The tale of Loki and Ragnarok is one of the most famous that our beloved trickster god features in, and it’s one that’s highly debated by those who work with Loki and those you don’t alike. There are endless different interpretations about the events that occur from Baldr’s death up to Ragnarok. Given everything that is currently occurring, now feels like an excellent time to delve into these stories. Every person must figure out what version of the tale feels the truest to them; we offer this, the version that feels truest to us, in hopes that it will help others it may feel true to.
Our tale begins with Frigga and Baldr. After receiving word that Baldr was fated to die, Frigga began taking steps to protect her son–as is natural for a concerned mother. She began collecting promises from everything in the world, having them each swear that none would harm Baldr. She skipped only the mistletoe, seeing it as a plant that was too frail to hurt her son. When her work was complete, the gods took turns throwing weapons at Baldr, reveling in how none could hurt him. Loki placed a dart made of mistletoe in the hand of Baldr’s blind brother, Hodr, and told him to take his turn. When the dart struck Baldr, he fell down dead.
The gods mourned and did what they could to resurrect Baldr. When pleaded with for his return, Hela offered a compromise. If all creatures wished for Baldr’s return and mourned him, she would allow him to return to the living. All did so save a giantess, who was Loki in disguise. Baldr remained in Helheim and the gods attempted to get back to business as usual, throwing a banquet in the home of Ran and Aegir. These jotun oceanic deities frequently hosted the gods in their underwater hall where those who drowned spent their afterlife, as they had a beer vessel that could prepare enough for all the gods. Loki was not invited to this gathering, but appeared at the doorway regardless. When the guards attempted to turn him away, he reminded them that he is still Odin’s blood brother. Once, they swore a vow that Odin would never drink unless Loki was offered a drink as well. Using this promise, Loki won entrance into the hall, where he received a frigid welcome.
Once at the table, Loki engaged in flyting, an ancient Norse practice where faults were laid bare in a poetic format as a way of reconciling two parties at odds. Though none of the gods were happy to see him, he attempted to win back their favor by reminding them that they were not so different: each god had their own ‘sins’ and couldn’t justly condemn him when they had taken similar actions. This backfired on Loki. When he couldn’t win their favor, he was chased from the hall. He hid in a hut, trying to find a way to escape for good. He planned to turn into a fish to escape and tried to imagine every way they might catch him, hoping to circumvent this possibility. He created the first net in the process, the surest way they could catch him. He burned it, feeling confident they couldn’t recreate his invention. However, they read the pattern of the ashes left behind and were able to do so. This net was how he was caught.
Once trapped in the net, Loki was imprisoned. Vali and Narfi, his sons by his Aesir wife Sigyn, paid the price for his actions. The gods turned one into the wolf, who devoured his brother on animal instinct. The entrails of Vali and Narfi were used to bind Loki to a stone in a cave deep beneath ground. Skadi hung a venomous snake above him, forever dripping acidic poison onto his face. Sigyn stays with him beneath the ground, holding a bowl above his face to catch the poison. Every now and then, she must empty the bowl. When she does, the poison reaches Loki, causing him to thrash in his binds; this was thought to be the cause of earthquakes.
Eventually, as prophecy foretold, Loki broke free. He gathered the sons of Muspelheim, the fire giants, and set sail on the ship Naglfari, constructed of dead men’s nails. He, along with Surtr and other giants, brought about Ragnarok. This destructive event causes the death of the gods and burns the world to the ground. However, two humans remain safe, and will bring about a new age with time.
Now, there are many different versions of this tale. This version comes to us from Snorri Sturlson, a Christian writer whose texts were composed many years after Norse paganism had faded. Other accounts, such as that of Saxo, tell a very different version of Baldr’s death. However, we’re going to focus on this account, as it’s the most well known. Those who work with Loki can have a hard time with this tale, as it doesn’t always paint him in the most flattering light. To us, though, it is a tale of liberation, of necessity, of making hard choices for the good of the world.
Loki is a god who has suffered greatly. He followed his blood brother Odin into a new land and did what he could to increase their prosperity. He is the reason Asgard has an impenetrable wall and why the gods have their most precious and potent gifts, including Mjolnir. Yet, he was repaid with cruelty. His children by his first wife, Angrboda, were punished out of hand for being who they are. Would Fenrir have been dangerous, had he been raised in a loving home by those who understood his nature and could have taught him to control it? Would Jormungandr need to be exiled to the bottom of the ocean, still so cramped that they must bite their own tale to fit in a world too small for them, or could a place have been made for them by those who loved them? Was it truly necessary to trap Hela in the underworld, or could there have been another path for her? We will never know, because the Aesir made a choice for Loki’s family without considering what was best for that family. They looked at his children, saw monsters, and decided they must be dangerous to all who surrounded them.
This is rhetoric we still see in place today. People often see those who are different from them (for an endless array of reasons) and assume they’re dangerous, that they must be stopped for the good of the whole. If we stopped making these assumptions and forcing this narrative on people, would they truly be dangerous? Or are these ‘monsters’ taking their just vengeance in Ragnarok for what they were forced to suffer?
Loki was forced to watch all of this, torn in two between his families. He couldn’t protect his children with Angrboda from his new ‘family.’ He watched their cruelty and, from what we can tell, did his best to correct their course to prevent further suffering. Bowing to their wishes did not protect his children with Angrboda. Fighting their wishes did not protect his children with Sigyn.
When Frigga set out to make her son immortal, she violated the natural order of the world. All that lives must die: plants, animals, humans, gods, and worlds alike. Loki took steps to prevent this, not to punish Frigga or Baldr, but because it disrupted the natural course of the world. When nothing can die, nothing can be reborn. The order of the world was stagnating, rotting while still living and only getting worse. To create forms of life that could live forever would only further this stagnation, preventing any new forms of growth. Loki watched, from the time his children by Angrboda were taken, as the order of the gods slowly decayed. The goodness that was once there was fading, as greed grew, emblemized in the attempt to preserve one being at the expense of all others.
From the course of history, we can see that nothing lasts forever. As time passes, things decay. Religions with goodness at their heart with a lot to offer can become institutions that further only cruelty. We believe there was once goodness at the heart of Odin’s order–this is why he fought so hard to protect and preserve it. But all things must die eventually, or they become corrupted and dangerous to those they set out to protect. Odin’s order had lived past the point of its good health for those it served, as shown in the cruelty Loki and his children were forced to endure. It’s often said that the worth of a civilization is shown in how they treat their most vulnerable: here, Loki’s children were vulnerable, and forced to suffer greatly for factors outside their control.
Loki attempted to prevent further stagnation by preventing Baldr’s immortality. He prevents his resurrection for the same reason. He went into the party of the gods not to stir the pot, but to attempt to get them to see reason. Pointing out their flaws and hypocrisy was a desperate bid, a plea for them to understand that they themselves fall short of the impossible standards they hold others to, that they forced others to suffer for. In this, we see Loki all but begging the gods to remember who they once were: individuals with empathy, who cared for the world they oversaw and those who lived in it.
However, there was one thing standing in his way. Acknowledging that they were not the paragons of virtue they claimed to be, falling short of even their own standards, would have shattered their view of themselves. We see this very often in our current world. There are endless videos of individuals melting down because their hurtful actions were appropriately called out as such–but they see themselves as ‘good people,’ so those who made the accusations must actually be the ones in the wrong. This is exactly why Loki was held to be the one in the wrong, why he had to be punished. He held up a mirror to the Aesir and begged them to see the truth of what it reflected. They couldn’t accept what they saw, so instead broke the mirror and the one who held it.
Ragnarok was not an event of senseless violence, as we see it. It wasn’t petty vengeance, either. As trickster gods often do, Loki watched the world stagnate around him and attempted to push it back into movement. He did all that he could to save the world from needing destruction. Even when the early warning signs arose in the form of what happened to his children by Angrboda, he still tried. He tried, and tried, and tried until he was physically bound from trying further. He was forced to face what he did not want to: that he couldn’t save Odin’s order any more than Odin himself could. He could not get the powers that be to listen to him, to hear his concerns and take appropriate action, even despite being blood brothers with the person in power.
He could have continued turning a blind eye. He could have remained forever in his cave beneath the earth, pretending not to know that the current order reigning over the world had been corrupted beyond saving. But he did not. Despite how it hurt him to hurt those he cared for, he did what needed to be done. Sometimes, we fight to save what we can for as long as we can, and we still fail. There is a time to stop attempting to save something, and instead focus on making room for something new. If the current order can’t be saved, sometimes it’s best to let someone else try.
This is the heart of Ragnarok. The world had become sick, rotted, stagnated–beyond repair. Did Loki burn the world and the gods he called kin? Yes. Did he do it out of malice or spite? Not as far as we can see. Rather, he saw a sick, wounded, dying creature and decided to spare it future suffering. Sometimes the kindest next step is an ending. Sometimes an order does need to be put out of its misery before its misery spreads to the rest of the world, and all those on it.
We share this now, not because we know what the correct next steps are in the current world we live in. We share this because a world we love is sick and rotting. We’re all trying very hard to save it, to do what we can, and we should continue to do so. Like Loki, we continue to do all we can to save what we love. Like him, we will try, and try, and try until there is nothing left to do. There may come a time to admit defeat, where Ragnarok becomes necessary, but we aren’t there yet. Unlike Loki, this isn’t a battle we’re fighting alone. We have each other, community, and a fire in our hearts to address the wrongs happening to those we love. May he grant us his courage and strength to continue fighting to protect ourselves and our community. May we stubbornly refuse to give up hope that things can become better. May we refuse to allow a few to place themselves on an immortal pedestal at the expense of everyone else.
May he keep us all safe in the days to come. May he protect all those who fight as he did, all those abandoned for their beautiful ‘monstrous’ qualities. May we come to love the truth of ourselves more than ever. May he bring Ragnarok to the corrupt and ferry those being targeted for their differences to safety to begin a new, better world in time.
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