yo so ok has anyone considered that merle’s relationship with pan is really theologically interesting??? like, his original god was annihilated. the entire planar system, including the divine plane, that merle highchurch comes from, was destroyed by the hunger. the material plane was absorbed and the other planes that rely on the material can’t support themselves when cut off. whether or not the hunger personally absorbs/destroys the divine plane when it takes a planar system, or leaves it to dissolve, the gods are gone.
so like. merle, as a cleric of pan, carries with him a belief in a god that does not necessarily exist in the planar systems before merle gets there. the animal kingdom didn’t have gods, the robot society seemed pretty fucking secular. but in the mushroom plane, merle actually develops a congregation of worshippers for his god. who, again, died several years back. but merle never seems to take that into account. pan exists for him wherever he goes.
there’s the old saw: if god didn’t exist, it would be necessary for man to invent him. merle, without fuss or any notable introspection, through a very straightforward sort of faith, re-establishes his god wherever he worships him.
also that makes it even more interesting that post-mindwipe merle’s crisis of faith is centered around his own inadequacy. when merle loses contact with his god, he never stops believing in him: he just assumes pan has stopped believing in merle.
still, it’s cool to think of a god being born over and over in world after world, just from the unshakable conviction of one guy that his god must exist. when the pan of faerun tells merle, you’ll always be my merle, i hope he appreciates how many other worlds he exists on as merle’s pan.
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