#anyway have fun. stab a tyrant. I will be sleeping probably

[brother-emperors]

so I’m probably skipping this year for an Ides of March illustration, but I do have an Ides of March tag :)

[teyrnacousland]

If you cannot tell me another way...

Do not brand me a tyrant Anders a villain. (A List by Me.) 

This line does not work for Meredith at all. She had tons of options, one of which was to just. Not do all of the horrible things she was doing? Nothing she did was in any way necessary.

Anders, on the other hand, had no other options. People who say he was wrong seem to conveniently forget this. It’s been eight years since DA2 came out and I still can’t think of anything else he could have done. Even people who are quick to condemn his actions rarely offer an alternate course of action he could have taken. But I have seen some people try, so I’m going to go over every alternate suggestion I’ve seen and explain why they’re wrong and it wouldn’t have worked. 

1. Do nothing. 

 Do I need to explain why this one is a terrible idea? Meredith would have called for Annulment eventually. Maybe even right then and there. Meredith says herself “my patience is at an end”, and the way Orsino snaps back implies that his is too. What would Meredith have done if the Anders hadn’t interrupted? Perhaps Orsino would have given in (or the Templars would have made him stand down by force) and Meredith would have searched the tower. What would she do when she didn’t find the secret blood mage hideout she thinks she’ll find there? Would she just stand down and apologize for being wrong? Or would she, paranoid as she is, take that as a sign that there’s no way to root out the problem and the only solution is to throw out the whole Circle?

But even if it didn’t happen then and there, tensions like those in Kirkwall don’t just disappear. Things would have gotten worse and worse. Meredith would just get closer and closer to snapping as she continued to search for a conspiracy that doesn’t exist, and as the red lyrium continued to affect her mind. Maybe another apostate or maleficar would have done something she saw as an attack, or Orsino would have pushed too hard out of frustration and desperation, or something would happen that would lead Meredith to using the Right of Annulment in retaliation. Maybe the Divine would have approved her request, and she would do it the second that approval got to her. Maybe Meredith would have eventually decided it was the only way to keep the peace and call for it out of nowhere.

No matter what, the Right of Annulment was always going to happen, because it’s always been her ideal ending. She’s wanted it for years. When Elthina refused, Meredith went above her head. Even if the Divine ended up refusing the request, Meredith would have tried to find another way or just done it anyways. Even if she had to break the rules to do it. She’s been raised to worship a martyr, and she would have no problem risking becoming one herself.  It’s her “divine right”, her “duty”. She would never have been satisfied until she did it.

And when she called for it, she wouldn’t give the mages a warning or head start. They wouldn’t have time to prepare themselves and recruit help. The mages would all be locked away in their cells when the Templars came. Maybe they’d do it at night while they were sleeping. They would open the cells one by one and kill every man woman and child, one at a time so they can’t fight back.

And when it was over, she would tell the rest of Kirkwall, Thedas, the Chantry, that she had discovered something that justified it. (We know she’s the type of person who would do this; when she turns on pro-Templar mage Hawke she says “The people of Kirkwall will mourn your loss, but I will tell them that you died battling the mages. A righteous cause.” She plans to lie to the world then, and she’d no doubt do it now.) And Elthina would have backed up her story, because her other option at that point would be to lose her pawn slash partner, and also admit that she let this happen right under her nose, that Meredith and the Templars were out of control. (And it wouldn’t be the first time permission for a Right of Annulment was granted to cover up a Templar’s genocidal Templar’s rampage.) 

The Gallows mages would all die, and nothing in the world would change. 

2. Kill Meredith. 

Best case scenario, Elthina would have appointed a new Meredith and nothing would change. Or she would have promoted Cullen (and even if you like him you have to admit that Knight-Commander Cullen, with the way he was back then, would Not be Good. Remember, Knight-Captain Cullen supports Tranquility, at least considered the Tranquil Solution, and in DAO he wanted you to help Annul the mages in Kinloch Hold). 

Worst case, the Divine would have stepped in now that the situation in Kirkwall had advanced to murder of a high up Chantry figure and they would send over a new Meredith along with an army and official permission to Annul the Gallows. (And again, this wouldn’t be a fit of rage declared in a public place with no preparation. It would be calculated. The mages wouldn’t know until it was too late.) It’s also possible she would have even declared an Exalted March and killed everyone in the city.

3. Kill Elthina.

First of all, how would he do this? Elthina is protected, by Templars no less. Anders’ options are magic, which would be shut down by said Templars, or get close enough to use a blade, which would also be prevented by said Templars. What’s he going to do, tell Elthina he just wants a hug? She’s not an idiot. Anders is a rebel and a freedom fighter, she must know he’s a threat. She would never let him within stabbing distance. 

But let’s say Anders found a way. Let’s say he assassinated her when no Templars were there to stop him. What impact would that have on Kirkwall? The people would hear that Elthina was dead. No one would really know what happened. It would be a tragedy, sure, but it wouldn’t have the same impact. No one would be forced to think about why she was murdered, what led to that. That’s if they were even told it was murder, if it wasn’t covered up to prevent panic, to keep up the chantry’s illusion of control. 

Meredith would still find out. But she would likely be alone. She would be told, not be witness to it. It would hit less hard, and she’d have time to think and plan. She would likely still call for Annulment, but quietly, privately. See scenario one, everyone dies, and the world doesn’t know, doesn’t change.

Assuming he did it publicly (if that’s even possible) Meredith would again possibly have responded the same way. Let’s say she called for Annullment immediately. Ideally, this murder would have to happen when Meredith and Orsino was nearby, so he and the Gallows would have warning. (That would be pretty hard to arrange too, probably even impossible, since Orsino would never just happen to be in the chantry where Elthina is. Meredith, who is his jailer, specifically doesn’t want him going there, she tries to stop him in the scene before the chantry boom.)

If Meredith succeeds (more likely in this scenario than in canon, since no one is distracted by the chaos of the chantry explosion and no one is occupied with damage control) then it’s just back to Scenario 1, so let’s skip that and say the mages win. Now what? The world still hasn’t changed. They were never forced to acknowledge the problems in the Gallows, were never made aware of it by an apostate standing in Lowtown and shouting about it loudly as fire rains from the sky. Anders couldn’t make his speech before killing Elthina because then he’d be stopped, and he couldn’t make it after because he would no doubt be dragged away or executed on the spot. So no one knows the story. No one knows what happened. It’s the Kirkwall mages’ word against the Chantry’s, and which one do you think will sound more believable? Which one will reach the most people? And since the word would never reach the other mages, Fiona wouldn’t have gotten enough votes to declare independence, and this window of opportunity that let the mages push for freedom in canon would have passed them by.

Also, the Chantry would be perfectly intact, and that’s a problem. In this scenario, they don’t have to worry about the message Anders is sending (since he hasn’t sent one) or deal with the increased tensions Anders’ very loud and public rebellion caused in Circles all across Thedas. The Chantry would be free hunt the Kirkwall mages down in full force. (I’ll go into this more in the next point.)

It’s also possible, if not likely, that Meredith wouldn’t have called for Annulment right away. A single murder probably wouldn’t have caused the same level of outrage and wouldn’t have pushed her into making such an irrational move as to announce her intentions in public and give the mages time to prepare. And again, see Scenario 1. 

4. Sneak the mages out of Kirkwall

First of all, again, this would be incredibly difficult. Anders would either have to kill all the Templars (which, impressive as he is, I doubt he could do on his own) or distract them (again, near impossible, especially alone. There’s so many of them. They’re like ants in the summer.)

But let’s put that aside and assume that Anders could somehow get the mages out of Kirkwall. Let me introduce you to this fun codex entry: Codex Entry: Apostate’s Courage

It’s about an apostate named Caleth who ran from the Chantry with a group of fellow mages and hid in the mountains. The Chantry sent an army of Templars and hired mercenaries to bring them back, and they were forced to surrender themselves to be made Tranquil. 

The Chantry can’t let a small group of apostates escape their grasp, let alone an entire Circle. First of all, look at how focused the Templars in Awakening are on Anders, a single apostate. They act like his a personal insult. These divine narcissists can’t stand the idea that an apostate outwitted them and isn’t forced to obey them. 

And second, the reason the Chantry would devote so many resources to bring back what couldn’t be more than a dozen or two apostates (since it says Caleth’s group was only his most loyal I imagine it can’t have been too many): It sends a message that escape is possible. It inspires others to try for freedom. It undermines the Chantry’s authority and the image of control they’ve so carefully cultivated. Imagine what message it would send if a whole Circle escaped?

If Anders hadn’t destabilized the Chantry in a major way, increased tensions between the Chantry (and Templars) and the mages, forcing them to focus resources there, the Chantry would have hunted him and the other Gallows escapees down with all the force they could muster, for the rest of eternity. Because they would have to. Their system relies on complete control, or at least the illusion of control. Once they lose that, as we see in canon, they lose everything. And they know it.

Basically, in short, here are the list of requirements for a good plan:

It has to be something Anders can do. Alone. Anders probably can’t  walk into the Gallows’ Templar hall and assassinate Meredith. Anders probably can’t walk into the chantry and kill Elthina. And even if he comes up with a plan, if he tries and is caught or stopped and then executed, it was all for nothing. (See scenario 1.)

It has to give the mages in the Gallows warning the moment Meredith decides to invoke the Rite of Annulment. This means it has to be a public event, where both Meredith and Orsino are present, and it has to be big enough that Meredith will react irrationally and declare her intentions in public.

It has to destabilize the Chantry, since if they’re not affected they’ll pour all their focus into shutting down the Kirkwall mages, and also making up a cover story, as fast as they can.

It has to get attention. Anders wants the world to acknowledge what’s happening in the Circles. Anything small scale will be seen as an isolated incident and promptly forgotten about. Or worse, it’ll be covered up and twisted by the Chantry.

It needs to affect the other Circles. If it’s small, they might not even hear about it, let alone see its effects. This is possibly the most important point, since Anders’ overall goal isn’t just to save the mages in the Gallows, but also to make a spark that someone like Fiona can fan into a flame. And Fiona’s plan requires the mages to see that they can’t just stay in the Circles and play the good mage, so they’ll vote for independence. This almost requires things to get worse, since that’s likely the only way the Aequitarians (and others) would realize this. 

Until you can suggest to me a plan that satisfies these requirements and doesn’t run into any of the pitfalls and walls I’ve mentioned, do not call Anders a villain. 

[rudolf-rokkr]

Heyo. I've been trying to get into more heathenry/norse paganism kinda stuff (what can I say, I love folk metal), but the one thing that's kind of been a damper on the concept for me is the concept of Hel - specifically, how (as I understand it) dying of sickness or old age is a form of cowardice and punishable by eternal torment. Being chronically ill myself, that doesn't really sit right with me. Do you have any thoughts/corrections/resources on this topic in particular?

Thanks for the question. Basically the image of Viking afterlife concepts that has entered popular culture is extremely shallow and not a good representation of what we know believe actually existed. This is a big topic so it’s easy to get lost but I’m gonna try to keep it simple without leaving too much out but feel free to follow up if it seems like I’ve missed something. It’s long so the rest is behind the break.

I’ll start with the major point I want to make and then we’ll fill in the “so what then?” after. The reason you’re disturbed by this is because it’s, at least partially, a recruitment tactic. It’s designed to tempt you to suspend your reason and even if it did apply to your personal situation you’re better off not falling for it.

I know some people find strength in the Valhöll idea and I don’t want to take that away from anyone but my uncensored opinion is that it’s for dupes. It’s full of people who wasted their lives in service to kings who didn’t give a shit about them, who used them to gain rule over them. Óðinn isn’t vetting them for bravery, he’s vetting them for certain personality traits that are bad for self-preservation but good for early proto-state-formation. That’s why it’s the afterlife we find out about from Snorri. He was a court poet, trying to piece back together a cosmology from shreds of court poetry that extolled the virtues of fearlessly taking an axe to the face in defense of your favored tyrant. Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to go to an afterlife where you have to die every day. I think this was more of a prestige factor among the living than an actual hope for the afterlife. I could be wrong though since the primary audience of such a myth would have been, like, 18-year-old kids hopped up on adrenaline, having just left the family farm for the first time in their lives, suddenly being adorned in gold and addressed by kings and making their first kills and drinking unending ale. Frat boys to whom the world is suddenly open (note that we’re mostly talking about higher class people anyway because they’re the ones who could afford weapons, so the world was already more open to them than others). Like the primary source for details about Valhöll is Vafþrúðnismál which rather likely was performed before an audience of these young, drunk warriors far from home (see Terry Gunnell for theories about performance of Eddic poetry).

So yeah, I could see them falling for this, or thinking it sounds appealing, or whatever. But at the same time I doubt anyone would have admitted out loud that killing each other all day every day for eternity would be awful (in fact it sounds a bit like the Buddhist hell Sañjīva but with good food). If it’s a real thing its full of people who can’t admit they’ve longed for Niflhel for centuries. 

That isn’t to say it can’t be a legitimate belief as well, just that this is its primary social function from the perspective of our sources. I’m sure that another motivating factor for the preservation and distribution of this belief is that those promising 18-year-olds also had families back home and maybe wives and kids and they were supposed to come home from exploiting the Karelians for the King’s tribute to take care of all this, and the pain of such a loss is made somewhat more mild by believing that these individuals have been called to the higher purpose of preserving the cosmic order. Not saying I agree, just that I get it.

(Note that in reality we have substantial evidence that the actual motivating factor for at least some “Viking” warriors wasn’t a glorious afterlife but rather they were mercenaries and maybe not even locals).

Now onto the next point. In Gylfaginning Snorri says that Óðinn decides where people go when they die and that good (siðaðir, literally more like ‘ethical’ I guess) people go to Vingólf or Gimlé (note: not the same as Valhöll; this might be where Snorri thinks good people who aren’t killed in battle go) and that bad people go first to Hel and then to Nifhel. The problem is that he’s full of shit. This isn’t corroborated anywhere. We can put the “full of shit” onus on Snorri the Christian who believed literally in an all-powerful God and Heaven and Hell, or we can put it Snorri’s depiction of Óðinn as Hárr/Jafnhárr/Þriði lying to Gylfi, but either way it’s obviously wrong and easily refuted.

For one thing there’s nothing moral about it. It’s just down to the manner of death. The greatest hero of Germanic mythology, Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, went to hel because he was killed in his sleep or stabbed in the back. And we know he went to hel because Brynhildr committed suicide in order to follow him. And according to skaldic poetry, King Hákon góði went to Valhöll despite not even being heathen because he died in glorious battle.

Grímnismál says that Freyja gets half the slain warriors; Þorgerðr Egilsdóttir (who is not a warrior) in Egils saga expresses expectation that she’ll spend the afterlife with Freyja. In Hárbarðsljóð Hárbarðr (Óðinn) makes fun of Þórr because he receives slaves into his halls rather than rulers like Óðinn does. Snorri himself tells us that Gefjun receives those who die as unmarried women which doesn’t apply to your situation but is another hole in the Valhöll/Hel paradigm. He also says that Rán (the sea-gýgr) takes those who die by drowning, which is corroborated by Eyrbyggja saga (chapter 54, when the drowned men show up to their own funeral, perpetually dripping wet).

Meanwhile, other than very specific parts of it that might be designated for people marked for obliteration from existence (this is based on lines in Vafþrúðnismál describing Niflhel as the place “whence men die out of hel,” what precisely that means is not obvious), we don’t have much reason to believe Helheimr is really so bad. Hel herself seems to thrive on death and decay and all that but I mean, it’s the world of the dead, that kind of seems to make sense and we can’t frame it according to our perspective as the living. On the other hand though, most of our evidence actually points to the world of the dead having a relatively strong sense of continuity with the world of the living. That seems to be why people were buried with their stuff – they weren’t done using it. 

Whether or not we should place Glæsisvellir or Ódáinsakr in the “world of the dead” (they get an association with Jötunheimar in some sources – it’s not clear if this is part of the Euhemerizing process where mythological places are mapped to geographical locations, or if Jötunheimar was part of the “world of the dead”) is unclear. Glæsisvellir ‘shining fields’ are a sort of “otherworld” more like what you normally see in Gaelic myth and legend that tend to show up a bit later in Norse mythology but seems to possibly play on things that show up as early as Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s description of the Rus’. It’s pretty much Valhöll for peaceful people. Ódáinsakr is a place within Glæsisvellir where there is no death and everything comes back to life. They’re usually ruled over by a very benevolent and hospitable jötunn named Guðmundr or Goðmundr (though split from the same origin, guð is used more for the Christian god and goð more for heathen ones, so calling him Goðmundr is marking him as heathen). Basically it seems to be Norse Elysium.

Finally, the afterlife that has the most support from the Íslendinga sögur, which means it’s probably the best reflection of the day-to-day beliefs of average people during the Viking age is some kind of continued existence in the landscape. The most clear description is in Eyrbyggja saga wherein it’s seen that the mountain Helgafell opens up to receive Þorsteinn þorskabítr and his companions; the mountain contained a whole hall full of people with fires burning and horns blowing and everything to welcome Þorsteinn. It was later discovered that Þorsteinn had drowned (note that this is the same saga I mentioned before where drowned sailors go to Rán).

Some scholars think that this is actually the origin of Hel and Valhöll. That they were just the continued existence of the dead, basically underground or living in rocks or other natural formations (like the elves do in Icelandic folklore). The abstraction of Hel and Valhöll from geographical location might have been part of the universalization/mobilization that some scholars propose for the development of the Óðinn cult (see: Tracing Old Norse Cosmology by Anders Andrén).

We also see a sort of double-afterlife in Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (a.k.a. Völsungakviða in forna) wherein Helgi has some kind of mobility between his burial mound and Valhöll… and then is later reincarnated.

Reincarnation pops up a couple times in Norse lore, this aforementioned poem being one of them. It actually says:

Þat var trúa í forneskju, at menn væri endrbornir, en þat er nú kölluð kerlingavilla.

‘It was a belief in heathen times that men would be reborn, but that is now called an old wives’ tale.’

It’s also implied in Flateyjarbók that Saint Ólafr is the reincarnation of an old heathen king who was worshiped as an elf in death, Ólafr Guðrøðarson (Ólafr Geirstaðaálfr). I did a post about reincarnation on my other blog that covers a lot of the same ground as this post.

Reincarnation is also a more or less fixed part of Urglaawe, a variant of modern heathenism focusing on the experience of the Pennsylvania Dutch (although these other afterlives are as well – just part of a process that ultimately results in reincarnation. To my mind such a view is perfectly compatible with everything else I’ve mentioned above).

The Wild Hunt does not factor much into Norse mythology but we have a pretty good idea that the concept was around based on its appearance in later folklore and its general wide spread across world cultures. It could possibly be related to the Valhöll afterlife concept, perhaps among a different class of people. We are pretty sure, for example, that Óðinn was popular in Denmark before Christianization and we are not able to connect him clearly to a ruling class like we are able to do with Norway (largely because of a general lack of literary sources for heathenism for that time or place). While no evidence compels us to do so, we have room for envisioning an Óðinn-centric afterlife that is not Valhöll, nor restricted to the upper classes. I mean he’s clearly a “god of the upper classes” but he’s no less a wandering hobo.

Anyway, the point so far is that there are lots of alternatives to the “Viking heaven” vs. “Viking hell” bullshit. This is probably not exhaustive and it partially conflicts. That isn’t surprising given that there is no centralized heathen authority and what we’re actually talking about is a huge variety of religious ideas that circulated differently along localities, social classes, time periods, social contexts, etc.

If we can point to something underlying all of this, it’s that there was believed to be some kind of continuity between life, manner of death, and afterlife. People dying in battle and going to Valhöll is, to my mind, an extension of this. “Those who die violently have a violent afterlife.” Whether or not that’s good will depend on the person, I’d imagine. Those who die in illness (and remember that there was a relationship between illness and trolls and elves or other unclean or vengeful spirits) may unfortunately find themselves in an afterlife characterized by fever and coughing and other unpleasant things. However the afterlife also seems negotiable, fluid, and furthermore determined at least partially by the activities of the survivors. When Ahmad ibn Fadlan attended a Rus’ funeral one of the Rus’ made fun of him because to him, the Muslim practice of burying the dead meant that the deceased would have to lie there in the ground while they decomposed, as opposed to the Rus’ who were cremated and thereby went immediately to the gods (by the way both burial and cremation happened under heathenism, so this is clear evidence of discontinuous religious belief among heathens and that we can’t call it “one” “religion.” Snorri associated burial and cremation with the cults of Freyr and Óðinn respectively in Ynglinga saga but of course he didn’t have all the archaeological evidence we do so we shouldn’t take that as necessarily true, but it’s interesting that he knew about both). We also see worship of the dead in the sources as the dead were considered to continue to have contact with the world of the living, for example by influencing crop yields and local weather patterns. Snorri’s Euhemerized history of the kings of Scandinavia exploits this to explain how the human king Freyr became a god – he was a human king who died and was worshiped as an ancestor at first before being reanalyzed as a god in the popular tradition. Though maybe not with Freyr specifically, this probably actually happened, even if more strictly localized, like in Vita Anskarii wherein it’s said that a certain King Erik was accepted by the gods as one of them when he died.

This is why I can’t help but think of Valhöll as “if you spend your life bootlicking you’ll spend death doing the same.” Indeed, even in the old sources, hierarchy in human society is replicated in Valhöll when Helgi Hundingsbani goes there and humiliates Hundingr by ordering him around.

We might also gain some insight by comparing other cultures that share beliefs in common with the pre-Christian Norse.  Though close reading of literature and comparative religion most people believe that the Norse did not believe in a single soul but rather something of a personal complex. We see this in other circumpolar cultures that also recognize things like the World Tree, ancestor worship, nature spirits, etc – that doesn’t mean we can just lift ideas from these other cultures but they do give real-life examples of how these abstract concepts can work in day-to-day life. Personally I have been very inspired by and influenced by Buryat Mongol belief and custom, especially because they themselves are often eager to share (reminder that it not being strictly “closed” does not mean that inappropriate appropriation is not possible). Buryat Mongols recognize three “souls,” each of which go their separate ways at death. One becomes a nature spirit, one which goes to the underworld and is eventually reincarnated, and another which becomes a bird on the world tree which is also eventually reincarnated (but, if I understand correctly, not along with the soul which had gone to the underworld). Among many such cultures going to the gods in the afterlife is a possibility, but a major exception to the norm. The reason I find this so interesting for this conversation is that if the Norse believed something similar, it would explain why our sources are in such conflict, how people can be going to Hel and living in the mound at the same time, how Helgi Hundingsbani can go to Valhöll and be reincarnated, etc. If you’re interested in learning more about Buryat Mongol belief try the site I already linked and also the works of anthropologist Katherine Swancutt (note that the families she stayed with had complete agency in determining what and how she would share what she learned… she talks a lot about this in Fortune and the Cursed: The Sliding Scale of Time in Mongolian Divination).

This next part is gonna be even more opinionated than what I’ve already written. I think it’s tempting to believe that people get what they deserve in death. That people who are treated unfairly in life are compensated in death and that those who were unfair themselves get their comeuppance. But to my mind heathenism lacks a mechanism for identifying or producing desert. That means it’s up to us, the living, and maybe those dead who continue to exert an influence on the world of the living, to vindicate those who were oppressed, or robbed of a good death; and to mitigate the legacy of unfairness. I do not believe that “the universe” or “wyrd” or whatever punishes wrongdoing – not because it wouldn’t be nice but because how exactly is that supposed to even happen? Do we really want to rely on gods who often act immorally themselves and use their supernatural abilities to exert their wills, to judge us? We might ask for their help, but we shouldn’t leave it in their hands. It would be great to take the burden off of ourselves but for better or worse, that’s where the burden is. This concept is a major spiritual informant to my belief in social justice, it’s (among many other things) a way to achieve a symbolic (and restorative, rather than retributive) equivalent to the social role of blood vengeance, for people who faced oppression. And what’s more, if we’re prepared to accept the possibility of reincarnation, then it actually is helping ourselves as well as our dearly departed awaiting rebirth in the underworld to make the world a better place for future generations.

Finally the last thing I want to say is that all of this is just theory. Not believing it doesn’t make you not heathen. We don’t have a Bible, there is no centralized authority, nobody living a thousand+ years ago was totally sure what happened in death – the lore we have received is just whatever models they came up with that best explained their experiences (probably especially mystical experiences of religious specialists, but still) and informed their behavior. For that matter, plenty of this shit is probably Christian speculation about what heathens believed anyway. If you have reason to believe otherwise it isn’t “un-heathen” to trust in your own ability to reason. Like, I think I did an alright job of framing my distaste for Valhöll in heathen discourse which just means it’s a productive set of religious beliefs that’s capable of autocritique. A person can’t possibly read the sagas and conclude that everyone agreed with each other all the time; variation, dissent, and creativity are generally speaking all good signs.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I know there are a lot of people who see entrance to Valhöll being granted to anyone engaging in struggle, whether physical or otherwise. I don’t agree, and if you’ve read this far you know I haven’t factored it into my understanding at all. But I don’t necessarily have a problem with it. I think it comes down to the active conception of “violence.” I do not believe that violence is strictly an act of causing physical damage to a person or object in a single event. I think that rearranging Valhöll to conform to a modern conception of violence that also includes systematic oppression is a literally incorrect way to interpret it according to Old Norse religion – but fuck it, my opinion of Valhöll is low as shit, so do whatever you want for all I care.