Timeline Questions: The slaying of Ymir and the age of Odin
Back again after Atreus' first Asgard segment, and I'm now reconsidering my perspective one of the most significant events in the timeline.
For those of you who don't know me (which is the vast majority of you), hi. I'm an artist, writer, and enormous nerd who has decided to torture himself by filling in the blanks of the Norse timeline. I make posts like this occasionally as I'm working through my drafts, replaying the games or watching playthroughs, and when something significant leaps out at me that I'm not entirely certain of, I like to bring it to the community to hear their thoughts, or whatever other details you may have found that I overlooked. This is shaping up to be my longest playthrough so far since I'm spending so much time looking through every detail (lore markers, codex entries, creature and item descriptions, even throwaway lines) I notice, but I still miss a lot of stuff. Once I'm satisfied with the integrity of my draft, I'm releasing the whole thing with my own illustrations for the community to have. All that said, this one may be a bit controversial.
How old is Odin? We asked this question a lot in the early days of Ragnarök, and a lot of the consensus I recall was that he was several thousands to over ten-thousand years old. My admittedly very flippant assumption at that time, was that Odin was truly ancient due to just how far back the lore of the Northlands goes, but over the last couple of days going through Asgard to Muspelheim, dissecting dialog, referencing 2018 and the lore book, as well as other conclusions I've come to, I think I was totally wrong.
Below is an excerpt from my notes. For the years Before Fimbulwinter, I use the shorthand "BF."
Odin claims that he was a "young god" when he found the mask. Since the mask has some connection to the rift, he could only have found it after the rift was created, after the creation of Asgard, after Ymir was killed. The first gods were Odin's grandfather, father, then Odin and his brothers. This can help us establish a timeline or rough age for Odin. The Greek on the mask, which I assume Atreus learned from Kratos, implies that it has some connection to the Greek world (be it from the war of the primordials, the reign of the Titans, or the thousand or so years of Olympian supremacy before the destruction of Greece, the presence of Greek on the mask does not mean that it was created by Athena; it could have happened at any time before she died just as well as after). As Atreus mentions in his timeline, for a thousand years (from 19 years BF, when Helheim is officially full up and the number of Hel-Walkers increases dramatically) every mortal who didn't die a glorious death was conscripted into Hel's army. This implies that the creation of Valhalla, and Asgard by extension, was roughly 1,019 years BF.
In Muspelheim, Atreus tells Thor that Odin has been waiting "hundreds of years" to find another piece of the Mask, so it should be fine to have him wait a few more minutes. Now, we never see Odin tell Atreus exactly how long ago it was, nor how old he is, and Atreus does seem rather ignorant regarding Asgard culture considering he's had Mimir with him for three years; all that to say Atreus may not be speaking literally here, nor is he the best narrator we could hope for. However, from someone who grew up hearing myths about the gods from.his mother and further context from Odin's greatest advisor, "hundreds" could mean as few as 200 and as many as 999. Otherwise, he'd say "a thousand," "over a thousand years," or "thousands of years."
We can further parse out details if we consider the apparent tradition of the house of Odin, in which children of a certain age become warriors. Thrúd expected to become a warrior at roughly fifteen years old, the same as Magni and Modi, who were implied to be about that old when they started fighting in the war (likely when they killed Nerthus in the mountain, before the giants fully evacuated Midgard in 112 BF), and the same as Thor, who was implied to have recieved Mjolnir relatively young (based on Mimir having been in the Northlands roughly 250 years, knowing Fjörgyn before she died in childbirth, and seeing Thor grow up with Odin raising him) in 199 BF. So, if Odin continues this tradition of being literally young, or if a "young god" to him could be anything less than a century (Mimir is well over 250 years old, but described himself as "young and stupid" when he first came to serve Odin, and an "old man" now), we could have a general age range of 1,034 to 1,119 for Odin by the time Fimbilwinter starts. This is very messy with a lot of assumptions, but it at least gives a tighter starting point based on all of these small details we've been noticing.
Additionally:
• While it's true that Mimir claims that Máttugr Helson has been filtering the living in Helheim for a thousand mortal lifetimes, or roughly 100,000 years, that does not necessarily mean this is literal, nor does it mean Odin's rule has to predate Helson himself. There were two generations of Aesir before Odin (his father Borr, and his grandfather Búri (Búri specifically we know to have been alive at least until the time Týr's Temple was built, as he has a storeroom on the Midgard Lake of Nine)), and we don't know when Ymir and Auðumbla spawned them to begin with. The giants, at least, considered the Aesir and Vanir to be immature, like "squabbling children," which could imply that the Aesir gods as a dedicated tribe came along long after the birth of Ymir and Surtr.
• Odin being over 1,000 is still rather old (albeit not nearly as old as many of us originally thought), but this would put certain things into perspective as far as the wider world is concerned. The Titanomachy, for example, happened about a thousand years before GoW1. Zeus freed his siblings as a young god, but they didn't go to war with the Titans for decades after that at least, needing time to build their strength, have more children like Artemis, Ares, Athena, and Hephaestus, the ones we know for a fact were a part of the conflict. Kratos himself was in his 50s during GoW2 and 3, and spent several centuries at least wandering the Earth and eventually coming to settle in the Wildwoods (Kratos himself tells Atreus he's been alive for centuries even though he hasn't kept track of time very well, and Mimir could have only been near Greece with Oberon after the second Titanomachy and the fall of Olympus, before traveling north and north and more north to end up in Odin's domain). Kratos' own age is still highly debated by fans, but he is conservatively in his early 400s, and more generously in his mid 1,050s (based on strange calculation and an off-the-cuff dev statement which probably shouldn't be taken that seriously). Regardless, this would place the death of Ymir after the fall of the Titans if we're using the conservative age (which personally, I think is more likely given the evidence) and even a bit after the destruction of Greece itself if we use the more generous age.
And like I always say, I could be totally wrong. While I'm confident in my assessment and the details I've put together, that doesn't mean I'm right. So once again I ask you guys, what are your thoughts? Have you seen any details I've missed, in support or otherwise? Even if I disagree with you due to a wealth or lack of evidence one way or the other, I appreciate every perspective, because they all help narrow things down and make this timeline stronger.
Edit; also, apologies for the crunchy Odin image, I forgot to take my own screenshot and needed something quick.