God of War (2018) - Entry 21: Jötunheim

In the boat as we paddled, Atreus looked to me. “Are we the bad guys now?”

“In her eyes, yes,” I answered. “But what we did… was right.”

Mimir, ever the voice of wisdom, added, “The world’s better with Freya in it, lad. She’ll come around. Time heals… or at least scabs over.”

Atreus looked unsure. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”

“One day you will,” I said. “When you are a parent. You’ll understand that I would let you kill me… if it meant you would live.”

He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. 

When we reach the temple, there is no hesitation. We go straight to the realm travel room with our path to Jötunheim is finally clear.

I align the bridge, input the travel rune, and with steady hands, Atrues positions Mimir’s head to use his eyes as the travel crystal.

A pulse of light surges through the temple. The mechanism hums with power. And then, after all we've endured... the portal opens.

We are finally in Jötunheim.

As the doors ahead open, a warm, golden light floods the room. A realm untouched by Odin’s poison. Sacred. Silent. Eternal.

Just before we step through, Mimir calls out. “This is your journey,” he says gently. “Yours and the boy’s. I’ve said my piece. It’s only right you finish this together.”

I nod, understanding. He has been our guide… but this final step belongs to us.

Then Brock and Sindri appear, a rare unity in their presence. “Wouldn’t miss this,” Brock mutters.

“You actually made it,” Sindri adds with a proud, trembling smile. “We just… we wanted to see you off. Both of you.”

Their words are brief, but their meaning is clear: we are not alone. We never truly were.

Atreus smiles at them, then looks up at me.

“We’re ready,” he says.

We step forward into the light, father and son, into the land of the giants.

Atreus and I then head up the steps to another portal that appears to take us to the top of the finger mountains. The air is thinner, quieter. It feels sacred. A stillness surrounds everything, more spiritual than physical. It’s clear this is a place no one has set foot in for a long, long time. 

Jötunheim is a land of stone and sky, a vast mountaintop realm perched above the world. Enormous cliffs and plateaus stretch into the clouds, with towering rock formations. The sun bathes the mountains in gold. As we walk up the mountain I stop and remove my wrist bandages, revealing the scars of the blades I have been so ashamed of, but now I no longer deny my past. I then turn to Atreus and give him Faye's ashes to carry to the top, he has earned it.

As we continue to climb, Atreus cannot help but notice the silence. No voices. There are no giants here but near the top we come upon a large stone chamber, a sactuary, with towering rock formations carved into colossal statues of Giants. Their faces are serene, solemn, guarding the memory of a people now gone.

We stepped into that final chamber, and the silence was deafening. The walls around us spoke not in sound, but in story etched in ancient stone and faded paint. What they revealed… neither of us were ready to see.

The Giants were gone.

Their great civilization, scattered and broken. Few had survived. The rest had fled here, seeking refuge from Odin’s relentless pursuit and Thor’s unchecked fury. But even this sanctuary could not save them. Their story had ended long before we ever arrived.

And yet… they had seen everything.

The walls told of a future not yet written, a Midgard overrun and slipping into chaos, a second Hel. But the Giants, ever wise, had not left Midgard unguarded. One of their own had stayed behind, the Guardian, hidden in plain sight, tasked with protecting the path to Jötunheim until the time was right.

Then, we came upon a mural unlike the others. It was dormant and hidden until Atreus placed his hand on the wall.

And it appeared.

Every step Atreus and I had taken. It was all written. The battles. The losses. Baldur. Even me, his father, the stranger from another land, a god-killer from a forgotten war.

And there, among those carvings… was Atreus. But not as the boy I had raised. The name they gave him was different.

Loki.

In disbelief, Atreus speaks. “Our story… it’s all here. But these events just happened!”

I correct him. “No… this is your story.”

Atreus asks what it means, and I tell him I wasn’t the only parent who kept secrets. Faye was a giant, the Guardian of Midgard. She had never spoken of any of this, and she had guided us here not just to scatter her ashes but to reveal the truth. She named him Loki because she saw what he would become.

Then it dawns on me. Baldur didn’t come to our house looking for me. He was looking for Faye… not knowing she was only ashes.

And in the corner of the shrine was something else. Something Atreus didn’t see. A panel, partly obscured, showing me lying in Atreus’ arms, pale, lifeless. Something dark flowing from Atreus’ mouth. A vision not yet fulfilled.

Now carrying more questions than answers, Atreus and I leave the shrine and continue to the mountain’s summit. There, in a moment of quiet reverence, we each take a handful of Faye’s ashes and release them into the wind. The goal we had set out to achieve was complete.

But the journey had changed us both.

Atreus had grown stronger, not just in body but in spirit, beginning to understand what it means to be a god. And I, after all this time, had finally started to reconcile with my past, choosing to become the father he needs, one who can prepare him for the trials yet to come.

As we descend the mountain, Atreus walks beside me in thought before asking about his name. I tell him that his mother had wanted to name him Loki… but I had chosen Atreus, after a Spartan captain who inspired hope and loyalty, rare qualities among warriors, and even rarer among Spartans.

He nods, taking it in. Then asks about the mural, about what it showed and what it meant.

I look forward, and simply say: those are questions… for another day.

When we return to the temple, we find Mimir waiting for us. Atreus asks how things went with the dwarves, and Mimir, ever the storyteller, says it was more than enough time. But then his tone shifts. He explains that more time has passed in Midgard than we may have realized. Time flows differently across the realms, and while we were in Jötunheim, the world kept turning.

Baldur’s death, he says, has triggered the beginning of Fimbulwinter, a bitter, relentless cold that lasts for three years without reprieve. It is the first sign of Ragnarök, the long-prophesied end of the world… and of the gods.

When we step back into Midgard, we feel it immediately. The air is colder. Snow has begun to fall. The winds bite sharper than before.

Brok and Sindri also confirm Fimbulwinter has begun. They urge caution, noting that the realm has already started to change, and not for the better.

They also reveal that they knew Faye was the Jötun Guardian of Midgard, which was the main reason they crafted her the axe that was intended to be the equal of Mjölnir after Thor went berserk on the giants with it. But she chose a different path… she chose us.

Atreus then asks Mimir if he ever met his mother. Mimir responds that he never had the pleasure. He only knew that she made herself a nuisance to the Aesir in the noblest of ways. Thor was always aggravated that he could never find her to face her in battle. She truly lived up to her Jötun name: Laufey the Just.

Though we completed our original purpose, our journey is far from over. We have slain Thor’s sons. We have ended Baldur. The Aesir will not let this go unanswered. Freya, when her grief turns to fury, will come for us.

So we must be ready. Atreus’s training will continue. And our next task is clear: to prepare ourselves for what is to come.