Quote:
Originally Posted by Judoh
Woah really? There's that many Norse references?
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Well, not
that many, but the one Battler has marked on him is so blatant and important for the Norse mythology that it can't be missed.
During her introductory battle with Beatrice, pretty much everything Virgilia summons except the Tower of Babel is a Norse mythology reference, starting with sons of Ivaldi and all the way to the end. It's also marked with chess terms denoting what it is. Interestingly, I could not find a mythical source for anything Beatrice summoned in this battle, at all. It has a very vaguely Greek feel to it but that's it. Virgilia drops names in a similar fashion a few more times later.
The really major one is that Odin, the head of the Norse pantheon, gained a mystic understanding of magic and the runes by hanging dead off the world tree Yggdrasil, pierced by his own spear Gungnir, for seven days. He got better.
Now, in Ep3, Beatrice hangs a bit herself in same battle pierced by, well, Gungnir. She quickly rewinds the scene before she can gain any mystic understanding, though. In Ep5, Battler gains his The Answer in this exact manner, though for lack of a spear it's a sword.
The one thing conspicuously missing is the World Tree. And Heimdall, another major character, did have nine mothers simultaneously.
EDIT: Well, correction, there's that Aegis Shield, but in Greek mythology that is a rather vague and generic term, not really a specific magic item. Certainly not the uber-shield-to-end-all-shields Beatrice thinks it is.