Norse Mythology In Popular Culture

"[After Atreus falls ill] Freya! Open the door! We need your help! [no response] WOMAN, DO YOU HEAR ME?! IT IS URGENT!"

"Odin and Thor... ruining everything for everybody."

"I guess there’s just one thing I don’t understand... My name on the wall. The Giants called me... Loki?"

"[after killing Daudi Kapmadr, he angrily starts stabbing and slicing the troll's corpse] THAT'S WHAT YOU GET! [he continues stabbing the corpse and starts coughing] THINK I'M AFRAID OF YOU?! [Kratos: Boy!] [He keeps stabbing and coughing heavier and heavier] YOU'RE NOTHING TO ME! [Kratos: Boy! Look at me, boy!] NOTHING! [after Kratos restrains him and calms him down] We did it."

"Your father won't let me go, Baldur, and he won't let you kill me. You have nothing to offer me. So take your questions, take your threats, take these two worthless wankers and piss off!"

"[to Atreus, on his time working for Odin] It's my career! And if you mean to make your career as a counsellor to kings, you can't very well rule out petty maniacs - available positions are scare enough! My first master was a cruel piece of work as well, but I learned through him the enduring power of wit, which served me well with kings and gods alike. I couldn't have been much older than you when I started - a faerie king's errand boy and unofficial jester. By night, my mates and I had the run of the forest. Goodfellows, they called us, knavish sprites to the last! We'd get up to all manner of mischief, making fools of the local mortals! But as long as our lord was kept amused, we were spared the consequences! [sighs] Then, one day, he was not amused, and I saw fit to move on. Thankfully, the ages and roads travelled since then have turned me from that merry wanderer into the paragon of virtue you see before you today."

"[to Atreus] Lad, there comes a time in every man's life when he changes his name and heads north to make a new start. If you live long enough to do this many times over, you might end up as far north as this place. By the time I arrived, I already knew Odin by his reputation, and so I set to demonstrate my worth by coming to him with something I knew he'd value: a mystic well of knowledge. Or rather, I should say, a well of water laced with enough mystic mushrooms to make a god see visions. Oh, he was rightly impressed! Can't say for sure what he saw that led him to try gouging out his own eyes, but I managed to restrain him before he finished the job. Then I persuaded him it had been his sacrifice, made for an even higher form of sight to be bestowed, blah-di-blah-di-blah-di-blah! I used to think he never caught on. But the day he took my eye, I realized he had never been fooled. He knew I'd outwitted him, called the lesson wisdom, and hired me to make sure from then on I was on his side - and for a long, long time, I truly was. Doesn't mean he didn't hold a grudge."

"[on why Odin is called the Lord of the Hanged] That refers to a modest example of Odin's thirst for knowledge - the time he spent nine days a dead man. Aye! Hung himself by the neck from Yggdrasil's branches, put his spear through his own side, and bled down into the Well of Destiny. He roamed the realms of the dead and plundered the World Tree of its secrets until, I think, quite rightly, it got fed up with him and sent him back to the land of the living... Did I not mention he was barking mad?"

"[after Kratos' conversation with Athena's spirit] Well, I'm pretty sure you weren't talking to me back there. Anything you'd like to get off your chest, brother? [Kratos is silent] I can assure you I'm unsurpassed in keeping confidences. [still no reply] Well, you know where to find me. And for the record, I'd already guessed you were Greek. "Athena"? Dead giveaway."

"Your father was Zeus?! Well, that explains a lot."

"[after Kratos returns his eye] Thank you, brother. You don't miss depth perception until it's gone."

"[looks at his decapitated body] Well, that's a sight no man should ever see. Thanks for that."

"When Odin sent me here, I just needed answers, but... YOU, you had to act all proud. Throw whatever you have at me... I'll keep coming. That old body will give out. But before I end this, I want you to know one thing... I can't feel any of this."

"You've seen it with your own eyes; you can't hurt me. Nothing can. This fight is pointless. Your struggle is pointless. It didn't have to be this way."

"[moments before having his neck snapped by Kratos] I'd hope that you, of everyone I'd faced, would finally make me feel something, but you can't."

"[slow-clapping after Atreus shoots a shock arrow at Kratos] And here I thought my family was fucked up..."

"[after Freya claims to know how he feels] Feel? [increduosly] How I feel?!"

"I've spent the last one hundred years dreaming of this moment. I've rehearsed everything I ever wanted to say to you, every word, to make you understand exactly what you stole from me. But now i realise... i dont need you to understand anything. I don't need you at all."

"You just can't help yourself, can you mother? No matter what I do or say, you won't stop interfering in my life!"

"[after his mother pleads for his forgiveness] No. We can't. Because I will never forgive you. You still need to pay for the lifetime that you stole from me."

"[after Atreus accidentally breaks the spell of invulnerability on him] Before you die, I want to thank you - both of you. You've done what even the Allfather himself could not! [laughing] I've never felt more alive! Ironic, isn't it?"

"WHY?! WON'T?! YOU?! DIE?!"

"Dillion... she can't help but think of him. A tender guiding flame in a world so black. The longer it burned, the more she convinced herself that there was nothing beyond its reach. How little separates us from what we fear."

"Only suffering brings salvation. It is the way of the gods."

"This is what happens when you listen to the voices of the underworld. They crawl into your soul and rot you from the inside."

"The darkness touched you. Everyone could see it in the hollows of your eyes, a gaze averted from life. You ran from it but brought it nearer. Led it to him. An endless suffering worse than death. And you wanted to surrender? Abandon him to find peace with the gods? No. The darkness won't allow it. So you will walk into the lair of the beast, look it in the eye and you will go to war. This is your mission. This is your quest. There is nothing else left."

"In this waking nightmare where all dreams come true, you searched for control. A way to pull through. When you were in love you left him in tears. To smother your furies and banish your fears. But in darkness they came, through stormy black seas they raided these shores. Do you still hear his screams? And now that you're home he's so far away. They've taken his soul. To these gods you cannot pray. They can break you, but not your promise. Even death won't keep you apart. Through this darkness you will find him. In your sword still beats a heart. You fought for love unspoiled by your darkness within. You fought for your dreams, now there is no way to win. In the head of his corpse lies the seat of his soul. So you must carry his vessel to bring him back home."

"In the end, it is not the gods who cause so much suffering Senua. It is those close to us."

"In blindness there can be wisdom; only by giving, can you receive in return."

"For every battle won, a greater battle takes its place and so it goes until we fall. And in the end we all fall. Even the gods have their time."

"Like you Senua, the man I once was has died. And when that happens, even gods you worship can die with you."

"Hel will not give you the answers you want. But you mustn't look away from the horror it does offer, because you cannot overcome suffering if you refuse to look at it."

"I learnt the hard way to not be afraid of death, Senua. Because a life without loss is one without love. Turn your back on death and you only see the shadow that it casts. The longer you hide from it, the longer the shadow grows, until all you can see is darkness. When our time comes, we must look death in the eye and embrace it as a friend. Only then can we let go fear, and emerge from our darkness."

"[before killing ] I never beat you in the wilds, did I? It was an illusion! But not this time!"

"[confronts the fire giant ] You destroyed everything! Everyone! But not me! Fight me now!"

"[tries to bargain with the darkness] You. You took him from me. I beg you. Let him go. I'll give you what you want. I won't resist anymore. Just give him back."

"Never forget what it is like to see the world as a child, Senua: where every autumn leaf is a work of art; every rolling cloud, a moving picture; every day a new story. We too emerge from this magic, like a wave from the ocean, only to return back to the sea. Do not mourn the waves, the leaves and the clouds. Because even in darkness the wonder and beauty of the world never leaves. It's always there, just waiting to be seen again."

"People think of evil as an unnatural invisible force, and so invoke the gods for protection. But evil can come from the hand behind the gods: a familiar hand, cold and cruel."

"The world once seemed so simple: black and white, darkness and light. Narrow dividing lines of our own making."

"Where are we now? ...a burial mound. So strange that we go to such lengths to bury death, something so very ordinary, inevitable. It's as if we conspire to hide death, because we have no answer for it."

"The further she saw into the darkness, the more she struggled to see anything at all."

"When darkness speaks, it changes everything, turning home into a foreign land and loved ones into strangers. Exile makes sense when you realise that you were never really home in the first place."

"The worst kind comes without warning, a deep and primal signal from within. A reminder that just because you cannot see the threat, it doesn't mean that it's not already here."

"This is the price she pays for seeing things differently. Because once you gaze into the relentless darkness, all that lurks within it can see you too."

"It's funny. We all want to see behind the veil, don't we? But once we do... we mostly just close our eyes again and pretend what we saw was never really there."

"Why go on? When you give everything and face that which torments you, only to find that it is worse than you could have imagined...why go on? Is it really so weak to ask this? Or are we just so afraid of the honest answer, that we do not dare pose the question? Sometimes the answer lies in a memory...a feeling...a song."

"Have you died before? It's a serious question. When the illusion of self is shattered, you simply cease to be. Though it may not seem that way to others, you know when it is true. You can feel it, a stranger in your own body, an imposter and nothing is the same ever again."

"The hardest battles are fought in the mind. That is what Dillion taught her. With every defeat, the dark rot will grow and soon it will take her soul. But, for now at least, she still has control of her mind. And she will fulfill her vow, whatever the cost."

"A vision, of what's to come? Poor Senua. The darkness does not bargain. It does not reason. It is rot. And now it has taken hold, it will spread towards her head, the seat of the soul, until there is nothing left of her. All of her suffering will have been for nothing. It's just a matter of time."

"The darkness is coming. It yearns for life, hungers for it - like a pack of wolves on a hunt. But she's not stopping. Not this time."