From video games, movies, and literature, the Viking culture has been a major influence on all forms of media. Some aspects of the Viking culture are either undermined, false interpretations, or just expanded upon. In this case this blog will focus on the mythical, and magical aspect of the Viking culture. In particular, the magical element of Vikings has influenced greatly on the franchise the Polish franchise The Witcher. The Witcher,covers all media, starting as novels, then expanding to TV series, films, and a successful video game trilogy. The story consists of Geralt of Rivia, a “Witcher” or better said as a monster hunter, whose been bred and trained at a young age, who has supernatural powers, to fight against vicious beasts.
In the Norse Culture, the supernatural beings explored in literature consists of Gods, trolls, supernatural warriors, mythical dwarfs, goblins, and just about anything in our current pop culture. Likewise, The Witchercontains all these creatures, also expanding on the Norse mythic creatures. In the third installment of The Witcher, called the wild hunt, derives from the mythology of supernatural hunters, passing in a wild persuit for strange, and mythical deadlhy beasts through towns, cities, or straight up the wild.
Dwarfs and Elves in game in The Witcher, inspired by Norse culture.
Importantly, the topic of hex’s spells, curses, and generally sorcery is important in Norse culture, as it is deemed as an illegal, down upon element. However, one of the important Norse God figures, Odin learned magic, and curses as he was interested in the knowledge potential of it, as Odin found information, knowledge and culture important. Moving to sagas, Grettir the strong was cursed with being scared of the dark, and was killed by a sorcerer. To this, the sorcerer who killed Grettir was deemed weak, and was condemned as a warrior. Thus, showing to mortals that sorcery and magic as a weak, and basically a cheat system to fighting. Moving to The Withcer, magic is essential to the books, but importantly to the video games. Magic can replenish health, shields, and overall stun enemies and creatures, which is very useful.
Now Vikings in real life did not have supernatural encounters, but their literature, and Norse culture did dabble in the supernatural realm. Such as in the Saga of Grettir the Strong, which involves a cunning warrior, surviving as an outlaw in Iceland. Grettir, an outlaw, with no supernatural powers, yet cursed. Grettir is cunning, and a smart warrior must use his wits, and guts to survive enemy encounters, and the supernatural. Geralt, from The Witcher, isa supernatural warrior, who has dragon eyes, and skilled with magic, and infinite respawns in the game. However, as Grettir isn’t magic, he does seem to have the supernatural power to his side, as he is able to survive years as being an outlaw, with bounty hunters and others all betraying him, and trying to kill him. Only having magic being Grettirs weakness.
In conclusion, magic in Norse culture differs a lot to today’s pop culture, specifically The Witcher franchise. Where today people would love to have magic powers and sorcery, to Vikings, it was petty and deemed weak. But, having a respect to the creatures, as they were popular to Norse and today.
I strongly agree with your statement that the Witcher has many aspects of Norse mythology. I would like to state other video games that include Norse mythology. Firstly, an obvious one is the Elder Scrolls series. Elves, magic, and other creatures play a huge part in the series as they are crucial for the lore and combat. Another strong example is World of Warcraft. Like the Elder Scrolls franchise, the races that can be played, like dwarves and elves, strongly resemble Norse mythology. Many other role playing games, a genre of gaming, have references to Norse mythology, and this trend will likely continue.
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