Odd and the Frost Giants

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2008

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary: “The Gates of Asgard”

Thor stops at the forest’s edge. Odd asks for luck, insisting the gods’ blessing will matter, but Loki asks what they’ll do if he doesn’t come back; Odd promises that nothing will have gotten worse if he doesn’t. Thor points out that the giant could eat him, but Loki and Thor just as quickly assure him this rarely happens. Loki helpfully points out that Odd is so small and bony as to be hardly worth eating. Odd, suddenly in a grimmer mood, sets off toward the walls of Asgard. Odd notices that the path is easier, and the days are longer in Asgard, but he still reminisces about “when he had walked with ease and never thought twice about the miracle of putting one foot in front of the other and pushing the world toward you” (81).

Odd slowly realizes that the wall he is approaching is gigantic, and a huge figure—so big he must lean back to look at him—is sitting on a boulder beside it. The man, who Odd thinks is a statue at first, yells “Who are you” at Odd, and Odd politely answers, baffling the Frost Giant. The Giant asks what he is, and Odd explains that he is a boy. The Giant grows angrier, and Odd realizes he cannot even run away if the Giant tries to harm him. Odd explains, smiling, that he is here to drive the Giants out of Asgard. His cheerful demeanor confuses the Giant so much that he does not think to kill Odd but rather wants to know more about him. The Giant boasts that he defeated the other gods and has taken Asgard for himself, including Freya, and the other Giants are coming to assist him. This does not bother Odd, who continues to smile.

The Giant grows more infuriated by Odd’s perplexing smile, which he has never experienced before. Odd tells him to quiet down and then asks why he wants to rule Asgard. The Giant more politely explains that his brother built the wall around Asgard in fulfillment of a deal—if he finished it within six months, he would receive the Sun, the Moon, and Freya as payment; if he didn’t finish it on time, he would receive nothing. On the last day, a beautiful mare lured the giant’s stallion away, and he couldn’t finish the work. Thor then came and killed the Giant. The Giant insists that every story ends like that, and he is determined to break the pattern.

Odd asks why the Giant’s brother wanted the Sun, Moon, and Freya, and the Giant yells at him for questioning him. Odd continues to smile, and the Giant asks if he can pick him up so they can talk face-to-face. Odd agrees. The giant carefully lifts Odd and then whispers, “Beauty,” as his answer, further explaining that the Sun, Moon, and Freya are the three most beautiful things in the world, and there is no real beauty in Jotunheim. (His words are self-contradictory, as he points out that they have the Sun and the Moon there, as well as beautiful mountains, and Freya is more talkative than he imagined.) He insists that he now wants both beauty and revenge.

Odd asks what will become of Midgard without spring, and the Giant insists he does not care. Odd points out that if he doesn’t allow spring to happen, things will die and cease to be beautiful. The Giant puts Odd on top of the wall, and Odd realizes Asgard is a perfect reflection of his own village, just bigger. Using his memories from the Well to guide him, Odd then questions whether the other Giants are really on their way. The Giant realizes that the other giants might have too much to do with their ordinary lives to care about defeating the gods. He also then says that Freya is beautiful, but the cats that pull her carriage scratched him and she is always angry and shouting. Odd finally gets the giant to admit that he wants to go home, but the Giant can’t go home until he’s won, and he doesn’t want to admit that Odd beat or outwitted him.

Odd insists that he wants to save the Giant’s life: If he takes Freya or Mjolnir back to Jotunheim, he’ll die eventually. They both know how the tales play out, so Odd offers the Giant something else—the carved wood, which he has shaped into an image of his mother. While the stories the gods tell make the gift something else—a key, a heart, or a life-size reproduction of Mjolnir that fools the giant—Odd’s gift comes with the story of his parents’ meeting and his mother’s beauty. He is careful not to specify that he saw this in the Well, instead pretending that he saw it in his father as a boy. The carving of his mother as she looked when his father met her is beautiful, and it makes the Giant smile. He takes it to brighten the halls of Jotunheim.

The Giant asks if he should say goodbye to Freya, but Odd says that it isn’t wise, and the Giant agrees, clearly desperate to get away from her. He moves away from Odd, strangely growing as he does. He lifts his hand and snow begins to fall in a blizzard, allowing him to disappear. Odd yells after him for his name, but the Giant does not answer.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Four Transformations and a Meal”

Odin finds Odd trying to take shelter from the snow on the wall. He asks, “Good?” and Odd explains that he is cold and was worried nobody would ever find him up on the wall. He then tells Odin that he made the Frost Giant go away with magic, thinking, “If magic means letting things do what they wanted to do, or be what they wanted to be” (103). The eagle flies away and returns with worn-looking, soft shoes, saying they are Loki’s—the shoes that walk on air. Odd puts them on but is too afraid to move off the wall. He cannot move his legs or feet. Odin screeches and then launches himself at Odd, who walks backward in fear, inadvertently moving onto the air. Odd, suddenly not afraid, slides down the air happily toward Asgard, hearing cats from the stable.

Freya greets the gods and Odd. Odd finds her beautiful and her smile calming and safe; when he explains the state of the gods, she laughs and brings them into the mead hall in an instant. Odin lands on her arm and makes her bleed, but she does not seem to notice, instead petting him. She asks him to return and shapes him with her hand until he takes the form of a bearded man with a “cruel, wise” appearance. He has one eye and dresses himself in a gray cloak and a large hat. He thanks Freya and explains, in full sentences for the first time, that he was losing his humanity rapidly.

Freya kneads with her hands at Thor next, reshaping him into a hairy, muscular man with a red beard, so big Odd can barely comprehend his size. He winks at Odd pleasantly. Odd promises to show him where Mjolnir is when things have settled. Freya teases Loki that he is much easier to manage in fox form, and Loki pleads for forgiveness and mercy, pointing out that even if he caused the problems, he also found Odd, who solved them. Freya transforms him back into his human form—a slender, redheaded man with foxlike green eyes—despite knowing she will regret doing so. She throws him clothes and then turns to Odd.

Freya asks to touch Odd’s leg, and she picks him up and puts him on the table with ease. She then unhooks his leg at the knee, separates it, and cuts into it seamlessly with her nail. She sadly notes that she cannot repair the extensively crushed bone, but she smooths out the fragments and puts things back into place as much as she can. She reattaches the leg but gleefully asks if she can give Odd a cat’s leg instead, which he denies. Odd stands and realizes that his leg does not hurt anymore, even if it doesn’t work like it used to.

Thor asks for the story of how Odd defeated the Giant, insisting he will eventually exaggerate it beyond proportion, and Loki asks for his shoes back. The gods feast that night with Odd, acting exactly like they always have—Loki causes trouble, Thor acts loudly, and Odin oversees it all. Odd points out that Loki doesn’t learn, and Freya agrees; she jokes that not learning is part of being a god. Odd understands.

Odin approaches and jokingly confronts Odd about drinking from Mimir’s Well, noting that he didn’t defeat the Frost Giant without help. Odd thanks him, but Odin refuses his thanks and thanks him instead, giving him a beautiful staff carved with incredible detail, not letting him refuse it. Odd takes it and feels stronger for it. Odin then takes a small globe of water out of a pitcher, puts it in front of a flame, and invites Odd to look into it. He does, and in a flash of rainbow and darkness, he returns to Midgard.

Chapter 8 Summary: “Afterward”

Odd reaches the village and realizes that the snow is melting and spring is coming. He also notices that the village looks completely different—it seems smaller than it once was, and everything seems to be in the wrong place. He is unsure if Asgard’s air or Mimir’s water caused things to grow. He goes to Fat Elfred’s door and knocks, introducing himself as Odd, and hears everyone muttering about him being a salmon thief who needs to be taught a lesson. When Fat Elfred and his children open the door, however, they do not recognize him, and Odd looks down at them as they grow nervous. They point out that he has grown and only recognize him when he smiles irritatingly. He asks about his mother, and the youngest child says that she blamed Fat Elfred for Odd’s disappearance and left him when he refused to help find him. Odd winks at the boy and limps away.

Odd realizes that he is now big enough to work on a longship, and the ship’s crew likely wouldn’t have a problem with him bringing his mother with him back to Scotland. He returns to the house he was born in and, before his mother can cry and speak, asks if she wants to go back to Scotland. She agrees eagerly, and Odd walks inside. The book ends with an illustration of them in a longship, looking ahead over the sea.

Chapters 6-8 Analysis

This section completes the hero’s journey, with Odd having grown through his experiences and realizing that both he and all the inhabitants of Asgard deserve to be treated like human beings. Building on the events in the previous section—where Odd learned about the Frost Giants through Mimir's Well—Odd gains the courage and knowledge to treat the unnamed Frost Giant like a human, asking him human questions and forcing him to think about what he really wants. This represents Odd's own desires made manifest. Odd has always wanted someone to ask him what he wants and what he can do when people have always treated him instead as a useless burden. Similarly to Odd at the book's opening, the Frost Giant operates on simple, half-understood motives because he has never thought of himself as anything more than a vehicle for the narrative of his people. Odd sees differently—he has seen the beauty of the Frost Giants' lives, and he recognizes them, like Asgard, as like his own people. Odd’s empathy for the Frost Giant is the clearest example of Learning and Adaptability as Sources of Strength. Because of the vision he saw in the well, Odd’s understanding of the Frost Giants changed. He knows they are not monsters to be feared but people like himself. This insight allows him to do what the gods cannot. Odd humanizes the Frost Giant not just through his questions, but also by trying to ask the Frost Giant's name, an effort to break the narrative cycle of Norse mythology and fully identify with the Giant.

This narrative "breaking" also builds on elements from the rest of the book. Odd, as a disabled human boy from two distinct cultures, can see the "rules" that govern Asgard and navigate around them. While Asgard is not beholden to the same laws of science, it follows different rules—mythological, and narrative rules. Giants die at the hands of gods. Loki is a trickster, Thor is a fighter, and Freya is beautiful. Odd sees past this simplicity and invites the other characters to change it for themselves. Even though his efforts are not always successful, this is what enables him to convince the Giant to give up his vengeance—he helps the Giant see that he does not have to follow the narrative and eventually die at the hands of Thor: Instead, he can choose beauty on his own terms and return in peace. This culminates Odd's own story arc, as well. Odd chooses to be a "Viking" at the end of the book, but rather than following in his father's footsteps and taking what he wants from the world by force, he corrects his father’s legacy by returning his mother to Scotland. Odd is uniquely capable of working against the grain of the story itself, even if his arc still follows the structure and logic of a typical Hero's Journey in many other ways.

Freya represents one of the final, most important steps in the hero’s journey—namely, the "Gift of the Goddess" step. Freya is the literal "goddess" figure, which in typical Campbellian structure is the opposite of the hero, possibly a mentor or romantic interest. The "gift" of the goddess typically symbolizes the hero's ability to understand love for others, but in this case, Freya's gift—removing the pain of his disability—completes Odd's arc toward Finding Self-Worth in the Face of Prejudice. Freya's gift has a literal level, as it allows Odd to walk without pain, but also a metaphorical level, as it symbolizes his letting go of shame for his disability. Odd has always been equal with his peers, but his journey helps him see that in himself and demand equal treatment and respect from others, like Fat Elfred.

Odd's growth also helps him recognize the value of his relationship with his mother. The beginning of the book does show his love for his mother as important, but only in what she does for him—he loves her because of her stories, or because she is his mother, and does not think about it more deeply than that. By gaining self-confidence and becoming aware of what his mother sacrificed to bring him into the world, Odd recognizes the ways he can give back to her—by going home and by helping her do the same. Odd ends the story as an adult rather than a child. Ostensibly, he is still 12 or so (as the winter didn't seem to end until he returned home), but he is tall and strong and capable of seeing his mother as a person just as much as himself. Odd ends the novel as an adult capable of enacting change in his own life and the lives of others. He has helped the gods; all that is left is for him to help himself.