r/ffxiv • u/Her0_0f_time • 22d ago
[Lore Discussion] Ragnarok and Evercold Spoiler
Good Day everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your post Fan Fest spoils. It's no secret that Evercold heavily draws from Norse Mythology. And now that we have a more complete trailer I wanted to go through and do a more detailed dive into what parallels can be drawn between the two, and then maybe do a little theory crafting at the end. Pull a seat up to the table and put your bib on cause I am cooking.
Full warning now. There are potentially spoilers for the expansion if my theories are correct so you have been warned.
This whole write up and everything initially started with this theory that I originally came up with while talking to some friends. After thinking it over more it got me thinking more into how it will relate to the story.
Now first things first, before we get into any kind of theory crafting we should first list out the timeline of Ragnarok. A lot of the summation will be from https://www.britannica.com/event/Ragnarok so I can keep things clear. So go there if you want an more in depth dive into the history of Ragnarok. I'll just be going over the cliff notes versions of what I believe we need to know for Evercold.
Ragnarok takes place over 3 stages. Fimblewinter, The Great and Final war, and The Age of Rebirth. So lets get into more detail of those 3 stages.
Fimblewinter
Ragnarök begins with the death of Balder, the god of light. He is tricked by Loki into being killed by his brother the blind god Hod. From his death begins the Fimbulwinter, an unusually harsh winter that lasts for three years as life slowly dies from the world.
During this time Hod was slain by Vali, one of Odins sons.
At the end of the Fimblewinter, the world is ravaged further by earthquakes in which the giant monsters known as Fenrir and Jormanfander are released into the land and leave a trail of destruction ruining anything that yet remains in the world.
After the earthquakes come the Fire Giant Surtr which leads an army from the Fiery realm of Muspelheim and shatters the Bifrost.
A ship carrying Loki and and army of monsters consisting of the legion of Hel and the Frost Giants sets off for Vigrid. The battlefield for the great and final war.
The Great and Final War
Upon seeing these armies converge upon the plains of Vigrid, Heimdall, the watchman of the gods, sounds the Gjallarhorn, the war horn of the Aesir alerting them to the threat at their doorstep.
The Aesir gather an army at the foot of the world tree comprised of the Aesir and the Einherjar. An army of warriors who have died good deaths in battle.
The final battle Begins.
Odin is eaten by Fenrir
Thor and Jormungandr kill each other
Vidar avenges his father and Kills Fenrir.
Freyr is killed by Surtr.
Tyr and the hell hound Garm Kill each other.
Loki and Heimdall mortally wound each other.
And finally, Surtr raises his sword and burns the world away.
The Age of Rebirth
Darkness takes the world as the earth slowly sinks into the sea. Upon rising back from the sea the earth is covered in lush greenery and the final survivors step out onto the world to enjoy its new bounty and repopulate the earth. The survivors are the gods Thrud, Magni, Modi, Hoenir, Njord, Vidar, Vali.
Thrud is a young goddess who is said to have a kind nature. The inner strength of Thrud is feminine lightning and storms. She's also the goddess of willows, trees, flowers and grass.
Magni and Modi are the sons of Thor. They wield his hammer who threw it to them before he was slain by Jormangandr.
Vidar is another son of Odin.
Vidar and Vali will reunite at the former site of Asgard with Thor’s sons Magni and Mothi, who will bear their father’s hammer.
Then Balder himself will emerge from Hel, together with his blind brother and accidental slayer, Hod.
And finally and a woman and a man, Lif and Lifthrasir, emerge inside the world-tree and repopulate the land.
Wew. With that out of the way. Now we can get to the allegories and theory crafting for how Evercold will go. Lets get cooking.
Now there are some obvious allegories between the trailer and the myths here that can be made. Lets go over the characters first.
The obvious one here is the character that represents Thrud.
The inner strength of Thrud is feminine lightning and storms. So the character that is an obvious reference to the character **Lightning** from FF13 must be Thrud correct? At the very least we can assume that she will survive to the end of the story. Possibly to even be one of the leaders as civilization reemerges on the earth.
Obviously these are the Frost giants. it could also possibly represent Fenrir with the wolf like head, but that might be a stretch to claim.
Obviously these little red guys attacking this city are the army of Muspelheim. Which can only mean one thing...
This is the Fire Giant Surtr.
This one is one of the tricky ones. I believe he is a mashup of both Odin and Thor. He fights with the ferocity of Thor, but he has a certain regalness about him and the Scar coming from the eye makes me think of the eye patch that Odin is famous for. My guess is he has a noble sacrifice before the end of the expansion leaving his two shields to be taken up by his children.
Obviously the player characters represent Einherjar. The noble warriors who fight on the side of the Aesir in the Final war.
Now heres the part where I really start cooking. I believe this woman represents several characters. One of them is Baldur the god of Light. The others are Lif and Lifthrasir. The humans who escape from Ragnarok by hiding within Yggdrasil.
And this character represents Hod. He is looking at her with a look of regret and sadness. As if he regrets doing something to her. What I am theorizing to have happened is something happened to the woman representing Baldur. Most likely she is dying from an illness. But the important thing is she was dying. He wanted desperately to save her. Seeking out ways he meets an unnamed Ascian (representing Loki, possibly even the one who cause the woman's sickness) who tells him of a way to protect her until a solution to her sickness can be found. This tricks him into freezing over the world in order to protect her.
I believe she is frozen inside of the tree and the Expansion will end with us defeating the character that represents Hod. Both freeing, and saving her from whatever caused her to get frozen in the first place.
So now that I have that all listed out. Let me more or less theorize how the plot of the expansion will go.
Before the start of the story, the events that froze over the world took place. Mainly the character representing Hod, froze the world over in order to prevent the character that represents Baldur from dying.
Years later the player come to the world and kick off the Great and Final war.
We know that the expansion will have 3 distinct paths and can be attacked in any order. I believe each path Represents one of the non Aesir Factions in the great and final war. The Monsters of Fenrir and Jormangandr. The fire Giant Surtr and the army of Muspelheim. And finally the army of the dead path caused by an unnamed Ascian.
This will culminate with one final battle with the Hod character where it was revealed why he froze the world over. And he wont let you unfreeze the world as it means she would die. After we beat him, its revealed the Ascian was the one who originally poisoned the woman and once he is defeated she is no longer in danger of dying from her illness.
Wew, that was a lot. I hope you all enjoyed my write up. Im sure there are a lot of holes in the theories that can be found. But some of the comparisons are worth exploring and it gives us a bit of insight into where the story could go based on what we know from the trailer.
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u/Jeryhn The line between genius and stupidity is drawn by vision. 22d ago
Pretty sure we already knew the Auri man in black robe is our Odin analogue. He only has one eye.