History Characters / NorseMythology

* KickTheSonOfABitch: He uses some sort of power to prevent Odin, Hœnir, and Loki from getting any water in their pot to boil, then when they offer him some meat to get him to stop he leaves them with hardly any. It is not said if the Aesir or Loki actually owned the cattle they were cooking with or not, which would make Thjassi a thief of thieves at best and a regular jerk otherwise.

* MakeMeWannaShout: One of his names is "Hvedrungr", meaning "roarer".

* TheHighQueen: Regal and majestic but also very benevolent.

* TheChessmaster: she skillfully manipulated her husband more than once and usually gets what she wants, usually with significant political consequences.

** Subverted, in the sense that Norse Gods didn't guide themselves by these moral standards. Quite on the contrary, Odin was quite keen on preserving the order of things imposed by the Aesir as opposed to everyone else and no matter the cost. This means that while the majority of the dead (children, women, the sick and elderly, commoners and thralls) were living dreadful lives in Helheim (this too is up to debate) just because they weren't "worthy enough" of Paradise, the Aesir and the warriors Odin choose lived lives of leisure and excess in Asgard. It says lots that when Jotun and the dead come to take Asgard, neither the Vanir, Alfar, Dvergar, or any other race for that matter, come to help the Aesir.
** Zig-zagged. Putting things in perspective, what Aesir and Jotunn are fighting for is the control of Midgard (a.k.a. Manaheimr, the "World of Humanity"). Given the fluctuating cosmology of the Norse, that could mean the whole cosmos or just another of several worlds (usually nine, but sometimes there were more or less) or even just a province. So, when Ragnarok comes, the other worlds remain mostly unafected and just carry on as normal. In other words, it could be seen more like a geopolitical struggle between opposed factions, devoid of any moral meaning.

* TheGrimReaper: or at least one of them, literally, he visited battlegrounds after the battle had concluded, too select the best warriors to take them to Asgard (he was also a psychopomp), and was sometimes called Grímr and Grímnir, that is to say, the "hooded", the "masked one", the "sinister, terrible or cruel", quite fitting for his frightening persona.

* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: many other times, he just does whatever he wants to, like bullying Thor by the river (maybe stalling, so that Thor won't find her wife Sif sharing her bed with her "secret lover"), sometimes he will start wars among men for no reason, or even kill guests and break truces to instigate discord (this is how he started the unsuccesful war with the Vanir), or promise his undying love to a wide-eyed maiden to get her to help him steal the mead of poetry from her father, just to name a few.

* MagicalHomelessPerson: He is frequently encountered by humans in the guise of a cloaked lonely traveller on the road or in lonely places. Odin may be doing this to teach and educate, to test humans with regard to the hospitality they are capable of showing to a seeming elderly one-eyed homeless wanderer, or else ForTheLulz as a TricksterGod.

* OurLichesAreDifferent: given the fact that he was hanged and stabbed with a spear and remained nine nights in that state, it is not altogether impossible that he might even be an undead god (like Osiris, or Mimir too). In some legends he is even an ally and teacher of some lich-like draugar lords.

* SecretIdentity: Odin has a habit of visiting Earth in human guise. Depending on his behavior, he may be an AngelUnaware or a DevilInDisguise.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: many of the things he does trying to stall Ragnarok just end up ensuring it goes exactly as prophesized. He exiles Hel and puts he in charge of the underworld. He orders Fenrir to be tamed and failing to do so decides to have it fettered with a sword keeping his mouth wide open. He even throws Jormungandr into the sea, giving him plenty space and enough food to grow to a disproportionate size. Even though he tries not to intervene with the death of Baldr, Frigg does everything possible to avoid this destiny, in doing so leaving Baldr without the possibility of a glorious warrior death, instead dying of an allergy to end up in Helheim. Even when the Aesir decide to chain Loki with the guts from his own child, he just stands there and says nothing, knowing full well that when Loki gets free, Ragnarok will ensue.

* TopGod: King of the Gods. This however, came with caveats, probably because of the elective nature of early germanic kingship. Since in the Eddas he never decided on his own what the Aesir should do when there is crisis ahead, but the ''thing'' of the gods (and goddesses) reunited to decide such things instead, he was mostly a figurehead. He even got deposed, several times, when he was deemed unfit to rule.
** In ''Gesta Danorum'', he exiled himself ot of shame when he discovered that Frigg had slept with a goldsmith to make him steal his talking golden statue to make jewelry out of it. Mitodinn replaced him for many years, until he came back.

** Zig-zagged, as he was a god of traveling, and sometimes he would go away for months if not years, leaving Asgard and the Aesir to rule themselves. Once he was gone for so long, that everyone thought he wouldn't return, so his two brothers began dividing his inheritance, sharing Frigg between them. Given that Frigg was among the deities that could sit on Hlidskjalf, it's safe to assume she sometimes officed as his deputy.
** Even Freyr was sometimes considered Odin succesor, especially in Sweden, and he was among the handful of gods who could use the throne-tower of Hlidskjalf (It came with a price though, as he fell madly in love with the giantess Gerd while sitting on it to oversee the worlds below)
** Subverted, also, taking into account that other godly tribes did not recognize Odin as their leader. The Jotunn, who could be seen as "archaic deities" did not respect Odin at all (take Hrungnir for example). The Vanir also rejected Odin's authority, and formidable rivals as they were, they were mostly left alone. It could be said that Odin was barely the Aesir's chieftain in a good day.

* TricksterGod: Many forget that while Loki was the God of Mischief, Odin was just as much of a trickster as him (possibly why they were blood brothers). He would routinely disguise himself (even in drag if the need arose) and would play cons and speak in half-truths to achieve the highest net gain possible. The only thing that made him different from Loki was that Odin knew how to pick his battles and was ''King of a tribe of {{War God}}s''.
* TwistingTheProphecy: it could be argued that he doesn't try to avoid destiny but instead does what he can to get the best outcome from an adverse fate. He initiates the Aesir-Vanir war to make a truce and get Njörd, Freyr and Freyja as hostages, thus getting their support. He sends Hoenir among the Vanir so that he too will come after Ragnarok and be among the survivors, together with Magni and Modi. He puts Hel in charge of the underworld, then allows Baldr to be killed to return from the dead once Ragnarok has passed. He lets the best fighters die and instigates wars among men just to harvest the best warriors to join the ranks of the Einherjar. He knows full well that he is destined to die in Ragnarok, so why fight it anyways? He might even be orchestrating the last war with Loki, to have his own [[DyingMomentOfAwesome glorious warrior death]].

** Zig-zagged, when one considers that he never fights face-to-face with the warriors, but rather prefers to influence the outcome of battles using magic and manipulation to achieve his goals. He was rather a shamanic-poet, inspiring the warriors into trance-like states and giving advice to warrior-kings, never quite putting himself in direct danger in the battlefield. He was the god of warriors, but not a warrior himself, rather promising a glorious afterlife to the best fighters, and visiting the battlefield after conflict, together with valkyries, ravens and wolves, to collect the souls of the best combatants. It was noted multiple times that while Thor and Tyr were noble, honorable warriors, Odin was a morally questionable dark-magician by norse warrior standards.

[[folder:Wayland The Smith]]

* TheArcher: He's skilled at this.