The Norwegian TV series Ragnarok on Netflix (yes, I know...) I find to be a very powerful and memorable drama, operating on a deeper level than apparent. Now in its second series.
In the Norse myth of Ragnarok the prophecy is that, at the end, the gods will fight the giants; and will lose. So why do the gods fight?
The gods fight because that is how they win.
The gods are Men - the giants are demons.
Ragnarok is the final battle of the spiritual war on earth.
And Men will lose the last battle - on earth.
(How could it be otherwise? The giants are just too powerful.)
But choosing to fight against the giants, the demons; we win in Heaven, and eternally.
So - like the Norse gods; we prepare for Ragnarok.
3 comments:
Well, yes, but a man has to fight with the intention to win (or at least achieve some tactical short-term objective, like stalling or wounding the enemy). Fighting without intention and attempt to win is simply a complex sacrifice.
@Karl - I don't think that is empirically true - in that there are plenty of examples of men fighting to the death.
But that isn't what I said. I said that by fighting we would win - but not in this mortal life.
(After all, every mortal life ends in death. It is what happens after that, which determines whether we have won.)
Thank you for recommending the Ragnarok TV series - I am on the second season, and it is excellent.
The depiction of oppression in the first season is quite powerful - the way Magne is gaslighted and silenced by the people running the town after he starts to "notice" things that he shouldn't.
I was impressed by the scene between Magne and the police woman in which he demands an explanation for how Isolde died. She says that a gust of wind threw Isolde into a mountain, and she broke her neck.
Magne replies, since he was there, that there was no wind that day. The police woman asks: "Who knows more about storms? The meteorologists or you?" Magne's response: "Me!"
He *would* know about storms, wouldn't he? But I like to think there's a deeper point being made about the way "expertise" is invoked to deceive and manipulate.
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