What does a Norse mythology expert think of the God of War Ragnarok ending? Join us on November 20 at 8am PT/ 11am ET/ 4pm GMT / November 21 at 3am AEDT to see Jackson Crawford react to God of War Ragnarök’s final few scenes.
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Foreign [Music] Figure it's it's the event it's the war At the end Hi I'm Dr Jackson Crawford I'm a Specialist in Old Norse language and Mythology and today I'm reacting to God Of War Ragnarok Who are you Who you seek It's never stated actually what kind of Being he is he may not even be a Conventional yotune but he will show up At Ragnarok with a flaming sword which May be the sword that's still glowing From the forge is kind of a shout out to He will be one of the leaders of the Enemies of the Gods will have a fight With they got Freer and kill him and Then once all the gods are killed he Will set fire to What's Left of the Realms and everything will burn up So what's the point of all this You keep separate from sinmara just so You can sit here and wait to die okay Hold on because the sunmara name has Come up again I just want to see if I Can figure out where this is coming from Real quick I'm looking for obscure stuff Uh here's another book endorsement Rudy Cemex Uh dictionary of Northern mythology he He tracks down all the Obscure stuff Okay here we go senmara the female
Companion of the giant sorter in fuels Fins mole very obscure poem it's just Stated to be his wife Without her heart She's got mine I knew it had to come From somewhere and of course it is an Extremely obscure source and extremely Obscure names they're making a lot of Hey out but this whole thing about her Heart and her having a lot to do with Ragnarok is uh pretty much out of whole Cloth I should note that if I have a Hard time figuring out what you're Talking about you are using really Really obscure references part of what Happens is there's so many dozens and Hundreds of names mentioned in these Poems and so little is said about any But like 20 of them so what ends up Happening is such a weird superstructure Of speculation gets built on top of These names that nothing is said about In the original sources that people who Don't know the original sources assume That must be there and then I kind of Get the well you idiot why don't you Know more about this it's like well Because it's not actually there right It's not actually like I can't remember All 500 or whatever names that are in There So here it is The spark of the world Oh this is beautiful mooseville Hayne is
A fiery realm from the creation myth So it does pre-exist the realm that we Live on so what happens in the creation Myth is that there's a watery round Nibble hammer and then there's a fire Around mooseball Hammer water flows out Of nibble Hammer into the cold void Between them it freezes but then flame From muslimmer melts the ice and the First living being drips out of the eyes So moose will hammer is is there at the Beginning sorter is somehow associated With the realm loose ball hammer and Maybe from there whatever it means to be From there when it's kind of the Primordial plays and then Sparks from mooseville Hammer are used To create uh the Stars the sun and the Moon but that doesn't seem to be the Context here of like spark of the world That is the Horn of heimdaller horn Obviously the same word in Old Norse an Englishman's horn Galler is kind of Interesting because you could read it as Something like Yeller like it's the Yellow horn the loud horn maybe but uh Somewhat more interesting interpretation Would actually take it as the Horn of The river kill which is the river of Hell so almost as though it were the Horn that summons the hordes of Hell or Perhaps that sends people to hell or Something like that yeah heimdollar will Blow it to signify that Ragnarok has
Begun But bloody type he showed up there's no Being named Ragnarok right Ragnarok Isn't like a speaking figure it's it's The event right it's it's the war at the End He's a huge figure in Ragnarok but to Say that remember that the main story Of Ragnarok is the half of 63 stanzas Right so it's not like we get tons of Detail about anybody and by the way what It means rock is uh is like events And ragna is the is a possessive form of Another word for Gods so you notice There's a lot of words for God asir us Being one of them you notice how that Alliterates like this is something you Pick up on an old nurse fast as they Like to alliterate so it's it's the Events of the Gods with events rock Often having a pretty negative Connotation so roughly fates of the Gods [Music] Odin is a shape-changer sort of Odin Seems to have this ability to make you Not recognize him not like not that he's Really changed shape you know he's Depicted as an old man with a long Gray Beard and one eye and he like disguises Himself as an old man with a longer Period in one eye so it's it's not it's Not like much of a shape changing but It's almost like he has this ability to Just make you not realize who he is so
Him disguising himself as or like Concealing his identity behind that of Another God isn't utterly absurd but it Doesn't happen part of what might be Inspiring that is there's this very Prevalent idea on the internet that tear Is the real head of the pantheon what Underlies that is pretty thin and in a Sense linguistic which of course I like Language but there's limits to what it Can do for us tears name if you roll it Back is the same word it comes from the Same Proto and European ancestral word As Zeus so you could infer that once he Had a more zeus-like role in the Pantheon but it's also a possible that He didn't you know could tier once have Been a mermaid major figure in the Pantheon than he is yeah is he and the Sources that we actually have no but I Imagine that maybe other than disguising Himself as tear is semi-inspired by that Notion that Odin somewhere took over as The chief The pantheon no I didn't want this so Thor's Odin's son They fight alongside one another at Ragnarok in the story in our medieval Sources oath and is killed by fener of The wolf and Thor is killed by the Midgard serpent they never physically Fight certainly other than Never Kills Thor so this is just again utterly Edible claw their personalities are in
Conflict they're very different Personalities right Odin is this schemer This Gambler kind of a behind the scenes Manipulator Thor is an out in the front Straight up honest you know fighting man And in fact we have a poem in the poetic Era called horbury Steels the song of Greybeard where Thor meets his father Ozin and when Odin doesn't want to be Recognized no one recognizes him Odin Gives his name as poorvar their Greybeard and they exchange insults Thor Never quite realizing that he's talking To his dad but other than insulting Thor And Thor kind of not quite realizing He's insulting out so their Personalities are definitely in Conflict I am not sure that you ever see Thor Obey oothing in a meaningful way it's Not that kind of father-son relationship And Odin's not you know he's not a boss Of the Gods but he certainly is not in a Violent relationship with other gods This doesn't sit with their characters To me they might squabble that would be Realistic enough but for Odin to kill Thor like I don't even understand what The point is you Taught me anymore That's my friend I forgot how good you Look with wings you know even with some Major figures So many gods and and everybody else have Different names that it's not entirely
Clear that's Reagan Freya aren't the Same person occasionally they're Definitely presented as different like In the poem Locus in it where Loki Insults the different gods and goddesses The defining thing about frig is that She's Odin's wife and balder's mother so If they're kind of treating it as like What Odin calls for Aya it's not an Abuse to the sources it's kind of an Interesting use of of the confusion Between the two of them much like it was In fighting Thor there's no scene of her Fighting for them her having wings Though does have some textual basis I Think I mentioned before something Called a feather Cape or falcon suit that she wears Actually it's very confused whether it's Brig or Freya or again if it's the same Person Someone superficial note I'm struck by Odin's costume a little bit you know I'm A I'm a ring guy myself I guess but boy Odin has a lot of bling on his fingers This scene doesn't have any bearing on Anything that's in our sources Loki says So sofna is To go to sleep I guess he probably means To say like go to sleep this is like to Go to sleep up from this I don't know What the intention is go to sleep Starting now maybe because the next Thing he says is which would mean to go
To sleep from here so I guess he Probably what he's trying to say is like Go to sleep now I guess Please It is difficult to translate words like Soul and Spirit into Norse they have a Very limited notion of a sentient being Being separate from a body there is a Concept called or hug R which is maybe Kind of like a soul where a magic user Can send his or her Hooger into another Animal but then while that hooker that Animating Forest the spirit if you will Is in the animal the wizard is in a coma Basically that's about the most separate That the soul gets from the body and the Resources so souls or spirits being Separate from the body to me is is Pretty foreign from the the general gist Of how if you will animacy works I just Don't even know how I would necessarily Talk about that Is Ragnarok he's here he is a fairly Important figure in Ragnarok but he Fights sorter who will kill him with his Flaming sword What [Music] You have to call it's interesting that Raya calls him Envy here which is Another name of prayer so you've got That multiple name thing going again he Says to her nod I think is the word that He's meant to be saying which is Grace
Or Mercy I don't know what the context Of that is if he's sort of cursing or if He's telling her this is a mercy or Something like that I don't know how to Take that I feel like Ragnarok has maybe not Handled in a way that evokes the spirit Or the feel of the original very well to Me there are elements that I like you Know visually this setting with the Enormous Cliffs of Oscar there is is Really cool and compelling and different From the kind of more Cosmic setting That I feel like pop culture or the Marvel movies often give this stuff I Like the the physicality the kind of Earthiness of the setting they've Changed so much of who's alive and who's Not alive why people are doing things That it's just not the same story at all If I had you read before I get them There would not be a lot of spoiler Alerts if you then want to play this Game because it's the the sequence of Events is so different not quite at the Level of you remember the Super Mario Brothers movie like 1993 Plumbers no he is I'm just apprenticing Right where it's clearly not meant to be About like this is a script that wasn't About Mario Brothers but they got kind Of jammed into like it's not that much Of a difference but there's a pretty big Difference from the original Source
Material here and if you like that video Why not check out Jackson reacting to And explaining more scenes from God of War Ragnarok [Music]
