He dies in the first few chapters. Most protagonists get a slow burn, a "hero's journey" that starts with a boring life in a suburb. Not Magnus Chase. He starts off homeless in Boston, eats out of trash cans, and then gets killed by a fire giant on the Longfellow Bridge. That’s how Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard kicks off. It's weird. It’s messy. Honestly, it’s probably the most underrated thing Rick Riordan has ever written, especially if you grew up on Percy Jackson and think you’ve seen it all.
Riordan didn't just copy-paste the Greek formula into Scandinavia. He pivoted. While Percy was about a kid finding out he's a "chosen one," Magnus is about a kid who is essentially a support character in a world of high-stakes cosmic horror. He isn't a great fighter. He’s a healer. In a culture—both Norse and modern—that prizes "smashing things" as the ultimate form of heroism, Magnus is a weirdly refreshing outlier.
The Problem With Modern Norse Mythology
We’ve been spoiled, or maybe blinded, by the MCU. When people think of Thor, they think of Chris Hemsworth’s biceps and a somewhat Shakespearean family drama. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard throws that out the window. It goes back to the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, where the gods aren't just "superheroes with capes." They’re terrifying. They’re kind of jerks.
Take Thor, for example. In Riordan’s world, Thor is a fart-joke-making, TV-show-obsessed deity who is constantly losing his hammer because he’s distracted. It sounds silly, but it’s actually closer to the vibe of the original myths—where the gods were erratic, earthy, and deeply flawed. Riordan captures that "end of the world" anxiety that defines Norse myth. Every character knows Ragnarok is coming. They aren't trying to stop it forever; they’re just trying to delay it for one more day. It’s bleak. It’s funny. It’s deeply human.
Why Valhalla is Basically a Five-Star Hotel (With More Murder)
The setting of Hotel Valhalla is brilliant. Imagine a luxury hotel where you spend every single day killing your neighbors in "practice" battles just to be resurrected in time for dinner. It’s a satirical take on the afterlife that hits on the absurdity of eternal war.
- Magnus lives in Floor 19.
- His neighbors include a Civil War soldier and a berserker.
- The Valkyries are basically overworked middle management.
Samirah "Sam" al-Abbas is a standout here. A practicing Muslim Valkyrie? It shouldn't work on paper, but it’s one of the most nuanced portrayals of faith in YA literature. She views her service to Odin as a job—a weird, supernatural, flying-horse-riding job—that exists within a universe created by a singular God. It adds a layer of intellectual complexity that most "kid's books" wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
Hearthstone and Blitzen: The Real MVP Duo
If you want to talk about why Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard stays relevant, you have to talk about Hearth and Blitz. Usually, the "sidekicks" in these stories are there for comic relief. Not here.
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Hearthstone is a deaf elf who practices rune magic. His backstory is genuinely tragic, involving a father who blamed him for his brother’s death and a world that sees his disability as a curse. Blitzen is a dwarf who loves fashion. In a culture that demands dwarves be miners and blacksmiths, Blitz wants to open a boutique.
They represent the series' core theme: choosing who you are despite what your "bloodline" or "destiny" says. This is especially poignant when you realize Magnus is the son of Frey, the god of summer and fertility, not a god of war. Magnus doesn't want to hold a sword. He hates it. He’d rather talk to a plant or fix a broken bone.
The Jack Situation
Sumarbrander, or "Jack," is the Sword of Summer. He’s also a sentient, singing weapon that loves Taylor Swift and Disney songs.
Jack is the ultimate "cheat code" that comes with a heavy price. He can fight on his own, flying around and slicing through giants while Magnus stands back and watches. But once Jack returns to Magnus’s hand, the "recoil" is literal. Magnus feels all the exhaustion and pain the sword should have felt. It’s a perfect metaphor for the cost of violence. Even when the "good guys" win, they lose a piece of themselves.
Alex Fierro and the Breaking of Barriers
You can't discuss Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard without mentioning The Hammer of Thor and the introduction of Alex Fierro. Alex is genderfluid and a child of Loki.
The inclusion of Alex wasn't just "diversity for diversity's sake." It fits perfectly into the Norse framework. Odin himself was known for "Seidr" magic, which was often seen as crossing traditional gender boundaries. Loki is a literal shapeshifter who has been both a father and a mother (remember Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse? Yeah, Loki gave birth to him).
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Alex is fierce, sarcastic, and uses a ceramic wire to decapitate enemies. She—or he, depending on the day—challenges Magnus to grow up. Their relationship isn't a fairy-tale romance; it’s prickly and earned. It forced a lot of readers to look at Norse mythology through a more historically accurate, "messy" lens rather than the sanitized version we get in textbooks.
The Villain Problem: Loki is Terrifying
Loki in this series isn't a misunderstood anti-hero. He’s a manipulator. He’s the guy who stays in your head, finding your deepest insecurities and picking at them until you bleed. Throughout the three books—The Sword of Summer, The Hammer of Thor, and The Ship of the Dead—Loki’s presence is felt more through words than through physical fights.
The climax of the series isn't a massive sword fight. It’s a "Flyting"—a Norse tradition of competitive insulting. Magnus has to out-talk Loki. He has to prove that his "weak" connections to his friends are stronger than Loki’s solitary malice. It’s a bold choice for a finale. Most writers would have gone for a big explosion. Riordan went for a battle of wits and empathy.
Fact-Checking the Mythology
How much of this did Riordan make up? Surprisingly little.
- Naglfar: The ship made of dead men’s nails is real. It’s in the Voluspa.
- Ratatoskr: The squirrel that runs up and down the world tree Yggdrasil telling insults? Totally real. And he’s a jerk in the books, too.
- The Mead of Kvassir: The idea that poetry and wisdom come from a magical beverage made from fermented spit and blood is straight out of the legends.
Riordan honors the source material by keeping the weirdness intact. He doesn't try to make it "make sense" for a modern audience; he just drops a modern kid into the middle of the madness and lets us watch him struggle.
How to Actually Read the Series (Next Steps)
If you're looking to dive into this world, or if you've read it and want more, here is how you should actually approach it. Don't just skim it like a comic book.
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First, pay attention to the runes at the start of the chapters. They aren't just decoration. Each one corresponds to the theme of the chapter, and if you look up their meanings (like Fehu for wealth or Uruz for strength), you’ll find spoilers hidden in plain sight.
Second, read the companion book, 9 from the Nine Worlds. It gives perspectives from characters other than Magnus, and it fills in the gaps of what happens in the other realms like Helheim or Alfheim while Magnus is busy in Midgard.
Third, compare it to the myths. Grab a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology or the Jackson Crawford translation of the Poetic Edda. Seeing where Riordan deviated—and where he stayed frighteningly accurate—makes the reading experience 10x better.
Stop looking for another Percy Jackson. Magnus isn't Percy. He’s a kid who died, became a zombie-warrior, and decided that the best way to save the world was through healing and snark rather than a bronze shield. That’s why it works.
Go back and re-read the Flyting scene in Ship of the Dead. Look at how Magnus wins not by being "better" than Loki, but by being more vulnerable. That is the actionable takeaway from this series: in a world obsessed with being "alpha" or "the strongest," there is a different kind of power in just being a decent person who cares about their friends. That's the real magic of Magnus Chase.