The gamers have struck again, this time demonstrating a breathtakingly historically illiterate view of who Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, actually is. This is mostly because after three long years, we’ve finally got a proper look at the hooded assailant from the God of War post-credit scene’s face - and body. The gamers’ grievances are mostly attributable to the latter.
We’ve all seen the MCU - even if you say you haven’t watched a single film, you’ve at the very least been exposed to it. You know Thor is played by walking abdomen Chris Hemsworth, and so it’s easy to see Thor as a tall, blonde, hammer-wielding stud with a 12-pack. I mean, it’s the God of Thunder! Obviously he’s jacked, right?
Wrong. God of War’s Thor is actually accurate to the source material, which should be unsurprising when you consider that MCU Thor comes from an alien planet with access to, like, spaceships and shit. Good mythology, very Asgard, many hammers.
If you look back on the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, which are the two primary sources for the Norse mythology we know and love - well, I love it at least - you’ll notice that Thor was a bit of a prick, actually. I’ve always thought the first game grappled with this extremely well - we get explicit details about Thor wiping out the jotunn and it’s pretty obvious that his favourite hobby involves drinking too much and saying, “Here, lads, let’s do a genocide.” He is not the heroic paladin of The Avengers. He’s a Norse deity, which means he is a total bastard.
What’s more, Norse mythology’s Thor is canonically pretty heavy. While he drinks half the ocean in the Lokrur cycle - as in, literally half of it - there’s one particularly well known story called the Thrymskvitha, a poem from the legendary Snorri Sturluson’s iconic Poetic Edda. Here, Thor loses Mjolnir after it is stolen by a giant named Thrym, who will only return the hammer in exchange for Freyja’s hand in marriage. Given that Freyja herself is completely averse to the idea of marrying this giant - mostly because she’s annoyed at Loki, who pisses everyone off approximately once a minute - Thor dresses up as her and attends the ceremony in her place. On top of eating an entire cow to himself, he drains several casks of ale, causing Thrym to be immensely confused - this is supposed to Freyja, the elegant Vanir goddess of love, beauty, and sex? Eventually, Thor, under the pretense of being Freyja, is awarded Mjolnir in honour of the Aesir’s agreement with Thrym. Thor tears his wedding veil off and caves Thrym’s skull in, before drunkenly proceeding to murder every single jotunn in the room. And people say he’s fun at parties.
The first game addresses all of this, too. Among Mimir’s many descriptions of Thor are “fat dobber,” “sweaty bawbag,” “thunder lummox,” and "the biggest, butchering bastard in all nine realms." Obviously Mimir is not a fan. Still, the idea of getting annoyed about how Thor looks now just comes across as a bit moronic - the first game literally described how he was going to look multiple times. If you were expecting a cover model for Men’s Health magazine, you weren't paying attention.
If you’re curious about checking this out for yourself, you don’t necessarily need to trudge through 13th Century Old Norse literature. I’d recommend all of you download the Norse Mythology ebook written and narrated by Neil Gaiman, which should unequivocally prove that Thor was known for feasting and drinking at least as much as he was revered for fighting. Also, the fact these things can be seen as mutually exclusive is pure nonsense. Have you ever seen a contemporary strongman, particularly from Nordic countries like Iceland? Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, ‘The Mountain’ in Game of Thrones, is affectionately known as “Thor Björnsson” by most people and doesn’t look anything like a bodybuilder. He looks like someone who can uproot a tree and javelin throw it through the stratosphere. Those lads you see doing Mr. Olympia are actively at their weakest when they’re on stage - they’re dehydrated husks of themselves and, when they are gaining muscle for the other half of the year, look more like God of War’s Thor than Terminator Arnie.
It’s also important to talk about aestheticism and what we generally consider to be typically attractive in modern society. Thor’s body type is that of someone who chugs ale and throws heavy objects around for the craic. In the past - and, indeed, in the present day outside of toxic online conventions that are mostly confined to a microscopic echochamber incapable of representing actual reality - this is often associated with virility, power, and confidence. I have seen a lot of people saying they prefer this new iteration of Thor to his waterboard-abbed MCU equivalent. No one is “just saying” this - it is a sincere and not-remotely-niche opinion. This Thor looks like a Viking god. MCU Thor looks like a lad who is really into crossfit. Who would you rather go on a date with?
The most impressive thing to have come out of yesterday’s trailer is absolutely what Sony Santa Monica has accomplished with the design for Ragnarok’s Thor. It is mythologically accurate, cool as hell, and the antithesis of the kind of fatphobia that has plagued games and screen media in general for far too long.