#edda iterator

[bnuuwitch]

*grand virtue blasting as I sketch this mf without any sense of time*

[occasionalflicker]

Happy Father's Day!

The promised creation, Transcendent, is not only that which would fulfill Worldless’s desire for his own disappearance — it is a part of himself, a secret longing.

All iterations, including Starfolk, to some extent represent their creators. Each iteration reflected some part of them and gradually took shape until it acquired the ideal form that conveys the entire nature of the creators. Lightfolk embody Worldless’s stability, his strength and beauty, his constancy and unchangeability, whereas Darkfolk represent LUCA’s fragility, her desire for change and inventiveness, as well as endurance and persistence.

Yet this happened by accident; they weren’t created with the initial goal of resembling their creators in any way. Worldless is not a very far-sighted planner. When he comes up with ideas, he overlooks many nuances and mechanisms by which his creations should exist — which sometimes would have led to situations where no iteration could have survived. For example, Worldless might forget that they need to move, or even if they do move, they face obstacles because Worldless did not think through how their muscles should work.

But that never happened, because LUCA filled in these gaps. When Worldless, so to speak, presents his initial draft, forming new life in the neutral lands, LUCA, over time, mentally senses what Worldless intends — though he has not fully completed the design. LUCA then takes on that task, embedding everything necessary into the sparks, which are then put into the next generation of the iteration. But Worldless is unaware of this, because he believes that each iteration develops something new on its own. This is not far from the truth. Although LUCA ensures functionality, she also does not look far ahead in her plan, as she allows life to exist independently and to develop without their involvement.

Mostly, after incident with the spear, LUCA strives not only to free herself and Worldless, but also to free life and give it a chance to continue to exist. In her view, they are not needed — all living things will find their own path to perfection, carving out their own purpose without them.

As for the emergence of Transcendent — this is another part of them both, their shared desire. They both longed for something that would be born from them, different from them, and at the same time a joint creation. The union of Lightfolk and Darkfolk into the Transcendent is precisely a manifestation of the form of that desire.

Regarding the case of Edda and Aven — no Transcendent has yet appeared from them; one could say it does not yet exist. It will not be a merging of them into a single Starfolk or coexistence with it on the same plane. They represent their creators, a part of the shared path, their true nature and desires. Their transcendence is the birth of a new world.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

So uh... remember these designs for Edda and Aven? The very first iteration of the Eden Eclipsed duo?

Gave 'em an update:

Notes:

Edda in particular has had a redesign inbound for a bit. Her old design will still happen, just later, towards the end. When she starts, she's more of an average Lightfolk soldier, and proper armor - especially plate armor - is expensive. As such, I've shifted her back to a gambeson, brigandine, and some mushroom-leather pseudo-lamellar armor for a little extra protection (note that this would still be a pricier ensemble, but her position is an interesting one as one of Tzafira's more prize pupils). Most of the fabric, as noted, is sourced from a cotton-adjacent fabric made in the Silver Peaks. The leather is made from mushrooms from the Midnight Forest.

Aven, in turn, gets a wee bit more protection in the form of actual shin-guards. Most of his outfit is fabric, and all of it is sourced from the hemp-like plants common in the Scarlet Ravine. The harder, leathery stuff is reinforced into a leather alternative, since leather is still out of Aven's immediate grasp, and not entirely good for a scout. He has also gotten a serious color palette glow-up since last time. I think I like this one much better for him.

The soulbinding stones pictured in the annotated versions are a convenience used for gear retrieval. Their clothing is bound to that stone, and can be stored inside as needed. The main use for 'em is when a starfolk dies (i.e. is killed), their clothing can be "canned" inside the stone for transport and re-use. The gear inside can often adjust itself (within reason) to better fit a new owner, should they actually wear the stone. There are, of course, limits to this.

The palettes are Winter Wonderland and Mushroom Palette respectively, both found on Lospec.

[octahedral-chaos]

Random thing but have a silly Worldless headcanon

Edda and Aven aren't actually called Edda and Aven. In starfolk sonar, their names are more like phrases, similar to the Iterators from Rain World.

So, Edda and Aven's "true" names are "Poems of Battles" and "Shining White Flowers" respectively.

[indiestsnake]

I haven't antagonized your ask box yet have I?

Time to remedy that-

Edda and Aven as slugcats - how would they react to being scug-ified? How would Angel or Demon react to it? Or would they be a different critter?

How do you imagine the duo (Grace and Fury edition ofc) would react to being in Rain World just as their normal selves?

as slugs? Edda would be extremely excited. she’d think slugcats are adorable. Aven would be rather annoyed with being placed at the bottom of the food chain.

Angel and demon… hm…

My angel would be thoroughly angry, angrier than Aven. She’d take slug-ification as a spit in the face of her holiness and righteous power in the face of dark. she’d probably try to start murdering the second she found a spear.

Demon would not notice, nor care. everything other than murdering lightfolk is irrelevant to him. he does not give a shit if he’s guaranteed to die. lol. lmao, even.

As for being their normal selves, Aven would probably be mystified by iterator superstructures, and find them super interesting. Edda would try to pet anything and everything.

[templeofoccultpractices]

Fenrir

Other names: Fenrisúlfr, Hróðvitnir, Vánagandr

Parents: Loki , Angrboða

Siblings: Hel, Jörmungandr

Consort: Angrboða

Offspring: Hati Hróðvitnisson, Sköll

Mythology

*As a disclaimer with mythology. A lot have been lost to time. There are theories and attempts to reconstruct things although we may not truly know. A lot of lore has been Christianized like the Poetic Eddas.*

The Binding of Fenrir

The binding of Fenrir have many iterations and telling. The general story goes that the gods found Loki's children. They feared Fenrir because of his rapid growth. Some instances that Odin feared his fate and trying to delay it. The gods decided that they would bind Fenrir. As in Ragnarok Fenrir would kill Odin.

They threw Jörmungandr into the sea and Hel into Helheimr but they took Fenrir with them to keep an eye on him. Tyr was the only one who approached and fed him. As Fenrir grew the gods decided that he would not stay and tried to trick him into fetters. Fenrir broke every fetter until Skirnir went to the dwarves challenging them to make a chain that he could not break. The dwarves answered this challenge. They made a chain from the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, bear's sinews, fish's breath, and bird's spittle. They named this chain Gleipnir.

The gods challenged Fenrir to break Gleipnir but he knew this was a trick. He said that he would do so only if one of the gods would place his right hand in Fenrir's mouth as a pledge to free him if he failed to break the chain. (In Germanic culture, your right hand was used to swear an oath, and oaths were very serious. "oathbreakers" were sent to Náströnd as long with murderers and adulterers.)

Tyr was the one who stepped forward and placed his hand in Fenrir's mouth. But when Fenrir couldn't break free and the gods didn't keep their oath. He bit Tyr's hand off.

Járnviðr

A forest located east of Midgard, inhabited by trollwomen who bore jötnar and giant wolves. 

Gylfaginning

Þá mælti Gangleri: "Skjótt ferr sólin ok nær svá sem hon sé hrædd, ok eigi myndi hon þá meir hvata göngunni, at hon hræddist bana sinn."

Þá svarar Hárr: "Eigi er þat undarligt, at hon fari ákafliga. Nær gengr sá, er hana sækir, ok engan útveg á hon nema renna undan."

Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hverr er sá, er henni gerir þann ómaka?"

Hárr segir: "Þat eru tveir úlfar, ok heitir sá, er eftir henni ferr, Skoll. Hann hræðist hon, ok hann mun taka hana. En sá heitir Hati Hróðvitnisson, er fyrir henni hleypr, ok vill hann taka tunglit, ok svá mun verða."

Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hverr er ætt úlfanna?"

Hárr segir: "Gýgr ein býr fyrir austan Miðgarð í þeim skógi, er Járnviðr heitir. Í þeim skógi byggja þær tröllkonur, er Járnviðjur heita. In gamla gýgr fæðir at sonum marga jötna ok alla í vargs líkjum, ok þaðan af eru komnir þessir úlfar. Ok svá er sagt, at af ættinni verðr sá einna máttkastr, er kallaðr er Mánagarmr. Hann fyllist með fjörvi allra þeira manna, er deyja, ok hann gleypir tungl, en stökkvir blóði himin ok loft öll. Þaðan týnir sól skini sínu, ok vindar eru þá ókyrrir ok gnýja heðan ok handan. 

Then said Gangleri: "The sun fares swiftly, and almost as if she were afraid: she could not hasten her course any the more if she feared her destruction." Then Hárr made answer: "It is no marvel that she hastens furiously: close cometh he that seeks her, and she has no escape save to run away." Then said Gangleri: "Who is he that causes her this disquiet?" Hárr replied: "It is two wolves; and he that runs after her is called Skoll; she fears him, and he shall take her. But he that leaps before her is called Hati Hródvitnisson. He is eager to seize the moon; and so it must be." Then said Gangleri: "What is the race of the wolves?" Hárr answered: "A witch dwells to the east of Midgard, in the forest called Ironwood: in that wood dwell the troll-women, who are known as Ironwood-Women. The old witch bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this source are these wolves sprung. The saying runs thus: from this race shall come one that shall be mightiest of all, he that is named Moon-Hound; he shall be filled with the flesh of all those men that die, and he shall swallow the moon, and sprinkle with blood the heavens and all the air; thereof shall the sun lose her shining, and the winds in that day shall be unquiet and roar on every side

Völuspá

40. Austr sat in aldna í Járnviði ok fæddi þar Fenris kindir; verðr af þeim öllum einna nokkurr tungls tjúgari í trölls hami.

In the east sat the old woman in Iron-wood and gave birth there to Fenrir's offspring; one of them in trollish shape shall be snatcher of the moon.

Thursatru and Rökkatru

Anticosmic Norse Paganism or Thursian sorcery venerates the Thursian giants. This is a Left Handed Path tradition. In the Thursian tradition Fenrir represents primal forces and chaos.

Definition of Anticosmic

Anti-Cosmic Satanism, also known as Chaos-Gnostic Satanism and Anti-Cosmic Gnosticism, is a belief system that believes that the Demiurge imprisoned humans with Cosmic Chains, holding us back from our true freedom in Chaos and Limitlessness. It believes that through the liberation of our mortal chains, we will once more return to Tohu/Ain - nothingness

The Aesir representing the Demiurge powers. Ragnarok freeing the chains and bringing everything back to the Ginnungagap.

The Thursar, the Old Norse primordial Giants, are seen as the more destructive forces raised against that cosmic order of the creation even into the given final culmination of Ragnarök or Ragnarökkr.

Abby Helasdottir coined the term Rökkatru. This is separate from the Thursian path.

Rökkatru's primary focus was the third pantheon of underworld Gods. These include Hela, Loki, Angrboda, Sigyn, Fenrir, Jormundgand, Narvi and Vali, Surt, Mordgud, and Mengloth, among others.

Working with Fenrir

*Please know basic protections and energy work before attempting any deity work.*

Offerings: Blood (when making oaths), Dragonsblood, Frankincense, Meat,

Rituals

⬩ Some practitioners can do a ritual to Fenrir to initiate under him when ready. This is not recommended for those not ready and or those who have any doubts about it. Breaking this oath as with any oaths for other deities will result in consequences.

⬩ A blót for Fenrir. Offer him the finest of meat.

⬩ Ritual for strength

⬩ Thursian rituals

Altar

Set up an altar/sacred space for performing rituals or giving offerings. Items may include

⬩Altar cloth

⬩Candles (color doesn't matter, black is fine)

⬩Cup or chalice

⬩Incense and incense burner

⬩Offering bowl

⬩Statues of Fenrir, wolf statue. Carvings of his name in runes. ᚠᛖᚾᚱᛁᚱ

For more information on basic deity work and altar setups check out the deity work post

Experience

In my personal experience in talking to people who worked with Fenrir. I've met a practioner who didn't think Loki was Fenrir's father. That Fenrir is not bound. He doesn't appear to be bound. He answers those who are strong and come in time of need. He is distant and quiet at first but will become more vocal over time.

I have also come across ideas of a priest and priestess of Fenrir. Priestess having deep connections with him. This tied into the concept that priestess had intimate and deep connections to gods and those of primal and primordial nature. Priest had deep connections to goddesses. This concept is in Greek mythology and heiros gamos.

Fenrir the one of primordial fire, chaos and the primal current. The one who is a shapeshifter. Father of wolves. Looks for those who are strong for he sees true strength. A test, a trial for those who are true. He is a serious deity. He sends a storm in his blessing. He typically doesn't come to tge practitioner for anything. Usually, it's the practitioner needing to go to him and interact.

For more content follow my main blog to see posts about all kinds of occult/pagan/witchcraft related stuff

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[rainbowcarousels]

Hi there, your friendly neighbourhood lore nerd has been summoned. I did a shit ton of LOVELESS research last year but obviously, there are chances I've missed things or I'm off. There's your disclaimer.

LOVELESS as far as I can tell is an epic like Edda or Beowolf. Given the resemblence of the language to the translations of the Cetran tablet in the Omega reports by Grimoire Valentine and Lucrecia Crescent, I'm inclined to believe the original poem is Cetran as it has a lot of the same themes. For exmaple, 'When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end' sounds like the Weapons to me.

There is also a comparison here:

Loveless Act IV: 'My soul, corrupted by vengeance Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey In my own salvation.'

Lucrecia's translation of the Cetran tablet: 'Soul wought of terra corrupt, Quelling impurity, Purging the stream To beckon forth an ultimate fate.'

The poem is split into the prologue and Acts I-IV, with Act V missing. We do see Genesis's version of Act V at the end of Crisis Core too, but Act V is still missing. It appears to be part of the cultural zeitgeist, as many people seem to have seen it such as you would a famous play or have read a famous book. There is a street named after it in Midgar and it's littered all over the compilation with one of the more interesting places it showing up being Genesis's limit break, Apocalypse.

Even Cid quotes the ending of the version he saw, which seems to be of Act III.

Take a look at the differences between the poem, the interpretation in Crisis Core and the ending Cid remembers in the original game:

Act III My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I? All that awaits you is a somber morrow No matter where the winds may blow My friend, your desire Is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess Even if the morrow is barren of promises Nothing shall forestall my return An Interpretation of Act III 'As the war sends the world hurling towards destruction The prisoner departs with his newfound love And embarks on a new journey He is guided by hope that the gift will bring bliss And the oath that he swore to his friends Though no oath is shared between the lovers In their hearts they know they will meet again' The Play "The sister of the lead asks her lover, 'Do you really have to leave?' And the guy says, 'I promised. The people I love, are waiting.' '…I don't understand. Not at all. But…please take care of yourself.' 'Of course… I'll come back to you. Even if you don't promise to wait. I'll return knowing that you'll be here.'"

It's also worth noting that the last line seems to be one of the more famous ones as even Kunsel quotes it. If you consider the song of Rebirth is 'No Promises to Keep', it likely also has some roots in LOVELESS interpretation so it is basically this cultural phenomenon that impacts the people deeply. The version we see with Jessie - the G edition - is very clock punk interpretive dance which feels fitting in a story about time and worlds. We even see our descending goddess stripped of her wings, the three friends and the lovers depicted in a way that feels very much in line with the original poem and interpretation.

However you can already see how the story wording shifts and changes depending on the interpretation. The plays and books based on the epic are likely interpretations of the original and I agree the poem itself is likely a much larger piece with just bits a pieces being spouted. You also see things like the Princess Rosa story from Rebirth which is part of a LOVELESS interpretation, so you will find some interpretations attempt to be faithful retellings and other iterations are more like the way that 10 Things I Hate About You is based on the Taming of the Shrew.

My interpretation for whatever that's worth is that LOVELESS has it's origins in the first Cetran encounter with Jenova and the fallout from it. It basically sounds as if LOVELESS is a collection of stories in an epic poem set around an era when the planet looked as if it was about to undergo an apocalypse due to the mass deaths due to Jenova's influence and the way she incites war. I think (SPOILERS?) we even see some of this in Rebirth with Wutai.

The story that Omega would awaken and the lifestream would gather itself and seed new life on a new planet, taking with it only the spirits it deems worthy of taking for rebirth (DoC notes anyone who had Geostigma is not worthy) while a war wages seemingly not just with the Cetra and Jenova but with humanity too.

These were likely oral stories passed down from the era written down about four thousand years later. I believe the sacrifice may even have been the mutated (Cetran?) host that we see Jenova inside in the main game which might explain why Gast assumed it was Cetran remains. Shiva - the original person the summon is based on - helped her away in the Northern Crater in the hopes of finding salvation in keeping her in hibernation.

Of course it also mirrors the main story, but I think in universe, that it is an epic based on a collection of stories passed down through oral tradition, written down at some point and interpreted in a variety of ways. Genesis probably has more interpretations on his shelf than he's proud of, if only to have notes scribbled all over some of them because they are clearly WRONG okay, he would know.

Honestly I’m confused af as to why LOVELESS is a wholeass book. What do they do, put one word on each page??

but in all seriousness, maybe it’s like an epic. The poem could be a prologue or someth then the actual story is essentially what we see in the play?

[edda-grenade]

i have now thumbnailed 3 diff comics with a combined pagecount of uhhhh 21 pages, so

here’s hoping i manage to finish at least one of them

[twh-news]

How Loki Shapeshifted From Nordic Folklore to a Marvel Icon

by Sara Durn

There are more than 800 years between the stories of Viking god Loki first being written down and his arrival (in the superb Tom Hiddleston) in the Marvel cinematic universe in 2011’s Thor. The new Disney+ series Loki, set to be released on June 9, is primed to explore more antics of Thor’s trickster brother as he attempts to fix the timeline he helped break in Avengers: Endgame. Among his many talents, Loki has cheated death a few times in the MCU, but that amounts to child’s play for this god.

In Norse mythology, Loki causes just as much confusion as his Marvel iteration. Though there aren’t any stories of him outwitting death, there are plenty of myths where he shapeshifts, swaps genders, or tricks gods into killing other gods. In the Marvel universe, he’s quite prone to allegiance swapping. Let’s dig into this troublemaker’s journey.

What is Loki’s origin?

The legends surrounding the Norse god are first documented in writing around the 13th century, primarily in Iceland. There are two versions of these legends that enter the historical record around the same time—the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. The Poetic Edda is an anonymous collection of Old Norse poems that are mainly pulled from an Icelandic medieval manuscript known as the Codex Regius (some of the poems date back to 800 CE). The Prose Edda is an Old Norse textbook for composing poetry that was written by a single author, Snorri Sturluson, a colorful Icelandic historian, scholar, and lawspeaker.

“Within the myths, you can see Loki moving from being just mischievous to being absolutely evil. If you think of him as only being mischievous, he’s actually a creative force and often ends up getting the gods much of their magical possessions, like Thor’s Hammer, through his cunning.”

“Pretty much everything we know about Loki came from Snorri Sturluson,” Viking scholar Nancy Marie Brown, author of Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths, told io9. Brown says this was very appropriate given that “Snorri was quite a trickster figure himself.” While calling him the “Homer of the North,” Brown also acknowledges that Snorri spent a lifetime “double-crossing friends and family… scheming and plotting, blustering and fleeing”— a life that eventually led to his unheroic demise in a nightshirt where his (supposed) final words were “don’t strike!” In both Eddas, Loki is always portrayed as a cunning trickster. In the Prose Edda, Snorri describes Loki as “pleasing and handsome in appearance, evil in character, very capricious in behavior. He possessed to a greater degree than other [gods] the kind of learning that is called cunning.”

Besides appearances, Loki is always getting the gods into trouble and then cleverly extricating them from the mess he’s made. He fathers the Midgard Serpent destined to bring about Ragnarök, the end of the world in Norse mythology. He convinces the blind god Hodr to kill the beautiful and favored god Baldur. He kidnaps the goddess Idun to save his own hide from a furious giant. The mythological character is constantly switching sides—sometimes supporting the gods and sometimes their enemies, the giants. In the MCU, Loki is both hero and villain—in The Avengers he opened a wormhole in New York City releasing alien monsters and in Thor: Ragnarok he helped Thor save the Asgardians from Hela’s wrath.

Thorwald’s Cross, a fragmented runestone depicting Odin being consumed. Image: Public Domain

Loki might have begun as a Norse god of fire—fitting considering how fire can be both “helpful and destructive,” said Brown. Fire can both burn down your house and cook you dinner. It’s tricky that way—like Loki. As Brown puts it, “You can see his two sides there [reflected in fire].” Brown also explains that there was likely a transformation in Loki over the centuries. “Within the myths, you can see Loki moving from being just mischievous to being absolutely evil. If you think of him as only being mischievous, he’s actually a creative force and often ends up getting the gods much of their magical possessions, like Thor’s Hammer, through his cunning.” Again, it’s just like Marvel’s Loki, who sometimes helps the other gods out, like when he teamed up with Thor to escape the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok.

What is Loki’s relationship with the Devil?

In the long, slow conversion of the Vikings to Christianity that took place between the 9th and 12th centuries, Loki became a parallel to the Christian Devil. The creative, positive elements of him fell away leaving only the god favored by the Father (Odin/God) before getting cast out. (It does sound a bit like Lucifer, right?) Christianity paints a world that is far more black and white, good vs. evil than the Norse pagan religion—here’s little room for a grey, ambiguous figure like Loki. As Brown puts it, “The Christian religion insists that you’re either with us or against us. Whereas in what we understand of the pagan Viking religion, there were a lot of shades of grey. There was a spectrum on which you could move back and forth. You weren’t all one thing or all the other. You weren’t all female or all male. You weren’t all good or all evil. It was more human.”

Loki always moved fluidly between those two polarities—helping Thor in one story, causing an overthrow of the gods in another. In one tale, Loki shapeshifts into a mare, becoming the mother of Odin’s great 8-legged horse, Sleipnir. In another, he fathers the wolf Fenrir. The Church couldn’t really handle all that grey area Loki liked to inhabit, and so it eventually cast him as the devil himself. “[Monks] had to sort the gods into saints and devils, and Loki by being sexually ambiguous and also morally ambiguous falls into the devil [category],” explained Brown. Though Marvel’s Loki certainly channels a bit of the devil at times, we’ve luckily yet to see him become both mother and father to world-ending, multi-legged monsters in the Marvel Universe. But, there’s still time, especially with the new Disney+ series hitting the small screen.

When was Loki’s Revival?

After the Viking conversion, the Norse myths started to fade, and Loki with them—until the 1600s, when medieval manuscripts like those containing the Prose and Poetic Edda began to be translated. “The reason [these myths] became popular was because of nationalism,” Brown told us. “In the mid to late 1800s, there was the idea that what distinguished one nation from another was its cultural heritage.” This spurred Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm—known to many simply as the Brothers Grimm—to go “collect the stories of the local people to prove that Germany was a nation, not a collection of states. You had the same thing happening in Ireland to prove that they were different from the English and you have the same thing happening in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.” This eventually gave rise to the Nazis appropriating Norse myths in their twisted pursuit of alleging Aryan supremacy.

Following the Civil War, the United States also looked to the Middle Ages to redefine the country’s fractured identity. As Chris Bishop, author of Medievalist Comics and the American Century, explained to io9, “[the Middle Ages] offered an aesthetic that was individualistic (think: the knight errant, Robin Hood, etc.), given to interpretations of exceptionalism (Camelot, the once and future king), venerable (where old equalled established and respectable), and (unlike Classicism) Christian.” The Middle Ages, or more accurately the remixing of the Middle Ages known in academia as “medievalisms,” appealed to many Americans obsessed with ideas of American exceptionalism and singularity in the 19th century. Eventually the U.S.’s obsession with the Middle Ages made its way into comic books starting with Prince Valiant in 1937, a comic strip created by Hal Foster set in and around the legends of King Arthur. Other medievalist comics followed eventually leading to the inclusion of Norse gods like Loki, Thor, and Odin.

First appearance of Loki in the 1949 Venus comics. Image: Wikicommons

When was Marvel Comics’ Loki introduced?

While Loki first appeared in the 1949 comic book Venus styled after (you guessed it) the devil, the modern-age Loki didn’t hit the comic book scene until co-writers and brothers Stan Lee and Larry Lieber adapted him in 1962’s Journey into Mystery #85. It’s in that issue where Loki “becomes Thor’s enemy/ally/brother/adopted brother/etc,” said Bishop. The mischievous personality of the Norse god remains largely the same in the Loki of the comic books and films and even retains the ability to swap genders at times.

In the comics, Loki is raised as Thor’s brother in Asgard—somewhere the Marvel stories diverge from the Norse mythology. It’s Loki and Odin who are sworn brothers in the Norse myths, not Loki and Thor. As Brown explains, “Loki and Odin are blood brothers, which means they are even closer than real brothers.” In the Viking world, two people who swore a blood oath to one another formed a bond that went beyond kin, and so went the Norse Loki and Odin’s relationship. As Bishop points out, the Loki/Thor dynamic of the comics and movies is a “classic, formulaic archetype.” Thor is the “big, hunky, handsome (but slightly dumb) hero” and Loki is “his slight, quirky but super-smart frenemy. Loki is the dark, misunderstood, vulnerable shadow that audiences can relate to, reach out to, care for. Thor is that dumb jock who everyone looked up to at school, but Loki was that cool, quiet kid who went on to found a tech-empire.”

Why is Loki called a Trickster?

What does remain consistent with Loki is that he always plays the trickster. He is the manifestation of psychologist Carl Jung’s archetype: The trickster disrupts the individual and/or society causing either growth or destruction. Social scientist Helena Bassil-Morozow points out that when it comes to Loki, “despite the fact that the narrative details between the medieval Loki stories and their contemporary versions vary, the main idea remains the same—the trickster mercilessly attacks those in power and nearly causes the end of the world.” Both in the Norse myths and in Marvel, the world needs saving from Loki. He acts as the catalyst for a whole lot of upheaval—upheaval that in the Norse myths causes Ragnarök.

Loki “functions as a locus of salvation (literally, a prodigal son).” Loki just might be a savior. He’s someone audiences can look at and think “if Loki can be redeemed, so too might I.”

Perhaps that’s where the two narratives differ the most. In the Norse tales, the end of the world at Ragnarök is inevitable. Odin and Thor will die. Everything will change. Vikings lived with the knowledge that their world would end. In the MCU, we don’t know how the story ends, plus Ragnarök took place already and yet the Asgardians live on. There’s still hope that Loki will prove to be good and that the other superheroes will save the world from whatever mayhem he’s caused, or so we can hope in the upcoming Disney+ series. As Bishop puts it, Loki “functions as a locus of salvation (literally, a prodigal son).” Loki just might be a savior. He’s someone audiences can look at and think “if Loki can be redeemed, so too might I,” explains Bishop.

While the Vikings’ Loki caused the end of the world, today’s Loki might just save it. Or maybe not. And, perhaps that’s the fun of the trickster—you never quite know what they’ll get up to.

[bnuuwitch]

I promised to myself that I’d do art for ME, so fuck it. Edda-erator. (It’s so weird to draw her with eyes)

[vampirezogar]

What is your opinion on elves? Do you like how they are portrayed in movies, games, books? Do you think that people are way too hyped about them?

I do find it interesting how, much like trolls, their modern portrayals differ from their origins. I think JRR Tolkien's interpretation of Elves in Middle Earth is quite cool, but every pop-culture iteration inspired by his thereafter seems less and less interesting.

In terms of surviving folklore, a lot seems to have been lost in translation. As far as I know, the Eddas don't really emphasize a diminutive stature for Light Elves or Dark Elves, yet somehow both have ended up smol. I think perhaps it comes from the mixing of cultural beliefs about various magical, spiritual, or semi-spiritual beings. Some cultures had Gnomes and Pixies and the like, so when they heard about Elves they may have assumed they were roughly synonymous. Hence the surviving lore of tiny Elves helping shoemakers or building toys in Santa's workshop, or of Dwarfs (Dark Elves) being Dwarfy and doing Dwarf stuff while small.

As for hype? I find that most people I hear talk about Elves actually don't like them. They tend to think the ones from pop-culture are stuffy and boring, and the ones from folklore are meant to somehow glorify slave labor. I suppose those people aren't entirely wrong on either front, however, I do believe there is more value to be found in Elves. Perhaps someone should give them another thoughtful reinterpretation, like Tolkien did, or perhaps older folklore should be repopularized.

[skaldish]

A'ight let me see if I can parse this down for our European cousins.

So, many Heathens in the US are VERY focused on religious reconstructionism, i.e. recreating what pre-Christian Heathen practice looked like. But this focus is so intense that we now have this standard of disregarding what Heathenry looks like in Scandinavia now in favor of what we think it looked like back then. That's why many of us are so weirdly obsessed with history, scholarship, vikings, and the Eddas.

I'm pretty sure this comes from the Völkisch influences that jumped over with Heathenry to the US after Nazi Germany fell. Because neo-Völkisch Heathenry was the first form of Heathenry to be popularized in the US, it controls a lot of the narrative over here.

Anyway, the argument that Loki is not a god comes from archaeology. Loki has no place-names or land-features named after him in Scandinavia, suggesting he did not have the status of a god in ancient times. This has been weaponized as an argument in some Heathen circles for why Loki shouldn't be hailed at sumbel.

You'd THINK we'd see this as loony bullshit, but that requires knowing a damn about Heathenry's modern iterations in Scandinavia. Most of us don't. Like I said, our narrative is wild over here. More Scandinavian resources are coming out in english we can access, but it's still pretty scant.

Anyway, this is why I'm always yelling about things.

[limelocked]

pov i subject myself to torture and consume as many iterations of the asatro beings as possible just so i can rank them worst to best, the prose edda is at the bottom

[helshades]

One of my favourite comments so far:

milqi:

Ummmmm… the comics are based on Norse Mythology. Loki’s so pansexual, he gave birth to an eight-legged horse.                  

@milqi Another commenter called me a ‘bitch’ and a ‘probable terf’ in the same sentence so I guess I cannot be considered an expert on such matters but... are you quite sure that you be making good advocacy for ‘pansexuality’ by mating it with bestiality...?

On a side note, the comics weren’t based on Norse mythology, more like Stan Lee got the names off a book on mythology. The Eddas and the rest were never that inspiring to Marvel to begin with. To be honest, even the current tween iteration of the character isn’t that faithful to Norse cosmogony—which sort of pre-dates gender activism, like.

[hondalima]

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[featureless-black-orb-official]

Rant begins:

Look all I’m saying is the first Thor film should have been set between 700-800 AD. We get loosely told that the reason the aliens align with Norse mythology is because they made contact in the early dark ages and were worshiped as gods by the germanic peoples of the time, and then it’s just never brought up again, the aliens are all filled in as Americans.

I mean just?? Show don’t tell??? They had this golden shining opportunity to explore one of the most extensive and influential cultures of the world and instead they just butchered it for it’s surface characters, threw the three gods that the majority of a western audience knows about (Thor, Loki, Odin) in as characters, and proceeded with a film set in the USA.

I get that most people are content for Thor to just be The God of Thunder and that’s how it exists in most people’s minds, but I want to see these godlike beings arriving on earth through the eyes of the ones who formed their whole culture around them. Why did they come? What did humans think about them? Were they benevolent? Did they have business with Humans, or was their presence on earth their own business and they were witnessed by Humans, in awesome terror, merely as bystanders? And how did their actions and stories in that long gone time serve as the roots of the sagas, the poetic and prose eddas, and beliefs and ways of life of the people beyond the north border of the old roman empire?

I want to see Njord and Skadi having a domestic about whether they should live in the mountains or by the sea. I want to see Mimir whispering unparalleled knowledge of the ages in to Odin’s ear, and I want to see some great Alien monster that the gods call ‘Fenrir’ that the gods explain to humanity they’ve chained up with powers beyond human understanding. I want to see how Odin ended up passing on his wisdom to humanity, and I want to see the roots of the sagas made manifest as real events, explained by the intervention of these grand superbeings. I want films full of Ostrogoths and Old Germans and Saxons and Celts with wacky blonde braids and frizzy gingers and shield maidens and wise men and seeresses making contact with the beings they would go on to call gods. I want to see people living the way they did, by the edges of the sea and in the depths of forests and in the heights of the mountains in isolation, hunkering by hearth fires through the winter Yuletide, exploring the world. I want to see them as a full, real people, and I want to see how they made laws democratically, how the skalds propagated their history through songs and poems, and how surviving in such cold, harsh conditions brings their people together as tribes and families, and brings home the importance of what they valued in their own cultures, and how those values become projected on to their way of life and their beliefs, looping back finally to the way that they interact with their gods

I want to see a Thor film that’s crammed with references to the poetic and prose Eddas, that talks about seiðr as a practice of magic, that explains how they ended up in America (wtf guys), that shows Thor getting tricked in to drinking the sea until it was noticeably shallower, and I want it all to be from the perspective of the humans witnessing the Asgardians upon the earth. I want to see those peoples portrayed beyond the old narrative of the bloodthirsty barbaric Vikings that the christian world of the time knew them as.

And, finally, I want every actor to sound Icelandic/scandinavian/celtic/believably old Norse, and to have a traditional soundtrack (iterated perhaps with Led Zeppelin in the credits).

There’s an aspect of our own culture in north and west Europe that I think we’re missing out on in a big way ever since it got stomped on, first by the church, second by the renaissance, and third by the industrial revolution, and we should be valuing it and exploring it more. /Rant ends