This is perhaps the silliest question I've ever asked BUT are Norse deities... happy? I feel like the cultural consensus (at least in my area) surrounding Norse mythology is that the gods are angry, cold, vengeful, cruel, and bitter. I've been feeling like Heathenry is something I should be doing recently (Ēostre has been reaching out, so I suppose it would be closer to Anglo-Saxon heathenry but I digress), but I just can't seem to envision the gods as happy or loving in the way that people talk about deities from other pantheons. Does that make sense? I'd assume this is entirely untrue but I don't know, I think of Odin or Thor and I think of that stereotypical viking who is just battle-hungry all the time.
On a similar note, I feel like in my area all the practicing Heathens are also really depressed all the time? Or they all have a very alpha-male personality which is not who I am at all.
I guess what I'm really asking is: is there a place in Heathen thought for someone that isn't "harsh" or "blunt" or "viking-like"? And are the gods kind? Thank you very much for your time.
So fun fact: This image of Heathenry is actually specific to primarily the US and, probably, Canada. Most non-American Heathens I’ve met find this dark, brooding, “viking” interpretation super bizarre. The vikings were a highly-specific class of people, just like soldiers in the military are a highly-specific class of people, and ANY religion can look like a religion of war if that’s the only class you’re sampling from. Basically, that’s what we Americans are doing.
Not only that, we’re also working off a romanticized concept of “vikings.” This image is a combination of good old-fashioned commercialization (Vikings, Skyrim, Assassins Creed, Amon Amarth, Wardruna, etc) and long-standing neo-Volkisch (re: Nazi-adjacent) influences in American Heathenry (Odinism, Folkish Heathenry, the Nine Noble Virtues, etc). All you have to do is pepper in some Christian-style religious rules and voilá, you have the perfect tool for luring in droves of disenfranchised white men.
If you want to know what Heathenry looks like outside of this, check my pinned post for tons of links.
But anyway, to the point of your ask: Are the gods happy? Yes! They can be any emotion, in fact—happy, sad, loving, frustrated, angry, bored, etc. We couldn’t relate to them, or them to us, if they didn’t experience complex emotions.
They also happen to have very different and dynamic personalities between them. I’ve found the Norse gods to be wonderfully kind and a very boisterous bunch, but all of them are unique individuals in their own right. And definitely not all of them are warrior-like. I mean look at Freyr, the Norse god of masculinity. He gave up his sword for a wholeass wife.
I can’t speak for the Heathens you know, but if they’re identifying with cold, cruel gods and seem depressed, then they’re probably not in the best emotional state right now. People who were assigned male at birth are often socialized to only identify with emotions like bitterness and anger—it’s a societal form of abuse. This causes a lot of men to latch onto images that make them feel like they’re fulfilling this expectation, because everything in life has taught them they’ll be emasculated if they do otherwise.
It’s really depressing, and only narrows what masculinity actually is—dynamic. Just like our emotions, just like our personalities, and just like our deities.
There’s absolutely room for that variety in Heathenry.
(Sorry if I rambled in this post. Long day, and there’s really a TON of layers to this issue.)
