Norse mythology brainstorming

In mulling over ideas for my NaNoWriMo story, I ended up revisiting an idea I discussed a while back in the urban fantasy thread - a story set in the present day based on Norse mythology, particularly the Valkyries. Tentatively, it'll be about a normal person who finds out that she's one of many present-day descendants of Odin and is therefore being recruited as a Valkyrie, which has the perk of becoming an immortal badass (by eating Freya's apples) but the downside of having to hang around battlefields and decide who lives and who dies, then drag the chosen slain to Valhalla. Helpfully, the various legends about Valkyries give them a wide variety of attributes, which makes it easy to be flexible about their role in the cosmology as a whole. It's kind of like a rather hardcore version of Harry Potter, with Asgardian boot camp instead of boarding school, and African ethnic conflict replacing Quidditch.

At the moment, I plan for the Valkyries' battlefield meddling to be aimed not only at recruiting warriors to join the Einherjar but also to guide history along the paths Odin desires - basically, keeping the world vaguely stable and orderly. In order to explain why things don't always go perfectly to plan (since otherwise Odin would have wanted WW2 to happen, for example, and I'd rather have the Norse gods as pragmatic heroes facing difficult odds than pure ends-justify-the-means Chessmasters), and to provide low-level antagonists, I need some sort of opposing force that counters the Valkyries' efforts. This is where the research and brainstorming comes in: I'm trying to think of a suitable group/type of creature from Norse mythology to fill this role. Obviously the masterminds behind the anti-Valkyrie efforts will be the mythos' various bad guys like Loki and Surtur, but I haven't yet found any specific references to evil spirits that walk the earth unseen (or rarely seen) and confuse/manipulate/destroy humans. Can anyone who knows more about Norse mythology than I do think of any suitable candidates?

Actually, it was Idunn who kept the apples of youth, not Freya.

I really don't know of anything like evil spirits in the sense I assume you mean. The closest thing I can think of would be trolls and dark elves. Here's something you might be able to use, though (and the rest of the visible stuff might help, too).

Thanks! Weird, I always thought it was Freya; I must be basing that on the Wagner version.

In general, the Norse seemed to think that humans did just fine screwing things up for themselves. If Loki needs a hand spreading chaos, maybe the svartalfar?

You might want to take a step away from straightforward good vs. evil. Something like order vs. chaos would, I think, fit the Norse mythos more closely. Loki is a trickster god, so he's probably better described as chaotic than evil. Remember, also, that Odin can foretell the future -- the whole business with the runes and his eye -- so maybe he did want WW2 to happen, because the alternative if it didn't happen would somehow be ten times worse. Perhaps they needed a lot of Einherjar in a hurry? Maybe Ragnarok is coming sooner than anyone thinks?

Well, if you want "hideous Norse monsters", try the draugr, which are basically killer zombies.

Also, if Surtr is a villain, then various other lesser giants from Muspellheim work as mooks for him, plus any other giants you don't like. I believe some of the jotunn were also capable of shapeshifting - they'd make good "hidden" adversaries. Also, at least some of the giants were capable of making illusions - I'm thinking of the story where Thor, Loki and two kids go to Jotunheim and end up doing a whole pile of really hard stuff thinking they were doing easy stuff, Thor drinking half the sea thinking it's just a horn of mead, and nearly lifting the Midgard Serpent thinking it's just a cat, and so on.

I think you can do well playing up the moral ambiguity of both sides - Loki's a total jerk, yes, but Odin's frankly not much better. Come to think of it, what stage is Loki going to be at, anyway? Blood brother of Odin, murderer of Baldur and chained up, or free and pissed off?

Wandering Critic wrote:

You might want to take a step away from straightforward good vs. evil. Something like order vs. chaos would, I think, fit the Norse mythos more closely.

Yeah, I was definitely already looking at making the Aesir order-loving well intentioned extremists with the Jotun and Muspellir trying to bring disorder. My main objective in not making Odin responsible for WW2 was so that many Earth-born protagonists wouldn't immediately go "bugger off, I'm not working for you" (even with the promise of immortality). Of course, it might be a long time before they found that out, but if it was clear that Odin orchestrated everything on Earth to perfection, someone would figure it out.

Snoof wrote:

Well, if you want "hideous Norse monsters", try the draugr, which are basically killer zombies.

Yep, I found them in my research this evening. I also noticed what you mentioned about the Jotun being shapeshifters, although I'd forgotten the story where they tricked Thor and Loki.

Quote :

I think you can do well playing up the moral ambiguity of both sides - Loki's a total jerk, yes, but Odin's frankly not much better. Come to think of it, what stage is Loki going to be at, anyway? Blood brother of Odin, murderer of Baldur and chained up, or free and pissed off?

As of the start of the story, he'll be chained up but about to break free - Ragnarok is due to begin in a few years/decades. Eventually, if I continue the novel/series past the end of NaNoWriMo, World War 3 will begin, Fimbulwinter will engulf the earth, etc.

In a different vein, I'm trying to think of some historical figures who died in battle and might conceivably have ended up in Valhalla - not that the protagonist, being a none-too-well-read modern teenager, will recognize most of their names. One that immediately springs to mind is Leonidas of Sparta, who actually might ring a bell to some noob Valkyries thanks to 300.

Have you read Walter Simonson's THOR? It's comicbook superheroes, yes, but to me not even Wagner quite captured the gods' dual majesty and humanity as well.

I don't know it well, but I'm aware of it, and I guess it's a somewhat similar idea: the Norse gods as originally written interacting with the modern world. I'm keen to avoid 'updating' the way Asgard runs to reflect modern technology etc., because that's been done (e.g. in Ah My Goddess!).

Serendipitously (I didn't even realize its relevance until after I'd bought it), I picked up The Night Watch today, which should be useful as another work of dark urban/modern fantasy. Afte reading part of it, I already decided to start the story in medias res rather than having an exposition-heavy opening where the protagonist is yanked out of the ordinary world.

Well, Asgard itself never changes to become modern. Thor lives on Earth as a superhero, but everyone else stays in Asgard and continues to live the Norse god life (except for one time, when Surtur invades and most everyone has to evacuate to Midgard). Not that they don't OCCASIONALLY use some modern, mortal tech... (Need to invade Hel? EINHERJAR WITH M-16s!) :D

But aside from some one-off stuff like that, only Thor does any real modern stuff. Everyone else stays as written, Balder and Loki are exceptionally well-characterized, and some superb stuff is done with the dark elves.