 Written by: Markuz, May 16, 2021 In the fifth episode of our analysis of Valhalla’s context and story we are going to follow Odin in his journey to what we believe to be a very important Isu city in order to turn Juno’s plan aimed at stealing the Seventh Method of Salvation into action. In this article we’ll show what Odin actually did in order to deceive and trick all the Isu standing on his path and later steal the Seventh Method as he met both Jupiter and his daughter Minerva and a number of other Greco Roman Isu. We’ll also discuss several referencesto the lore established in the past games of the franchise, the most relevant of which involved none other than Ezio Auditore and, towards the end, we’ll have a look at different kind of connection to… another area of Valhalla too. That’s once again a lot to discuss so don’t blink and keep following us. This is how Odin deceived them all for his own interest and that of the Asgardian Isu… We pick up where we left off, with Odin embarking on his quest to find gifts in order to trick both Jupiter and Minerva, as planned with Juno. For the former he did find the quote and quote “cauldron” – whatever that actually was – that Jupiter had rightfully won in a bet with the isu Aegir. This object had apparently been stolen by a group of people that supported the war against the Asgardian Isu and who despised Aegir who, in their eyes, despite being a Greco-Roman Isu, gravitated too much towards them. For Minerva, instead, Odin got what is represented in the Norse Mythology layer as Thor’s Bridal circlet and in the next article of this series we’ll see *how* he used it to gain her favour. Odin then reached Utgard, the main city of the Jotunheim arc, which bears a question we already touched upon in our previous analysis – Which city of the Jupiter-led side of the First Civilization does it represent? An immediate answer could be Eden, as it’s the most famous Isu city associated with the Greco-Roman Isu and Assassin’s Creed in general, but, as we mentioned in part 4 of this series, we believe otherwise.
The city atop the Grand Temple was in fact shown in the ending of Assassin’s Creed Revelations as it got wiped out by the Toba Catastrophe. More specifically, the final video of the ending in Revelations showed *this* triple statue of Minerva which, in Jupiter’s message to Desmond, was directly connected to the Grand Temple through a cylindrical vertical tunnel. So, the city we see as Utgard in the Jotunheim arc was likely to be an important Isu city built atop the Grand Temple of Turin, New York. Yeah, Odin did travel pretty far from the supposed home of the Asgardian Isu in Norway. After infiltrating the Isu city, Odin finally found Jupiter, here represented as Suttungr. It is very easy to see that this character represents Jupiter both because he looks pretty old and especially because of his huge belt buckle, the very same worn by Jupiter in Assassin’s Creed Revelations.
Odin presented himself and right away offered the quote and quote “cauldron”, as an initial step towards the ending of the hostilities between Asgardian and Greco-Roman Isu, another element to support that the cover up for his actual mission was a potential peace treaty between the two sides. The ruse worked and Jupiter started trusting Odin, which also prompted him to ask for the chance of meeting Minerva, here represented as Gunlodr, who is confirmed to be Jupiter’s daughter. The prospect of Odin convincing Minerva to leave her work for a moment and join Jupiter in the so-called “feast” organized for their guest also pushed Jupiter to trust the Asgardian Isu even more. Eventually Odin found Minerva in her working place, possibly a lab of sorts? And this is where it’s actually easy to understand that Gunlodr is actually a representation of Minerva, even before meeting her. In fact, her workplace contains several documents written by her, the first of which is roughly centered upon her refusing marriage proposals by other Isu because she is too focused on her work. The other three, instead, are journal notes that detail what specifically she was doing and her observations about her own work. In the first one, dubbed Entry 37, she discussed the Nornir and how it is established in the Norse Mythology that they have already spun the threads of fate for everyone, which are therefore fixed. By following these countless threads, Gunlodr’sself imposed work was to find one of them that did not lead to Ragnarok.
As shown in AC3, the Isu were not successful, so they moved on but Minerva kept on trying and eventually started using the Eye to “speak”, that is to send messages through time in some of the various potential futures she observed through the Eye, in order to help the humans, that would have lived centuries and millennia after her, avert the return of a catastrophe similar to the one that the Isu would have experienced. This is exactly what we see in the second part of the document, where Gunlodr / Minerva seems already resigned that the catastrophe *will* take place and as such has already moved on to try and help those who might come after her.
Entry 91 sees Minerva gaining even more success, with the technology (here called seidr, another word for magic) being able to hold the communication channel with the potential futures. Minerva wasn’t able to see who was at the other end of the channel, but she didn’t care. She had to deliver her message hoping that someone would heed her words. And eventually that happened, but when Odin reached her in the Isu city close to the Grand Temple, she had not been that successful yet. When Odin met Gunlodr / Minerva, she actually discussed her lab and the technology she was using. We can even clearly see that the fractured glass wall that she is facing has the shape of an eye, in order to show that she was in front of The Eye, as in the device that provided the calculations, another proof that this took place so very close to the Grand Temple of Turin. Minerva explained to Odin that after seeing that all the potential futures led to the Toba Catastrophe, Jupiter stopped using The Eye and considering it a viable method to save the First Civilization, confirming what Juno had already stated in Assassin’s Creed 3. Thus, when Odin met Minerva she already was the only Greco-Roman Isu who kept using the device in order to at least save the future generations. More specifically, she told him she had already left some messages here and there and had even received answers. Before leaving for the meeting with Jupiter though, Minerva tried to show Odin how the process would work and tried to see if she could get an answer and the following dialogue is like a love letter to longtime fans of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. In fact Minerva talked to the Eye and called for a Prophet, the same name used by Minerva in Assassin’s Creed II when referring to Ezio Auditore.
Thus, Odin and Minerva traveled to Jupiter’s palace and in that occasion they had a very long and interesting dialogue. At its beginning, for example, Minerva confessed that the other Greco-Roman Isu did not know or care about the impending catastrophe they were going to face. The dialogue also provides more context as to when these events are happening. As a matter of fact, it is stated that all methods of salvation from the catastrophe have failed but one, the Seventh Method. Minerva also said she knew about the Seventh, but that she was hesitant to use it because activating it would have meant “defiling our well of knowledge from which all of Midgard drinks”. Reading between the lines, this means that Minerva believed that using the Seventh Method, and thus transferring Isu minds and conscience in the human DNA to be carried across time, would ruin the DNA itself, described as the well of knowledge, that Midgard, that is the humans, is drinking from. In other words, Minerva was stating that adding the Isu minds to the human DNA would very likely course correct the history of mankind itself, bringing chaos at the very least if not more. And looking at what the Aita sages, Eivor, Sigurd and Basim did, she wasn’t that wrong….
An important stop of Odin and Minerva’s trip was the Vault, which we hypothesized to be the Grand Temple of Turin, NY. Minerva even sort of confirmed it, stating that that was where the Greco-Roman Isu kept their greatest discoveries. At the end of their trip, before reaching Jupiter, Minerva pointed at a tower located at the top of the city, where the Jupiter-led Isu used a lot of magic, meaning they concentrated a lot of their technology. This is potentially the tower that was used as part of the First Method of Salvation, which, as we mentioned in our previous articles, aimed at containing the energy of the solar flare that would have caused the Toba Catastrophe. A tower that would have later been abandoned by Jupiter and Minerva… Eventually the two reached Jupiter and the feast ensued, with Jupiter forcing Minerva to stay and enjoy her time there. After gaining the trust of Jupiter and Minerva, Odin also addressed the other Isu that had gathered in the palace, possibly to be able to move more freely and achieve his secret objective. At this event, as we mentioned in our previous analysis video, Odin also noticed that the Greco Roman Isu used humans as slaves, as also stated and shown in other locations within Jotunheim.
What’s interesting to notice here is that Loki called himself Thokk, which in the Norse Mythology is the name that Loki adopted when he disguised and then refused to weep for the death of Odin’s son, Baldr, whom he himself had killed (both in the Norse Mythology and in the Isu story, as we mentioned in our first video of this series). The Myth had it that Hel, the ruler of the realm of the same name, had agreed that Baldr would have gone back to the living if all things in the world wept for him, but Loki, disguised as Thokk did not do that, forcing Odin’s son to stay in Hel. While this may just look like part of the mythological veil, some of these events surrounding Loki and Odin’s son may hold some truth in the Isu narrative as well, as this story is also told by Eivor to the Native Americans she finds in Vinland. Back to the so-called feast, Odin also witnessed a Greco Roman Isu complaining that two of her brothers died in the attack on Asgard while Jupiter was throwing a feast for their opponent’s leader. All in all, Odin partook in several activities during the event organized by Jupiter and eventually was able to have the Vault, meaning the Grand Temple opened. He then darted inside to fulfill his secret mission and… … And sadly that’s all the time we have for today’s article. Yeah, we are also adding cliffhangers to our analysis now, that’s a thing. Seriously though, what do you think of our interpretation of this part of the Jotunheim Arc? Do you agree or disagree with it? Let us know in the comments below! Also, keep following us, as in our next article we’ll complete the analysis of the Jotunheim arc, having a look at what Odin really found in the Grand Temple, his final fight with Loki with some interesting revelations about his son Fenrir and especially, the final sacrifice by Odin and the explanation of the Seventh Method of Salvation. Go to the SIXTH CHAPTER of this series, go back to the FOURTH CHAPTER of the series or go back to the HUB.
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