If there is something that I like as much as the sword blows and ax blows of a God of Warwithout a doubt it is his rereading of the mythology. We have heard the same stories so many times that seeing them evolved and reinterpreted is quite an experience.
With the jump to the Norse gods, and just a taste of all the possibilities offered by this mythology in the first installment, the arrival of Thor a God of War: Ragnarok promises to be quite an event for the saga. And see how little their hand has shaken when looking for an interpretation of Thor and his hammer closer to the real one than to that of Marvel is even more exciting.
From Marvel’s Thor to mythology
Despite the idealized figure we have of Thor, the one from cinema and comics, the aesthetic proposed by Sony Santa Monica is much closer to what the old Nordic poems recounted. He was a nasty god socially, immense in appearance and almost genocidal in psychological ones.
But almost as interesting as that debate which was really no such thing – this Thor is undoubtedly better and closer to the “real“- what is his relationship with mythology beyond the physical. His hammerin a strange and unrecognizable way for those of us who have the Thor of the comics as the most mediatic example, is also more faithful to what the Nordic art of the 9th century bequeathed us.
Although multiple variants have been found from that same period, the inverted cross was for a time the most common symbol to represent the mjolnirbut not the only one.
In its evolution towards a symbol of blessing and protection, it would end up deriving in shapes that range from the swastika to the inverted T that the game picks up and that, as surprising as it may be, today brings together a officially recognized religion by European countries such as Iceland and Spain.
But let’s not anticipate events, we are going to know better what is behind Thor’s hammer. A kind of T ending in an arrowhead that, in addition to being the crucifix of the Ásatrú religion, is also the most emblematic weapon in mythology and, by rebound, also in God of War: Ragnarok.
The incredible power of Mjolnir: ᛗᛖᛚᚢᚾᛁᚨᛉ
Become one of the greatest ambassadors of Norse mythology, the hammer is the absolute protagonist of the great battles in the history of Thor. A weapon that, when struck against the ground, would sound like the most devastating of bolts. Yes Thor is the thunder, the mjolnir is the lightning.
This is at least the etymology of the word, but beyond making sense of changes in the weather, Thor’s hammer soon became a symbol of many other things.
As a weapon in stories and poems, it is not only synonymous with destruction, but also with protection and union, to the point of appearing in several religious ceremonies related to birth, marriage and even death.
With the inevitable clash between Christianity and Norse paganism, the symbol of the hammer begins to become a way of showing faith in Thor. However, far from facing each other, what has been found is that the two religions ended up united, being the pendants with both symbols coexisting a sample of how they fed each other. They were different times.
The importance of the hammer Thor it is such that no other Norse mythology symbols are used to represent that membership. At all levels, the god of thunder was actually the jesus christ of paganism in northern Europe.
The story of Thor’s hammer
The story behind the creation of the hammer tells that Lokiin one of his famous jokes, had the magnificent idea of cutting the hair of the woman of Thor. Of course they didn’t take it well, so they sent Loki to find the best dwarven craftsmen to fix it.
In addition to the coveted loot, Loki leaves there with a multitude of weapons and accessories for the gods after betting against the dwarves on their ability to create truly special objects.
To win one of the bets, a Loki transformed into a fly bites the eyelid of Brok (I’m sure this sounds familiar) while forging Thor’s hammer, resulting in a bug that leaves the handle too short.
It didn’t seem to matter to the Norse god who thanked her for the gift, turning her into almost an extension of his body. Being able to harness the power to strike as hard as she wished, she ended up destroying the skulls of not a few giants.
The thing about throwing the hammer and having it come back, “may it never fly so far that it cannot return to your hands“, is also in those same stories. But best of all are his powers of give life and death.
Killing the goats that were pulling his chariot to eat them and then resurrecting them by hitting their holes with the hammer apparently became a common practice in Thor stories. And so, causing the jump between death and life, from darkness to light, the story and the hammer would become good luck symbol which, over time, would end up represented with a swastika.
From the Nazi swastika to the American blockbuster
Although the Viking was completely away from any idea close to the Nazis, they were individualistic and abhorred any type of totalitarianism, Hitler’s propaganda and his approach to esotericism and ancestral roots ended up perverting the symbology of the swastika along with other representations of the Viking Age such as the sun wheel.
If you are interested in knowing more about the stories of Thor and his hammer, a good recommendation is the norse myths by Neil Gaiman (7.12 euros in its Kindle version). A reinterpretation by the pen of the also creator of Sandman and American Gods (another good recommendation if you like the idea of alternative stories of classic gods).
The brawl between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee on the authorship of the creation of Marvel’s Thor has left us with few details about the inspiration behind his design.
Kirby was a fan of mythology, so he probably knew the original designs for the hammer. She but she chose to update the image of Thor and dress him as a superhero with a character far from that unpleasant, antisocial and genocidal god.
Both the hammer and the Thor of God of War: Ragnarok they point to a completely different style, not only in shape and appearance. It will be fun to see how many references and restatements of Norse tales we manage to tell this time.