Helheim

Connections

• After she was ambushed, Diana woke up here, holding the endless attacking dead at bay for eleven days before the Goddess Hel found her and ejected "the troublemaker"

Context

Helheim is one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, and the domain of the goddess Hel, Loki's daughter. This place is often just called Hel, after its queen. "Hel," by the way, means "hidden" in Old Norse. Many people tend to compare the Norse Helheim with the Hell from Christian beliefs. Apart from the fact that they are both considered to be underground realms of the dead, there really is little similarity between Hel and Hell.

In Christianity, Hell is considered a place of damnation, of punishment for the wicked. In contrast, Hel is simply an afterlife. A few sources describe it as unpleasant, but those sources came from after the arrival of Christianity. We don't fully understand what the old Norse tribes thought or believed about the afterlife, but their literature gives some clues. In general, where someone ended up after death depended on how they died. Warriors slain in battle were taken to Valhalla. Folkvangr was said to be "the field of the people" or "the field of warriors," and was the realm of the goddess Freya. Those who died at sea were sometimes taken to the underwater home of the giantess Ran. The "general" afterlife, the place where most people ended up, was Hel.

Even if Helheim wasn't really all that bad in classic Norse mythology doesn't necessarily mean it's a pleasant place in the Brawlhalla universe. But, there's not much to suggest that it's much different from the "general afterlife" of classic Norse mythology (although, Bödvar did lead his Skandian people against Hel herself). Until more evidence comes, I'm inclined to believe that Helheim, and Hel herself, even if mostly neutral, is a bit on the hostile side. This is further evidenced by what happened at the shores of Nastrond.

What are the shores of Nastrond? Well, it's the "corpse shore," a place in Helheim where the the great serpent Niohogger lives and feeds on corpses and the roots of Yggdrasil. It is also the afterlife location for those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking (the worst possible crimes, according to the Norse). This is what Diana had to deal with for eleven days before being thrown out by Hel.