take your darkness with you, it's yours.

This project is too cool! See more at Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ak3z9p/roman-manfredi-butch-photos

It's a lot, for books aimed at eleven year olds who want to read about kids turning into fun animals.

On the podcast, the two (American) hosts happened to get onto the topic of the post-9/11 Iraq War and their reactions to it. They were both children at the time and as such could not be expected to have particularly nuanced views of US military policy. The person who hadn't read Animorphs was unsurprised by the declaration of war; that's what you did. Someone attacks America, America goes to war. That's how a country protects itself, through military revenge. The Animorphs fan, about the same age, had been devastated and against the war from the start. War was a Big Deal and, while sometimes unavoidable, should be a last resort; a lot of people were going to die, and a lot more were going to get hurt, and no matter how the war shook out it was still going to be horrible. They attributed this perspective, of course, to the series that had taught them about the horrors endemic to war in an engaging way at such a young age -- to Animorphs.

Have you guys noticed the possibility that the draugar in the game are actually the tribe of northmen who attacked Senua's village mentioned in the first Hellblade?

I mean, they're not undead from the underworld, Senua sees them that way because it's her interpretation of their despicable actions.

But when she sees the sacrifices in Freyslaug, one of the Furies makes a comparison saying that what happened to her people was happening again there. The same modus operandi so to speak.

And, from Thórgestr and Fargrimr's reaction to the massacre, we can see that this was not a common behavior for other tribes. That was a draugar thing.

So the draugar are actually a tribe whose ritualistic beliefs was so far gone that other tribes began to fear and fight them off.

I don't think Senua ever made the connection, since in the final fights the voices kept blaming the Björgs for killing Dillion and her village, even though the other narrators clarified that it wasn't them in that case.

We don't know how recently the Askja volcanic eruption has happened, but clearly it is distantly enough that the situation has stabilized enough for the Godi has had to turn to the threat of the Giants as a means of control. This could range anywhere from a few short years to at least ten.

As you suggested, the draugr's attack on Freyslaug is eerily familiar to the attack that destroyed Dillion's village with the grotesquely crafted symbol at the gate leading up to the ritual site being a gut-churning nod towards the blood-eagle that was made of Dillion. It's not spot on, but it is chillingly similar in an escalated manner. While we see very little of what happened to Dillion's village, it is enough to give a hint as to the MO of the attackers, and it isn't a far off speculation that closer to home would be just as bad if not much, much worse, especially if the draugr tribe's sanity has dwindled significantly as it has turned to cannibalism all the while going underground.

If you're a Fannibal like I am, you learn that the two worst parts of the human body to eat are the liver, because most cultures are saturated in drinking (and historically drinking is even more prominent than it is now) that our liver contains so much vitamin A that it is downright toxic, and the brain, which is an easy way to transfer one disease in particular on, a disease very similar to Mad Cow Disease. So unless you want to live by 'you are what you eat', don't eat these two organs. That being said, the first time we actually get to see a Draugr, what are they doing but cutting a victim's head off, bashing their skull open and.... eating their brain. Mathmatically, both by max stomach volume (1qt) and brain (3lbs), the brain could feed at least two people, not well, but it can. If you're spreading the human variety of Mad Cow Disease quickly though... crack a screaming one open, grab a handful, and pass it around. Gross but effective.

We do get to hear that Senua has been able to live in remote peace until the raiders came for slaves, it's very likely that during this time was when Ashja's eruption happened, landlocking many in Iceland due to the destruction as well as driving the massacring tribes that become the draugr underground before they began to resurface as the topside began to recover as well. The draugr activity is not a new occurrence to Fargrimr and Thorgestr, but it is still new enough to be a shock to any who witnesses. This leads me to believe that the eruption might not have happened longer than 5 years ago.