"Freja IS one of only five Norse War Gods." ONLY five. MOST NORSE SENTENCE EVER.

Yggdrasil: Starts shaking Fenrir: *Oh yeah, it’s showtime.*

Greek Mythology: Classic Rock Egyptian Mythology: Alt Rock Norse Mythology: Deathmetal

End of the world in other religions: "On no boo hoo were all gonna die." End of the world for Vikings: "I SHALL ARRIVE AT THE GATES OF VALHALLA SHINY AND CHROME! *WITNESS ME!!!!!"*

Fun fact, there's a town in Manitoba, Canada called Gimli. And in the Eddas, Gimli is the name of the golden hall where the gods will live after Ragnarok. Basically what I'm saying is that I want a book or a tv series where Ragnarok happened 100 years ago and all the surviving gods have been living in this rinky-dink Canadian town ever since

Basically, Loki plays the biggest prank in human history.

1:49 during ragnarok, all chains and bonds break, that's how Loki and his children got out of their prisons :)

In the myth of Baldur's death, Hel agrees to let Baldur live again if everyone alive wishes for him to come back life. Everyone wishes for this, but the only one who refuses is a disguised Loki. So with Loki dead in Ragnorak, that means everything that survived had previously wished for Baldur's return. So Hel releases Baldur as promised. That is my theory, since its never stated.

*In Red's voice:* Metal.

How to save thor, 1 Make sure he doesn't walk 2 Cut off his legs, so he can't walk

FUN FACT: The original tale of Ragnarok may have been inspired by the volcanic winter that happened after three massive volcanic explosions in about the 500s, which ended the previous Scandinavian era and ushered in the Vikings. This is why Ragnorak starts with a two year long winter, it's a lasting imprint of the generational trauma of the world seemingly ending.

"one of only five war gods" because FIVE is not enough

I'm surprised you never mentioned how Vidarr fights with a giant boot, which is made from the scraps of all the discarded boots in the world. This apocalypse has been brought to you by Nike's new Air Fjørdans; Durable, Comfortable, Deadly!

Norse mythology is the single most badass of all mythologies

1:59 that drawing goes hard, Odin knowing he's going to die here and picking up Mimir's head and asking for one final way to get out of this prophecy but Mimir already knows.

“Jormugandr does a little wiggle” Possibly my favorite line from you, and there’s a lot to choose from.

Loki's chains were broken at the same time Fenrir's were, with the shaking of the world.

Ragnarok is basically how the world would end if the world _really_ *REALLY* wanted to go out with a bang!

Whenever I listen to this, at the part where Red talks about the Egyptians praying against Apophis I imagine a small toddler just learning about this part of their religion. I can just see some child waving innocently saying "bye bye" to Ra's barque and praying that the "big bad snake doesn't eat you." It's very cute and very innocent.

“Freya is one of ONLY five norse war gods.” Red what the hell do you mean only. Greece and rome had more than usual at just 2

Ragnarok Apocalypse? Sure. Planetary Housekeeping? Definitely. I NEED THIS AS A SHIRT

"I've been falling........FOR 30 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - Loki 2017

1:17 Theoden: "... Shields shall be splintered! A Sword day, a red day!" Aragorn: "An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day!" mmmmz wasnt beowulf enough there Tolkien? ;)

I am Swedish and I had an epiphany today: Ragnarok means "Twilight of the Gods", and in Sweden we have the phrase "Gudars Skymning!" It means "Twilight of Gods", and is used in exasperation or shock over something. Could it be possible that this phrase is a thousand-year-old reference to Ragnarök? I don't know, but I thought it was cool to think about!

like what you said about the Norse tradition,, *"CHAOS? PARTAY!"*

THOR! ODIN'S SON! PROTECTOR OF MANKIND! RIDE TO MEET YOUR FATE! YOUR DESTINY AWAITS!

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how epic Loki's children are??

"I've been dreading that dumb quip literally my whole life." Come on, Eye don't think it was that bad.

3:33 Apocalypse? Sure. Planetary housekeeping? Definitely. Hotel? Trivago.

There are some accounts that Apophis was the original Sun God and that he's simply trying to get his job back

I know this is an old video but Joanne Harris' book series Runemarks is actually set in a world after Ragnarok. It's amazing and began my love of norse mythology (She's also written two prequel books which are the events leading up to and immediately following ragnarok from Loki's perspective)

2:03 I think that may be the single coolest representation of Odin I have ever seen

I met a Norwegian a couple of months ago named Trym and he was an actual descendant of a Viking King of Norway back in the Middle Ages (he told me the name but I can’t even remember it). It was like meeting a Greek named Zeus who’s also a descendant of Leonidas of Sparta. His background was hardcore and metal as fuck but he was super chill, hated sports, studied anthropology and loved cats so his contradicting existence was very fascinating to me. Anyway meeting him and listening to his stories is what brought me here. Very interesting stuff.

So Ragnarok is the time when all bonds break. That doesn't mean relationships; it refers to the literal bonds holding various doomsday monsters back. In one climactic moment, Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Loki are freed. Because Jormungandr is freed, it looses the nagalfr as well. And Yggdrasil starts to shake because of Nidhoggr, the Norse World-eating-dragon; it literally spent eternity gnawing at the roots of the world tree, until Ragnarok when... well, yeah. And because the World Tree is dying, Hrym and Surtr basically say 'fuck it.' Or to put it simply: Ragnarok happens because a dragon roughly the size of midgard has finished snacking on the tree holding everything up, and everyone realizes that it's their last chance to get a really good scrum in.

1:42 To clarify this part the sun and moon get eaten by the wolves Skol and Hati who also happen to be the children of Fenrir

“my favourite is the one where it rained jaguars” is a mood

The wolf eating the sun and moon thing can be explained like this: there are two wolves that chase the sun and the moon respectively. When they catch up to the moon and sun, they eat them and ragnarok stuff happens

Nice use of the Ride of the Valkyries in the background.

The method which Vijarr uses to kill Fenrir that I read of is actually sort of brutal. He does indeed jump into Fenrir's mouth, then grips both jaws and snaps them outward. Also heard a version of Thor's death where he dies by drowning in Jormungaand's blood after he slays him.

All other belifs: World ending no good Christianity: Yo we're having a party in heaven once earth's done who wants to come? Edit: Just saying, I'm an Atheist

Conspiracy theory: We're post Ragnarok. Also Freyja confirmed survives with her realm. She doesn't just get the valorous non combat deaths, she gets all of those, but she gets half the chosen slain. It's also implied she gets the pick of the litter, which makes sense, the Valkyries work for her, making her a love goddess, goddess of the home, goddess of war AND a death goddess. And the Christians had the gall to make her into a consort or less. Bah I say! Bah!

Technically Ragnarok might have already happened, since the world of man doesn't really differ all that much before and after. We might be living in a post-ragnarok world

Athena: You will always be… a monster. Kratos: You’re right. I am a monster. But I am no longer *your* monster. Asguard: *panik*

I've always wondered why scandinivians like heavy metal so much thanks OSP for clarifying

There's an interesting undercurrent in Norse belief, regarding prophecy. See, the Norse were of the belief that the future was unavoidable. And when you got glimpses of things to come, it solidified those prophecies until the future glimpsed was set in stone. There was no "predicting the future in order to change it". As such, Odin - the god most interested in things to come - was rather reluctant to employ prophecy and futuresight, most of all when it came to Ragnarok. Because the more Odin looked at the future, the more it revealed about Ragnarok, and thus the worse that final battle would become. So it makes perfect sense to me why the Eddas were fragmentary in their predictions. Not only could Odin not get a good picture of future events, he didn't _want to_ , lest he sacrifice the few bits of wiggle room uncertainty gave them. If the Aesir were to "win" - for a given value of winning - they needed as much of that uncertainty as possible, so they had space to work _around_ the bad stuff they knew was going to happen. In essence, Odin was fighting a recon war against Schrodinger's Future, doing cost-benefit analysis between learning valuable intel, and not screwing his side over by fixing bad occurrences in.

Norse mythology is soo fantastic. One of my favorite

I can’t imagine a sick guitar solo not playing across the realms as everything is being torn apart in the greatest war ever

I just realized: All of the "Big Four" world mythologies have a giant apocalyptic dragon monster that even the gods fear--Cipactli (Aztec), Apophis (Egyptian), Typhon (Greek) and Jormungandr (Norse).

Could you please summarise the myth where Thor tries to drink the ocean, lift the midgard serpent and wrestle age next.

I love the people inside ragnarok. They know they bout to die but they DONT CARE. Its awesome. Its the opposite of being nihilistic

My fave part os the fact that Ođinn only received that prophecy by forcing a seer from her grave who was really not into it, and just wanted to rest in peace but Ođinn was all "tell meeeeee" and she eventually told him the "prophecy"... I get this vibe that she totally just made shit up to get rid of him and be left alone. The fact that ots a "maybe" that causes Ođinn to basically torture all of Loki's kids and subsequent Loki's part in a comparably swift and painless death of Baldur is not only understandable, but also a million times cleaner than chaining to a rock, tossing off bifrost, throwing an infant so hard that she ends up in another realm and becomes half black (blue and black were mistranslated... yes, we should be using blacktooth headphones. Also i love that they made up some s**t about the love of blackberries to explain the name 😂 Id have bluer teeth if that were true... which only kinda means baby half of Hels body is bruised perhaps?), and then enslaves the other to be Ođinn's STEED! And then when Loki outs himself, they take revenge for what I perceive as Loki's revenge, by taking his two other children with Sigyn (name means victorious girlfriend... so wife?) They turn one into a wolf, drives him crazy and rips the other child up and they use the guts of that child to tie Loki to the rock where the serpent drips poison onto him... which will purportedly end with all of Loki's kids being huge problems for Ođinn. Basically the prophecy is basically self fulfilling.

"Oh, what time is it now again?" "Oh you don't know? It's Ragnarok o'clock!!!"

Fun fact, Freya's afterlife literally means "people catcher."

I SAW RAGNAROK AND CAME AS FAST AS I COULD

The picture of mimir and Odin talking before ragnorak goes so hard I love your art style

2:26 Ride of the Valkyries, how operatically appropriate nice one Red😊😁👍!!!

As long as the foundations are still strong, we can rebuild this place.

Why isn't the series called Mythellaneous? PUNS BABY Edit: by God what fighting have I unleashed upon this reply section

Brother’s of Metal’s first album is all about Ragnarok and its stellar The follow up about the Emblas Saga is even better

Oh! actually if you still read these comments there IS a story set after the end of Ragnarok, it's called Runemarks and Runelight. A sort of different take on norse mythos, with what remains of the gods and people, and the sort of hijinks they get up to after the end of Ragnarok.

In the version i know, it's not Fenris who eats the sun and moon, but it's his children, Sköll and Hati (sometimes called Skoll and Hate (Hati is also sometimes called for Had)), who eat the moon. Sköll will eat the sun, and Hati will eat the moon, and afterwards their dad would break free from the earth and chains. At least according to the version i know of.

*[Immigrant song plays]*

"Ragnarok-o-clock" It's moments like these when I remember why I subscribed.

You know, you could say the Aesir Kinda Brought this on themselves. I mean, Loki probably bumped Balder off as revenge for his comrades imprisoning his children, and Balder's death signified that Ragnorok was near. Sure, Jormungandr was too dangerous, but they could have just trained Fenrir NOT to rise up against them and destroy the world. Also, did they REALLY have to get rid of Hel? She wasn't a REAL danger. She was just Half-corpse.

Well Ragnarök isn't really the "end of the world" so much as the "twilight of the gods" or "GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG" (and I'm sorry that it sounds so much more metal in german)

Fun fact before Snorri(the Christian dude who rewrote alot of Norse mythology) Helheim wasn't a bad place it was just a place where people went if they weren't chosen by Odin or Freya.

I love your drawing of Fenrir. That’s a good boy

I feel the most missed part of this isn't Vidarr didn't just kill Fenrir... he tore Fenrirs jaws apart to kill him. Because Norse mythology is the single most metal thing in existence.

Throughout this whole story, I was waiting for Red to say "...And then the Hulk shows up". Still eagerly waiting. The suspense is killing me!

What if Ragnarok is just a big, elaborate, poorly acted play like what happened in Avatar the Last Airbender's "Ember Island Players."?

fun fact: thanks to murdering the sisters of fate, kratos is basically an anomaly that will never appear in any fates, prophecies or destinies, atreus does but never kratos, this while seen at 3:55, it also explains as to how jormungandr appeared before fimbulwinter or even the death of baldr

Me after playing God of War Ragnarök: “You’re Goddamn Right.”

"Titans of justice, fearless we stand Odin All-Father are we blessed by your hand Together we rise, together we fight We ride into battle and into the night The giants are raging, the gods meet their fate The heavens crack open, thunder fall through the land Guardian of Bifrost is blowing his horn We ride into battle and into the storm" - Prophecy of Ragnarok, by Brothers of Metal

A. S. Byatt in her "Ragnarok" points out that possibly the idea of the whole world being restored after the battle and repopulated by two humans with some gods left was likely written in post into the myth because of the influence of Christianity. She also mentions that older texts tend to leave the land properly disheveled and destroyed far beyond the point of no return. So, it used to be even more metal. Fun stuff.

One god of light? An Adam and an eve? I smell someone trying to stick the gum of Christianity into Norse’s hair

“It’s Fimbulwinter. I can feel it in my scrote.”

Norse mythology is so manly that even the females have testosterone

I never knew that many other Norse gods survived. I mean, I knew Baldur and Hodr came back, but I guess I didn't read enough Norse mythology to know about the others. Did know about the humans. I've got this mental image of Baldur leading Hodr there, just being all patient, keeping an eye out for tripping hazards.

The phrase "one of only 5 norse war gods" is super fucking funny and needs more attention

So I started trying to find the song that plays at 0:50 by searching Ragnarok on Spotify; didn't find it, but did find some EPIC metal, including Brymir, one of the most AMAZING melodic death metal bands I have ever heard. I AM IN LOVE, THANK YOU OSP

Interestingly in one interpretation of ragnorok there are only supposed to be two humans left and one god after the battle. Who just so happens to be a the god that everybody loved and who also died and came back to life. So if your a Christian it’s totally ok to believe that the Norse gods did exist and that it’s all just a Uber badass prequel to Christianity. But of course this depends on the interpretation of the myth.

As a Scandinavian I'm happy you did this!

Important note: The renewal after Ragnarök is likely an addition after christianization, and should not be presented as the exclusive version of the myth. The overall theme of Ragnarök seems to contradict with the renewal of the universe. P.s. It probably shouldn't be Valhalla, Valhall is the more accurate anglicization.

From what I understand, there's a weird sequence while the world is a dark and sunken void (before the sun, gods, and people return) where Nidhoggr, the dragon that chews on the roots of the World Tree, emerges and just kind of flies around for a while and observes the destruction, then returns to the roots. This is *really creepy* to me since it's never explained, and it raises so many questions about what Nidhoggr is and what it's doing.

“Heimdall blows the Gjallarhorn” “Ghallarhorn” Gjallarhorn... *destiny flashbacks*

Two things I would add: 1)the world is not safe from destruction after Ragnarök.The final stanza of Völuspá reads: Þar kemr inn dimmi dreki fljúgandi, naðr fránn, neðan frá Niðafjöllum; berr sér í fjöðrum, - flýgr völl yfir, - Niðhöggr nái. Nú mun hon sökkvask. There comes the gloomy flying dragon a gleaming serpent, down below from Niðafjöll; it carries itself in feathers - flies over the plains - Niðhöggr overtakes. Now will I sink myself down. (translation mine) So... the dragon that will destroy the world-tree survives the end, and so it's not really some happy-fun-time pure place. oh well! 2) the early descriptions of Ragnarök, i.e. Völuspá mostly, may be describing a volcanic dust-veil event. Neil Price has an excellent article on the subject. "Gräslund, B., & Price, N. (2012). Twilight of the gods? The ‘dust veil event’ of AD 536 in critical perspective. Antiquity, 86(332), 428-443. " Meanwhile, Mathias Nordvig has argued that it's actually a description of the 934 eruption of Katla in Iceland "sciencenordic.com/were-vikings-scared-volcanoes"

1:09 That's Fimbulwinter for ya!

You guys are just awesome. I was doing a deep dive into the abyss of a video game that mixes a mountain full of mythology and swirled it around into a hot mess of a puzzle. Been just binging your incredibly entertaining " summaries" and had to say how great they are. Thank you! ( And a giant help in my piecing said puzzle together)

I remember finding a story of Fenrir once where the Aesir tried to restrain him, but he was too powerful, so Odin, being the cheeky Wiseman he is, challenged him to break out a simple ribbon. Fenrir took that challenge and allowed Odin to tie him down with the ribbon only for Fenrir to find that it was indestructible. EDIT: I have just looked it up, and it turns out it isn't actually a ribbon, but a chain as thin as a silken ribbon that was forged by dwarves utilizing one of many impossibilities like the sound of a cat's footfall, the roots of a mountain, the breath of a fish, etc.

Okay, this is actually about the Poetic Edda video, but Loki is not associated with fire. The reason people think he is comes from the tale of Thor and Loki's trip to the castle of Utgarda-Loki. This is a giant whose name is also Loki, but it's not the one whose traveling with Thor. The story involved a bunch of challenges. The general theme of the challenges is "Gods try to do seemingly simple stuff only to find out that they are trying to best forces of nature, which even they cannot do". They have to perform a feat or else they cannot stay in his hall for the night. Loki was the first one to speak up - he said he could out-eat anyone in the hall. So he faces off against a guy named Logi. Loki eats a whole bunch of meat, but Logi LITERALLY TURNS INTO FIRE AND CONSUMES EVERYTHING. It's later revealed to Loki that this Logi guy is basically the personification of wildfires. Logi is the old norse word for fire. This is why people think he's a fire god. He has nothing else to do with fire except this stupid myth, where people just get confused. Which is fair, they have similar names. The difference in their name is just ᛚ ᛟ ᚲ ᛁ (loki) versus ᛚ ᛟ ᚷ ᛁ (logi) . But still, not a fire god.

Ragnarok: happens Surtur: “Finally, some action!”

I love how whenever you drew Thor taking 9 steps away from the snake that murdered him after he murdered it There was a very clear smile on his face And I like to think this is because he got to avenge his death before it even happened which was also technically the result of combat All things a Viking would love to do

Ah-ah, ah! Ah-ah, ah! We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow The hammer of the gods W'ell drive our ships to new lands To fight the horde, and sing and cry Valhalla, I am coming! On we sweep with threshing oar Our only goal will be the western shore Ah-ah, ah! Ah-ah, ah! We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow How soft your fields so green Can whisper tales of gore Of how we calmed the tides of war We are your overlords On we sweep with threshing oar Our only goal will be the western shore So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

Honestly Viðarr's weird. In some accounts he has this huge mutant shoe made of all the abandoned footwear ever.

2:33 As we are with Vidar -imagine the god of silence, of revenge, who only speaks when necessary among the ever-partying bunch of gods. Introwert in party...

3:46 I heard a strory somewhere (I think this was about a marvel version but I'm not sure) where ragnarok keeps happening with odins goal basically being to end the cycle so technically in that version everything is "after ragnarok". kind of like a timeloop story except the loops influence eachother a little and there isn't someone who keeps all their memories

I’ve gotten almost all of my friends into your channel and they hate me now because they are addicted

If anyone was wondering, the song at 0:43 is Voodoo People by Pendulum.

I feel like Thor's the kind of guy who would try to stand in one place for the rest of eternity so he can't die

Let me just say it, that scene with Mimir and Odin was sick