WMG / Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

Magnus is related to Annabeth

Magnus's last name is Chase. That's also Annabeth's last name. Riordan probably did that for a reason.

• There's some support for this. In The Blood of Olympus, Annabeth mentions that she has an uncle and a cousin living in Boston, where Gods of Asgard takes place, and that she's never met them because of some old rivalry between her father and her uncle.
• Confirmed. Annabeth appears in the preview chapter included with Crown of Ptolemy. They're cousins via his mother and Annabeth's father (who were brother and sister).

Loki will not be a true antagonist, but will be running his own agenda

Loki is way too obvious to be the Big Bad. Instead, he'll be similar to Set in the later books of The Kane Chronicles. He'll probably help the heroes more than he hinders them, aside from inevitably throwing monsters and tricks at them for shits and giggles.

• It's important to remember that Loki was a protagonist as much as he was an antagonist in Norse mythology, and most of the time his turns as an antagonist was due to his fate rather then what he actually wanted.
• Jossed. He seems to be The Man Behind the Man for Surt.

Marvel will be a giant berserk button for all the Aesir.

Magnus will bring the movies (or possibly comics) up once, Thor will give him a Death Glare, and that will be the end of that.

• His uncle, a scholar of Norse mythology, had this reaction.
• Discussed. When Magnus and his friends meet Thor, in person, they comment that he looks nothing like the movie Thor. He's got a giant, bushy red beard (more like his mythological counterpart), his faded leather clothing is covered in goat grease and dirt-stains, and he's a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander (his most recent obsession is with TV dramas like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.) Frey, on the other hand...

Magnus will die for real in the first few chapters

As the summary states, a fire giant attacks leads to Magnus choosing between his life or the lives of innocents. While Magnus does steal, he does seem like he'd choose to save the innocents. So, Uncle Randolph tells him he's a demigod, Magnus doesn't believe it, then a fire giant attacks. Magnus stops the fire giant, at the cost of his own life. As he died in battle, he would go to Valhalla, where he's forced to accept the reality that the Norse myths are true. Then, the Aesir send Magnus as an Einherjar (dead spirit in Valhalla) to find the Sword of Summer and prevent Ragnarok.

• Confirmed. Magnus is killed, for real, and is carried to Valhalla. He doesn't stay for very long though. He's still technically dead, but he's now an einherji, one of the Honored Dead.

The Sword of Summer is actually Freyr's sword.

As far as I know, there is no sword in Norse mythology called that. Freyr's sword was one of the only weapons without a name given to it. Freyr gave it up to win his wife, and there are conflicting stories about what happened to it. Freyr is also a god of fertility, something that can be associated with summer, especially in a climate like Norway's. Please correct me if you know of any weapons called the sword of summer, or if you have any other ideas.

• Confirmed.

Loki is Magnus' father.

Magnus has been shown to display both skill in thievery and a tendency to enact his own Robin Hood style of justice. Now my Norse mythology isn't the greatest, but I do believe Loki has displayed similar mannerisms (in the sense of deciding one's guilt and punishment on his own), and as a trickster god it isn't too much of a stretch to add thievery to his domain. In addition, Magnus' mortal parent is his mother (not that that matters much to Loki, but the odds of Rick writing Homosexual Reproduction are unlikely), making his Norse parent male. Thor and Odin seem too obvious, and in the preview chapter doesn't Magnus have visions of a wolf? Fenrir is the great wolf of Norse Mythology, and also Loki's son—a brother seeking out a brother, perhaps?.

• Jossed. Frey is Magnus's father. Loki's daughter, on the other hand, is also a major character.
• Also, Rick has now written Homosexual Reproduction in The Trials Of Apollo.

Surtr will be the main antagonist of the first book, if not the whole series.

The preview states Magnus is attacked by a fire giant. The fire giants were led by Surtr, who raged across the world in an inferno during Ragarnok. As stated above, making Loki the antagonist seems too obvious, and Fenrir and Jormungand are probably instruments of Ragnarok, not the perpetrators. The Sword of Summer could possibly be Surtr's, considering summer is hot. Magnus has the skills of a thief, maybe the gods need him to steal it from Surtr to prevent Ragnarok?

• Confirmed. It's Frey's sword, which is destined to fall into the hands of Surt and be used by him at Ragnarok. For now, it belongs to Magnus.

Beowulf and Grendel will appear in the story

How can they not they are some of the most famous characters found in the Norse Mythology?

• They're more Celtic than Norse.
  • Actually,the original Beowulf manuscript was written in Old English (There is a lot of overlap between Germanic and Norse mythology similar to that of the Greeks and Romans) and the characters are from Sweden and Denmark, which were primary Norse settlements.
  • Jossed.

Magnus will prevent Ragnarok from ever happening

Rick's already kind of done this with The Kane Chronicles, so why not again?

• Jossed. Ragnarok will still come.

Sam's fears regarding her Voluntary Shapeshifting aren't what she thinks it is

She distrusts it because it comes from her father, Loki, (on top of shapeshifting being associated with negative forces in Islam, which just adds to the complications her demigod status provides her mortal life) and fears that the more she uses it, the more like her father she will become. However, in The Kane Chronicles, Sadie once nearly became a bird of prey permanently, as she was unable to change back due to her inexperience. It's then explained that the longer one stays in their shifted form, the more their human mind will slip away. Take too long, and they'll remain in that form forever. Because of how well Riordan has explained the same facets (magic between the Greco-Roman myths and Egyptian mythology, for instance) without them jibing too seriously, there's a possibility that this is actually that feeling Sam gets whenever she shifts.

Plus, it wouldn't be unlike Riordan to play with this plot thread in order to give Sam another way to shake off the shadow of Loki.

Annabeth is the real protagonist of the franchise, with Percy, Magnus, et al being the heroes of their specific story arcs.

Word of God calls the upcoming Trials of Apollo the 'capstone' of the series and says it will bring together all of the elements from the previous books. Of all the characters, Annabeth has the strongest connections to all of the previous series, being a Greek demigod, one of the Seven, and briefly becoming an Egyptian magician in The Crown of Ptolemy. The line about Magnus needing Annabeth's help implies that she'll play a relatively important role in Gods of Asgard as well.

The various magical places, magical powers, and some concepts of the in-book universe are interrelated.

For instance perhaps the Sea of Chaos is split into 6 rivers by the Yggdrasil: the rivers of the Underworld and the Duat. And that the Mist isn't just the first layer of the Duat but the result of the Phlegethon cooling off the Duat.

• My personal belief is that the Yggdrasil, Duat and the Greek Pantheon all are different planes of existances. This is why the Eygptian Gods cannot enter the mortal world, since it's the equivalent of trying to go to the Moon without an astronaut suit (or a human host). The Greek Gods are more tied to the mortal world, so their plane of existance is super-positioned over the mortal world, with the Mist, not being a form of veil or "magical denial" as Annabeth puts it, but the wall that separates the two worlds. Which explains why most humans can't see monsters or be affected by Celestial Bronze, since they are literally in another dimension. Demigods, exist in both dimensions at once, hence Chiron's saying in Sea of Monsters, about demigods being in both worlds. It was a literal statement!
  • The different mythological locations are definitely different dimensions, but I think that the Yggdrasil connects them. With how Riordan is writing the Norse series it seems pretty likely. As for the Mist it is more likely a universal mortal repellant as opposed to a wall, interesting idea though.
    • Actually it's confirm in Crown of Ptolemy, that the Mist is actually the uppermost layer of the Duat. So yeah, the Mist is actually some sort of dimensional veil.
  • It would explain how time works differently when ever they go on quest. Also it would solve the whole confusion of how Apollo can ride a sun chariot while at the same time the sun is a giant fireball in the sky.
• I interpreted it as the Duat, the Greek and Roman underworld, and Ygdrassil all being different aspects of the same reality, as filtered through the Mist. So an Egyptian magician in the Duat could find their way to the Greek Underworld, and vice versa, if they could navigate the monster filled chaos between. Similarly, one could find ones way between the different locations on Yggdrasil facing different looking but equivalent challenges. Some locations may actually be the same and just look different to the observer but it's hard to know in advance.
  • Possible correspondences:
    • Lighthouse of Maat/The Wells of Fate. Both are the fundamental root from which the universe springs (The foundation of reality vs feeding the World Tree)
    • The Sea of Chaos/The Void Beyond. Obvious really. Different ways to view the void outside reality.
    • It seems like the Mist/glamor in Greco-Roman and Norse worlds are basically the same thing.
    • Yggdrasil/The Duat/The Underworld. All different ways to view the same thing. But given how differently the Greko-Roman afterlife and the Egyptian afterlife are managed, they're probably different places and would have sharp words for each other.
• If the idea that all the magical locations are related in some way is on the table, maybe some of the oldest deities interacted prior to the existence of the more modern Pantheons? The primary deities in mind being Apophis, Ra, Nyx, Gaia, Tartarus, Odin's father, Ymir, and possibly Nidhoggr. Since all of these beings predate the creation of the physical universe in their respective mythologies, they probably know each other personally.
• I'm more of the opinion that Chaos, the Void, is the only thing that's the same across each magical world, with said worlds all growing out of it like different plants growing from the same soil. In any case, it would be interesting to eventually tie this back to Mesopotamian Mythology, the oldest mythology that we still have records of, which actually has it's version of Chaos, Tiamat, as an active force in the creation myth. Perhaps Tiamat will be the villain of the eventual Mega Crossover.
  • She may also be, as implied above, the progenitor of all the eldest divine beings.

The real villain of this series is the giant Ymir.

I mean think about it. He is most likely alive in some capacity and looking for revenge on Odin for killing him. Also, Loki seems a little too obvious.

• Doubtful; there's no myth that this troper can recall that says anything about Ymir's status other than "Dead as a planet-sized doornail".
  • Jossed.

Should a crossover with Camp Half-Blood ever finally happen, some Einerjar will remain at the camp as an honor guard

Camp Half-Blood has been compared to Byzantium, seeing as it's the Greek half of the Roman Empire in the East, and Byzantium had the Varangian Guard, made up of Viking soldiers. In honor of that, Odin will allow some of his chosen to act as the Camp's Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards.

Loki have a similar goal as Azrael from Dogma

• Since Loki is stuck getting acid dripped on his face and in pain he obviously wants to be free. The Ragnorok prophecy states that he will be free eventually but the freedom will end in death. Basically the torture probably made him accept death as a form of freedom.
  • Seems to be Jossed, as of the end of Book 2.

Purple poptart is Jam flavored

• Actually, if the poptarts are one of the extant poptart flavors, they could be either "wild berry" or grape. Probably the former, since artificial grape is often notoriously gross and "wild berry" flavor would be a much better prompt for a "really, what flavor are these actually?" question.
  • Where does this come from?
  • From the scene in the first book where Magnus sees Loki in Hlidskjalf (the throne of Odin) and Loki is eating a purple Pop-Tart and asks what flavour they're supposed to be.

The third book will be based around Gungnir, the spear of Odin

It's one of the more famous weapons from Norse mythology and it would also mesh well with Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, being the subject of the second book. It would also continue with the concept of cycles that seem prevalent in Rick Riordan's works, wit someone else taking up his mantle if Ragnarok happens. Frey does call Magnus the last summer before Ragnarok.

• Possibly jossed? The title says the third books is focusing on the Naglfar, the Ship of Nails.
  • Officially Jossed

Riordan is leading up to a big "War of the gods" event, where all the gods decide to fight each other for some reason.

That's what this troper's hoping for anyway.

Magnus probably won't have a love interest in this series, but may find one in a future crossover series, but s/he will be a demigod from another pantheon of Gods. And both of them would play an important part in uniting the gods together

It'll be interesting if Uncle Rick writes a whole arc for Norse gods without giving the main POV protagonist a love interest. Magnus and Sam are more like partners, and they both acknowledged as such. Besides, Sam already has a love interest. Although, if a future crossover is written which involves gods from several mythologies to come together, Magnus would find a love interest who is a demigod or a champion from another pantheon of Gods, and this will play a key role in brokering a peace between different gods. This is supported by the fact that Magnus is a son of Frey, who is a god of peace, and Magnus's main power is about disarming enemies instead of killing. Also, Magnus is the only character from the 'Gods of Asgard series' so far to have the knowledge of other gods after exchanging stories with Annabeth, as explained in the preview of the first chapter of the next book, so he's the most ideal choice of being a 'diplomatic' character.

• A particularly likely candidate for this would be Reyna.
  • She's specifically noted to want a love interest but not yet have found one.
  • As a Non-Action Guy, Magnus would be well-suited to be a love interest for her without subjecting her to Chickification.
  • Not likely, Aphrodite specifically says "No demigod will heal your heart," to Reyna. Different mythologies yes, but Magnus is still a demigod.
  • Completely and totally Jossed, thanks to Alex.

Magnus and Alex will get together

They got tons of ship tease in the second book and Magnus is instinctively able to tell when she is either male or female. They clearly have a different sort of relationship than the one he has with Sam. It would be great to have a series whose main character's love interest just happens to be trans.

• Magnus is a bit weirded out with how similar Alex and his mother Natalie are. He decides to not think about the squicky implications of that.
  • Confirmed.

Alex taking Sam's place in the wedding will come back to bite Loki in the ass.

It will come down to the tradition of the bride-price. The sword that Loki used to escape was intended for the father of the bride, which Loki would have been for Sam. But he's Alex's mother. So the fact is that Loki effectively stole the sword that should have gone to Alex's dad. This will somehow be turned against him in the third book, leading to his re-imprisonment and the averting of Ragnarok. Which is probably why he never wanted Alex at the ceremony in the first place.

• Not so far.

Percy will be a main character in "Ship of the Dead"

I mean, they kinda need to cross the sea and not die because of angry gods. Having the son of a sea god with them the whole time will probably help. Considering Annabeth is going to introduce Magnus and Percy, this is very likely.

• Jossed, Percy is only a minor character at the beginning, it’s Magnus’s grandfather Njörðr who protects him till they get to York.

There really WILL be a Chase cousin who's descended from Quetzalcoatl.

Because why not? And given the way Uncle Rick's works have slowly begun expanding outward from Greco-Roman mythology, Mesoamerican mythology might be as good a place to poke around in next as any.

• Sort of Jossed. The only alive Chase kid is Annabeth (since Magnus is an einherjar, and Aubrey and Emma are dead in Hel), we still have Annabeth's half-brothers Bobby and Matthew, but their mother is Asian.

When Nidhoggr finally rears it's ugly head, it will turn out to be the singularly most powerful being in the verse.

Nidhoggr is pretty much the Eldritch Abomination to end all Eldritch Abominations in Norse Mythology. Not only is it almost as old as Ymir, but it essentially destroys the universe during Ragnarok. If Apophis embodied Chaos and Nyx embodies Night (And possibly the Void, but that's less clear) then Nidhoggr will embody the End.

• Jossed-it never appears.

Sam and Alex will die and become the new bindings for Loki

Deeply hoping this doesn't happen, but since the group now has the responsibility of re-binding Loki, especially Sam, both Sam and Alex feel responsible for Loki getting loose, and Riordan likes retelling the myths, just with a few different characters, it wouldn't be impossible for Loki's new bindings to be made with a sacrifice of Sam and Alex.

• Jossed, nothing so dark happens.

The Chases are Norse legacies.

Magnus' mom told him that the Chases were descended from Swedish royalty. On top of that, some of Randolph's comments and behaviour make it clear he's known and believed in the Norse gods' reality for most of his life. The Chases having multiple ancestors who were Norse demigods makes sense given this. It would also explain why Annabeth, who as a Greek demigoddess would not generally be expected to play a role in these events, is. (Frey specifically told Magnus he was going to need Annabeth's help.) There's also the fact that this series introduces to the Verse the concept of families that tend to regularly attract divine attention. Sam says her family is one, and it's been all but stated the Chases are another.

Apollo will make a cameo, and mistake Magnus for Frey

It's not likely, given that their missions take place in separate areas, but it would be pretty funny to see the perspective of someone not in the loop reacting to a scrawny teenager claiming to be Apollo. Magnus would probably be a little bit disturbed by the fact that someone who looks younger than him can talk about how he went drinking with his dad and his sword, and how handsome he found his dad. And then Apollo will start ogling Magnus, which disturbs him even more.

• Jossed

If Percy accompanies Magnus, Jack will talk a lot about Riptide

Jack can hold conversations with regular weapons. Riptide is the most prominent weapon in the Greek books. He'll probably reveal that Riptide is female and used to be a hairpin. Maybe he'll even talk about how Riptide feels about being unable to be separated from Percy, or being a pen.

• Confirmed, according to Jack, Riptide is female and chats with her

The "bad news" Annabeth mentioned in Ship of the Dead will have to do with the next Trials of Apollo book

We know they're both going on at around the same time. It wouldn't be surprising if there was some sort of connection between the bad news and the stuff going down in the other series.

• Likely, especially if the third book is taking place concurrently with Ship of the Dead. (Or maybe it's before the climax. Maybe Nero's goal for training Meg that much was to kill the third triumvirate member.
• Confirmed in the Burning Maze: Jason dies trying to defeat the third Roman emperor, Caligula.

Alex is connected to the Aztec/Mayan mythos somehow

I checked, both have distinct pottery, and with one mentioned in Trials and the other being one of the first three myths covered in Rick Riordan Presents....

• That's like saying just because Frank has chinese ancestry he's related to the Jade Emperor. Alex having mexican heritage has nothing to do with her being related to the Aztec pantheon.

At Ragnarok, TJ is going to be killed taking a hill

Because let's face it, Ragnarok is basically the ultimate Tearjerker.

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