each underworld being for the same amount of time he had been fused with the other souls, they can use him as a sacrifice after he dies to exploit a loophole where something can only occur/escape if a willing good or neutral soul is sacrificed in the deepest pit of hell by the combined power of all three eternally-warring faction leaders. The only way they could do that is by fulfilling such a contract as they offered V, then allowing the soul to be under their domain at the same time ("Exact order of custody to be determined").

The Snarl is Haruhi Suzumiya.

It's not so much "evil" as "really bored". They both have the power to unmake reality, and can cause major disruptions in space-time just by being there. This could actually be the origin of Haruhi and her powers, which show up in many other media: the personified frustration and ennui of an entire world. Clearly, by the end of the comic's Myth Arc, The Snarl will be released, unmake the webcomic reality, and remake one more similar to our modern Earth, with plenty of anime tropes thrown in; the only effect of our heroes will be to wipe her memories of this, and make her into a human girl.

The Snarl did not kill the Eastern pantheon

The other gods did in a particularly heated argument which also involved starting the world over. The snarl was just a cover story, deliberately put in the new world as such, and will not actually do anything much if released or controlled.

• Jossed: Snarl (part of it) is shown on screen, and Dark One confirms it's existence independently.

The Eastern pantheon isn't all dead

The Monster in the Dark is Persephone, or some otherchild-like god from the Eastern Pantheod, that survived in hiding.

Mr. Scruffy is the Thirteenth God of the Twelve Gods.

Mr. Scruffy is a Cat so why not? If The Twelve Gods are the Chinese zodiac, Why not Thirteenth Zodiac?

• Because that's not how Zodiac signs work. To sum up: over the year, the sun follows a path through the sky. Any constellation that crosses this line is a Zodiac sign. You cannot simply add another Zodiac without re-arranging the constellations on the sky. (That said: In the west we actually do have 13 Zodiacs, we just ignore one of them because the Sun passes through it in about a day).
  • Wrong. "Zodiac" literally means "circle of animals", which is why the word is used for the Chinese zodiac. But the Chinese zodiac has nothing to do with the constellations the sun passes through.
    • According to legend, Cat would have been a thirteenth (Chinese) zodiac sign, but his good friend, Rat, played a trick on him.
• Tying this with the "Belkar really is a God of War" WMG, maybe Mr. Scruffy/Cat is trying to get both of them awakened as part of the new gods to replace some of the dead ones?

The Snarl doesn't exist.

Soon's wife was killed by the gods as a gambit to have the Order of the Scibble created so someone would build the Gates and lock off the other world inside the main one. The whole tale about the Snarl is a huge pile of lies made up to justify their actions. This way, the heroes work as unwilling jailors for the other world imprisoned within their own.

• This is quite possible, as every single depiction of the snarl has been second hand in a crayon drawing- Xykon was destroyed by the rune preventing entry to the rift, not the rift itself. As such, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that both the bearers of the crimson mantle and the rest of the cast have been deliberately misled.
• Except we do see it, in strip number #945, where it breaks through Girard's Gate attacks Laurin and her troops.

An alternative version is that the Snarl was created by the gods as a defence mechanism, a part of the planet itself, to convince anyone living on the Order of the Stick planet to close any leaks that might let people escape from the other planet.

The Eastern Gods didn't die.

They're imprisoned on the other planet inside the main one.

The Other Planet is Earth.

That's why people killed by the Snarl can't be resurrected. They're not dead; they're now living out ordinary lives in modern earth.

• When this is revealed, someone, probably V, will complain about what a cliche it is.
• Jossed by Rich.

The Other Planet is the World of Science Fiction.

Only because it would be funny.

The Other Planet is the last one the Gods designed; it follows another RPG's rules.

It could be 2nd edition D&D, Exalted, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu or really any other RPG. Alternatively, it's Erfworld; that stuff about the two comics being unrelated is a total lie.

The Other Planet was created by the Snarl

The Snarl angered by the fact it was formed from the residue of the many panthon of gods when they were creating the planet and imprisoned in their second creation of the world, it decides it could make a better world by its own without having to argue anyone else. The Snarl's world is managed by a pantheon of Canaanite-abrahamic Gods, and the Snarl is the head of this Pantheon and its name is Ēl ʿElyōn. The first God created by the Snarl would be named Yahweh.

The Snarl merged with the previous world.

So instead of looking like a giant scribble it's now Ego the Living Planet, only even more powerful and insane.

The Three Amigos of Evil were lying

Or at least obscuring the truth from the imp. It's true they don't want Xykon to control the gates, but they're not telling the whole truth, they want the gates themselves, and they only the soul of a sufficiently powerful divine caster to do it, they have V, they just need Redcloak's help.

The Other World is 4th Edition

It would be interesting to see the two interact.

The Snarl does not exist anymore

Oh sure, it still existed in some form during Soon's time, what with the claws from the voids, but notice how this hasn't happened since the gates were sealed. Even with the prisoners so dangerously close to the Sapphire rift, nothing happened: no stringy arm lashed out to take anything. My theory is this: over time, the Snarl, which is made of strands of creation, eventually began to unwind. Without anything to lash out at or destroy within its prison of creation, the threads found themselves loosening, unraveling; the knot that was the snarl began to undo itself. Until eventually, the un-knotted strands of creation within the rift fell back into their intended shape: a world.

• Jossed.

The Snarl never actually destroyed anyone or anything

The planet within the rift the is old world that the snarl supposedly "destroyed". The story of the Snarl that Shojo tells the Order may not be the true account. In fact, the gods themselves may be mistaken, believing that the gods of the East were killed when they really became part of the Snarl. In other words, anything the snarl gets its tendrils on is not killed but is instead transported to the Snarl's realm. The snarl himself may not even be evil, simply wanting to absorb things more "real" than itself for unknown reasons. So yeah, basically like a being from the dungeon dimensions

The world beyond the rift is The Snarl.

The Snarl has had an extremely long time to sort itself out. It was made by gods who were new at this whole world-making thing, and since their fight over what would and wouldn't be part of the world was childish and immature, the Snarl itself was childish and immature. The unstoppable rage that killed the Western gods was merely a collossal temper-tantrum. With however many years it's been since then, the Snarl has grown up, used its powers to raise the Western pantheon, and is now a stable world with stable gods and stable people.

• Oi! I came to the same sort of conclusion about seven WMGs up... though I didn't think of the "temper tantrum" angle... [+]I guess great minds think alike! [ ]You stole from the WRONG man.
• The reason that it attacked in the modern day was because to it, the Snarl was defending it's self and it's world. It only attacked after they cast spells at it.

The world in the rift was made by The Dark One

just think about it, the Dark One is the only god that seen interested in using the snarl. He probably found a way to use the threads that the snarl is made of and made his own world out of them.

That Guy with a Halberd will return

Considering the fact that Thog still exists because of his surprising popularity, there's at least a fair chance this unusually famous character will reappear at some point. Possible things he will do with his (hopefully) grand re-entrance include:

• Cutting off Xykon's head (which, unfortunately, probably won't kill him)
• Distracting/Flanking someone (such as Redcloak) long enough for Haley to get in a dramatic Sneak Attack
• Speaking a single sentence in the background that hangs a lampshade on something
• Is given a name and revealed to be a high-ranking commander who is treated as though everyone knew him all along
• Rescues O-Chul from some catastrophe
• Asks Hinjo where he would like a lampshade hung
• Says one line, then gets killed

The gods of the east didn't want to share the creation of the world with the other gods...

so they invented a snarl, and pretended to be killed by him, so they could create a world alone.

The planet within the planet will be the final destination for goblinkind, with them all alive and well, as one facet of the Dark One's Plan.

The Dark One's Plan involves an ritual to help control the Snarl, which happens to be the purple energy seperating the outer world from the inner world. As it is, it is deadly to touch, but the ritual will allow transportation of goblinkind from the outer planet where they're hunted for sport into the inner planet where the inhabitants originally consumed by the Snarl will welcome the goblins as equals, like Little Green Men finally showing themselves to humanity. This will allow Burlew to reference Star Trek as well, and maybe even LongCat as the goblin's welcoming host.

• Part of the Dark One's Plan or not, Goblinkind finding their way to the planet within the planet could be one way of delivering an ending that, while happy for our heroes, does not ultimately shaft goblinkind. The world being unmade to make way for a world that is more fair towards goblinkind, would still be a loss for our heroes (the world being unmade would claim many lives, after all). On the other hand, the goblins not getting anything out of the deal, remaining XP-fodder for adventurers, would subvert the "being a monstrous humanoid does not mean you deserve to be killed"-theme Burlew has going. Solution: Goblinkind get a fair chance to make their own fortune on the planet within the planet (even more so if it is uninhabited, giving them an entirely clean slate), and the current planet gets to survive.

The IFCC engineered the Order's original confrontation with the younger black dragon.

Think about it; the Order was sent to get the starmetal by Sabine in disguise, ostensibly as a wild goose chase. But what if she actually sent them that way because she was ordered to by Director Lee? The Fiends could have known that that particular dragon's mother was quite vengeful, and so a good way to create a situation in which one of the order members required their help was to ensure that she had a reason to come after them.

• Except going after the starmetal was Nale's idea.
  • It could be delaying them with a wild goose chase was Nale's idea, Sabine just helpfully "filled in the details".
• This is Xanatos Roulette territory. The IFCC would have no way of predicting that V specifically would kill the dragon and incur the mother's wrath, when the mother would catch up with him, or that all his other options would run out - and V is the only member of the Order who would conceivably deal with archfiends in return for arcane power. Though they may well have been watching V for this opportunity for a long time in case something came up that would make him sell his soul for power.
  • I dunno, even if it's not for arcane power, it'd be totally in character for, say, Belkar to ask for supernatural abilities, or Haley to at least consider a Deal with the Devil in exchange for her father's freedom. Besides, while V might be one of the few who'd be willing to make a deal, the elf is also the most likely to kill the dragon, or at least, to play a large role in the dragon's demise. While everyone else is using material weapons (1d4 daggers and arrows (plus about 3d6 in sneak attack), a 1d10 hammer, a 2d6 greatsword and Elan wasn't even fighting directly), V was using Disintegrate at the earliest available opportunity (bare minimum 24d6 points of damage), which made them the most likely to actually kill the dragon, or at least, the biggest contributor in terms of raw damage, and thus the primary target for the dragon's mother. Assuming, of course, the original plan wasn't just for the dragon to kill them, which would eliminate competition for the Linear Guild and thus the IFCC. Lee, Cedrik and Nero probably have a few ranks in Xanatos Speed Chess between them.

The finale will be an epic battle between the Snarl and Banjo the Clown

The Snarl is an embodiment of storytelling conventions.

Consider how Elan, the bard and the one most in touch with tropes, has started defying tropes, most notably by just telling Haley about Therkla, in defiance of Bardic tradition. Furthermore, he persuaded Julio Scoundrél to return and take on Tarquin by pointing out that the most heroic thing he could do would be to defy stories themselves - which Julio did by surviving.

This all points to Elan defying tropes more and more, which will reach its apogee at the very end, when he defies the Snarl, a cosmic entity made entirely of tropes.

Hel's master plan involves the summoning ritual

Maybe she'll use it to subvert the Dark One's attempt to raise goblinkind to a higher standard by stepping in to control the Snarl at the last moment? Or something else entirely.

• She's probably going to unleash the Snarl, then harvest the souls of everyone it kills via collateral damage instead of directly (because those will be soul-killed).

The world in the rift is the original world created by the gods, but the way the Snarl fed on it was not what we were made to think.

Shojo's flashback is quite specific on the Snarl's attack on the original world. It mentions that it devoured every soul there, but the text mentions nothing about the world itself being destroyed; we're only shown it.

This may be a case of Unreliable Narrator. The world in the rift still exists, but is now devoid of any living creatures (which would be consistent with Laurin finding no trace of life in the ocean). Perhaps one day, after the Snarl is destroyed, it may yet be repopulated.

The Gods are voting to destroy the world because they're concerned about the Snarl.

Four gates have been lost already and it appears that the Snarl is loose in the Empire of Blood. The gods want to stop the Snarl preemptively before it's able to come after them. You shoot a skunk in the road before it gets to the porch, after all.

• Confirmed

Hel's vote is going to cause a tie... that will be broken by Banjo the Clown

This strip has Banjo getting treated as a full-fleged god by Odin and Thor, but failing to join the Northern Pantheon. Each full-fleged god gets a vote in the Godsmoot. Banjo isn't part of the Eastern or Southern Pantheons, so he hasn't technically voted yet. His vote will save the world, but Hel will have revealed her hand by voting via her High Priest and the Order will no longer be able to ignore it.

• Alternatively, Giggles could play a role.
  • Chekhov's Puppet.

The Dark One will choose to throw a spanner in the works of Hel's plan

The Dark One doesn't want to get the goblins all killed along with the rest of the world, so he may very well choose to come in. However, he is a clever fellow and he might threaten to withhold his vote unless the rest of the gods allow equality for goblinoid species.

The Dark One is going to move forward Hel's plan

Alternate to the above: Right-Eye once called The Dark One a "Petty, spiteful god". Perhaps he wants the world to be destroyed, because he commands the worship of most of the goblinoid population. Goblinoids are a fast-breeding species, so they probably have a sizable population, even with all the adventurer purges. As such, he would benefit greatly from the souls of the goblinoids, possibly making him even more powerful than Hel.

The Snarl is a Genius Loci

When Blackwing saw the world within the Snarl's realm, he was really staring at its very core. The gods' conflicting plotlines formed that world, but it's incomplete because it doesn't make any sense. The Snarl doesn't kill, it absorbs, and it won't stop until that absorbed information is enough for it to make sense.

If the Order fails to save the world, they will be spared and deified as the new fourth pantheon as a consolation prize.

It's (sort of) a happy ending for Elan, it fulfills the prophecy about Belkar (since I don't think gods age or breathe), and it's less of a Downer Ending than everyone dying.

The Dark One will abandon "The Plan" once he realizes that Gobbtopia's existance has already achieved his goal, but Redcloak will keep going due to his Sunk Cost Fallacy

It's already established that Redcloak is slipping farther into the Sunk Cost Fallacy the longer he goes on working with Xykon, eventually The Dark One will decide that with Gobbtopia recognized as a sovereign nation he doesn't need to risk his own existance by releasing The Snarl on the godly realms and that Redcloak is more of a risk to that than anything. But Redcloak is so determined to finish "The Plan" that he'll keep going regardless of his deity's commands.

There are other Evil (or at least non-Good) and/or non-human friendly Gods who are either actively aiding the Dark One or using his faction for their plans

The Dark One learned about the Snarl from the Evil Gods. It's odd that they would have informed an outsider (and a goblin one at that) about such a major secret unless it suited their plans. You should remember that the Not Good Gods include those who are the deities of non-goblin (or similar) species that are also fodder for adventurers like kobolds (see Tiamat) and those who could profit from the Dark One's plot IF they can see to it they don't have to worrry about being in serious danger.

Obviously they would vary in what they get out of aiding (or manipulating) TDO. Some could merely wish to settle grudges with some other god and so set TDO's faction up to dispose of or weaken the enemy god. Others could be unsatisfied with the state of the world, especially if they're a patron of a fodder species, and so work to ensure either the Dark One succeeds or that he gets far enough to weaponize the Snarl then jack it from him. Even Tiamat could be plotting to do a plan similar to TDO's faction but with reptilian species (dragons, kobolds) as the chosen ones instead of goblins. Her oracle not helping Xykon could be just keeping up appearences (don't let her enemies know she's aiding an army trying to awaken the Snarl) or trying to cripple the competition.

The Snarl is a Malevolent Personification of the Continuity Snarl.

It's borne from attempts to create a perfect world, and the frustrations of keeping continuity forms into an actual Continuity Snarl.

• Confirmed by virtue of being of not much of a guess, it's all but directly told during the exposition.

Dvalin is buying time.

It's possible that he knows Hel's plans and will vote "no" regardless of what the Elders vote (or will disregard their votes as being tainted if they are domininated). He could have been convinced to do this by Odin, Thor, or Loki in order to give the OotS time to kill The High Priest of Hel so that Thor can tell Durkon the plan for finally defeating the Snarl.

• Everyone seems to be operating off the assumption Dvalin is compelled to follow the elders' decisions whatever they may be, and it's possible he's always asked them their opinions and gone with the majority out of respect, but as the First King of the Dwarves he can likely overrule them if he chooses to. After all, he always consults the clan elders, but nobody has yet said he has to obey them. And since the entire prophecy involving Durkon up to and including everything following Durkon's return was a huge Batman Gambit by Odin, this makes Dvalin's stalling all the more likely and Odin the probable mastermind.

A faction among the gods deliberately engineered the Dark One's birth and ascension to godhood.

They realized that the only way to defeat the Snarl permanently would be to have a god whose divine aura is on a different wavelength than all the existing pantheons, since a 4-color creation like the Snarl will always be stronger than any 3-color creation. So they arranged for the birth of the most powerful possible goblin, and did everything they could to manipulate his life so that he'd become a god while being hostile to the existing pantheons. This way he'd become his own pantheon of one instead of (as the elven and dwarven gods had in previous cycles) simply becoming attached to one of the existing three pantheons.

Thor and Loki are both part of the faction in question, which is why they're on better terms than would be expected given their history and opposing alignments.

Banjo (or Giggles) will arise as a deity with a usable quiddity.

The issue in the comics in the 1140 range is that the Dark One is the only god in eons not to have a red, blue, or yellow quiddity, and the only other one ever not to have green. But what sort of quiddity might Banjo or Giggles provide?

• When introduced, Banjo had orange stars framing them, while when Giggles was introduced, they had purple stars framing them. So they provide orange and purple quiddity respectively, potentially forming a five-colour seal.
  • Half-Jossed. Purple quiddity is the Dark One's color.
    • Objection! Quiddity doesn't belong to individual gods, it belongs to pantheons. Giggles is Banjo's evil brother, if he has purple quiddity, that just means that, as an evil god who exists only to be an evil counterpart to a pre-existing good god for him to fight, that gives him a shared concept with the Dark One, who also sees himself as an evil counterpart for the "good" guys to fight. If Giggles and Banjo manifest quiddity, then Giggles might be the thing that convinces Redcloak that quiddity is a real thing.

The Twelve Gods are a parody/commentary of overly-complicit Dungeon Masters.

In the prequel comics: a lot of paladins are depicted as murderous zealots, more than happy to engage in the ruthless slaughter of goblinoid civilians. Basically the stereotype of murderhobos except given divine mandate. Rather than disciplining their paladins, they just let them commit various forms of genocide. Not a very flattering depiction of a class that's supposed to be Always Lawful Good.

• It's entirely possible some of them Fell, but we're limited to Redcloak's limited perspective. It would be hidden by them all being in grey-scale for the book already.

Thor avoids being a tree-hater despite the Dwarves belief that he is one because it's a uniquely dwarf belief.

Dwarves only represent a small percentage of the total population of Thor's worshippers, so if most people think that Thor's tree-blasting is just a unique quirk, as opposed to the Dwarves' belief that trees are dangerous monsters that Thor is smiting, he's able to avoid the issue that Odin is suffering from.

For once, Miko really was following the will of the Twelve Gods...

• ...By destroying the Azure City gate. Why? Otherwise, Soon Kim and the other ghost-martyrs would have killed Xykon and more importantly Redcloak. Remember that Rat was part of the group that protected and planned on recruiting the Dark One to end the cycle. Even though the Dark One turned on them, as Thor explained, his high priest could still be persuaded to channel enough divine quiddity for them to make the plan work. If Redcloak dies and the Crimson Mantle falls into Sapphire paladin hands, no more high priests. Yes, it means sacrificing Azure City, but you don't give up a chance, however slim - of ending the threat of the Snarl.

Odin's line about there being more non-good gods than good gods is true, but does not imply there are more evil gods.

There are three moral alignments in DND 3.5, Good, Neutral and Evil. There are roughly twice as many non-good gods as there are good gods, just as there are twice as many non-neutral gods as there are neutral gods and roughly twice as many non-evil gods as there are evil gods. None of the moral alignments can rely on each other, since outside of rare circumstances, the good gods will oppose the evil gods and vice versa, and the neutral gods will either want to be left alone or pursue their own goals regardless of morality.

The Dark One is trapped Believing Their Own Lies.

According to Thor, the goblinoids were not specifically created to be an XP fodder race, but he tells the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle this, who in turn likely gives a less secret-revealing version of events to his flock. Unfortunately, because the goblins believe they've been given the short end of the stick in their teachings (moreso than the actual short end of the stick they were given), the belief ends up reinforcing his own narrative, trapping him a vicious cycle where he actually is forced to believe that the goblinoids were created as disposable minions for lower level adventurers to level up with. It's going to take a lot to get him to change his mind, if at all possible, since he probably also instilled into his followers an inherent distrust of the primary gods.

The Snarl is dead.

From what we know, the Snarl is basically an extremely powerful mortal. It died after the Gates were created (possibly as a direct result of them), and ascended to godhood. It was the first to have the purple quiddity, and was the one who sanctioned the Dark One's ascension. Since its death, it went from destructive to constructive, explaining both its lack of aggression and the planet within the Rift. The main supporting evidence is the number of things that changed in this world's lifetime (it seems like the Order of the Scribble had no idea about the other planet) and how strongly the color purple is linked to the Snarl.

• As a counterpoint, one of the prequel books shows that the Dark One ascended to godhood before the gates were made. Unless that's another case of Unreliable Narrator, the Snarl can't have sponsored the Dark One's ascension.

The Snarl will be sealed away by a god not from any of the three pantheons...

Banjo.

The Snarl's victims are not completely destroyed

Instead, they go to their own afterlife, the planet inside the rifts.

The Dark One's going from a Visionary Villain to a petty, spiteful god who doesn't actually care about goblins anymore is partially their own fault.

Loki admits that gods are shaped by their followers as much as their teachings shape their followers' lives. While he was alive, the Dark One was able to see beyond his people's condition to genuinely try to better their lot in life... but after his death, his people's desire for revenge and resentment at their place in the world became a part of his being, and losing sight of what's important in favor of the Plan up in the divine planes is at least partially the fault of beings like Redcloak doing it on the material plane.