#like ‘oh so you’ve been making dubiously consensual pacts with people from the start huh’

[hello-eeveev]

I’m sorry I’m confused; every so often, for like the last year at least, I see it treated as fact that Laudna is hated by the gods for being a Hollow One or that somehow her existence is defying them? and I do not understand where this has come from.

First off, if we are looking strictly at the events of c3, Laudna was brought back to life by a cleric and champion of the Everlight. And she still remained very much a Hollow One. Why would the Everlight do that if the gods as a group did not want Laudna to exist as she was?

Now iirc, Laudna has expressed fear that the Matron of Ravens would not be happy about her existence, and that’s fair, given that this is one of her edicts:

Undeath is an atrocity. Death is too good a punishment for those who pervert the rightful transition of the soul.

However: yes, the Matron doesn’t seem to be fond of undeath, but her vitriol pretty clearly lies with those who create undead (e.g. Delilah), moreso than those who live in it. So I think the Raven Queen would not be angry with Laudna herself, more angry for the suffering put upon her by the state of undeath. I don’t think she would smite Laudna down for literally just waking up one (very very bad) day as a Hollow One. It’s not like Laudna was trying to become undead or to unnaturally extend her life or cast off fate; she was murdered. But still, it’s fair that Laudna worries about that! She’s a fictional character with a limited scope of view and emotions that may not be informed by fact! I don’t want her to know everything and to be perfectly reasonable at all times. If that were the case, she wouldn’t be a good character, and she wouldn’t be Laudna.

But even if the RQ did hate Laudna for being a Hollow One, she’s just one deity. She doesn’t speak for the rest of the gods, so why would they have an issue with Laudna when they don’t seem to have a particular problem with undead (see: the base cleric spell list having both Animate and Create Undead).

So I don’t see where this rhetoric of “the gods hate laudna” comes from? She has not been personally victimized by the gods. She has been on the opposite side of a conflict to one, but she was revived by another. As far as I can tell, in all the text and supplementary materials, there is only one major deity who might be prejudiced towards her.

so yeah, I’m just confused where this came from and i’d like to know. if it seemed like it was a headcanon or a thought people were toying with, I wouldn’t care, but I’m seeing it being treated as a given and I don’t think that’s the case.