About half way through the story of the Pros Eda, there is a section of the reading in between the setup, introduction to new characters, and Ragnarök, the Norse mythology end of the world story. This middle part of the story tells you more about the characters, including characters familiarized by pop culture and marvel, like Thor and Loki.
We associate Loki with trickery, which plays a big part throughout the story. Thor was deceived during a tournament, making him feel less competent and not his usual self, Loki tricked Hod, a blind god into killing the beloved Baldur, Baldur the good. Why would deception speak to people so much?
That’s how life works. Learning requires deceit, and often pain. To go through life’s journey is to grow a personality that helps you develop a life’s goal, a purpose. Once you have that goal, you reach for it, by learning things you value, and learning requires mistakes, comparisons, and understanding your own flaws. Each character in this portion of The Eda is at a different part of their life’s journey, and it shows.
There are different “character types” that you bump into, and somewhat transform into on your life’s journey. The fool, the trickster, and the savior. Another part of the story gives a good example of the fool. Thor was traveling on his chariot led by goats, and he stopped at a house and killed his goats and ate them with the family who offered him a place to rest. Thor told the two children to be careful with the bones and lay them with the goat skins when they were done eating. One of the children broke a bone open to get the marrow, rather than following the instructions. He didn’t know that wasn’t a good rule to break, he just figured it silly to be careful with what was left of his food and thought nothing of it.
Thor attempted to revive his goats in the morning, but one of his goats had a broken leg and could not lead his chariot, so after threatening to kill the family, he took the children as his slaves. This is an example of the fool, the child was not competent, and unsure what rules were okay to break and what was most important. Although an innocent mistake, it was a big enough one. Real world consequences happened, even if it wasn’t fair, life isn’t fair, and you have to go through those pains to wise up.
Loki is a good example of the trickster, he was the chaotic character. Baldur was Baldur the good, an impressive competent god, and invincible, aside from his weakness, mistletoe. A feast was being held and all the gods playfully threw things at Baldur to watch knives and stones bounce right off him, so Loki got his hands on some mistletoe. He then convinced the blind god Hod to join in on the fun, Loki would even help him point the arrow. This form of trickery was smart and intentional, but it was not towards the right goal.
Thor was closer to the savior type, although he was still on his journey, Baldur was thought of more as the savior type, his story is comparable to the story of Christ. Baldur was the patient, good, and competent god, indestructible aside from the whims of a creature chaotic in nature. Everyone follows this path unless they get stuck.
Phoenixes, mythical creatures that have to die in flame to rejuvenate themselves, are like that of life’s journey. If you choose to take the hard path, full of grief, hardship, and mistakes, you can let a little foolish part of yourself die to become something new and smarter, and from there you can continue your journey to become rejuvenated, good, and reach higher goals than you thought possible. After all, after Ragnarök and the death of most the petty gods, Baldur the good came back from the dead to bring a better world up from the chaos and destruction of what was left from Ragnarök.
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