#winter war

Who was Simo Häyhä?

If you're reading this, you probably know who Simo Häyhä was by now. He was born in 1905 on a farm in rural Finland. Growing up on the farm, he learned to hunt for food to supplement what his family grew, and he got especially good at estimating distance and disappearing into the forest as a result. At age 17, he joined the Civil Guard, a volunteer militia, and apparently was already quite the sharpshooter. At 19, he started his compulsory military service (still a thing to this day in Finland), which lasted for 15 months. When the Winter War started in 1939, he was 33 and considered a reserve - all reserves were pulled into service to defend the fatherland. When you're in that position, you regularly go back and do extra training every few years until you age out of being a reserve. Extremely conveniently, Simo had done formal sniper training in 1938, one year before he would actually need it.

The part everyone probably knows is the Winter War of 1939-1940, in which Simo became one of the most feared men in Finland for being just that good at sniping. Between sniper kills and submachine gun kills, it's estimated that he did actually take out over 500 Soviet invaders, with the highest estimate being 542, as shown in Record of Ragnarok. Simo himself estimated it as "over 500," referring to it in the memoir he wrote that was only discovered in 2017 as his "sin list." He managed all of this in under 100 days, finally being taken out of action when an exploding shell caught the left side of his face. He was initially mistaken for dead, but someone noticed his foot moving and they brought him in for treatment. He was in a coma and woke up the day the Winter War ended. Seeing his death erroneously reported in a newspaper, he wrote to them to provide a correction.

Simo tried to enlist again in the Continuation War, which came not long after, but as he was still recovering from his injuries he was denied and he resumed tending farm. He had numerous surgeries to repair his face; his jaw was permanently lopsided but he was fully functional. After the war years, he settled down into civilian life, becoming a dog breeder alongside his farming activities, and he'd usually be seen with his faithful dog friend Kille, his hunting companion. He tended to keep to himself, but he did have friends and family that he spent time with, although he never married. The PTSD was inevitable, and it was at its worst at night. Despite that he was known as a kind and affable person who loved being in nature.

Simo actually lived into the early 21st century, dying on April 1, 2002. He outlived the Soviet Union, the country that had invaded his beloved Finland, by over a decade.

Why is Simo in Record of Ragnarok?

Your guess is as good as mine. Simo wasn't well-known outside of Finland and military history circles until the past decade or so, and in a manga series about humans fighting against gods he seems like an odd choice, especially considering most of the human fighters are semi-mythological figures or are from further back in history (there are a few notable exceptions, who I'll get to in this series of posts). Most of the fighters here are more physical people, and all of them except Simo require their targets to be at close range. Furthermore, most of them are a lot more talkative and banter with their opponents, which Simo, being a sniper, isn't going to do because it would give away his location (and because Finnish people culturally don't speak more than they have to, to the point that the entire country has a reputation for not doing small talk).

Simo is, therefore, likely just here because the writers thought it would be cool to have a sniper known as the White Death here, and because a long-range fighter shakes things up. He's also a perfect counter personality-wise to his chosen opponent.

How is Simo's backstory shown in Record of Ragnarok, and how accurate is it?

In chapter 102, we see Simo's time during the Winter War. Let's break this down for historical accuracy.

The first shot we see of Simo during this chapter is actually really inaccurate right off the bat for one major, glaring reason: he's in a tree. The real Simo very notably did not do this:

One strange myth that surrounds snipers is that they would climb trees to shoot the enemy. Häyhä would laugh when asked about this. Not only would it make it far more difficult to keep a steady aim at the enemy, but if he was ever discovered he would have no escape route. Instead, Häyhä used overhanging branches for cover, which provided better protection and allowed him to keep a steady aim.

Simo kept himself on the ground for a few notable tactical reasons. He needed to be mobile and get away quickly if the Soviets closed in on his location, and it's also just plain difficult to aim when you're up in a tree and can't prop your rifle on anything to keep your shots steady. Instead, he used a lot of natural cover, and famously did a few things to keep himself completely out of sight:

Simo would go out to his chosen sniping location well before dawn and prepare it for the day's fighting, including packing the snow down so that when he fired the rifle the snow wouldn't puff up and give away his location and also to help keep his shots steady.

He used iron sights instead of a scope. The scope would have fogged up in the cold, and the glint of the sunlight hitting it would have also given away his location. The iron sights worked just fine for what he needed to do.

He would hold snow in his mouth to keep his breath cold enough to prevent it from being visible.

As an added benefit, Simo was only 5'3", which further kept him hidden compared to taller soldiers.

Here is an actual photo of Simo, much older, showing how he would shoot from a covered position:

Note that he has his gloves placed beneath his rifle. This reduces kickback from the rifle and keeps the shot steadier when it releases. Another photo from the same shoot shows him doing this again:

Next, the manga sets the stage by pointing out how outnumbered the Finnish forces were during the Winter War.

Finland did have roughly 300,000 soldiers total, with the high estimate being 340,000. Extremely notably, they only had 32 tanks and 114 aircraft to work with, whilst the much larger Soviet army under Stalin had somewhere between 2,000-6,000 tanks and nearly 4,000 aircraft. Most importantly to note, the Soviet invading force was much larger than the Finnish defending force, with the highest estimate being about 760,000 men. The numbers are exaggerated here in the manga on both ends, most likely to make things seem bleaker for the Finns and to make Simo look cooler. An important thing to know about the Winter War is that prior to the conflict Stalin had purged a lot of his top military staff, so the Soviet forces were actually really disorganized as a result. You can read more about the Winter War itself here; the Soviet Union actually was kicked out of the League of Nations for attacking Finland.

The page discussing the Battle of Kollaa seems to specifically be referencing Killer Hill, a defense point where a force of 32 Finns successfully repelled a much larger Soviet force, with the Soviets taking over 400 losses. (However, the Finns lost 28 of the 32 people on their side that day.) Kollaa itself is the source of a notable rallying cry: Kollaa kestää ("Kollaa will hold"), from Lieutenant Aarne Juutilainen, who Simo served under.

It isn't actually clear if Simo was at Killer Hill, but he did see action during the Battle of Kollaa.

Simo is depicted as clearly being remorseful for taking lives, and indeed it wasn't something he was proud of; as mentioned above, he referred to his wartime kills as his "sin list" in his memoir of the Winter War. He did actually struggle after the war with PTSD, which was at its worst at night (less distractions generally means your brain gets up to more bullshit at night, as anyone with any mental health issues can tell you). Not everyone approved of his actions, either, and he did actually receive death threats from people. Since his injuries made him instantly recognizable, he tried to avoid large groups of people, and he'd spend most of his socializing time with family and friends in more isolated locations.

The manga next touches on the incident in which Simo received his facial injury. In the manga, this is depicted as a bullet ricocheting into him by sheer chance:

In real life, it was actually an explosive shell that caught his face. It was, however, sheer luck that it even happened, because the Soviets had literally been trying to bomb him and had been continually failing.

Simo did recover, but the war was over for him. He was in a coma for a week and woke up the same day the Winter War ended. Although he did try to enlist in the Continuation War, as mentioned above, his facial injuries were considered too severe and he was still recovering, so he never again had to point his rifle at another human being.

The manga doesn't show his full face much, but some supplementary art does. Compare this to what he actually looked like after his facial reconstruction surgeries:

Considering that literally everyone, including gods and humans, gets a massive glow-up in this manga, the artist likely chose to do Simo's facial injuries this way, but it's admittedly frustrating when we know what he actually looked like and there's such a long-running history of media depictions just magically curing or otherwise shying away from depicting disability for ableist reasons. In real life, despite the reconstructive surgeries on his jaw, Simo did have a lasting facial deformity, and this absolutely had an effect on the rest of his life. A whole plot point of the manga is that the human fighters are brought in at their peak, but Simo still has the facial injury in the manga, so that doesn't excuse this. It's clearly just the artist trying to make him more "attractive" and palatable for a wide audience, but these things do contribute to erasure and less acceptance of people with facial differences, limb differences, etc. I personally would have drawn him exactly as he was.

One more thing before we move on from this historical accuracy portion of the post: the M/28-30 is perfect.

It's clear that they did some research here and got some good references, because this is an extremely accurate depiction of the rifle. They absolutely get points for this.

The Battle Against Loki

In the manga, Simo is pitted against the Norse god Loki, who the manga has shown to be unhealthily obsessed with protagonist Brunhilde, going as far as to keep a life-sized doll of her in his room. Their backstory explains this - Loki made Brunhilde laugh once, and he fell in love with her smile instantly, becoming a prankster to continue seeing it. However, Brunhilde only saw him as a friend and fell in love with the demigod Siegfried, leaving Loki devastated. He framed Siegfried for the slaying of the dragon Fafnir so Odin would imprison him and take him away from Brunhilde. (Odin realizes that Siegfried is actually a vessel he needs, but that's another plotline entirely.) Now that Loki has access to Brunhilde again, he is confused when she is no longer joyful and smiling, and cannot understand why all his attempts to win her over are failing. Before the match, Loki and Brunhilde meet one more time, and she informs him that she's picked a perfect counter for him. This gets into Loki's head even as he plays it off publicly, and the fact that Simo has gotten into his head is actually key to the outcome of the battle.

Loki chooses the arena and makes it resemble Kollaa, hoping to trigger Simo's PTSD and render him unable to focus or fight well. However, this also gives Simo an advantage as well, since he knows the terrain and is able to disappear into the woods with ease. Loki responds by creating a large army of clones of other gods to tear through the forest using a ring he has that allows him to make infinite copies, and he can distribute the power to these clones as he pleases. However, Simo wipes this army out with god-killing buckshot, and Loki is both back to square one and actually intimidated - or so it seems at first. He's actually hidden himself away in the forest and created a clone of himself who currently holds the ring. Without the ring, Loki can only create a limited number of copies, so this plan is risky as it's separating him from his trump card. In addition, he doesn't know some crucial information because he isn't physically close to Simo at this moment.

In Record of Ragnarok, the human fighters are given the ability to injure or kill gods by teaming up with Valkyries in a process known as Völundr, which allows the Valkyries to transform into weapons capable of harming the gods and enhancing the humans' abilities where needed. Simo partners with the Valkyrie Radgridr, whose ability is known as Reaper's Vow or Reaper's Contract. This allows him to fire bullets that can damage or kill gods, but at an extremely steep cost - each bullet has to be formed from one of his internal organs, because only the weapon or the wielder's body is actually capable of harming a god. The rifle alone would not work here, so each bullet is an organ of Simo's selection. He sees the pain as fitting atonement for his "sin list."

If Loki knew this information, he'd have a massive advantage, because he'd be able to simply keep drawing out shots until Simo ran out of usable organs and died. But he doesn't know this, and so to him Simo seems daunting and unstoppable, especially since he isn't near Simo physically and can't see him coughing up blood.

Simo's first shot takes out the clone army, and his second shot takes out Loki's clone of himself. He's down a kidney and his liver at this point, and it's taking its toll, but his professionalism as a soldier and his will to defend the place and the people he loves keep him focused on the objective. Loki has found his location via a clone of a rabbit, and has teleported to the rabbit's location. He's in the woods behind Simo at this point, trying to think about how to get close and get the kill in before getting shot, because Simo can reload and fire incredibly fast. This is actually the point at which Loki loses the fight, because he's intimidated and respects Simo's power and it leads him to make an overly complicated plan, which goes as follows:

Loki hides himself in a clone of Heracles, trusting that Simo will shoot the vitals on the clone but won't hit his own vitals since he's smaller.

Loki sends two more clones, one of himself and one of Thor, to attack Simo from behind in a pincer attack, hoping he'll turn to shoot those.

Loki's plan is to jump out of the Heracles clone and kill Simo when his back is turned.

However, there's a key reason why this fails, and it is actually within reason given one thing we know about the actual Simo.

The first part of Loki's plan goes off without a hitch - Simo shoots the Heracles clone, and hits Heracles's vitals but misses Loki's. However, instead of turning around, Simo prepares to double tap. He's noticed something isn't right.

To quote again from this article:

Häyhä’s skills had been developed from his youth which was spent very close to nature, going on regular hunting trips in the forests. He had often hunted timid birds in clearings and pine forests, birds which reacted to even the slightest sound, reflection or sudden movement. As a hunter, when everything depends on the situation, target and terrain, Häyhä would have needed sharp vision and the ability to spot and recognise targets. There are no foolproof methods in hunting, as each situation and condition is unique. Häyhä knew that when a hunter shoots at his target, he must be able to observe the impact, as any game will try to escape if the first shot is not lethal, unless the game is injured beyond movement. Any animal will try to defend itself until dead or unable to move; this grim reality also applies to humans on the battlefield. Häyhä’s hunting experiences taught him how to read and use the terrain and he was the ultimate master in exploiting the terrain of the battlefield to his advantage.

Simo's hunter instincts are actually the key to this moment in the battle. Someone who has hunted for a long time knows to keep an eye on the target for a while to ensure that it's actually dead.

He follows this up with the only words he actually speaks aloud to Loki, as the latter is now frantically panicking:

Loki knows he's now in an extremely vulnerable position, and in a last ditch effort he swaps places with a bird clone flying overhead, screaming desperately out of panic as he tries to take Simo out.

His frantic yelling, of course, only serves to alert Simo to his location, and Simo is able to fire directly at him in one smooth movement.

The only damage Loki manages to do to Simo is grazing him with the blade of his weapon on the side of his face, the same side where he received his actual real-life injury.

It isn't enough.

Simo is, in every single way, the perfect counter for Loki this entire fight. Loki is operating on pure emotion, a desperation to win to show Brunhilde that he's worthy of her and to prove her ideas about him are wrong. He's obsessed with earning her for himself but never respected her as a person, and because he's not focused on the fight, Simo gets into his head easily. In contrast, his attempts to throw Simo off balance fail, because Simo is singularly focused on the task at hand and has military discipline to boot. Simo doesn't want to fight, but he loves his nation, family, and friends, and so he selflessly takes up the rifle one more time to defend the things and people that matter most to him.

He sacrificed four total internal organs in this fight: a kidney, his liver, his spleen, and his pancreas, and he still pushed on until he was sure his opponent was truly dead. Sisu won this fight.

We don't know the aftermath of this battle yet, as the next chapter isn't out yet, but this fight takes on a much deeper meaning if you go in with the historical context of who Simo actually was as a person in real life. This was a real man who was pained by his actions yet pushed through to defend the people who meant the most to him and the land he loved, and that does come through in this depiction of him overall. The only thing I'd change is making his facial injuries more accurate to the real ones, but I know systemic ableism and bias exist and that's likely the reason they didn't do that here - they wanted to keep him "appealing" and readers' inherent biases would likely lead to them being turned off if he'd been drawn more accurately. This is a big problem but I know it isn't one that can be tackled by one person alone, so it's something that we should be discussing more with regards to media, fandom spaces, and society in general.

As a bonus for putting up with me for this long, here's a photo of the real Kille, Simo's beloved dog. You can absolutely see the love in Kille's eyes and it makes me really happy.