Loki Was An Asshole

Contributed by Simon Smithson on 11/03/10

I read the Norse myths when I was a kid. The Prose Edda, I think, that was the name of it.

What I could never figure was the whole, whaddayacallit, overarching theme. Sure – run around, cut a bunch of heads off, do your thing. Nail a dwarf and get a necklace. Hang from a tree on a Friday night. Whatever turns you on.

But this Loki guy. What. An. Asshole.

I get it, he was pissed off at the rest of the Gods (he was actually, like, a giant or something, if I remember. He wasn’t an actual God. I don’t know. It’s all a bit fuzzy to me now. I’ve had some punches in the head over the years and not everything’s in the same place it was, knowledge-wise. I don’t go fighting any more. You see these guys sometimes, they’re talking to you, one eye’s looking over your right shoulder, the other one’s staring at your wristwatch. It ain’t pretty, and sometimes they don’t talk so good), because, I don’t know. Some reason. He was so pissed that he turned up at one of their big shindigs and just started ratting everybody out and calling them on all the shit they did over the years – which, if you’re a god, can sometimes be a lot of shit. It’s like if someone turned up to one of those big Hollywood parties and just started yelling out who’d screwed who and who’d snorted what and who was gay or straight or bi and who was a Martian in disguise… that kind of deal.

My point is, people don’t mention that stuff for a reason. Because they don’t want it mentioned.

Anyway, Loki was pissing everyone off and eventually Thor turned up and kicked his ass and the rest of the Gods rounded Loki up, chased him down, then tied him up in this cave somewhere. And, get this – they turned one of his sons into a wolf, got the wolf to rip out the guts of his other son, and then used the guts to tie Loki to a rock while they hung a snake up over his eyes so it would drip poison into his eyes forever. He couldn’t get away, because, you know, he was all tied up in guts.

Pretty gruesome, huh? That’s some vendetta shit, right there.

Eventually, Loki busts out, gets a whole bunch of the bad guys riled up, and they start off Ragnarok, ’cause they want to kill all the Gods and turn the whole world to ice and snow or something.

So, I understand that he’s pissed off (I mean, I don’t have kids, but I can imagine I’d be upset if one of them got turned into a wolf), but… who wants to turn the whole world to ice and snow? Being cold sucks. I’m out here in it, and I am not enjoying it one bit.I got splinters in my hands from dragging lumber, even through my gloves, my back is killing me, and I’m all wet from the knees down.Could you imagine if it was like this forever? All over the whole world? Just snow and cold and clouds and shit? People in Russia get that shit a lot of the time, I know, but they can at least know that it ain’t like that everywhere. This whole Ragnarok plan, the idea was that everywhere, even the beaches? Snow.

Like I said.

Loki. Asshole.