Ragnarök - will it happen?

[vaguelyhumanoid]

Here's a pretty big question - is Ragnarök coming? I've heard of very widely differing views on the subject existing among the Heathen community, ranging from "Loki worshippers are hastening the world's destruction" to "it's Christian propaganda and Fenrir and Jormungand ain't that bad".

Personally, I view all the myths quite metaphorically. The gods are not physical beings; they do not literally fight and kill one another. Such stories illuminate the relationships between more abstract concepts and to provide parables for our lives. Ragnarök is "real" in that entropy is inescapable, but not in the sense that Oðin will be eaten by a wolf, for instance. It's been centuries since those prophecies and people still feel called to him - clearly he hasn't gone anywhere.

 

[Sees]

I think, depending on how esoteric people want to get - it has happened, is happening, and will happen. Myths always touch on many layers and levels simultaneously even though they can seem cut and dry. There is an eternal cycle and innumerable, interconnected things, beings, forces in play at all times - it is the foundation all answers are built on.

In the most simplistic sense I just take it as an old rallying cry story - heroic, glorious sacrifice in battle for your people, land, worlds, etc., even when knowing you won't prevail or the odds are very, very slim. Usually tend to avoid intentionally placing deep thought into it. It's one of those things where you could end up spending hours talking about deep, hidden meaning if you get suddenly inspired and/or a little drunk - but, as always, nothing definitive is laid down in the end.

 

[Riverwolf]

Might be the more Neo part of the Neopagan in me talking, but I think of Ragnarok as happening every day and every year: the setting of Sun, and the waning of the year. Then Balday (ON Baldr) rises again each time.

I don't think of it in the Christian sense of a specific "endpoint" to history, but as an expression of of a cycle.

 

[Nietzsche]

I look at Ragnarok as the eventual end of all things. Fimbulwinter sounds a lot like the eventual result of entropy, otherwise known as the heat-death of the universe. Then, when the energy is spread too thin for the universe to retain cohesion, it collapses in on itself in a cataclysm. Or, Surtr strikes it with his flaming sword and drowns creation in fire. And because nothing is created or destroyed, it eventually coalesces back into a state to harbour existence. Life? Dunno. Will it be the same? **** no. But it's all the same matter & energy, just put together differently.