Loki: The Wise, The Father of The Great, and Unfulfilled Ambitions
There were three figures in Norse mythology that formed the triangle of popularity. They were Odin, Thor, and obviously Loki. Their fame rocketed to the kind of stardom ever since the success of the blockbusters. Odin and Thor have become the favourite figures because of their generosity and brave heart in Norse mythology. Loki, without any evidence of the Viking worshipping him, also becomes popular now because of his complexity which the majority of us prefered.
Loki the wise man with the complicated background
Loki is not a god. Confused as you might feel, Loki is a pure giant. The pure giant is the product of the love affair between two giants. And Loki was truly a son of two giants. Titles like “cunning god” or “god of the trickster” you might hear about Loki are not right because the Norse origin of Loki didn’t come from god tribe. But somehow, he persuaded Norse gods to let him stay in Asgard. How could a giant persuade the gods, especially Odin who was omniscient enough to see through Loki? The simple answer is that Loki was wise. That is it. Some sources mentioned Loki assumed himself as the foster-brother of Odin, whether it was true or not remains a mystery.
What we know for sure is that Loki was a pure giant who used his wits to gain a room up in Asgard.
Odin, Thor, and Loki were the triangle of Norse fame
Loki the father of the great
Like Odin, Loki fathered many children. But Loki’s children seemed to be so ill-blessed that they were not in the normal forms. To be specific, Loki’s children were Fenrir the giant wolf, Jormungand the enormous serpent, Sleipnir the eight-legged horse, and Hel the daughter with pale and green complexion. Because Loki’s children stood at the frontline of the bad guys, the old generation never considered them to be anyone great. But look at their power, “great” was not enough to describe them.
Fenrir the wolf was, in fact, the slayer of Odin the Allfather. Jormungand the serpent was the sworn enemy of Thor and his venom deprived Thor of his life in their last battle in Ragnarok. Hel the daughter was the queen of the dead and even Odin could not interfere and change her way of thinking. Sleipnir the horse was the fastest horse in the Nine Worlds and became the steed for Odin the Allfather.
Loki fathered many great children in fact
Loki fathered the great children. But hardly did anyone recognize or accept this. In retrospect, Loki’s children were somewhat greater than Odin’s. This is a kind of blessing for Loki, isn’t it?
A life of tricks and the unfulfilled ambitions
The mind of Loki was always full of tricks. He thought of tricks and tried to apply those to the people surrounding him. But most of the time, Loki was the ones that helped his victims out of the troubles. There was no clear reason why Loki loved to do this. But many people believed that Loki wanted the rest to pay attention to his existence in Asgard. Some believe that Loki longed for the sense of hero. Therefore, he kept creating trouble to other and kept solving the troubles he created.
The life of Loki was also full of ambitions. We vaguely see Loki didn't want to stay in the land of Jotunheim so he set out to dwell in somewhere better, somewhere that could make him feel superior: it was Asgard the land of his enemies.
We cannot directly list out the ambitions Loki kept for himself. But we can feel it throughout the flow of the story. That is Loki always tried to make his name known and make his existence matter. And it did matter but whether the gods care about it was another story.
Loki desired to create something new, but in the end, what he did was to doom the world and put a full stop to his life story
Maybe, in the beginning, Loki just wanted to live among the gods, feasting and toasting among the gods. But he chose the wrong way to impress other people. Instead of doing something helpful, Loki did more harm than good. This finally reached the point of no return when Loki became the scapegoat. If ever any trouble appeared, gods thought it was the creation of Loki.
Many a time, I think Loki didn't want to wage a war like Ragnarok. But he got no choice. What he had to bear was too much. His family was scattered as he could not live with his children who were cursed and banished to different lands by gods. He had to witness the death of his sons and was bound to the rock by the entrails of his son. Odin and Frigg couldn't bear the death of Baldur and Loki couldn't tolerate the painful death of his son, either. Revenge, in this case, was a natural process. No one was to blame for this disaster. But the fate never escaped Loki as he fell in the last battle of Ragnarok.
One awesome interpretation is that Loki desired to create something better so he decided to follow the gods. Many times in the myth he tried to create something good. He managed to do so, for example, he earned the gods many powerful weapons like Mjolnir hammer of Thor and Gungnir spear of Odin. But things went wrong as the myth progressed. Loki's children were the wrong creations of Loki as many believed. Loki wanted to create something new when he waged war against the gods. But he happened to shut down the whole Nine Worlds and his life as well. The ambition to create something outstanding was never to be fulfilled.
