I just started wondering

A Viking field hospital is just a pit where you fight the other sick and wounded.

For a mercy kill, you put a weapon in their hands and have them expend what little effort they can must into a swing.

Then when you stab them, it's death by combat.

Metal

These things aren't meant to be taken literally. Jesus Christ I hate Veeky Forums.

anyone else find it kinda weird that most pre-Christian mythologies generally had the afterlife suck for almost everyone, sure the Christian one still has it be a comparative minority who reach paradise but the requirements are much less restricting(since it more or less ties down to preferably being a Christian, and being a good person and/or truly repenting one's sins before dying)

you'd think with how much life sucked for most people in ancient times they'd want a more comforting afterlife, instead of the horrible mess most of them were

>/is spared the pain by a friend with a knife
That's Hel. The viking would hang himself instead, that's a free ticket to Valhalla.

That's really a huge reason why Christianity caught on like wildfire.

Life sucked and was difficult. Why would the afterlife be any different?

Well generally it doesn't suck that much.
Hel's domain is mostly just boring. You hang out and chill within Éljúðnir which is kinda cold and damp but otherwise peaceful and filled with other benign spirits. And it's only until Ragnarök, whereupon Hel is emptied out (Loki brings everyone for the battle) and everyone gets to go to either Gimlé (pretty much heaven) or Náströnd (pretty much hell).

Greeks had their own heaven and hell. The blessed Elysian Fields for the righteous and heroic, the tormenting Tartarus for the villainous and wretched, and the rather drab but serviceable Asphodel Meadows for everyone else.

Similarly Sheol is a dark and boring place. Yet more similarly Irkalla is empty and uninteresting.

Usually, the belief is that the afterlife is a desolate place where you sit around and do nothing forever.

Is Folkvangr ever described in detail? I always imagined it as Valhalla for more chill people.

>Usually, the belief is that the afterlife is a desolate place where you sit around and do nothing forever.
I'm counting that when I say that most mythologies have the afterlife suck for most people

>That's really a huge reason why Christianity caught on like wildfire.
true, I imagine the same principle applies to why Hinduism and Buddhism became popular throughout Asia, as they similarly offered a better solution, in their case Reincarnation(and in some variants stays in Heaven before being reincarnated), and in Buddhism's case achieving Nirvana(although I've never really understood the appeal to it)

I've never understood the appeal of Nirvana either. Live a good enough life and you'll cease to exist...

Yeah Buddhism is really pessimisitic when you get down to it.

In Hinduism Nirvana is described as more a transcendent state where you become one with Brahman, and have fulfilled the destiny of the universe knowing itself.

In Buddhism you just die. Forever.

But much of Odin's life in Norse myth is desperately trying to break the rules of fate he himself foresaw and only succeed in pushing it forward.

actually, the idea of Nirvana as I understand it is that it means you finally DO exist. Because everything in the world we commonly perceive is fake and an illusion created by desire.

As for why it's described as 'nothingness', well, it's because 'nothingness' is about as close in common, mortal terms we can use for it, and even then it's still radically far off.

I mean, it's sort of funny when you think about it: plenty of Abrhamic religions say the reward for your soul is very material things, a 'paradise' made by god but seems to cater to man in a very mortal way. Especially islam. (I think. Please tell me the '72 virgins' is just a meme and not supposed to be a real reward)

>Please tell me the '72 virgins' is just a meme and not supposed to be a real reward
I've heard it's a mistranslation and is actually meant to be 72 white grapes.

depends if he's handed a axe and takes a swing at the friend first, or if he's all "be mah angle"

>ALLAHU ACKBAR
>self detonates
>Oh hi Allah, can I have my 72 virgins please?
>No lol here's some grapes now fuck off

Top kek

>the one guy left standing is even more wounded and even more pissed that he didn't die yet

Those must be some fucking amazing grapes.

hay buddy, worship me and I'll give you 73 of them

I hope so, 72 virgins sounds fucking awful when you think about it. You ever pop a hymen? I have - it's disgusting. Do that 72 times over now, with women who have absolutely no idea how sex works.

Virgins with knowledge of how to please a man are all over middle eastern mythology.

it's probably supposed to be a metaphor that is taken too literally

reminds me of a comic where a Jihadist ends up with 72 virgins in the afterlife, and said virgins are all infants

Yeah like
Thor, Odin, and Loki are the three kings of breaking the rules of destiny and such.

I prefer the modern take.

Just a bunch of nerds of varying sizes in a room. For us on Veeky Forums it'd be all right because game night forever. But for some sod out in the desert it'd suck

>Well, hello Achmed!
>Do you... Catan?

are you implying norse afterlife sucked?

>get to drink and eat with your ancestors
>get to fight all day and have sex with valkyries
>get to train and be ready for the final battle
>only pre requisite to gettin in is dying valorously in combat

beats most religions by a mile

there was never ever reasoning given for the two existing, nor was there ever any reasoning given for why you went to either one. simply put, Odin leads one, Freyja leads the other, and they alone decide who goes where.

Fólkvangr or Valhalla.

Hel is exclusively for the old, sick and those killed by Thralls. A mercy killing was still seen as a death in battle (if the precedent the Eda sets for those who succumb to their injuries after the battle is applicable).

Don't knife your buddy. That's dishonorable and will assure him a date with Hel and get you set up for a series of revenge killings that likely won't end untileither his family or yours is no more. A warrior's death is in combat so if you want to practice euthanasia you challenge him to a duel.

Dying from the wounds suffered inbattle should be fine, even if the battle is over. Most of the ways to fall in battle aren't exactly instant, so there's really no reason to draw a line there because he still faced his enemy as a warrior and fell as one.

The real question is where the myths stand with regard to suicide, in this situation or any other. That I have no real idea about.

I assume these guys know what they're talking about when it comes to norse mythology, and im fairly certain in this song the guy kills himself with the intent to be sent to odin.

youtube.com/watch?v=62uCuLQtBkk

>Amon Amarth is an accurate source of Norse mythology
I don't think you'd get away with citing them in a paper.

What's the MLA citation format for a metal song?

>I assume these guys know what they're talking
>Amon Amarth

>are you implying norse afterlife sucked?
if you died in combat sure it's a pretty good deal, but for everyone else it's the epitome of a raw deal

That's pretty much the point of all religions from a population manipulation standpoint. All of them can be summed up as:

"Do what I say or you're going to hell."

It counts as dying in battle, just as dying in childbirth.

To hell, with all the rest of the heathens.

>just as dying in childbirth.

Norse mythology doesn't mention any reward for death in childbirth, nor does it equate it with death in battle. You're thinking of the Spartans.

>HEEEEEERE'S A JEW-WORSHIPPING RACE TRAITOR

Jew-worshippers actually got shit done.

Vikings sold white slaves to sandniggers and converted to Islam en masse in the Balkans.

>take like half a dozen enemy warriors prisoner.
>post the seriously wounded and ill to guard them.
>accidentally let them get their hands on some weapons and escape
>free Valhalla for your dudes

>Vikings converted to Islam en masse in the Balkans.
your geography or timeline is way off

>submitting to shitskin sandniggerjew religion that caused the downfall of Rome
>"that's okay because I can always make shit up about the Norsemen!"

Your forebearers are disappoint.

>WE WUZ VIKANGZ N SHIIET

IGNORE TURK POSTERS

Asked a muslim about it once.

The 72 virgins is just a meme. The actual text describes that you will receive an unlimited amount of Houri, which are essentially angels with clear skin that you can fuck.

They may or may not also be children. It depends on your interpretation of 'tender age.'

I remember hearing something about a ritual for warriors who were great heroes but never died in battle, where on their deathbed they carved a rune into themselves to gain access to Vahalla. Wish I remember the source.

They had many cases covered, you ddie of childbirth?folkvangr or whatever you spell it, you are a sailor who died in the sea? Go with that god of the seas I don't remember its name. Pretty much the only way to fuck your afterlife would be die sleeping, i think that was Hel for sure.

There was a German linguist who studied the earliest copy of the Koran ever found... it turns out that, through the hundreds of years since it was first written, the 'punctuation' used in the script has been changed. It turns out that the verse that the current versions have as offering up virgins, originally were probably talking about an unlimited supply of fresh grapes... something that kinda meshes well with the later parts of the text that claim that your wives will also be forever young and virile too...

Most Islamist schollars were pretty upset at what he claimed...

Wonder what all the Jihadis will do with their grapes. :P

You had to die in battle to get into Folkvangr. 50% of all heroic dead went there, it just doesn't get the publicity of Valhalla because the repressed homosexuals which make up the bulk of 'neopagans' aren't as excited by an afterlife run by a chick as they are about the feasting hall of manly men run by a manly man. Neither were a 'reward' akin to heaven either, they were desirable to men who enjoyed fighting sure, but they existed to marshal armies for Ragnarok not to provide a paradisical retirement home for mortals who were good boys and girls during their lives.

The bulk of the Norse people weren't warriors, even those who did fight, did so when required, not because they wanted into Viking Heaven™ which was a focus only for particularly fanatical career-marauders and wannabe heroes, hence the importance on aquiring fame many notable 'vikings' in the Sagas have.

Ran, the sea goddess, didn't offer you a paradise if she managed to drown you, your soul was just added to the contents of her net. She was a compulsive hoarder, married to an equally homocidal Jotun.

Hel or Helheim, ruled over by the goddess Hel, was for dishonorable dead, not people who died in their sleep. And it wasn't even that bad, it was just a very dark, murky and fog-wreathed world.

People try to apply Abrahamic monotheistic afterlife beliefs to Norse mythology, when in reality, pagan religions never focused on afterlives as a reward or punishment in the way Abrahamic religions do, they were just considered as a continuation of life in a different world or form.

There's strong evidence to suggest the Norse believed at least some of their dead ancestors became elves and continued their existence, just in a different state and place.

>Wonder what all the Jihadis will do with their grapes
Is wine allowed in Islamic paradise?

Thanks for the (you), very interesting. I should look more into it.

No

Did he die with his weapon at hand? Valhalla then.

The other way would be impaled by a spear. Easy way for royals to Odins side.