Skip to main content

marvel - What makes up Midgard?


Marvel Universe describes Asgard as:



a small planetary body that serves as home to the Norse gods such as Thor, and their ruler, Odin. It exists in another dimensional plane and is about the size of the United States.



There is currently no completed entry for Midgard, but the Asgard article addresses it briefly.



Another of these worlds that is in a different dimensional plane is the world of Midgard, or Earth.




and



Midgard, or “Middle Realm”, is home to humans and does not seem to be affected by the motion of the other worlds of Asgard. Jotunheim is the world of the Giants and is also on its own dimensional plane hidden from Asgard or Earth’s. The only thing that prevents passage between Midgard and Jotunheim is Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent.



The term "dimensional plane" mentioned evokes the concept of parallel dimensions/universes, a concept not foreign to Marvel Comics.


What defines Midgard and its boundaries? Is Midgard just the planet Earth? Our entire Solar System? The entire Milky Way? An alternate universe?



Answer



For Marvel Comics, Midgard is the entire single Universe that was once separated from Asgard. Matter in the Asgardian realm was more molecularly dense as are the natives of that realm. The common parlance used by most Asgardians seems to imply that Earth, specifically, is considered to be Midgard, proper.





  • Marvel, while co-opting the Norse mythos' Nine World's concepts, did not clearly define (any more than the ancients did) what the boundaries for these realms might have been.




  • Since the fate of the Asgard Realm is currently unknown, the Asgardians are currently displaced and living in Midgard.




  • Considering the ancient Norse had a very limited worldview, Midgard, back then would have comprised only the Earth as they knew it. Each of the Nine Realms was considered to be a place like Earth, housing only a single race or groups of similar races.




enter image description here




Midgard (an anglicised form of Old Norse Miðgarðr; Old English Middangeard, Swedish Midgård, Old Saxon Middilgard, Old High German Mittilagart, Gothic Midjun-gards; literally "middle enclosure") is the name for the world (in the sense of oikoumene) inhabited by and known to humans in early Germanic cosmology, and specifically one of the Nine Worlds in Norse mythology.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...