Hel - Blog Posts

I realized Jingles would prob not like Wally being the main character when he went to WH-

what can I say? he'd be damned if his job is taken by a lil guy.

(click on the image for a better image quality)

Finally making that post about Loki

I hate how many people look at Loki (especially with a post-Marvel lens) and act like the Christian writers turned him from a generally heroic gender-fluid god into a Satan-esque villain. It’s like these people only read the parts of the myths that support this claim and then ignore every other myth that Loki is in.

First off with the gender-fluid stuff, he only turns into a female three or four times (one of them is theorized to be Loki but never outright confirmed). All of these times are a different race (Horse, Aesir, Jotun), and all situational. The horse is to lure away Svadilfari and stop the builder from finishing Asgard’s wall , the Aesir (never stated what race his is here) is to accompany Thor as his bridesmaid to make sure the plan works (and probably watch Thor be embarrassed by the dress he’s wearing) (Þrymskviða), another as the Aesir to learn about Baldur’s weakness to mistletoe, and the final one is to stop Baldur from coming back to life after Loki got him killed. I’m pretty sure Loki turns into a bird more often. Finally in the Lokasenna, he and Odin insult each other for doing unwomanly things, Odin doing magic and Loki giving birth to children (yes plural), and then Frigg (or Freyja) pretty much tells them to leave their skeletons in the closets.

Secondly, there is a post I’ve seen a couple times (and it is what inspired me to make this post) by @incorrectnorse-quotes where they got a message saying Loki is a faithful husband. The problem with this is that it forgets that Angrboda exists. Loki has had sex with three people that with children coming from them, and he claims a fourth. The three he has children from are; Svadilfari (Sleipnir), Angrboda (Fenrir, Hel(a), and Jormungandr), and his wife Sigyn (Vali and Narfi). He (and Odin at one point) claims to have had sex with Thor’s wife Sif. That claim is said by Loki during the Lokasenna, after Sif says he can’t say anything bad about her.

Finally while I agree that he isn’t the devil figure some make him out to be, he definitely isn’t what I would consider a good person (some people seem to think he is the nicest person in Asgard). For example, he once completely plucked out a woman’s (Sif’s) hair, for no given reason (an event which led to the creation of Mjolnir). Another example is the murder of Baldur (which we are probably missing some context to, but I’m working off the context we have), where he gets Baldur killed for “complaining about nightmares of his death.” My final example comes from the Lokasenna again, where the entire story is “Loki crashes a party, uses an old oath to stop from getting kicked out, insults almost everyone at the party (except Thor), admits to killing Baldur, then leaves.”

Also I’m not sure what version of the builder myth OSP was using, but in the version I'm familiar with the Aesir only agree to a deal with the builder (after shorting his time from three seasons to one) because of Loki’s advice, which is why they have him fix the problem.

All things considered, Loki seems to be Asgard’s resident asshole and occasional problem solver.

For a more in depth look I’d recommend this essay by Reddit user u/rockstarpirate, where he talks also about Norse gender views. (Warning it’s 21 pages)

I hate the “Ragnarök is a Post-Christian Myth” theory.

First off, it feels like most people see that Snorri Sturluson was Christian and immediately assume he did what the Irish monks did to Irish mythology. This completely ignores why he wrote the myths down, which was to establish a cultural connection between Iceland and Norway, in order to try and get Iceland to join the Kingdom of Norway (which failed). It also ignores that fact that he WASN’T A MONK. Outside of a part about the Aesir being Trojans and living in Asia (which makes no sense when looking at the rest of the Edda and the myths within), and some stuff about some great god who is more powerful than all of the Aesir and is never actually named, there isn’t much evidence to there being large post-Christian changes.

The second problem is that the theory focuses too much on Loki. He doesn’t do much during Ragnarök. He captains a ship (whatever that meant to the Norse) and he kills/dies to Heimdallr. Each of his kids from Angrboda does more. Fenrir eats Odin, and in some versions also the sun, moon, and stars. Jormungandr floods Midgard and poisons the sky, along with killing the strongest of the Aesir, Thor. Hel(a) brings an army of Draugr from her realm to fight Odin and Freya’s einherjar (Freya got half of those who died in battle). I agree that Ragnarök is a story of revenge, but its not Loki’s. ITS THE JOTNAR’S REVENGE. Revenge for a long list of insults and grievances that started with the killing of Ymir during the Voluspa by Odin and his brothers. Also, both Fenrir and Jormungandr are getting revenge against the gods they hate most, whom they are stated to kill. In the end Surtr, king of Muspelheim, kills Freyr, destroys Asgard, and burns all of the worlds (which since they are made of Ymir’s corpse, make this technically Ymir’s funeral pyre). Also the Jotnar on Loki’s ship aren’t his troops, they are led by a different Jotun, and it isn’t even his ship.

I could do an entire other post on the problems with how Loki gets viewed through modern lenses, and I’m tempted to.