I think Marvel does a great job at sort of portraying Heimdall as very close to what he is in the mythology. And he has this horn that he will blow when the evil forces, the jotnar, or Giants, They are attacking the gods. He lives on this mountaintop called Himinbjorg, which literally means heaven's mountain.Īnd from there, he can see everything. First of all, he is the watchman of the Gods. Now, he's an interesting character in the mythology. We also see Odin throwing his spear to sort of mark a army as those who will go join him in Valhalla, this Warrior afterlife that he rules over. So when it comes to Odin's spear Gungnir, this is certainly something that is mentioned in the mythology. Very thick books could be written about Odin's ability to see, actually. Some of these names suggest that he's blind. We know that Odin gave his eye for wisdom in the myths. The portrayal of Odin as a one-eyed God in the Marvel universe seems to accord generally with ideas that also present in Old Norse mythology. Odin can also change shape into any kind of being. They're both very trickster-like, even though Odin is also considered sort of a ruler of the gods. The two gods in the mythology are actually quite similar in different ways. So there is a close relationship between Loki and Odin, but it's not one of being a parent and a child. What we learn in one story is that Odin and Loki, sometime in the far distant past, actually became blood brothers by mixing their blood. What we see is that Odin is a very powerful God in many ways. What Loki does have, though, is shoes with wings on that makes him capable of flying. Unfortunately, we don't see that Loki has any particular weapon, like we do in the Marvel movies with the spear or scepter. ![]() We don't see him taking on the shape of like other gods or humans, but he does take the shape of other animals. MATHIAS NORDVIG: So what we see in the mythology is that he morphs into different beings. The Marvel representation of Loki actually seems to be more true to the original very complex character. He represents what will eventually become the chaos that destroys the gods. Loki is the son of this very nebulous giant named Farbauti, and a even more nebulous mother named Laufey. In the mythology, Thor and Loki are not brothers. But in other contexts, it also just seems to be walking. MATHIAS NORDVIG: The Marvel version of the hammer seems to be very similar to Thor's hammer in the mythology, except in the mythology Thor doesn't fly by using the hammer. Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, he should possess the power of Thor. This is not exactly similar in the mythology. In the Marvel movie, we see how Thor gets his hammer from his father, Odin. And once it hits its object, it will make lightning. In the mythology, what we see is that the hammer can be thrown, and then it will return to him. We understand that this is a hammer that is designed to kill and destroy. That of course, has some kind of connotations. What we have in the mythology is a lot of descriptions of his eyes in particular, and how he's got these very staring eyes that sometimes are bloodshot even. MATHIAS NORDVIG: Marvel Thor is a little more vain than the mythology Thor. What we're seeing in the Marvel stories is more in this situation of making fun of Thor by cutting his hair, and he's freaking out and so on. I'm not sure that they would necessarily have attributed that much importance to the color of his hair. The ginger represents the fire in that respect. And this, of course, has something to do with the fact that he creates lightning from the sky and such things. MATHIAS NORDVIG: Thor was originally a ginger in the mythology. Someone's going to need to amend that and stop saying that. But I would say that the Marvel universe's version of Thor is actually quite true to the Thor that we have in Old Norse mythology. We can see this because there are so many Thors hammers that have been found in the ground from the Viking age. He was probably a very popular God in the Viking period, when Scandinavians actually worshipped these gods before they converted to Christianity. ![]() Thor is probably one of the most popular gods in Old Norse mythology. And today, we're going to talk about every God in "Thor."Įlements from old Norse mythology have been taken and then used creatively in the Marvel Universe to create a coherent story where all things come together. I'm an expert on Old Norse mythology at the University of Colorado. MATHIAS NORDVIG: Hi, my name is Doctor Mathias Nordvig. ![]() Nordvig goes into great detail about everything from Thor's hammer to Odin's eye and Loki's shapeshifting. Mathias Nordvig, a professor of Norse mythology, sits down with WIRED to compare and contrast Marvel's interpretations of Norse gods.
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