I'm tired of Norse mythology

 I have two ideas for Saturday Notes–more actually, but two that I feel developed enough to write about, so I have two Google Docs open with drafts. Whichever one doesn’t get posted this week will show up at some other point–possibly as another week’s Note, or maybe on ImpishIdea (which I haven’t updated in a while).

Anyhow, I finished a lot of books this week, which kind of surprised me. I thought I was going to fall behind on my reading, but nope! I’m doing fine.

I’m Tired of Norse Mythology

We are overloaded on Norse mythology. Do you remember when a few years ago (and by that I mean, like, my sophomore year in college) when I complained that there were way too many fairy tale shows and movies, particularly revolving around Snow White (Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror, Mirror, and more). But now I think pop culture is too enamored with Norse mythology. 

We can probably place the blame for this squarely on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Thor movies. It isn’t as if Norse mythology was ignored by pop culture, but it’s become A Thing, one that permeates so much of pop culture. I strongly suspect that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla was chosen as the most recent entry in the series because Ubisoft wanted to ride that wave.

Off the top of my head, recent pop cultural things based off of, or heavily featuring Norse mythology!

-Thor movies

-Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

-Valheim

-American Gods television show

-God of War

-Vikings and its upcoming sequel series

-Hellblade

I’m not saying I’m over it–I am often very excited to see interesting new takes on mythology–but I think it’s getting a little tiring because we’re seeing the same mythology being used over and over again. I realize that some of these also have basis from years ago; American Gods was originally a book published in 2001, and the 2018 God of War (the first one in the series to feature Norse myth) was in development for years before its final release. But it is a little annoying that this is all coming out around the same time, in the same few years.

[American Gods was a bit frustrating in this regard too because the show dialed up the Norse mythology, with season two featuring a quest for Gugnir and a flashback episode showing Thor with Odin, and season three holding a Plot centered around Odin’s relationship with Tyr (and a berserker, but that got cut down when the performer had public abuse allegations against him).]

Especially since so much of that media focuses on the same group of characters. Thor, Odin, and Loki are the main three, and rarely are the other figures given much to do. Freya might, Frigg rarely, and Baldr shows up to just get killed. The idea that maybe, just maybe, we should tell stories about the lesser-known figures in Norse mythology is rarely played with. I recently read The Witch’s Heart, which is a novel about Angrboda, and it adds some characterization to Skadi, Hel, and Sigyn as well, and that was a nice change.

But I’d also like to see some stories that feature Heimdall, or Frey, or Idunn, or Frigg. A story centered around Frigg would be great. Instead we’re usually getting the same characters, the same stories, and some of the same beats, over and over again. And it is nice to see different writers’ takes on those events, but at some point it’s a bit of an overload.

Yes, Norse mythology is cool and all, but it doesn’t need to be everywhere. It doesn’t need to pervade everything. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla has this weird thing, for instance, in which Norse mythology is apparently all mostly accurate, something that isn’t true of Greco-Roman myth in the series, despite the Capitoline Triad being major characters in the series’s backstory since 2009.

I suppose that Norse mythology gives storytellers a way to talk about mythology and do stuff with Vikings, but without having to deal with a lot of the things that make pagan Norse society uncomfortable to modern audiences. You don’t have to write in the slavery and blood sacrifices if the characters are the gods themselves, rather than their real-life worshippers.

Still, we can do other kinds of stories! We can talk about other kinds of mythologies! I suppose there are less written records of, say, Slavic myth, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything with them. You can do Celtic mythology that isn't a New Age-y rehash of Mists of Avalon! You can do Etruscan or continental Celtic myths! And because you don’t have that many hard records, you have room to be creative with how you portray these figures. That’s how Neil Gaiman approached Slavic myth in American Gods!

We can’t just keep doing the same stories over and over again. When we had the Greek mythology craze we weren’t doing that. I know that in a few years this will probably die down a bit, and this Note will seem pointless, but I would really like for this shift to come sooner rather than later.

Also, no, you’re not an expert of Norse mythology because you played God of War. Sorry.

—