Assassin's Creed Valhalla Analysis

Written by: Markuz, May 16, 2021

In this fourth article about the ending of Assassin's Creed Valhalla we’ll pick up where we left off, with the Isu Odin traveling to the territories controlled by the Greco-Roman Isu, depicted in Valhalla as Jotunheim, in order to know more about the conscience transfer methods developed by this side of the First Civilization.
The analysis will show how and why Odin met with some recurring Isu characters from the past games like Juno andAletheia, delving into some sides of their characters that you might not know of.
Finally, we will also discuss Odin’s and Juno’s unholy alliance aimed at stealing the Seventh Method of Salvation,showing even more how determined Odin is to save himself and supposedly the Asgardian Isu, to the point of resorting to the tools of deception and theft.
That’s a lot to discuss so let’s jump right in. It’s time to find out the secrets and the real story behind the events of the Jotunheim arc!

The Jotunheim arc starts right as Odin reaches Jotunheim, which as we mentioned already a number of times in our previous articles, represents the territory controlled by the Greco-Roman Isu and led by Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, also known as the Father, the Mother and the Sacred Voice.
His first plan was to find Aletheia, represented within the mythological veil of the arc as the witch Angrboda, both because she supposedly knew everything that happened in that territory and also because he already knew and had already visited her before the events shown in the game.
Before reaching her house, Odin met the daughters of another Isu called – within the mythology layer - Aegir .This is relatively important as Aegir had a cauldron – which is not clear what it actually was in the Isu Era, maybe a technological container of some sorts – which was the object of a bet between him and Suttungr, the character from the Norse Mythology that represents Jupiter / Tinia. Aegir had lost the bet, sent the quote and quote “cauldron” to Jupiter but it never got there. Keep this in mind as will be relevant in our next article.

Upon arriving to Aletheia’s / Angrboda’s house, Odin overheard her discussing with Hyrrokin, which judging from her voice and especially her point of view, represents none other than Juno. Aletheia criticized Juno for considering Midgard, the realm where humans live, so in the allegory by extension, the humans themselves, as a crucible for her experiments.

This hints at Juno experimenting with the humans, which not only is confirmed by the fact that Juno eventually used the Seventh Method to have the DNA of her husband, Aita, resurface in the human DNA in the form of Sages but is also a reference to the experiments done by her and Aitahimself on humans through the so-called Olympos Project, that was introduced in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, where the two Isu used several kidnapped humans as guinea-pigs and combined them with specific relics, the so-called Atlantis Artifacts, used to power them.
For those who might not remember this from Odyssey, the purpose of the Olympos Project was to strike fear in the humans as the relationship between them and their subduers, the Isu, was getting stretched – and would later lead to the Human-Isu war.
Back to the events of the Jotunheim arc, while discussing with Juno, Aletheia stated that she knew already that the humans would outlive the Isu, meaning she herself (or her husband Loki) had looked at the calculations. How would that be possible? We might find the answers to that in her own notes, which can be found in a secret bedroom atop her house.

In this document she mentioned that she did…“something” to purify the Isu that visited her – something that stripped people of illusions, that allowed them to know the truth about themselves. Now, we know that, as mentioned in the Animus Anomalies dialogues, Loki and Aletheia were somehow actually able to experience the calculations about potential futures.
Considering that Angrboda in the Norse Mythology was considered a witch and judging by her notes in the Jotunheim arc it is possible that Aletheia had specific access of her own to the calculations, which she then shared with Loki. This would clarify what her notes mean: she might have used the calculations to somehow foretell the future to other Greco-Roman Isu: that’s what she may have meant by stripping them of illusions, making them know of their depths and heights and especially making them bear the “hard truth”.
In addition, that would also explain why she knows that the humans will survive the Toba Catastrophe way before the catastrophe actually happened.

As usual Juno showed her hate for the humans - which we know was fueled by the fact that they killed her father Saturn, one of the acts that led to the Human Isu war– but Aletheia seemed to not be intent on helping Juno in her attempt to bring about the ruin of the human race.
Odin finally revealed himself and started talking to Aletheia and while we now know that they knew each since before this encounter, it seems like by now it’s common knowledge that she and Loki are a couple, and this doesn’t even seem to be cause of any friction.
This might both mean that some time has passed since Odin found out about their union or that Odin did know about their union during the Asgard events already and was “just” angered about the fact that they had a son that bore the traits of the Isu Fenrir that would have brought his own death.
Seeing through the mythological veil, we can interpret the following dialogue with Odin stating that he had traveled to the Greco-Roman area of the First Civilization in order to know about the methods that allow to move a conscience from a body to another. Of course Juno overheard the conversation and mentioned the name of the Seventh Method of Salvation, called the Mead in the Jotunheim Arc.
In exchange for knowing more about the Seventh Method, Odin was then sent by Aletheia on somewhat of a fool’s errand to get – within the mythology veil –the so-called hag’s claw root.

Upon reaching the place where the root is located, players can find an inscription that actually states that *that* specific place is where three children were brought to life. The inscription mentions a wyrm, a wolf and a half dead one, which correspond exactly to the Norse Mythology descriptions of Jormungandr, Fenrir and Hel, Loki’s and Aletheia’s children. Thus this means, if this is not just part of the Norse Mythology layer, that Aletheia sent Odin to the place where she gave birth to her children.
When Havi returned to Angrboda, she brewed the roots in a concoction she then had him drink, which eventually lead him to say that Asgard was in a really weak state after the last attack suffered by the Jotnar. Reading through the mythological veil this means that somehow Aletheia, who at this point surely knew what Odin had done to her son, as confirmed by the dialogues in the Animus Anomalies, tricked him into drinking some sort of truth drug that pushed him to spill the beans about the current state of the Isu city of Asgard during the war with the Greco-Roman Isu.

This "drug" also pushed Odin to confide to Aletheia he would do everything in order to survive his foretold fate and eventually sapped him of his strength, which allowed for Aletheia and – plot twist – Loki to finally reveal that all of that was a trick to have him at knife point and force him to reveal his true plans about their son.
This is where finally Aletheia revealed to Odin that their son was actually called Fenrir, hinting at the fact that she too, knew about the calculations that Odin had experienced about his own demise at the hand of her son.
Loki proceeded to finally ask Odin what he truly was going to do with Fenrir, to which Odin confirmed, forced by the drug, that he wanted to kill him to avoid his fate but that he could and would not because of the blood oath he had sworn to him. In this sequence Odin seems to be strangely ready to accept his fate, stating that he would allow Fenrir to exit his prison when Ragnarok – that is, the Toba Catastrophe – would come and that he would have finally fought him on that day.

Aletheia and Loki finally decided not to kill, but to at least equally bind Odin in retaliation for what he did to their son, but

eventually he was freed by Juno, who was pursuing her own plans. In fact, this is where she suggested an unholy partnership, where she would have told him where to find the technology and tools needed to use the Seventh Method of salvation while he would have physically stolen them and eventually shared a "sample" of them with her.
The plan was for Odin to reach Utgard, which in our opinion is the Norse Mythology equivalent of the Isu city located over the Grand Temple close to Turin, New York, where Jupiter – here mentioned as Suttungr, Minerva – here mentioned as Gunlodr and Juno herself reigned over this side of the First Civilization.
More specifically, Odin had to access the Vault located underneath the Isu equivalent of Utgard, which got opened only on special occasions by Jupiter, steal the technology for the Seventh Method, and then escape. In the Jotunheim arc, such occasion is a feast held by Suttungr, that is Jupiter, while in the Isu story we can imagine such occasion to be a more serious one, maybe the pretense of a peace treaty between the two warring factions… or no occasion at all too.
Juno also suggested Odin to bring gifts to both Jupiter and Minerva in order to earn their trust and favor and thus to make the deception more effective, which is exactly what he did.
Once the deed was done, Odin was meant to meet Juno in a specific location, called the Well of Mimir in the Norse Mythology, which obviously had a different meaning in the Isu Story. Only then Juno would have shown Odin how to escape his foretold destiny connected to the Toba Catastrophe.

And on that note… that’s it for the fourth part of our analysis, were we had a look at Odin’s first steps in his quest to find the Seventh Method of Salvation in the Greco-Roman area of the First Civilization.
Join us in our next article of the series where we’ll follow Odin as he actually turns Juno’s plan to action, all the while meeting more established characters like Jupiter and Minerva and witnessing references and meaningful connections to the lore established in the past games of the series from Assassin’s Creed II to Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag.

Go to the FOURTH CHAPTER of this series, go back to the THIRD CHAPTER of the series or go back to the HUB.

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