Should a god of winter be neutral or evil?

Should a god of winter be neutral or evil?

Sure.

Yes

In moderate climates: evil. Winter is seen as something threatening, that you have to prepare for the rest of the year to survive. It changes your modus vivendi and makes it harder to just get through the day.

In cold climates: neutral. Winter is the normal, the people are used to it and know that they are strong and capable of survival because of it.

Alternatively, I would say good. Without winter there can be no spring, there is no rebirth. Rebirth is a huge part of the mythological cycle.

Without knowing anything about your pantheon, I could see the god of winter and spring/summer working together to keep the world fresh or the inhale/exhale of nature.

But it kind of depends on the rest of the pantheon.

Lawful Good.

Pic related.

Neutral, I live in a southern place and winters aren't bad at all. Summers are far worse.

Probably evil, but it depends.

People tend to assign personalities to gods based on their apparent behavior--hence why the gods of the Nile were steady and reliable, while the gods of the Tigris and Euphrates were wild, violent, and unpredictable. Winter is a neutral thing that happens because of the way the earth is tilted, but if you personify it, the thing that destroys your crops, makes travel more difficult, and gives you the sniffles would be evil.

But that's just if you want your pantheon to reflect real-life pantheons. If you wanna break the mold (which is fine, since the gods in your setting are by definition more real than most, if not all, gods from history), then neutral is just fine. Heck, maybe he's just the God of Summer for the other hemisphere.

I'd say neutral. It doesn't discriminate. It's simply an unavoidable force of nature; sure, it culls the weak and unlucky, but it's not malicious and it doesn't do it on motives of personal gain.

I don't fucking know, what do you want out of this guy?
You're the one worldbuilding.

If you want, you can have winter be actively malevolent and tries to fuck over anyone unprepared, but can be appeased or hidden from by rituals. Often involving shit like keeping fires burning and holly and mistletoe.
Or maybe you just want a jack frost like figure who keeps things ticking seasonally.

Does your winter god like his job? Does he wonder what it would be like if he ruled summer instead? Does he love painting windows in first and gets off on designing snowflakes? Does he get a raging stiffy from freezing someone's own stiffy clean off?

Fuck, give us something to work with. Don't ask such a fucking stupid question with no answer.

>Evil
Sorrow, misery, despair, darkness and cold. The wolf time, when the weak are sent to die so that the pack may survive.

>Neutral
Order, nature, cycle of life and death, balance. Everything that lives must die, only to be reborn when the snow melts.

>Good
Christmas, hope, light and survival in defiance of the cold and darkness that the world tries to kill you with. The beauty of untouched snow and northern lights; the yearly trial that forces cooperation.

who is this phallus chalice

Alternatively, in Cold Climates: A valiant guardian against invaders and a brilliant military mind. You might even say he's a General.

Good. He's the wise older gentleman, the guiding elder who passes on advice to mortals and younger gods. He's a critical part of nature. like all elders, he can be cantankerous at times, but is no more evil than the flighty spring goddess or the bold summer god.

He may be a god of death and decay, of endings, but endings are natural and necessary.

>Everything that lives must die,
>neutral

Most are portrayed as LG, the Greeks are the odd ones out since they considered Ares to be a CN "Blood for the Blood God" type figure, but then they had Athena as their LG war deity.

It should be what you want it to be.

I like the Greek or Roman idea. There are no "good" or "evil" gods, the gods are simply the gods, and therefore above men. Whatever standards they use to judge one another are frankly not our business.
The closest thing to good in this relationship is the rightful obeisance of men to their gods, to whom you pray for clemency and boon: for example, one may pray to the winter god to treat them mildly this year.
The closest things to evil in our relationship with the gods are hubris and sacrilege, which invite punishment and disaster upon our heads. If only we had kept faith, and known our place!

Polytheistic gods shouldn't generally be good or evil, outside dualistic systems. That defeats the purpose of gods.

but that's right, that's exactly right senpai

>our god is General WInter
We are unbeatable.

WINTER, user, not war. You misread.

Oh. Only god of winter I know of is the Nameless God of Demons from Slavic mythology. He's kind of an asshole.

100% Good, in all contexts. Any entity which condones a temperature above 70° is Evil.

I dunno. The Algonquin considered the spirit of winter to be one of the most hostile and dangerous spirits to mankind. It was supposed to be the source of wendigo possession.

Sorry, I should add they largely lived in a just barely subarctic environment, near the Great Lakes. Cold was routine to them.

Seconded

Why not good?

Tell me one good thing about winter. One universal good thing.

Nah, the god of winter and summer both go on vacation to each other's domains when the seasons change.

Snow, hot cocoa, Christmas, not burning your arse off, free refrigeration, and superior fashion.

Also, it makes people smarter. There's a reason all the most advanced societies are in colder climates, while all the worst abominable holes are in the tropics.

Here in swedenistan winter is seen as the time of rest, the autumn is the time of slaughtering the pigs and bringing in the harvest, then you go into hibernation during winter and wait it out, eat good food and sleep and spend time with your close ones. also celebrating yule and new year with a great many meaty dishes

>Snow, hot cocoa, Christmas, not burning your arse off, free refrigeration, and superior fashion
Now imagine you are stuck in a standard medieval fantasy setting. How fun do all those things sound? I mean really? Superior fashion? When they could barely get enough pelts to keep them warm in the winter?
inb4 magic solves all the problems

If they lived near the Great Lakes then they'd be used to a cycle of fucking cold and fucking hot

Valar morghulis senpai, can't escape death by being good or bad

Snow miser, is that you?

You must not live in an area that gets hot, humid, gross summers

When fall rolls around people are ecstatic that all the goddamn mosquitoes and other insects start dropping dead as the weather grows colder

In a fantasy/pre-modern medicine society, killing off entire populatons of disease vectors can be a very good thing. I certainly don't want magical mosquitoes giving me wizard-malaria

Snowfall means you don't need to worry about obtaining fresh water, can also cross waterways that required a boat previously

Good but in a desperate situation

Weren't these guys based on Veeky Forums?

Silly OP, everyone knows that winter is a lawful-good goddess.

Well 1. Just cause it could be the end, but ends in rebirth, doesn't make the end less evil. 2. If you want to go mythological: If its the end, then its usually seen as evil.

Where would that information have come from? I didn't think Oglaf had an author output other than itself.

What? I've never heard that before. I don't think the creator of Oglaf even comes here.

Hark mortal, you enter a sacred place. Prostrate yourself before your God.

"Umm... I know a lot of Gods. Could you be more specific, please?"

I am the God of Winter.

"And...?"

And what, mortal?

"Is that it? You just make the air cold once a year? Is this a prank?" Are you *really* a God?"

Well... that's kinda hurtful, dude. I have no control over how retarded my author is.

"Sorry, God of Winter. I didn't mean to dredge up bad feelings. Look, I'll totally bow and leave an offering, okay?"

Thanks, mortal. You're a pretty okay guy. Be careful in your travels. Look after yourself.

Good. Without winter, there's just a constantseason of birth and growth. Great if you're an ebola virus.

PEACE TALKS FUCKING WHEN?

Good.

Winter is what stops all those South American and Australian bugs and shit from coming up north. Winter is the icy shield against the evil of nature.

It's wonderful to find others like me. Why is it encouraged socially to love being overheated and hate the cold?

Lawful Good. Do you even Winter Spirit?

Brothers. Winter is the fucking best.

>that first snowfall
>the cool air on your skin as thousands of beautiful flakes fall all around
>they cover the earth in a beautiful white blanket
>the falling of snow brings a beautiful silence that fills you with an inner calm and strange joy
>those cozy nights where you could just watch the snow falling outside for hours

fuck summer desu

>Waking up NOT covered in sweat

>alignments
>representations of abstracts having alignments
If anything, True/Lawful Neutral, it is only a cog in the machine, performing its role without intent, neither benign nor malign.

Letty Whiterock from the Touhou Project.
She doesn't have much characterization though so I struggle to see how he thinks she's Lawful Good. He likely just wanted an excuse to post cute 2hus.

See the problem here is that what you think he said is "everything that lives must die right now", but what he really said was just "everything that lives must die".

Lawful Neutral
Or fuck alignments and let it be just a calm, silent being, bearing no malice and no compassion, just cold void

>Christmas
>Universal
Oy vey, how could you be so racist you Aryan monster! This is like another shoah!

Summer has its good points, but Winter is still my favourite season. The worst season is probably Autumn.
>weather starts to get really shitty, not even nice, fresh and cold like in Winter but just rainy all the fucking time
>leaves are nice, but you know that's just the foliage slowly dying off and it'll be ages before snow starts and you have some other pretty thing to replace it
>wet leaves are terrible and they get all over the place
>end of whatever holiday/vacation you were on
>why do Americans call it Fall, seriously, why don't you just call Winter Cold or Summer Hot as well for consistency

>all these plebeians talking about "seasons"
PLEASE, NIGGAS.

Here's the actual ranking of seasons, from best to worst:
1. Summer solstice to Autumn equinox;
2. Autumn equinox to Winter solstice;
3. Spring equinox to Summer solstice;
...
9000. Winter solstice to Spring equinox.

Neutral
Winter is the great sleep.

Only mankind tries to fight winter, while others hibernate and rest. When the long night comes, man should sleep.

Old man snow is not evil, as a force of nature he is neutral, possibly good.

It was before the great purge, she used to hang out in Veeky Forums but eventually got fed up with creeps creeping. The fact that the dwarves have even made a comeback means that she's kinda forgiven us.

>winter destroys your crops
are the crops yours? you command nature?
if you were one with nature you would know that the crops, the earth, needs its long night to sleep. That is what winter brings. Killing winter to bring perpetual growth is unnatural and thus possibly even evil.

Good.

It turns out the Winter God actually puts a ton of effort into his domain to make it nice for mortals- so when those old people die of cold it acutally means their slot in Winter Paridise has been set up for them, such a cool place that if they died of old age and got there they would be fucking livid that they weren't brought into the god's chilly embrace as soon as it was possible

I'd argue the opposite: in a moderate ore mediterranean climate it's easier to find ways to survive during winter, while in cold climates you only have a small fertile timeframe which is then followed by a long, infertile winter.

Chaotic Good?
Fuck summer.

LG, they keep the ancient one frozen beneath the world for the safety of all.

>hating on autumn
Fuck you nigger, it's best and most comfy season.

Winter is bretty gud tho. Snow is nice too, but only when it's untouched. It looks like white shit after salt has been strewn through the streets and people walked over it.

I'm from Upper Michigan. Winter takes up six to eight months of the year. It snows a hell of a lot and it gets pretty cold, but I'm so used to it that I don't even think of it as being more than a moderate inconvenience. So I'd say True Neutral.

Depends which aspect of winter they represent.