Book 4, Chapter 32: Determination
Our faith is one of conflict. We are a religion of war. We view existence itself as conflict, that of order versus not just chaos, but nihilism itself. We view our lives as bubbles of structure clawed out of a meaningless, pointless reality, hewn together with law and order that will collapse should we act unquestioningly in accordance with our chaotic natures. For we know what happens if we succumb to those base urges and unquestioning reactions: Ragnarök, where all we have striven for, all we have built, will collapse and be purged under the onslaught of disorder. That, ultimately, nothing we have done has lasting meaning, that our legacies will amount to naught.
So we fight against that end. We stop the unstoppable. We question ourselves and our actions, to see their endings. The All-Father saw, but he never reflected on what he saw. He merely reacted, and in that reaction, set forth the sequence of his own destruction. But the lesson we take from this is that it is possible to step back from the precipice and interrupt the chain of events, by choosing a different path.
The followers of the aesir are at war. But while the Jötnar are all around us, they are not the enemy, even as they are the agents of our potential destruction. No, the enemy is within ourselves. For, unlike the Jötnar, we of Midgard have choice. We can use that choice for good or ill, but to abandon it in favor of unthinking reaction reduces us to little more than an animal or Jotunn, a predictable force in the tapestry whose thread is controlled.
The Weavers care not for the threads. When the Tapestry is complete, they will begin anew. But for us and for those we follow, every inch woven is another victory, every day that we stave off the final knot a battle won.
This is our existence. It is not for everyone. Other faiths view things differently. That is their choice. Their threads still weave through reality, even if they care not to acknowledge it, or view it in different ways—as the Christians view themselves in the service of a Father-God of Order in a conflict against a corruptive god of destruction, or as the Jews view themselves as being in an agreement with a God of Wisdom, helping build upon an imperfect creation. That is their choice, to view things in such a way. But as for us, we will safeguard our own choices, and theirs, knowing that it could all fall to naught. This is our struggle, our burden, our exultation.
Who is with me!?
—Fyrir Hiccup House Haddock VI, Collected Public Sermons & Private Contemplations
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- All for Nothing: Taskill did a lot of horrible things to protect Mac Bethad from Berk, but the discovery that Mildew manipulated him all along forces him to realise how pointless, even counterproductive, those actions were since the Hooligans had no reason to consider them an enemy until after they did those things.
- Allohistorical Allusion: Anne of Kiev wishes she can find a good man that's not like King Henry I of the Capets. In the original timeline, Anne was Henry's second wife after the death of Matilda and their only child.
- Badass Boast: In Astrid's letter to King Henry, she declares that if King Stoick dies, she will burn and raze Paris to the ground until only a lake remains in the river it once stood in, and given what she did with the Seine River, she can back up that threat.
- Balkanize Me: Duke William of Normandy and Duke Conan of Brittany formally secede from the Kingdom of the Franks in protest of King Henry's actions.
- The Chains of Commanding: Lulach is chafing under the pressure of his duties as Mormaer, to the point he doesn't want to become the King of Alba in the vote to come.
- Content Warnings:Chapter Trigger Warnings: Discussion of a Massacre, Implied Mass Murder, Explicit Medical Trauma
- Death by Adaptation: In canon Thornado never died; here he is killed during King Henry's ambush.
- Internal Reveal: Toothless learns of the Pecheneg Dragon Riders from Nightglow (but Hiccup doesn't fully grasp that the "bad walkers" captured dragons to ride).
- Karma Houdini: Lady Joan pulls a literal vanishing act by disappearing in the chaos of Paris' riots, escaping the consequences of her lying to King Henry and pushing him towards making a mistake so costly his kingdom irreversibly splinters.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Taskill learns King Henry attacked Stoick using Hiccup's weapons, he goes in shock over the consequences of what he did since it was under his advice that Mac Bethad sent the designs for those to every king and major noble they could.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The people of the city of Paris are abandoning the city in droves, unwilling to be there in case Berk launches a retaliatory attack for King Henry's actions.
- This Means War!: Downplayed. Astrid doesn't commit to declaring war yet, but she issues a warning to King Henry that if King Stoick dies from his wounds, Berk will retaliate and destroy Paris.
