“ | Maybe I no longer want to serve a god who would reject me so casually. Maybe I would continue to worship Hel even after I was resurrected. Maybe I don't care who I serve—as long as I can hurt the world that has always hurt Durkon Thundershield. | „ |
~ The High Priest revealing his motives. |
“ | Oh, I'm sorry, did you have an evil magic spirit in your head controlling your actions then, too? That's you. You said those words. You can hang there and pretend you're so much nobler than I am, but for that one moment? You felt exactly what I feel. You are who you are on your worst day, Durkon. Anything less is a comforting lie you tell yourself to numb the pain. And that's who I am. Your worst day, personified. | „ |
~ The High Priest after forcing Durkon to relive his worst memory. |
The High Priest of Hel is one of the two main antagonists, alongside Hel herself, of the “Utterly Dwarfed” arc of Order of the Stick. A spirit created after Malack drained and vampirized Durkon, he impersonates the dwarf, keeping him prisoner in his own body while he furthers Hel’s goal to destroy the world and doom the entire dwarven race forever.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- After being created by Malack, he pretended to be the real Durkon, infiltrating the Order while secretly under Hel’s allegiance. In the meantime, he keeps Durkon trapped inside his own body and mind, forcing him to watch as he deceives his friends and race.
- His plan was to destroy the world so that the dwarves would all die dishonourably and be sentenced to an eternal afterlife of slavery in Hel’s service.
- Once Malack freed him from thralldom, granting him a mind of his own, he had to be stopped from draining all of Belkar’s blood and killing him on the spot by Malack himself.
- After Belkar saw through his ruse and confronted him, he tried to kill him again by making him jump off the edge of the Mechane while it was airborne.
- While pretending to want to find clerics so he could be resurrected, he leads the Order to the Godsmoot, where the vote to destroy the world would take place. After they arrived and the voting was about to end, he revealed himself as the High Priest of Hel, forcing a tie when the gods were about to agree not to destroy it. This led to a tiebreaker, where Hel had already lined things up for a slight majority of the demigods to agree with her, and would have led to the final vote being the destruction of the world if not for Hermod getting cold feet at the last second and leading to another tie.
- While at the Godsmoot, he murdered two members of the Creed of the Stone, including the exarch Gontor Hammerfell, turning them into vampires, and tried to kill Belkar again when the latter attacked him.
- When Roy attacks him upon learning his plan, he tries to break him, pretending that he’s the real Durkon, Roy’s best friend, and has always hated him, and rubs all his failures in his face. This culminates in sadistically taunting Roy about his kid brother’s death.
- Kills and vampirizes the entire Creed of Stone in order to allow Hel’s vote to remain, before escaping the Godsmoot to head to Firmament.
- Mind-controls the dwarven elders at Firmament so that they would vote in favour of Hel during the second tie-breaker.
- Forces Durkon to relive the worst day of his life, and taunts him by claiming that despite claiming to be a hero, he is in fact no better than how he felt on that day.
- Kills several clerics of Thor at Firmament, raising them as vampires.
- Sets up a trap in an attempt to kill the Order of the Stick when they arrive to stop him, luring them to the banquet hall.
- Though he promised not to hurt Durkon’s infant son directly, he did use him as leverage in the final battle, holding onto him so that Roy wouldn’t attack him.
- While his actions are mostly Hel’s bidding, he is a crucial part of her scheme that she would not have been able to pull it off without, since she needed a high-levelled dwarven vampire cleric to start, and he was not only the only one at the time, but was also completely willing to help her. He also meets the heinous standards as he poses a threat to the entire world, as well as aiming to subject the entire dwarven race to a fate worse than death.
- Despite the above, he cannot be considered truly loyal to Hel, as he reveals his motivation is selfish - he simply desires revenge on the dwarves for exiling him.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- As the manifestation of Durkon’s worst day, he is slightly tragic, as he represents the part of Durkon that is angry and bitter at the world and his people for unfairly exiling him without ever explaining why. However, this is a minor prevention, as his actions are far greater than what happened to him, the High Priest himself isn’t treated with much sympathy, and the real Durkon also went through this while remaining unflappably selfless in his actions.
- The above also gives him slight moral agency issues, seeing as he is unable to change or grow as a person due to being a vampire, and when Durkon forced him to do so by flooding him with his memories and emotions, he was turned into a clone of Durkon, even then recognising that it was only a matter of time before the negative energy within him reasserted itself. However, he is definitely his own person, with a clearly sadistic personality, clearly recognises the difference between right and wrong given his skill at pretending to be the former and his card-carrying nature after the jig is up, and revels in his villainous deeds, making this a minor prevention.
- He has a few minor moments where he is played for laughs, such as his occasional dynamic with and reactions to Durkon, as well as when the Order brainstorms names to give him to differentiate him from the dwarf, with names such as “Count Durkula”, “The Thorsaken”, “Nose-Fur-atu” and “Greg” coming up. On the whole, however, he is one of the darkest villains in the comic, and is otherwise taken seriously in-universe, making this a minor prevention.
Trivia[]
- The High Priest of Hel is one of two villains from Order of the Stick, the other being General Tarquin, to be Near Pure Evil.
External Links[]
- The High Priest of Hel at the Villains Wiki.
- The High Priest of Hel at the Order of the Stick Wiki.
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