Helheim

Template:Location InfoboxHelheim, or simply Hel, is a major location in God of War (2018) and one of the Nine Realms of Nordic Mythology. It is also known as the Realm of the Dead.

Description

This realm is the home of dishonorable dead and ruled by the Goddess of Death, Hel, and it is known for torturing its inhabitants with their own past through illusions of their committed crimes.

Helheim is a dark realm of unyielding cold, so much that even the Aesir gods fear the realm and avoid going there at any cost. Odin himself, in fact, can't survive the realm's brutal cold. Indeed, if one were to cross the Bridge of the Damned then they are trapped forever, for there is no road back.

In the aftermath of the Desolation, the corrupted malady inflicting the Nine Realms and the imprisonment of the Valkyries, Hel is overflowed with souls. Without the Valkyries to sort out the souls, the city of Helheim beyond the Bridge of the Damned is overwhelmed. This results in an overspill of the dead into Midgard. These walking dead are known as Hel-Walkers.

The Bridge of the Damned was guarded by one of the bosses in God of War, Máttugr Helson.

Trivia

• Helheim is ruled by the goddess of death, Hel, who is the daughter of Loki. Seeing as how Loki (Atreus) is still a child in this game, Hel could either not be born yet or not be the daughter of Loki.
• When closely examined from the Bridge of the Damned, a giant eagle can be seen perched in this realm. It is possible that the eagle is Hræsvelgr/Hraesvelg (Old Norse "Corpse Swallower"), a giant who sits at the edge of the world overlooking Helheim and makes the wind blow with the flapping of his wings.
  • Players get a much closer look at the eagle when Kratos and Atreus air-sail next to it
• According to Mimir, time moves much slower in Helheim than it does in Midgard.
• The Dishonorable Dead that inhabits this realm includes those who died as criminals or of disease, mishap or even age. The Nordic culture believes that it is better to go out fighting.
• Though the cold and wind are so great within Helheim that no fire of any kind in the Nine Realms can stay alight, fire from foreign realms can remain burning. This includes the fire from Kratos's original weapons, the Blades of Chaos.
  • Thus, such fire is very effective and deadly to the denizens of Helheim.

• Helheim can recreate past events for anyone who enters as a form of cruel torture.
  • For Kratos it was Zeus who called to him, and even a ghostly reenactment of his death.
  • For Baldur, it was when he confronted Freya, his mother, and tried to make her lift his curse of not being able to feel.
  • For Atreus, it was his recent cruelty against Modi.

• After killing Magni and later Modi, because of the Valkyries being imprisoned, this means that Magni and Modi's souls could be in Helheim.
  • However, Mimir stated that the Aesir have their own special way to Valhalla but with their death's at the hands of Kratos and his son, they could have been sent to Hel.

• Helheim continues the tradition in the God of War series for Kratos to visit the land of the dead; in the Greek Era Kratos explored or was sent to the Underworld numerous times as well as exploring Thanatos' realm when searching for his brother.

Gallery

Helheim's Watcher