Norse fiction premise (1)

[taotrooper]

Alright, I want to sort my thoughts about my original fic idea, because there are like three stories in one. It all started as my own spin on the Gaimanesque "mythological gods are among us but not in their prime because we mostly don't believe in them" kind of premises. Like everyone, I started with the Greek and moved ahead with other pantheons, with a lot of focus on the Norse too because I love Norse. Now the Greek are minor plot-moving characters in the story I want to tell.

So yeah, initially we have gods who exist in the world of humans as spirits, just alive because humans remember them. They're stories, they're breathing meta, they can't get killed but they can vanish if they're forgotten forever. Until here you'll tell me it's pretty much American Gods, especially since Odin and Loki exist as secondary characters. But no, I chose obscure gods as my protagonists, it's less grim, and there's no human point of view. Even a character that seems to be human is revealed to be an amnesiac god. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The second story is my version of the myths that DID happen. I made some tweaks because my three protagonists (Balder, Nanna, and Hod) are basically names with a few adjectives, and I needed to make them real people and give them relationships and personalities. And the conflict, the problem of the story, is one of the most iconic Norse myths and yet one that doesn't really explain much: Balder's death. The three points of view are about what bothers me about it and giving it an explanation of why it happened. Why did Loki kill Balder, besides being a dick? So this is the whole twist:

There was going to be a different version of Ragnarok. There were always two possible futures. Several characters didn't like the other version for personal reasons, so it ended up as this conspiracy to stop this more optimistic Ragnarok (let's call it Alpha) in favor to make bummer Ragnarok (let's Beta) to be the one. And Balder's death was one of the important parts of it, not because he's the god of light and goodness so dying would plunder the world to darkness and accelerate RagnaBeta. No, it's because in RagnaAlpha, he is in the final battle and takes charge against a huge foe. And he's not the only one, the other two main characters have a fundamental role and their own kill. If he gets killed before in RagnaBeta, Hel can keep him in Helheim and stop these deaths on her side to happen. Same with Hod. Same with Nanna. In fact, Nanna's role (or lack of it) in the Ragnaroks is even more important than her husband's in the machinations that occur.

The third story, of course, is RagnaAlpha and what becomes of the worlds afterwards in this AU.

The complexity is that the backstory and the Ragnaroks is sort of tied to the plot of the Gaimanlike story. Balder wakes up in the modern world and wants to find his brother and his wife, and the truth about their deaths while breaking away from his parents and making a new life out of this. So as fun as *I* find a whole fish-out-of-the-water novella about a Norse god learning how to use a microwave or whatever those wacky humans have, it's more effective for silly one-shots so the main thing is digging and figuring out the conspiracy. With some vague side storytelling about what Hod and Nanna did in Midgard before Balder found them.

Overall, I find it a bit frustrating that there are few portrayals of Balder that are true to the myths. A lot of stories make him a dick. I mean, I get that he sounds like a Mary Sue because he's so pretty and so nice and everyone loves him. But I do resent the belief that goodness is boring so you have to change the character around 360º. Especially if the narrative is rooting for Loki (hi Matantei Loki! hi God of War!). So I want to make him a character with flaws and inner conflicts who's still a good person. And as the story advances and he develops, he's less of a lawful good without being a dick.

I've always felt so damn sorry about Hod. He had one of the worst parts in this story (only topped by Loki's sons and wife, le yikes). He didn't deserve to die. He didn't deserve to kill his brother by accident. Poor thing is going to emo it up a lot and have serious mental problems, but I'm giving him a happy ending. And I'm making his relationships (with his direct brothers -both his twin Balder and his younger bro Hermod-, with sis in law Nanna, and with another father figure) super important, considering his parents gave negative value of shits about him.

Nanna has nothing to do with the three lines she gets in all of mythology. So she's a strong but moe ex-valkyrie who really likes flowers and weapons and her cute husbando, and the only reason she died in the spot in the funeral was because she was poisoned by Loki, not a dumb heart attack from sorrow. And she had cool relationships with other goddesses because I want her to! Snorri can't contradict me! mycitynow.jpg

Anyway... maybe another time I'll make a new post to explain RagnaAlpha and how Balder's murder really happened. And how Loki's actions were still bad (insert "cool motive, still murder") but it's not "I don't like him so I'mma kill this bitch" bad lol.