Fate: An Overarching Theme

Fate is an underlying theme throughout most of Norse mythology (yes, it is both overarching and underlying). Ragnarok is prophesized by Odin for ages before it happens. The Norns, whose name literally means “Fate”, spin the fate of the universe. Minor events in stories come to have huge consequences during Ragnarok.

There are two examples I can think of in modern pop culture that come close to how fate affected the Norse myths. The first is the book series The Dresden Files. Jim Butcher (the author) has done a masterful job of weaving plot threads together throughout the fifteen books currently in the series (there are another five planned.) A minor character in one book might become a huge villain six books later; a one-liner dropped early on in the series might foreshadow highly important events later in the series. This is what the Norse did when they wove their mythology; every little detail counts.

The second modern example is a season of a TV show. Take the second season of Arrow. A character shows up in the first couple of episodes, but seems unimportant. A minor bad guy who isn’t totally evil appears a couple of times. The main character gets a new love interest. Then, suddenly, the last episode comes upon you and BAM! you find out it’s all connected. The minor character tries to blow up the city, the somewhat villainous guy teams up with the heroes to stop her, the love interest turns out to have been working with the Big Bad all along...you needed all of the episodes before the finale to introduce the players, but it is only after the finale that you can look back and see how everything led up to the final event.

The same is true of Norse mythology. Many of the earlier myths set the stage for Ragnarok. We’ve talked in pervious posts about Hel and her banishment to Niflheim. This banishment made her queen of the dead - and during Ragnarok, she led an army of these dead against the gods. Without her banishment she would have had no army to give to Loki.

The story of the imprisonment of Hel’s brother, Fenrir, is another example. The gods tricked Fenrir by telling him he was so strong he could break any chains they put on him. Fenrir agreed to test this claim, provided that one of the gods, Tyr, put his hand in Fenrir’s mouth as collateral. If you read the post about Loki, you’ll remember that Fenrir is a giant wolf. Tyr bravely agreed, and the gods chained Fenrir with a magical set of links. When the wolf could not break free he bit off Tyr’s hand as revenge. During Ragnarok, Tyr is killed by Garm because he was weakened by the loss of his hand.

One last example is the death of the god Frey. Early on in the myths of Asgard, Frey traded his sword to be able to marry the woman he loved. With his sword he would have been able to defeat Surt, the fire giant, during Ragnarok - but without it he was crushed in battle, and Asgard fell.

All of these events led to the Doom of the gods, and all of these events were fated to happen. This shows that even the gods, infinitely more powerful than humans, are still subject to fate. Despite his foresight, Odin could do nothing to stop the events of Ragnarok. Despite all of his knowledge, he died as he had always known he would.

What, then, was the point of his foresight? If fate could not be changed, why warn others about Ragnarok? I don’t know, but it’s interesting to ponder. Was Odin’s knowledge of Ragnarok a tool used by Norse storytellers, designed to foreshadow coming events in a tale and keep their audience hooked? Or was it a cautionary tale to mankind? After all, if even the gods cannot fight fate, why should mankind bother to try?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so please comment below or email me. For now I’m done with Norse mythology - next post I’ll start looking at the Greek myths. I’ll see you guys then!