Chaotic, indulge, apathy, disloyalty , manipulative, and selfish; These are all the characteristics of the Greek gods. Passionate, purposeful, emphatic, energetic, sympathetic; these are the characteristics of the Norse gods. Greek mythology is a combination of stories.

Norse mythology is a body of stories from the North Germanic people. Greek mythology has no plot or storyline as a whole and has ambiguous beginnings with no endings since the gods never die. In contrast, the Norse mythology has layers of stories that foreshadow and create tension to the climax at the ‘final battle’ known as Ragnarök, which is the end of world where most of the gods will die and lead to the end of Norse mythology. While both mythologies are polytheistic and explore human nature in the actions of gods, the Greek and the Norse gods show very different characteristics. A big difference between Greek and Norse mythology is that the Norse gods are a lot closer to mankind whereas Greek gods have very little physical connections to mankind although they behave like humans. What caused the gods to behave so differently in these two mythologies?

After delving into both sets of mythology, differences in the longevity of gods caught my attention. The Norse gods have mortal lifespans with the possibility of being killed, but the Greek gods have immortal life spans with no possibility of death. For example, Boulder, in Norse mythology, was a god of kindness. He was killed by a mistletoe spear. No matter how hard the gods tried to bring him back from the underworld, he remained dead forever. This expresses the cruelty of Norse mythology, and its similarities with the human world. On the other hand, Greek mythology portrays gods as immortal, and it also uses their unlimited lifespan as a tool to draw a thick line between humans and gods, and establish the superiority of the Greek gods.

These differences in the gods’ lifespan ultimately influence their actions and
characteristics in their respective mythology. In the Norse stories, the gods are given consequences from their actions that drive them with motivation and purpose to their limited lives. With limited time, everything will certainly diminish at one point. For example, mortality gives life its scarcity. The possibility of losing it grants its value. Odin, the almighty god, sees the prophecy that he will be killed in the battle of Ragnarök by the Fenrir wolf, and he tries every method to imprison Fenrir thereafter. The fate of death makes Odin treasure his life. Even though Odin couldn’t escape his fate and still got eaten by the Fenrir Wolf, his attempts to prevent himself from this fate give his life a purpose. 

Thor, in Norse mythology, is similarly influenced by his mortality. Thor meets the Midgard serpent, and they have a fight that nobody wins. Unsatisfied with the result, Thor becomes determined to have a life or death battle with the serpent in the future. I believe that this could have only happened if Thor is aware of his mortality. If one of the Greek gods were to meet the serpent, there would be no desire for a life or death battle. This is because Thor’s mortality motivates him to fight the serpent. The mortality of Thor and the serpent’s life gives a bet to this battle; If Thor wins the fight, the serpent’s life would diminish, and vice versa. By giving up the most important thing that one values, the uncertainty could easily arouse one’s curiosity along with the huge psychological satisfaction when one wins. This uncertainty, the high cost and high reward, is what really interests Thor. He is enraptured by the possibility of his own death and the possibility of his opponent’s death. The joy and the sense of achievement of winning the battle motivates Thor to fight and improve his skills. However, if Thor were immortal like the Greek gods, no uncertain factors would exist in this battle since there would be no possibility that Thor can be truly defeated or killed. With no uncertainty factors that bring adrenaline and motivation, Thor would not have the desire to start this battle.

In contrast to the Norse gods, the Greek gods have unlimited time. This means that nothing is scarce for them, so they don’t have to treasure anything. Challenges and costs barely exist to them. They don’t have the motivation to grab a specific opportunity and don’t have to regret anything in life. Time can slowly fade everything away, and the Greek gods clearly have too much time that nothing could be left and nothing could matter in their endless future. This sense of endless time makes the Greek gods feel absurd to their core. Consequently, they always try to find some joy out of their life. They participate highly in the world of humans. They try to find joy and the sense of achievement by manipulating humans and being the omnipotent existence that can change the game in a breath. They try to find the rise of adrenaline by fulfilling their sexual desires and breaking common moral lines. But in the end, their chaotic lives only reveal the empties in their soul resulting from their immortal lifespans.

The Greek goddess Demeter lived among the humans, fed the child of Queen Metaneira, and breathed the breath of immortality on him. One night, Queen Metaneira interrupted and halted the process of immortality for her child. Demeter was furious and visited the earth with a long period of famine to punish Metaneira. This story revealed the loneliness of Demeter. Most things in Demeter’s life passed away in front of her because of their mortality and her immortality. She loves to care for this human child but she knows that the child is going to leave her since the child is mortal. Thus, she tries to turn the child into an immortal god because she wants to keep people she treasures forever. This is why Demeter acted so revengeful when she failed to make the child immortal because she felt like Queen Metaneira took her loving child away.

Immortality brings absurdity and disappointment to the Greek gods when all these humans and things they love passed away from them. Immortality also brings rage and anger to the gods when tragedy happens since they have to live with the pain and trauma forever. Due to the supremacy of the gods, they can vent their anger on humans with no consequences most of the time. Thus, as time moved on, the Greek gods became more and more cruel, and more broken inside.

Mortality gives vulnerability and challenges. Immortality only brings absurdity and meaninglessness to life. This is why the Norse gods are more motivated than the Greek gods to accomplish their goals and have more purposeful lives. Just imagine if humans had immortal lifespans. How chaotic would the world be? There would be no need to create new life, and the world would be filled with the same bunch of people forever. The earth would “freeze” while the human economy and innovative developments would be stuck. Moreover, 99.99% of all living creatures on earth are mortal. This means that natural evolution saw death as a beneficial aspect for living creatures, suggesting that immortality would bring inefficiency.