Thing 1: you know, the "left-hand-path" approach makes a lot more sense when you either don't believe or are very ambivalent about the "reality" of the gods and existence beyond life. If this life is all you have, then it kinda makes sense to interpret Odin's (and other) myths as "do what you can do for yourself". Once you start believing there's more to exercising your will than that, and all of a sudden there are a lot more interpretations.
Hmmm, I'm interested to hear more about that. My view of Valhalla was rocked pretty seriously by the interpretation in The One-Eyed God by Kris Kershaw. She talks about how the idea of the "dead warriors that Odin leads" very likely originally meant something closer to "all of the honored/competent dead" and the idea that you only got to be an Einherjar if you died in battle was likely much later. The notion is that in early tribal societies, every adult male was a warrior, and so likely given a place of honor once dead, whereas later, the idea that some adults died without being warriors was a bigger deal. I do agree that there's some interest and value in the idea of Odin making locally "bad" decisions ("you're gonna die in this battle") for globally important reasons, but it was very interesting to me that the hardcore idea that if you died some other way than in battle, you were screwed to an inferior afterlife might not go back as far as we might think.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-11-01 03:47 am (UTC)Hmmm, I'm interested to hear more about that. My view of Valhalla was rocked pretty seriously by the interpretation in The One-Eyed God by Kris Kershaw. She talks about how the idea of the "dead warriors that Odin leads" very likely originally meant something closer to "all of the honored/competent dead" and the idea that you only got to be an Einherjar if you died in battle was likely much later. The notion is that in early tribal societies, every adult male was a warrior, and so likely given a place of honor once dead, whereas later, the idea that some adults died without being warriors was a bigger deal. I do agree that there's some interest and value in the idea of Odin making locally "bad" decisions ("you're gonna die in this battle") for globally important reasons, but it was very interesting to me that the hardcore idea that if you died some other way than in battle, you were screwed to an inferior afterlife might not go back as far as we might think.