Jörmungandr (God of War)

Jörmungandr, also known as the World Serpent, is a major character in the Norse Era of the series. He is a mythical Jötunn serpent destined to fight Thor in Ragnarök, which revealed to be already did before being unwittingly sent back in time as a result of a freak accident in the aforementioned duel. He subsequently becomes an ally of Kratos and Atreus after the pair awaken him from deep slumber within the Lake of Nine.
==Norse Mythology==
In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr (Old Norse: Jǫrmungandr, meaning "huge monster"), also known as the World Serpent (Old Norse: Miðgarðsormr), is a sea serpent, the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and Loki. According to the Prose Edda, Odin took Loki's three children by Angrboða—the wolf Fenrir, Hel, and Jörmungandr—and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard. The serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the earth and grasp its own tail. As a result, it received the name of the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök will begin.
Jörmungandr's arch-enemy is the thunder-god, Thor, with the two being prophesied to kill each other come Ragnarök. Jörmungandr will be slain by Thor, who will then take nine steps away before succumbing to the serpent's Eitr poison that it had been spewing in the air during the battle.
==Appearance==
Jörmungandr is a gigantic snake with a extremely long body. Jörmungandr body is covered in thick keeled scales that were pale-blue in color. Jörmungandr head rounded and compressed with a short and spatulate snout, and two nostrils located in-between its relatively small eyes that were widely spaced apart. Jörmungandr also sported (what at least seemed to be) a beard made of seaweed and other aquatic plants on the bottom of its chin. Jörmungandr eye color is light-orange eyes that had vertical slit pupils. Jörmungandr has a row of conical sharp teeth inside both its upper and lower jaws, as well as a pair of hinged fangs on the roof of its upper jaw. Instead of a having a snake tongue, Jörmungandr has a large human like tongue instead in his mouth. Jörmungandr also has a beard that is made out of seaweed and other aquatic plants on the bottom of its chin.
Before this, Jörmungandr was a large but otherwise normal-looking snake living in Jötunheim, having been captured and his soul stolen by Grýla. After having a Jötunn’s soul inserted into it by Atreus and Angrboda, he began to grow rapidly and change in appearance. Eventually, by the time Ragnarök began, he had changed to look more like his present form, albeit with less pronounced scales on his face and without his seaweed beard.
==Personality==
Jörmungandr harbors a strong hatred towards the Aesir gods, principally Thor and Odin, for massacring the giants to near extinction. He hates Thor the most (and vice-versa) and both are destined to slay each other during Ragnarök. According to Mimir, the serpent absolutely abhors the statue of Thor as the latter called Thor the fat dobber and getting sick of looking at the statue. This hatred extends to their allies as well, since he becomes enraged and nearly attacks Kratos, Atreus and Mimir when the latter mistakenly tells him that they are Odin's friends in the giants' ancient tongue. Týr was the only Aesir that earned his respect, as he helped to guard his temple and even responded to the horn in the temple's bridge, and the fact he also helped the giants. He also does not hate Mimir, likely as he is aware that the latter had also tried his best to stop Odin from massacring the giants and Mimir understanding his dead tongue.
Jörmungandr feels extremely lonely, due to being both the last living giant in Midgard (following Faye's demise) and one of the very few beings who speak his language. However, the serpent does enjoy talking when he can, being described as a "sparkling conversationalist" by Mimir. Due to this, the serpent also sympathizes with those who have suffered the same loss, which made him more than willing to help Kratos and Atreus.
==History==
===Before God of War (2018)===
At some unknown point, Jörmungandr was originally a Giant who locked his soul alongside his kin in magical marbles inscribed with their names, accomplished through the magic used by Angrboda's father before his death until the Champion took the final task of finding them and then freeing the souls of the locked up giants to revive them. Mimir speculates that the Giant who became Jörmungandr harbored a grudge towards Thor before locking his soul away.
===God of War (2018)===
According to Freya, the Serpent mysteriously appeared one day in the Lake of Nine. At one point, he had fought against Thor in a battle that was felt across all the Nine Realms, ending in a stalemate. He has remained in the lake ever since, growing so large he's able to encircle all of Midgard. When the Jötnar were hunted down by Thor and the other Aesir, the remaining Jötnar fled to their homeland, making Jörmungandr and "the Guardian" the last Giants in Midgard. He passes the time by sleeping and protecting Tyr's Temple. A nearby horn can be used to summon him. According to Mimir, the prophecy of Ragnarök foretells that the serpent and Thor will fight again. In the fight, Thor will hit Jörmungandr so hard that it splinters Yggdrasil and sends him back in time to a period well before his birth (explaining his sudden appearance at the Lake).
Jörmungandr first encounters Kratos and Atreus in the Lake of Nine, rising out of it and causing the water level to drop. He speaks to the pair briefly (though they cannot understand him) before returning to his slumber.
After Kratos and Atreus acquire the head of Mimir (the only person "alive" that knows his language), they summon the serpent to learn how to get to Jötunheim. The first thing Jörmungandr sees upon waking up happens to be a large statue of Thor, whom he despises with a passion. He destroys the statue, tearing off the upper half and swallowing it. He then spots Kratos and Atreus on the realm travel bridge, recognizing Mimir when he introduces himself. He becomes visibly angry when Mimir mistakenly identifies the two as friends of Odin but calms down when Mimir hurriedly corrects himself. After learning of their intentions, he agrees to help them reach Jötunheim and realigns the bridge to make sure they're heading in the right direction.
When Kratos brings a sick Atreus to Freya's house with Mimir, they hear the horn on the bridge sounding in the distance, noting that someone has called the Serpent. The identity of the mysterious caller still remains unknown.
Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir later realize that the statue of Thor may have contained Mimir's second eye, which they need to reach Jötunheim. When Mimir asks him about the statue, Jörmungandr responds that he thinks it may still be in his stomach, and reluctantly allows them to enter his mouth to look for it. While they search within his belly, he comes under attack from Baldur, expelling the three next to the corpse of the Frost Giant Thamur.
Later, when under attack by Thamur's reanimated corpse (courtesy of Freya), Atreus calls out for him in the ancient tongue, and almost immediately, the colossal Serpent comes to their aid by attacking Thamur's corpse, allowing Kratos to defeat Baldur.
The serpent retreats after the fight and is not seen again. Kratos and Mimir suggest that it's best to leave the Serpent alone to recover. Atreus will yell out a thank you to the beast. The player cannot interact with him for the rest of the game although he still appears in the background due to his enormous size.
===God of War: Ragnarök===
When Atreus sneaks out of Sindri's house to secretly go and talk with Freya in Midgard, Sindri suggested that he should go and talk with Jörmungandr as an alternative in order to get answers about Loki and Ragnarök. Upon reaching Midgard, Atreus proceeded to call the World Serpent in the dead tongue, which caused the beast to emerge from within the earth out of its hibernation. When Atreus tells him that he is seeking for answers about Loki, Jörmungandr gave him only one answer before going back to his slumber: Ironwood. When Atreus asked Sindri on what it means, the dwarf grumbles that they should have stayed at home. However, what the two didn't know was that Ironwood is a region in Jötunheim, the home realm of the Jötnar. Jörmungandr can also later be seen sleeping in the mountains of Midgard after returning to his hibernation.
While in Ironwood, Atreus meets Angrboda and they revive a large male snake that had its soul stolen by Angrboda's grandmother. The two revive the soulless snake by giving it the soul of a giant, which caused the snake to be resurrected, though it quickly takes its leave, leaving the two confused as to whether or not it had worked.
Later in Muspelheim, Angrboda told Atreus that the snake was growing rapidly, far beyond normal growth rate. Atreus was not surprised, having already suspected that snake was in fact, Jörmungandr, having realized why the serpent told him to seek out Ironwood.
Jörmungandr, or rather his younger version which has now grown exponentially, is later seen fighting off Thor with Ragnarök in Asgard. When Kratos and Mimír observed that it didn't come from Midgard, Atreus knew it was the one he revived earlier, but he held off explaining as they were in the middle of the battle. During his battle with Thor, Jörmungandr accidentally destroyed the portal to Alfheim, blocking Kratos' reinforcements from that realm. They saw Jörmungandr and Thor battle again, only for the giant to be struck by the God of Thunder in the end and disappearing soon after, revealing that he has gone back in time to when he first appeared in the Lake of Nine many centuries ago.
After Ragnarök occurred and Asgard was destroyed, Freya pondered why Jörmungandr is still somehow present in the Lake of Nine. Mimír realized that the legend of the World Serpent being sent back in time was true and that the serpent they saw in Asgard was a younger Jörmungandr, fresh from Jotunheim, who was sent back in time and would grow into the serpent they knew today. Kratos recalled that Jörmungandr found Atreus familiar when they first met him, and deduced that Atreus must have met the serpent in Jotunheim. Freya later aired her notice that the World Serpent seemed to have a personal vendetta against Thor, and Mimír correctly guessed that due to Atreus having learned soul magic, he must have put the soul of a Giant who already hated Thor inside the snake. If Kratos and Freya would return to Midgard, Jörmungandr is no longer seen where he had slept though parts of his scaly body are still seen in the frozen Lake of Nine.
==Powers & Abilities==
Jörmungandr is one of the most powerful beings in all the Realms, enough so to equal the tremendous might of Thor, the strongest of the Aesir. He is one of the strongest giants of all time and physically largest of them.
*Immeasurable Strength: Due to his gargantuan size, Jörmungandr is among the physically strongest beings in the Nine Realms. He was capable of stalemating Thor (the physically strongest of the Norse gods and second most powerful) in a clash that was felt across all the Nine Realms. His strength was so great that the battle between him and Thor at Ragnarok splintered Yggdrasil and broke space-time itself, a feat which Kratos, who had experience traveling through time, regarded as madness. He was also able to quickly overpower and kill the reanimated corpse of the colossal Frost Giant Thamur. Another demonstration of his strength is how he can pull himself forward and hold his heavy head and body almost horizontally and push the World bridge with ease.
*Superhuman Durability/Nigh-Invulnerability: Jörmungandr has tremendous levels of superhuman durability, enough so to survive two all-out battles with Thor, who had killed many giants before him. Although he was briefly knocked out by Baldur, it seems to have dealt no damage from him and he was quickly able to recover and aid Atreus and Kratos by killing off Thamur.
*Venom: Jörmungandr possesses an extremely lethal venom called Eitr, which is potent enough to kill a God as powerful as Thor. He imbues Kratos' axe with some of it on his first meeting with the duo, permanently increasing Kratos Runic stat by 2.
==Trivia==
*In addition of being heroic iteration of the mythological serpentine Jötunn of the same name, Jörmungandr is not the literal son of Atreus/Loki and Angrboda, but rather a vengeful Jötunn who presumably died at hands of Thor before being reincarnated by the two in the body of a snake.
*Jörmungandr's Greek equivalent (as a giant serpent) is Python. He is also reminiscent of the symbol of Ouroboros, a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, as he grew so large that he was able to encircle Midgard and grasp his own tail in his teeth.
*Jörmungandr is larger than Thamur and encircles the whole world.
*The marble holding the soul used to revive the snake in Ironwood was labeled “Jörmungandr” in Norse runes.
*In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is an actual child of Loki and Angrboda. In the God of War series, Jörmungandr was born when Atreus transplanted the soul of a Jötun into the body of a large snake whose soul had recently been stolen by the latter's grandmother, Grýla, thus technically making Atreus Jörmungandr's "creator".
*Atreus picks up on Jörmungandr's language throughout the game and shows knowledge of understanding it when he calls for the World Serpent to help them during their final battle with Baldur. The only one else who speaks this language is Hræsvelg, showing that is a language spoken by the Jötunn race they both belong to.
*Whilst Kratos travelled with Mimir and a sick Atreus back to Freya, the horn to summon Jörmungandr was blown. Who exactly blew the horn and what transpired is currently unknown. Game director Cory Barlog stated he was interested in exploring this mystery in a future game.
*During Mimir's first conversation with Jörmungandr, he mentioned that the Serpent is familiar with the type of loss Kratos and Atreus are going through. This is possibly due to the fact that he witnessed Thor's bloodthirsty slaughtering of the Giants, leaving him the only one left in Midgard.
**During this same conversation, Jörmungandr tells Mimir that Atreus looks familiar. Mimir believes it has something to do with time travel, to Kratos' disbelief.
***Kratos incredulousness towards Mimir's story of Jörmungandr travelling through time is rather odd, considering he himself has travelled through time in the past, as well as seeing more recent examples of time manipulation such as when he stepped into the Light of Alfheim, encountering Vanir Temporal Magic and the fact that time flows differently in the different Norse Realms.
*According to Mimir, the Serpent likes to be called "Jörmi" by those he considers close friends.
*Jörmungandr shares similarities with Cronos, who is also the great-grandfather of his creator Atreus:
**Both were called upon using a horn.
**Both played a key role in the chronology of the games they appeared in.
**Both have swallowed Kratos.
***Interestingly, the similarities were referenced when Atreus asked Kratos if he's ever been inside the stomach of a giant and Kratos replied, "Never one that was not trying to eat me," a reference to how Cronos once ate Kratos.
**Kratos' line is curious, considering he had to enter the dead Hydra's mouth to save the Boat Captain in the first game, and the beast was technically not trying to eat him, though the other heads of the did attempt to eat him prior to his defeat of the main head. Also, Kratos merely entered the esophagus of the Hydra, not its stomach which he let the Boat Captain fall into.
*During the battle against Asgard, Atreus noticed that the World Serpent fighting Thor looks different. It can be seen that the Jörmungandr fighting the God of Thunder has no beard, unlike the other Jörmungandr that Atreus and Kratos had met during their journey.
*Since the younger version of Jörmungandr had participated during Ragnarök in which he is sent back in time, the real and older Jörmungandr remains hidden in Midgard. This was noted by Freya as she strangely noticed signs of the World Serpent even after his supposed disappearance.
**At some points, the player can see the older Jörmungandr sleeping on a mountain in Midgard. However, the serpent mysteriously disappeared after the event of Ragnarök. What happened to this Jörmungandr or where he is now remains unknown.
***A glitch can occur that causes the older Jörmungandr to reappear on the mountain without explanation.
*His appearance looks notorious similar to the one Jörmungandr in the tv series Vikings, their both the same like notable their face, although in tv version has longer fins and beard.
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