Fate, or a lack thereof.
 

First and foremost, I'm putting this little edict here right now: This is heavy on spoilers. Seriously, if I'd have to blacken out things, you'd just be reading my post like this, with everything covered up and stuff, and nobody wants to see a gigantic page all in black. But then I'd use a non-spoiler word like squid, and then we'd be back to this, leaving non-spoiler people terribly confused. So I'd continue my paper, and then there'd be another random word like ginormous that leaves people completely in the dark, followed by an even more ridiculous one like astronaut or something, so it's just not worth it. By the way, Pop-Tarts.

We're all clear on that, right? OK. Turn back now, non-spoiler people, and read the rest of the book. I'll wait right here.

...

We're back? Have you read the rest of the book like I told you to? OK then, I believe you. Let's begin.

When I finally put down Nuklear Age, something just didn't sit right with me about Nihel. Like a video store clerk who's just finished watching Return of the Jedi, there was a feeling of dis-ease all around the final chapters, and a particularly nasty notion about Nihel's arrival at the mall and his Dragonballzesque demise. The apex of my nagging was focused on Nihel's confronting of the seventeen innocent shoppers and their disgusting deaths. It just didn't feel right somehow, and I think I've come up with a solution why.

For almost all of his appearance, Nihel had been whining about Fate. Fate had told him to do this, Fate had forced him to do that, Fate wouldn't stop making his life a roller coaster ride on an unmoving track. He's obsessed with it! He can't stop thinking about it! Finally, he gets a chance to rid himself of Fate in the form of Arel, and when he tries to implement his master plan, he's killed at Arel's own hands... er, gigantic nuklear blasts. We get a nice ending, Nihel is no longer a threat, yada yada yada. But that lingering doubt about Fate still remains.

When Nihel first appears in the Mall, he singles out a pair of shoppers. Jason Murphy and Bill Greenwood. They are Mortals, and according to Nihel's logic, they have Choice. They Chose to come to the mall, they Chose to visit the food court, and they Chose to sit in the center, away from the exits. Their freedom from Fate enabled them to Choose to do these things. Then Nihel, who is bound by Fate, appears at the food court. He seals the exits, traps the Mortals, and confronts the crowd of seventeen. He tells them that he's an agent of Fate, and is bound by its wishes, and that anything he does has been pre-determined at the beginning of time by Fate. He then proceeds to trap Atomik Lad in an impenetrable cube and play his cruel game, killing four of the seventeen outright before performing what I like to call his Karmageddon.

However, this leads to a conflict in the most basic premises of Fate and Choice. Jason Murphy has Chose to be at the mall that day, and Chose to eventually be unable to escape. Had he Chose to, say, visit his brother's house and talk about baseball before going to the mall, he would not have arrived in time to be 'caught' by Nihel and killed. However, Fate has determined Nihel's actions far in advance of the event, and Fate said to Nihel "You will kill Jason Murphy at 6:31:09 pm by using your reality-altering abilities to remove his red blood cells. You will tell him that he had no choice in this matter, and he will die." But this is absurd! If Jason Murphy, who is not bound by Fate, had Chosen to visit his brother, he would have made Fate's prediction useless. If Bill Greenwood had been killed in action during his stay in Iraq through the Choices of another Mortal, he would have never been at the mall to be turned into a pile of goo by his own acidic skin.

Are you seeing it yet, fair reader? If Choice can directly contradict Fate, then Fate is powerless to predict any event by a Fated individual like Nihel, because Choices can chaotically change events. But if Fate can predict the exact thoughts and actions of someone like Nihel, then the concept of Choice is meaningless, because the butterfly-like effects of Jason Murphy's death would effect other people's Choices, which would effect yet more people's Choices, and so forth. Where is the point in which Jason Murphy can Choose what to do ("Well, I can run away from this scary guy and try to dig my way through the walls that have just erupted out of the floor, or I can huddle, terrified, with my fellow captives.") and where is the point when he is Fated to be killed messily by Nihel?

Or, more drastically, let's look at Nihel's demise itself. A Fated person is killed by a person with Choice. This is, as if the word were invented just to be used in this situation, impossible. If Nihel is Fated to die at the hands of Arel, then Arel is Fated to kill Nihel with his black-hole-inducing Nova Beam, which means that Arel does not have any Choice in the matter. However, if Arel has Chose to kill Nihel, then this immediately negates any and all events that Nihel was Fated to cause to occur in the future, which means that Arel had a Choice whether or not to allow those events to occur, which means that they weren't Fated to happen. Still with me? Fantastic. If not? Try re-reading the last few paragraphs with a more open mind, then come back. Do you get the impossibility now? Stupendous.

There are, perhaps, two explanations for this Fate/Choice conflict. Firstly, Choice can be an illusion, and everyone is Fated to live and die like Nihel is. This would explain how Fate can tell Nihel exactly where to be and what to do at a certain time, while thoughts Fated to cross Nihel's mind would convince him that there is such a thing as Choice when there isn't. In effect, Fate has performed the greatest magic trick in existence by convincing others that it doesn't exist and thus that it doesn't apply to them. Secondly, the ultimate irony comes into being: Nihel is not bound by Fate. He never has been. None of the other Norse Gods are bound by Fate. Fate does not exist. The concept of Fate, rather, is so imprinted into the minds of the Norse Gods that, in a way, it comes to exist; they blame every action they commit on Fate, and thus absolve all responsibility, when in fact it's their own twisted psyches telling them that they must do these atrocious acts. Like a sort of deranged, all-powerful Tin Woodman, that which he covets most about the people around him has really been a part of him all along, and he need not have Chosen to commit his horrible atrocities. What a waste.

...

Any thoughts, Brian? I'd love to hear the explanation for this one.

I always thought Nihel just went off the deep end with the Fate thing. Because the only thing really fated is Ragnarök not which planet Nihel will be blowing up next. What I think rove Nihel crazy was the fact Mortals can choose how to live and how to die (to a certain degree) Nihel has no say he can live on earth as a superhero defending the good or chill with the Galactic council but ultimately he's going to be dieing. Norse Mythology loves the idea of dieing with honor we may not choose when we die but we choose in what way we die. Whether it's going out hiding and sobbing like a scared little girl or Defiant till the end. Dunno if I answered this or got offtopic lol.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

[Personal question answered by avatar. Nevermind.]
In answer to your question:

...from this thread.


And yes, the same question occurred to me as I was reading the book. I think Fate is a reactionary force, that makes up its ideas in response to what people do. Perhaps Fate just orders Nihel to carry out an overall plan, and he has to do it. Remember, he held conversations with Atomik Lad and Dr. Menace, which means he had to react directly to what they were saying. You can't plan that out in advance, unless you're dealing with someone really predictable.

Also, remember when he told Dr. Menace about the Nega bomb, he seemed more into telling her about it than listening to her.

So, what if Fate intended for Dr.s Genius and Menace's plan to work, but didn't know Shiro would get in the way? It had to adapt to that.

Nihel functions the way he does to make the reader ask these things. There are several answers that could be valid. It's left up to the reader to decide for himself.

I suppose it figures Brian would put up a cop-out answer like that.

Stupid openendedness.

"Fearlessness is better than a faint heart for any man who puts his nose out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago."
-Skirnir, "Skirnir's Journey"

If you really read into it, and read between the lines, Norse Mythology says that fate only determines the major events in our lives and the universe. At surface level it looks like it predetermines everything, but contradicts itself with the inclusion of choice, but at further examination, and by inferring a lot from different sources, you can find out that fate only deals with the most important events in our lives, and the 'decisions' that lead up to it.
Take for instance, Jason Murphy, while its true that in his life he has the choice to do or not to do anything, in death he does not. Or more accurately the last events that determine his life control him, not the other way around as it was the rest of his life. Normally he would choose to go to the mall or not, but on this day, he only thought that he chose to go. In fact since fate knew that today was his day to die, it made him go to the mall. Of course, its not a solid idea, it is a theory, as any theological idea is until you can indefinately ask whatever deity (if there is indeed one) what is the right idea/religion/concept/whatever.

Of coruse it still fills in the question of Arel. He was supposedly created out of the knowledge of fate. So either, nothing he did was fated, and he actually does contain the ability to (and indeed is working towards) disrupt, alter, or all together negate Ragnarok and other fated decisions/actions. If this is the case, however, then it severely questions the power of Allfather (Odin), on his throne he can see all, and due to many exploits on his part, he is all knowing and all wise, but somehow he missed this one.
Or, what is more likely the case, they knew of Arel's creation, and he too is bound by fate. He was fated to destroy Nihel, and will either die prior to Ragnarok, or he too will play a part in the battle. Either way, Bria ncan get away with it, or he can compeltely alter any and all theories, I mean com'on, it IS his book :-p

Inev, when I first read the book, I was puzzled by the semming contradictions. However, in the end, I realized 2 things:

1. Nihel was trapped and controlled by his own interpretations of events, be they correct or not. This is true for all humans as well. Things are only as "good" or "Bad" or "right" or "wrong" as we percieve them to be.

2. The whole purpose of this was to get me thinking about the issue. Brian Succeeded. While you may think that you found some horrible flaw in the story, or that Brian is copping out, etc... Pause to consider that this is the Whole Point! You were stimulated to thinking about the issue! You question WHAT NIHEL WAS THINKING! That's it!

Its all about the Fate/Choice dichotomy. That, overall, is the overreaching theme of the story, not a mistake within it!

I still favor the idea that Nihel's actions had reaction, and over time he's bought into his own lie. Longer version is that the bad things he bragged about, destroy entire planets, being the scourge of the galaxy, yadda yadda yadda, got him in trouble. Other beings as powerful or more powerful than he are now after him and he's constantly on the run. Not being one to admit a mistake than it must be Fate that made him do it, yes, that's it. Not Nihel, never Nihel's fault, always fate. Over a few thousand years he bought into it, believe the lie. Now he loathes "fate" and all it "makes" him do, even though "fate" is actually his own evil bastardlyness.

bastardlyness is a fun word.

They say the mark of true genius is not letting the limits of language get in the way, making up words as nessisary to explain your ideas.