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Main Character Index > Other Individuals and Organizations > Cosmic > Asgard and the Nine Realms (Odin Borson | Loki Laufeyson | Loki Laufeyson (Variant L1130) | Sylvie Laufeydottir | Other Loki Variants) | Knowhere | Nova Empire | Sovereign | Skrulls | Eternals

Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.

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Nine Realms

    The Nine Realms 

The Nine Realms are nine worlds that are connected to each other by the branches of Yggdrasil. Several millennia ago, Odin and Hela, his firstborn, conquered the Nine Realms in a brutal and bloody war. After Odin's change of heart, Asgard still remains the head of the Nine Realms, as the king of Asgard is the sworn protector of all of them.


  • Artistic License – Physics: Nidavellir was built with a neutron star at its center, which sounds cool but in reality would make its existence impossible. Neutron stars pack the mass of our Sun or two into a ball the size of a city. This incredible density means they exert extreme gravitational force at its surface only a few kilometers away from its center; more than a hundred billion times the gravity of Earth. At that range, the entire forge would just instantly collapse right into the star, with everyone on it flattened like a pancake.
  • Blue Means Cold: The skin of Jotunhem's Giants, who not only live on an ice planet but also have ice powers, is blue.
  • Dark Is Evil: The inhabitants of Svartalfheim are the Dark Elves who come from the darkness before the universe, fly black spaceships, and Svartalfheim is a land of shadow. It'd be more surprising if they weren't Omnicidal Maniacs.
  • Derelict Graveyard: Svartalfheim is full of wrecked spaceships, a relic of the Dark Elf-Asgard war millennia ago.
  • Hufflepuff House: Alfheim is one of the Nine Realms, but prior to Phase 4 it was only mentioned in Thor's first movie, and it only made one appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder as the site where Falligar is slain, given no real exposition on its landscape or the races thereof.
  • Human Aliens: Just like Asgardians, the Vanirs look like humans.
  • Medieval Stasis: Vanaheim doesn't seem to possess the sufficiently advanced technology of Asgardians, and seem to be on a technological level comparable to that of Medieval Europe.
  • Mordor:
    • Jotunheim is the rarer "frozen wasteland" variety.
    • Not only is Muspelheima wasteland of lava and brimstone, but it is also the home of a being prophesized to destroy all of Asgard.
    • Svartalfheim is a bleak, ash-covered wasteland. It's not clear whether it was this devastated before the Aesir/Svartalfir war, but it's definitely a post-apocalyptic waste now.
    • Niflheim seems to be a desolate landscape. Considering it's where Hela was imprisoned, that's not a surprise. In fact, barring Hela, there's no mention of anyone else living there, in contrast to Svartalheim, Muspelheim, and Jotunheim.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Fire Dragons from Muspelheim are demonic fire-breathing and fire-powered dragons.
  • Our Elves Are Different: Not much is known about Alfheim, other than it being the home of the Light Elves.
  • Single-Biome Planet: Jotunheim is entirely an ice planet.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Just like the Asgardians, creatures from other Realms, like the Dark Elves utilize technology so advanced it seems magical. In fact, Dark elf ship's cloaking is so efficient, even Heimdall can't detect it until it's already reached Asgard.
  • Time Abyss: The Dark Elves somehow evolved into existence in the Primordial Chaos before the universe as we know it, making them among the oldest species in the universe, with the Celestials probably their only competition.
  • Ultimate Forge: Nidavellir is a Ring World Planet surrounding a neutron star. By drawing power from this star, the Dwarves are able to forge the strongest weapons in all of existence, including but not limited to Thor's hammer Mjolnir. Before Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos forced the Dwarves to create his Infinity Gauntlet under the threat of death, and then froze Nidavellir's star to prevent anyone from creating any weapons to counter it. Thor, Rocket, and Groot, however, are able to revive the star long enough to forge Stormbreaker, an axe powerful enough to kill Thanos.
  • When the Planets Align: Every 5000 years, the Convergence occurs, an alignment of the Nine Realms that causes portals between the worlds to open at random.

Asgard

    In General 

The Asgardians

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/92c6281f_3883_4a3a_bceb_2ea83d643cca.jpeg
"Asgard is not a place. It's a people."

Appearances: Thor | The Avengers | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Thor: The Dark World | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Doctor Strange | Thor: Ragnarok | Avengers: Infinity War | Avengers: Endgame | Loki | What If...? | Thor: Love and Thunder

The Asgardians are the inhabitants of Asgard. They are a race of Human Aliens possessing a highly advanced form of technology resembling magic and sorcery, which their entire civilization is built up by. They are a brave and powerful warrior race whose passion for adventure is their way of life, and their reputation as one of the mightiest races in the universe has earned them respect and fear from other races.


  • Adaptational Species Change: In the comics, the Asgardians are a race of extradimensional beings that live on an alternate plane from that of Earth, with many of them being actual gods. Here, they are merely Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who were simply worshipped as gods centuries ago when they visited Earth.
  • Alien Arts Are Appreciated: As of Avengers: Endgame, Asgardians have become acclimated to Earth's cultures and lifestyles.
  • Aliens Speaking English: Asgardians have no problems understanding other races and species, including humans, and communicating with them.
  • Baby Planet: Asgard is tiny; the whole 'planet' is about the size of an islet, and most of that is untamed wilderness. The city itself doesn't have a large population — its army consists of only a few hundred men when Hela confronts it; later those who have survived Hela's rule fit on one mid-sized Sakaaran ship. However, it is hard to find Asgard.
  • Badass Army: Subverted. Asgard's army is considered one of the greatest fighting forces in the universe, having proved it multiple times in the past (fighting against the Frost Giants and Dark Elves, and in Odin's day conquering the Nine Realms. But at present their only role is to be defeated to show how powerful the villains on duty are.
  • Badass Bystander: Even Asgardian civilians can and will throw down with horrible monsters if the need is great enough.
  • Blood Knight: Asgardians all seem to really enjoy fighting.
  • Break the Badass: Malekith's sneak attack on Asgard and Kurse's assassination of Frigga shook the whole realm to its core. And that was all merely a prelude as to what was to come when Hela managed to break free of her long imprisonment...
  • Call-Back: Tønsberg, the village where Odin and Thor agree to settle the surviving Asgardians turns out to be the same place where the Frost Giants and the Asgardians fought on Midgard and the same place that the Red Skull invaded to find the Tesseract in World War II.
  • Call to Agriculture: A variant is seen in Avengers: Endgame. After Ragnarok, the Infinity War, and the Decimation/Snap, the Asgardians have been reduced to less than a quarter of their previous population. Now, they eke out a living as simple fishermen in the town of "New Asgard" in the far north of Norway, having put aside their Sufficiently Advanced Technology and come to terms with the fact that their Glory Days are behind them. That being said, they do come back to help royally kick the collective ass of the Mad Titan's forces in the film's climax.
  • City of Gold: Asgard is depicted as this in the MCU, its capital being pretty much entirely gold encased. Thor: Ragnarok addresses this, bringing up Asgard's buried history of brutal conquest, with Hela pointing out, "Where do you think all this gold came from?"
  • Cool Airship: The Asgardians don't seem to use spaceships (since the Bifröst allows them to get anywhere in the universe faster and more easily), but they do use aircraft that look like flying Viking longships. With homing missiles and gatling energy guns.
  • Crystal Spires and Togas: They are highly advanced and wear garments reminiscent of ancient Rome or Greece.
  • Cultural Posturing: As Thor notes in The Avengers, "We pretend on Asgard that we're more advanced."
  • Depending on the Writer: The portrayal of the Asgardians as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens and/or actual gods varies from film to film.
    • In Thor and Thor: The Dark World, the Asgardians make it clear that they see themselves and the Aesir as mortals. Fandral jokingly refers to prior visits to Earth, where they were mistaken for Gods, which they encouraged to cause a spectacle and for fun and games. In The Avengers, Loki keeps insisting that he's a God, and is treated as a loon by his brother Thor for doing so. In The Dark World, Odin insists they aren't gods when Loki tries to claim otherwise. As Odin points out, the Asgardians are born, live, and die like every other being and species in the cosmos. Loki counters by noting how long that is compared to other beings, in whose eyes they are Physical God.
    • This changes in Thor: Ragnarok where the film returns to the comic and mythic roots with the royal family referring to themselves as gods and playing up the godly imagery. Thor openly calls Loki "the God of Mischief," he identifies himself as "the God of Thunder," Hela's title is "the Goddess of Death" and so on. Furthermore, a lot of their supposedly supernatural abilities seen in the previous films that were just Hand Waved as being Clarke's Third Law in action are now more explicitly viewed as the result of magic (i.e., Thor's Shock and Awe powers aren't a result of him possessing Sufficiently Advanced Technology, they're the result of him being the literal "God of Thunder"). A possible reason for this change is that learning they have been called gods by humanity for centuries since their first visit led them to embrace the term in recent times. However, what Odin had previously said remains true, which is also true in the myths, i.e. the Norse Gods are not immortal, not ageless, and they live and die like all beings.
    • This can all be attributed to the Genre Shift of the MCU. The first two phases of the MCU tend to be more grounded in science, and it was only until Doctor Strange in Phase 3 that more fantasy elements become incorporated.
  • Doing In the Wizard: Unlike in the comics where the Asgardians are literal gods and other magical beings, they are portrayed as Human Aliens. Most of their magic is merely a product of Sufficiently Advanced Technology and Magitek, to the point that they don't see any difference between their "magic" and advanced science by Earth's point-of-view. This is especially so in The Dark World, where the Asgardians' equipment are obviously technological in nature such as their aircraft and a shield generator that protects the palace. It is only until Ragnarok do the more mystical and mythical elements take root. Dark World even has this quote at the beginning of the film:
    Odin: We are not gods. We are born, we live, and we die.
    Loki: Give or take five thousand years.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • In the first movie, a throwaway line implies that Sif had to work hard to be taken seriously as a warrior. However, later instalments show that women (as seen with Frigga and the Valkyries) in Asgard can and will throw down alongside their male peers.
    • Phases 1 and 2 were very insistent that Asgardians weren't actually gods, but Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who the primitive and superstitious Nordic people thought were divine. In Ragnarok however, the Asgardians now called themselves gods and openly used magic, and in Love and Thunder, they're divine enough that Odin knew Zeus on Omnipotence City and Gorr puts them on his kill list.
  • Elite Mooks: The Berserker were considered the most powerful warriors in Asgard, and each one was worth a total of 20 normal warriors.
  • The Empire: When they refer to "The Nine Realms," they are not referring to a multiverse, but the Asgardian Empire forged by Odin, Hela and their army. This means that the fighting Thor and others do in The Dark World is not just keeping bad guys from causing trouble, but keeping subject territories in line.
    Hela: [to Thor, in Odin's throne room] Where do you think all this gold came from?
  • Empire with a Dark Secret: Asgardians believe that they are benevolent protectors of the Nine Realms. Hela reveals that it's all a facade and Odin rose to power by the brutal conquest of anyone in his path. It wasn't until his kingdom was assured and unquestioned that he decided that enough was enough, and locked Hela away, hoping to build the legacy of peace that existed in present day Asgard. Of course, this legacy rather skated over inconvenient questions such as, "Where did all that gold come from?"
  • Endangered Species:
    • After the events of Thor: Ragnarok, the Asgardians were reduced to a motley group of barely a few hundred to a thousand refugees, at most, barring any that might (like Professor Randolph) live in other realms — and considering that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. established that Loki-as-Odin was rounding all of those up, it's likely that most Asgardians were on Asgard. Their numbers were dropped even further during Avengers: Infinity War, where half of them were slaughtered by Thanos and his Black Order, and then half of those left perished with the Snap meaning that the Asgardians are on the brink of extinction. However, Endgame does soften it slightly by having the Asgardians who died in the Snap be resurrected by the actions of the Avengers.note 
    • By the time of Love and Thunder, they are shown to have recovered, and New Asgard is a thriving city-state. Then Gor the God Butcher kidnaps most of their children. These children are all rescued to a one and start training in self-defense, and Korg's narration states that "the future of New Asgard is secure".
  • Fake Ultimate Mook: Despite their reputation, when they are faced with truly dangerous enemies, Asgardian soldiers often fall like flies. And as shown in Ragnarok, they can be killed with standard weaponry.
  • Fantastic Racism: Asgardians have warred with their neighbors, and while centuries of peace have dimmed the memory of past conflicts, in the stories they tell their children they paint their former enemies as Always Chaotic Evil monsters:
    Thor (as a child in Thor about the Frost Giants): When I'm king, I'll hunt the monsters down and slay them all!
    Odin (in Thor: The Dark World about the Dark Elves): The noble armies of Asgard, led by my father, King Bor, waged a mighty war against these creatures.
  • Flashy Teleportation: The Bifrost Interdimensional Travel Device generates a huge column of rainbow light at its connecting point in a nod to its mythological roots. It also leaves behind a large circle embedded with a Norse pattern on the ground where the beam lands.
  • Galactic Superpower: For a time, the Asgardians were the de facto rulers of the Nine Realms, which encompassed all known planets and star systems. Due to the Bifrost creating near-instantaneous travel throughout the cosmos (and how it could double as a very destructive weapon), the Asgardians being well-rounded Superior Species basically ensured their supremacy. Notably, in The Dark World, the temporary destruction of the Bifrost caused widespread unrest throughout the galaxy because Asgard lost its monopoly on power (allowing Malekith to find the Reality Stone, Ronan to steal the Power Stone and attack Nova Prime, and Thanos to invade Nidavellir and force them to construct the Infinity Gauntlet), which only got worse when Loki took over and started shirking his duties as king. Hela returning proved to be its end. The chaos brought on by the destruction of Agard and Nova Prime, as well as Thanos' snap left a massive power vacuum in the galaxy that various Avengers—such as Captain Marvel and Rocket—attempted to fill, to little success. So far, there hasn't been a faction powerful enough to replace the Asgardians.
  • Girly Bruiser: An Asgardian being feminine is not a reason to assume she can't wield a sword as long as her arm, as evidenced by Frigga, who nearly kills Malekith in single combat (and only fails because Kurse joins in), and the women Skurge was flirting with, who are among the first civilians to draw their weapons during the battle against Hela's zombie army.
  • Healing Factor: Compared to humans, Asgardians have accelerated healing, as seen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., when Professor Randolph is stabbed in the chest, but survives thanks to Coulson stifling the bleeding. Only minutes afterward, he is walking around again nonchalantly.
  • Heir Club for Men: When Hela arrives and claims the throne as Odin's oldest child, no one says she can't because she's Odin's daughter. Hogun sincerely does not know who she is because Odin concealed her existence, and the only reason Thor doesn't want her on the throne is because she is a blood-thirsty conquerer (in his words, "the worst"). Indeed, Hela is stated to have access to a Background Magic Field that both Thor and Loki lack specifically because she is Odin's rightful heir.
  • Hidden Elf Village: For a long time, Asgard ruled over the Nine Realms; during the time when Hela and Odin ruled together even in an imperialistic way. However, after Loki seizes the throne (pretending to be Odin), Asgard becomes more and more non-interventionistic, at the expense of the other realms who are used to Asgard coming to their help and thus don't have strong defenses themselves.
    Loki as Odin: Well, it is best to respect our neighbors' freedom...
    Thor: Of course, the freedom to be massacred!
  • Home of the Gods: Asgard is the home of several people who were worshipped by the Vikings and ancient Norse peoples as Gods.
  • How the Mighty Have Fallen:
    • The events of Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War are not kind to them. In fact, Avengers: Endgame shows they've become significantly more humble to the point where they're been reduced to being a small town of reclusive nomads in Norway, having even set their Magitek aside and are now just trying to live normal lives on Midgard/Earth. They're still strong enough to put up a hell of a fight, as they participated in the Battle of Earth.
    • By the time of Thor Love and Thunder, New Asgard is basically a refugee camp meets Disneyland that makes its primary income by capitalizing off an abridged caricature of their culture for the amusement of tourists, not unlike what Sparta became after Greece was conquered by the Romans. What remains of Asgard's children live a decidedly unglamorous western-suburban life, funded by endorsements of theme-park product placements of their cultures and traditions, tours on flying boats, icecream brands based on the genocidal tragedy that was The Snap, not to mention golf-courses built around their residential suburbs to further add to their humiliating fall from a once-proud race of Warrior Gods. Gorr just walks in one night and kidnaps most of their children. The end of the film shows these children training in self-defense with Lady Sif and King Valkriye, so the warrior traditions are not entirely gone, just adapted.
  • Human Aliens: They don't come from Earth and still look like humans.
  • I Am Not Weasel: For whatever reason, Asgardians have a habit of mistaking raccoons for rabbits, to the confusion of Rocket, who doesn't even like being called a racoon that much; Though he takes it better than "racoon" as the first time he was called a rabbit (by Thor), it was coupled with sincere compliments to his intelligence and leadership skills.
  • Land of One City: Asgard is a tiny planet with one city surrounded by wilderness.
  • Large Ham: The only one who doesn't get in on this is Hogun the Grim, although it's shown in the second movie that he's actually a Vanir, so this trope does apply to all Asgardians.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness: As mentioned in the other tropes, Asgard from Ragnarok onwards have focused more on the mythological aspects such as being actual gods, whereas prior instalments depict them as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
  • Long-Lived: According to the exchange between Odin and Loki in Thor: The Dark World, they can easily live for 5000 years.
  • Mythology Gag: In Avengers: Endgame, the surviving Asgardians now live in the small village of "New Asgard," which might be a sneaky reference to the Thor: The Reigning comics series where Asgard was moved to being above New York City by Thor and the city below was conquered & renamed "New Asgard".
  • Older Is Better: The Asgardian army of Bor's time appears to be far more competent than the army of Thor's time.
  • Outcast Refuge: New Asgard ends up becoming a haven not only for Asgardians, but any aliens that find themselves living on Earth.
  • Physical God: Thor: Ragnarok returns to the comic roots by treating the royal family as gods. Its members are far more powerful than other Asgardians and have a connection to the realm other Asgardians lack.
  • Place of Power: Asgard itself is intrinsically tied to a mysterious energy called the Odinforce. It is implied that much of Asgard's magic and Magitek is derived from the Odinforce, and those who rule Asgard or are heir to rulership can harness it directly. When Asgard is destroyed in Ragnarok, the Odinforce went along with it.
  • Position of Literal Power: The Kings and Queens of Asgard draw their power from Asgard itself, invariably making them the most powerful of their race.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Space Vikings. They drink, they fight, they feast... and not much else. Big on honor and glory. When one of their number dies (mostly likely in battle), then they perform rituals like the Vikings do, and they deal with grief violently (even if they were adopted into the culture instead of being born to it). While have access to magic and technology way ahead of Earth, they seem to value physical might and use medieval weapons (albeit with alien metals and energy), as Loki claims that while they have a popular saying that encourages being aware of one's surroundings, they're all "gullible fools".
  • Public Domain Character: Many of the Asgardian characters (including Thor, Loki, Odin, Frigga, Heimdall, Sif, and Hela) are this, being based on actual deities from Norse Mythology.
  • The Queen's Latin: Most of the major Asgardian characters are voiced with RP accents, to lend them an authoritative, more antiquated tone. Thor himself veers into comedic Shakespearean Large Ham territory on occasion.
  • Really 700 Years Old: The battle against the Frost Giants took place in AD 965, and Odin led the charge — and the Retcon of Thor being 1500 years old, by his own account, with the fact that he and Loki grew up together, suggests that it was closer to AD 565. Fandral implies that Thor used to throw around lightning and thunder, and got worshipped as a god. Loki states in The Dark World that the average Asgardian lifespan is 5000 to 5100 years. The Frost giants presumably have lifespans just as long — or even longer — considering that King Laufey looks exactly the same as he does 1,046 years (or more) after the battle with the Frost Giants, and Loki appears to age at the same rate as Asgardians.
  • Screw Your Ultimatum!: In The Avengers, this appears twice. Both times, an Asgardian is asked to lay down his arms, and both times, the Asgardian flips out and attacks. Justified, though, as Asgardians are Proud Warrior Race Guy, so the concept of surrendering is probably an insult to them.
  • Shining City: Asgard itself is a beautiful cosmic shining city filled with elaborate and beautifully gilded buildings. Right at the center stands an enormous golden palace which is home to Odin and the royal family, and from the palace to a golden station where Heimdall guards and controls the Bifrost runs a brightly colored 'Rainbow Bridge'. It is visually stunning, and certainly fit to be the home of a race of advanced alien Physical Gods.
  • Sigil Spam: The Triquetra can be seen repeatedly in context with Asgard. It appears among others in a lot of Asgardian architecture (such as above the throne or on the outside of the weapons' vault), on Mjolnir in Thor, on Loki's leathers in The Avengers and Thor: The Dark World or when Doctor Strange creates the portal leading Thor and Loki to Odin in Thor: Ragnarok.
  • Smug Super: The Asgardians are very self-assured in their power, with even the princes seeing humans and others as lesser races. This has blinded them to the advances made by the rest of the galaxy; Earth seemingly hasn't been revisited by them since the 10th century. Loki thinks Earth is an Easily Conquered World despite being well-educated by Asgardian standards. And Thor is shocked that the residents of Sakaar have man-portable weapons that can harm him, resulting in him easily getting captured. Asgard itself is also seriously damaged by an attack from a small remnant of the Dark Elves, which they had previously defeated at their peak, further showing how complacent the Asgardians have gotten.
    • It is worth noting, however, that Loki was leading an army that had conquered numerous worlds far more advanced than Earth (poor weaponry and oddly small armies seem to be the norm in the Cosmic MCU), and by the time he wound up on Sakaar, Thor had done any number of impressive things, including going toe to toe with Malekith, who was wielding the full power of an Infinity Stone, and matching him blow for blow, even saying, "You know, with all that power, I thought you'd hit harder." All in all, it's not entirely surprising that he'd be caught off-guard by the concept of any man-portable weapons that can actually hurt him.
  • Spock Speak: They speak in a very elaborate manner. It's a Pragmatic Adaptation from the comics, where they spoke in Antiquated Linguistics, although people mocking Asgardians tend to go for the 'thou' and 'thee'-style speech.
    Tony Stark: Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?
  • Sufficiently Advanced Aliens:
    • They freely mix magic and science. According to Thor's explanation to Jane, they consider them to be the same thing.
      Jane: Like an Einstein-Rosen bridge?
      Thor: More like a rainbow bridge.
      Jane: God, I hope you're not crazy.
    • In The Dark World, Eir, tending to Jane, utilizes a "Soul Forge" to help heal her. She recognizes the device by referring to it in Technobabble terms as a quantum field generator.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology: Most Asgardian technology looks like Viking-era equipment despite being Sufficiently Advanced. This is even alluded to in Avengers: Endgame, as while the surviving Asgardians now seem to live an ordinary life of fishermen in Norway, Valkyrie and Thor both heavily imply that they've just put their Magitek to the side now for the sake of not upsetting their mortal brethren.
  • Uniqueness Decay: The Asgardians long held the status of being the MCU's premier Superior Species, and the superpowered race of the setting. However, Phase 4 and Phase 5 sees the introduction of the Eternals, Vampires, and Mutants in the coming future, all of whom are entire superpowered races.
  • War Refugees: The destruction of Asgard in Ragnarok leaves the surviving Asgardians as this. Endgame has them eventually setting up "New Asgard" in the form of a small town in Norway.
  • We Are as Mayflies: A common Asgardian attitude, which both the films and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. touch on. It's difficult to see humans as worth concerning yourself over when the average human life span is a small fraction of your own.
  • We Have Become Complacent: The Asgardians are considered one of the greatest races in the universe. But centuries, if not millennia, of being the intergalactic top dog with little opposition caused them to stagnate in development. As mentioned in Uniqueness Decay, elements such as their technological superiority and knowledge of magic that once made them superior over other races have now become commonplace on Earth. Meanwhile, the Asgardians' technology hadn't advanced that much, instead relying on medieval-era weapons such as swords and spears for war when firearms/laser guns were used for other races in close combat. This stagnation bites them hard in the course of the Thor movies, where a surprise invasion by a motley fleet of Dark Elves was enough to rock the race to its core, not to mention Hela's arrival that decimated Asgard's army and reduced the entire race to a group of War Refugees.
  • World in the Sky: Asgard is little more than a medium-sized city, surrounded by a compact landscape of oceans and craggy mountains, all of it floating freely in space. Said oceans cascade over the edges into the void, and the whole arrangement appears to have a diameter in the tens of kilometers, give or take, with many of the world's edges being easily visible from the shore. Question like "Where does the seawater come from?" or "Where do they grow all that food?" are never addressed, but can probably be handwaved with the Asgardians' advanced Magitek.
  • World of Badass: A world filled with mighty warriors with both hand to hand and laser combat experience, great champions, and even civilians aren't afraid to get down and fight when the situation calls for it.
  • World of Ham: A shiny world inhabited by many boisterous people.

Rulers and Guardians of Asgard

    Valkyrie 

Brunnhilde / Valkyrie / Scrapper 142

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thorloveandthunderkingvalkyrie.png
"I can't turn away anymore, so, if I'm gonna die, well, it may as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderous hag."
Click here to see Valkyrie in her battle armor

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian, Sakaaran

Affiliation(s): Asgard, Valkyries (formerly), Sakaaran Scrappers (formerly), Revengers

Portrayed By: Tessa ThompsonForeign voice actors

Appearances: Thor: Ragnarok | Avengers: Endgame | Loki note  | Thor: Love and Thunder | The Marvels

"I've spent years, in a haze, trying to forget my past. Sakaar seemed like the best place to drink, and to forget... and to die, one day."

An Asgardian warrior who makes a living on Sakaar following a traumatic experience.


  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Dragonfang, the Cool Sword she wielded during her time among the Valkyries, which she takes up again after allying with Thor. It can cut through Hela's Berserkers like a hot knife through butter. In Avengers: Endgame, she wields an Asgardian spear that experiences only slightly more resistance while slicing through the armor of a Chitauri Leviathan.
  • Action Girl: Being a Valkyrie, that's a given. She seems to be the Grandmaster's most favored Scrapper and is shown to match Hulk and own Loki in hand-to-hand combat.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: She's far more sarcastic and annoyed by everyone than her comic book counterpart.
  • Adaptational Modesty: Her outfit was deliberately redesigned to include leggings because the creative team didn't like the idea of the movie's major female hero fighting in what is essentially a metal bathing suit.
  • Adaptational Villainy: In Thor: Ragnarok, she's introduced as an employee of the Grandmaster and is the one who brings Thor to him in the first place. It doesn't last, though.
  • Affirmative-Action Legacy: At the end of Endgame, Thor (white straight male) appoints Valkyrie (black bisexual female) ruler of New Asgard before he abdicates to travel with the Guardians.
  • The Alcoholic: She's a hard drinker, enough that until her Heel–Face Turn is more often drunk than sober, and enough to be able to drink at least a gallon of what appeared to be whiskey at a rate which Thor is amazed. Partly to forget what happened to the other Valkyries.
  • All There in the Manual: The only identification indicating that she's explicitly Brunnhilde (the name of the main character to use the Valkyrie alias) is in The Merch and not in the films themselves, although she's clearly inspired by the character.
  • Amazon Brigade: Was once a member of a group of female warriors known as the Valkyries. Thor is a big fan of them.
  • Are You Thinking What I Am Thinking: She asks a variation to Thor when they realize that they need reinforcements to take on Gorr the God-Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder.
    Valkyrie: Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?
    Thor: I’m thinking it.
    Jane: What are we thinking?
    Korg: Thinking what?
    Valkyrie: I’m thinking it too.
    Thor and Valkyrie: Omnipotence City!
  • Armor Is Useless: According to Tessa Thompson, Valkyrie doesn't wear much armor because she doesn't need it. Since she's martially trained Asgardian, she has a very high degree of innate Super-Toughness compared to the usual rabble on Sakaar.
  • Bash Siblings: She becomes one with Thor, Hulk, Loki, Korg, and Jane Foster.
  • Battle Couple: With another Valkyrie who died protecting her from Hela.
  • Blood Knight: Thor: Love and Thunder shows that Valkyrie is excited to fight again after not seeing action for some time.
  • Blue Is Heroic: Her Valkyrie armor is complete with a blue cape and she wielded a Dragonfang, a sword that possesses a sapphiric steel blade.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: How she describes the challenges of being king.
    Valkyrie: It's all meetings and raven-mails and meetings that could've been raven-mails.
  • Bury Your Gays: Not her, actually, but in Thor: Love and Thunder, she reveals that she was in a relationship with one of the other Valkyries killed by Hela. This was previously confirmed by Tessa Thompson following Valkyrie's MCU debut in Thor: Ragnarok.
  • Bystander Syndrome: She only survived Hela's massacre of her fellow women warriors because a loved one sacrificed herself to save her. This tragedy left Valkyrie embracing this attitude and retiring to Sakaar to drink herself to death. She tells Thor to forget about the Asgardians, but he refuses to do so.
  • The Chains of Commanding: Downplayed. Despite the monumental task of rehabilitating and rebuilding News Asgard, Love and Thunder shows that Valkyrie's leadership has succeeded significantly. That said, she doesn't hide how much of what it entailed doing (council meetings, diplomatic visits and even commercials) is beginning to weigh her down. When Gorr's onslaught brings combat on her front door and Thor invites her to the quest against him, she's positively ecstatic to go slashing again.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Inverted as she's only referred to as "Valkyrie" in all of her appearances so neither her teammates nor the audience learn her real name, which in the comics would be Brunnhilde but is never stated on-screen.
  • Composite Character: With the Grandmaster taking the role of the Red King, Valkyrie takes the role of Caiera, his female enforcer who ends up forming a bond with one of his gladiators. Unlike Caiera, however, the bond is entirely platonic.
  • Cool Horse: She's seen riding a winged stallion into battle against Hela in a flashback. She rides again at the final battle in Endgame, where the horse shows to be a very quick and agile mount.
  • Cool Sword:
    • She has in her possession a Dragonfang, a sapphiric-blue Absurdly Sharp Blade issued to the Valkyries. Thor has a moment when he gets to hold it. The Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary reveals that the hilts of the Dragonfangs were carved from the teeth of dragons, hence the name.
    • In Thor: Love and Thunder, she's shown wielding Zeus's Thunderbolt as a sword while dueling Gorr the God Butcher, zapping him with yellow lightning when he tries to parry her slash.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: All her fellow Valkyries being killed for, in her words, some family feud, broke her belief in Asgard's throne.
  • Dangerous Deserter: She abandoned her post as Valkyrie after being traumatized for being the Sole Survivor, but she is every bit as dangerous.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Was once a proud Asgardian warrior, but now is in hiding on Sakaar and wants nothing to do with her heritage. This is because she's the only surviving Valkyrie, from when Odin sent them to stop Hela.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She dismisses Thor throughout Ragnarok with either sarcasm or the taser device she implanted on his neck. When she overcomes her survivor's guilt and decides to take up the fight against Hela, she tones it down.
  • Decomposite Character: Although she fulfills the main role of "the Valkyrie" in the MCU, one of the other Valkyries that appeared in her flashback more closely resembles the Brunnhilde from the comics, sporting long blonde hair and blue eyes, getting killed by Hela. It's heavily implied that said Valkyrie was this one's lover.
  • Don't Ask: Her answer when Jane asks her what happened to the Emotion Gods she stole their cloaks from during the mission in Omnipotence City.
    Jane: Where are the Emotion Gods?
    Valkyrie: Mm. Don't Ask.
  • Dreadlock Warrior: Thor: Love and Thunder shows that she has formed dreadlocks with her long hair.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Her heavy drinking is actually a means to forget the slaughter of the Valkyries at Hela's hand, especially the one that gave her life to defend her.
    Valkyrie: I've spent years, in a haze, trying to forget my past. Sakaar seemed like the best place to drink, and to forget, and to die. One day.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Love and Thunder shows her enjoying the sight of Thor's butt while eating grapes after Zeus accidentally flicked all of the latter's clothing away. When Jane asks Valkyrie if they should help Thor, the latter replies with an "eventually" before offering the former some of the grapes.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Dropping in to rescue a trapped Thor from marauding Sakaaran scavengers while completely piss-faced and still chugging a bottle, inelegantly tumbling off her ship, and drunkenly trying to claim ownership of Thor while the scavengers just laugh at her — until she casually and ruthlessly guns down the lot of them with her ship, tasing Thor with an obedience disk and taking him in when he tries to thank her.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: The woman that Valkyrie kisses the hand of in Love and Thunder is quite...appreciative.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": She's only referred to as Valkyrie throughout the films. The only exception is in Thor: Ragnarok where she is called Scrapper 142, which isn't her real name either.
  • Foreshadowing: Her first appearance has her chuck an enemy over a great distance casually like Thor just did, and refer to him as 'Your Majesty', hinting at her connection to Asgard.
  • Former Regime Personnel: Was part of Asgard's elite fighting force during Odin and Hela's galaxy-wide war of conquest; afterward she becomes a slaver and mercenary for the Grandmaster.
  • Genocide Survivor: Half of her people are slaughtered by Thanos, and she's among those who were spared.
  • Going Native: For an Action Girl with a Magitek upbringing, she adapts exceptionally well to the advanced technology of Sakaar, and by Endgame, she has settled into life on Earth as the in-practice leader of New Asgard.
  • Gold and White Are Divine: Her outfit from her time as a member of the Valkyries (an Amazon Brigade from a culture once revered as gods) is a suit of white armor with gold accents. She dons it again at the end of Thor: Ragnarok, after Thor finds it in Asgard's armory, and again in the climax of Endgame.
  • Good Costume Switch: After deciding to help Thor she switches from her black leather costume to a white one with a blue cape.
  • Hates Being Alone: She misses her sisters (the other Valkyries) and it shows - she admits this to Jane and desires for Jane to be around because it makes her feel better.
  • Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She kicks off her introduction by staggering out of her ship with a forty in hand while absolutely cocked, and for much of the movie, she is in some degree of intoxication and spends her more sober moments acquiring more alcohol, fighting, or wrangling gladiators. Eventually deconstructed since her generally hedonistic and debauched lifestyle is a cover for a broken woman.
  • Heartbroken Badass: Drinks, scavenges, and fights to forget the memory of all the other Valkyries, one of whom was her lover.
  • Heel–Face Turn: As mentioned above, she works for the Grandmaster before deciding to help Thor and Bruce Banner.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: As Scrapper 142 she wears a black leather costume.
  • Hide Your Lesbians: Although her sexuality was confirmed by her actress, there's no evidence of this in the film herself other than the scene where another Valkyrie was shown Taking the Bullet for her. There was a scene that showed a woman leaving her bedroom, but it was cut, most likely for this reason. Tessa Thompson has indicated that Love and Thunder will actually address the character's sexuality, and it did, with Korg calling the aforementioned Valkyrie her girlfriend and her flirtatiously kissing the hand of one of the Zeusettes.
  • Hyper-Competent Sidekick: In Avengers: Endgame, she's heavily implied to be the one keeping things in New Asgard in line while Thor was still wallowing about in his drunken stupor. Because of her actions, he cedes leadership of the town to her when he abdicates the throne.
  • I Kiss Your Hand: She kisses the hand of one of Zeus's maidens before fleeing Omnipotence City with Thor and Jane.
  • In the Back: Valkyrie uses Zeus's Thunderbolt to non-fatally stab Gorr in the back before he returns the favor.
  • Informed Ability: Her skills as a leader. They're hinted at in his first scene in Endgame and Thor mentions them as the reason for giving the crown to her, but her minor role in the film overall doesn't allow them to be made known to the audience, although it's implied that she may have been the real leader of New Asgard while Thor spent the last five years in drunken, isolated depression with Korg and Miek.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It takes some time for her to join Thor's cause and fulfill her oath as a Valkyrie. She spends most of Ragnarok coldly rebuffing his every attempt to appeal to her better nature.
  • Karma Houdini: She was a slaver on Sakaar, a prominent enough one that the Grandmaster considered her his best supplier. She never faces any reprisal for this beyond a few barbed comments from Thor.
  • The Lad-ette: She's very fond of drinking and fighting, and can be very aggressive and forceful, especially when pushed. A Deleted Scene also showed a woman leaving her bedroom, implying she sleeps around. Taika Waititi describes her as being more of a guy than the other, actual guy characters.
  • Lady in a Power Suit: She is the current monarch of New Asgard and Thor: Love and Thunder shows her wearing a black suit while attending a conference.
  • Last of Her Kind: All the other Valkyries were killed by Hela.
  • Licking the Blade: Thor: Love and Thunder has her licking the blade of her sword to intimidate Zeus's mooks.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Like all Asgardians, she's superhumanly strong and tough, and while she can't fly like Thor, manages to pull off some impressive acrobatics nonetheless. She's still no match for Hela, though.
  • The Lost Lenore: Still mourns the death of her girlfriend at the hands of Hela.
  • My God, You Are Serious!: She has this reaction when Thor names her King of New Asgard at the end of Avengers: Endgame.
    Valkyrie: Thor, your people need a King.
    Thor: No, they already have one.
    Valkyrie: [chuckles] That's funny... [long silence] You're being serious?
  • Never Gets Drunk: She is the only aversion of this trope among Asgardians because she spends most of her scenes drunk. She later shares this dubious honor with Thor himself in Endgame. This means she must drink a mind-melting amount of alcohol all the time. note .
  • The Not-Love Interest: Word of God says romance is the last thing on Thor's mind when they meet. Indeed, they don't hook up in the film, though there are bits of Ship Tease.
  • No Name Given: She's never given any formal name. Valkyrie is the group she was a part of, while everyone else in the film refers to her using her designation of Scrapper 142. Hulk just calls her "Angry Girl". Some of the ancillary material, such as the Valkyrie Funko Pop! figure, list her real name as Brunnhilde, the name of the main Valkyrie from the comics. However, this has yet to be confirmed onscreen. In Thor: Love and Thunder she's officially called "King Valkyrie" in-universe and Thor nicknames her "Val", short for Valkyrie.
  • Offered the Crown: In Endgame, after acknowledging that Valkyrie has done a much better job leading their people than he did, Thor names her the King of New Asgard, to shape as she likes, before embarking on a journey with the Guardians to try and find a new place for himself in the cosmos.
  • Older Than She Looks: Even taking in the usual Really 700 Years Old aspect of Asgardians, Valkyrie is very old, old enough to be one of the few Asgardians to know who Hela is, and to have met her, though this may be because of Sakaar's strange and unstable relationship with time.
  • Pajama-Clad Hero: During Gorr's attack on New Asgard, Valkyrie fights the Shadow Monsters in her t-shirt and sweatpants, having not had time to change.
  • Pass the Popcorn: Love and Thunder has Valkyrie offering Jane Foster grapes while Thor is being displayed completely naked in front of the Olympians.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Tessa Thompson is a meager 5' 4" (1.63 m), and in-universe pretty much all of the male heroes tower over her. Being both an Asgardian and a Valkyrie, though, affords her with Super-Strength comparable with Thor's and the most extensive combat training out of any of the good guys.
  • Primary-Color Champion: Her white Valkyrie armor has yellow/gold accents and a blue cape. The steel blade of her Dragonfang sword is sapphire-blue in color.
  • The Queen's Latin: Speaks with a posh English accent, like all Asgardians.
  • Race Lift: Valkyrie is usually a white blonde in the comics, but she's dark-skinned in the MCU. However, one of her former Valkyrie comrades does indeed fit the comic's description.
  • Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: In Thor: Love and Thunder, one of her duties as King of New Asgard is to cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the ice cream shop Infinity Conez.
  • She Is the King: At the end of Endgame, as Thor abdicates the throne of New Asgard to go travel with the Guardians of the Galaxy, she tells him that he can't just leave, he's the king. His response to her is to tell her they've got a king: her. Just about every Asgardian who interacts with her in Love and Thunder also calls her "King."
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Being the Sole Survivor of the slaughtered Valkyries would infer this on its own but she shows many signs of this between the heavy drinking, the constant need to be fighting, or scavenging to keep her mind preoccupied, and the sleeping around (in a deleted scene).
  • Shipper on Deck: For Thor and Jane in Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Ship Tease:
    • A few moments with Thor, such as when he awkwardly compliments her hair. She also gets a bit with Hulk, although that may be In Love with Your Carnage. She also seems quite attached to Jane after Jane becomes Mighty Thor. Valkyrie also gets another moment with Thor when she's clearly excited at seeing him naked after Zeus flicks his clothes off.
    • She gets a bit of this with Carol Danvers in The Marvels, where she comforts her while helping take the Skrull refugees off her hands, and even gives her a kiss on the cheek before leaving. A deleted scene also reveals she calls Carol "my captain", and she makes a Freudian Slip of "strap-on" implying what she had in mind with Danvers.
  • Single Tear: When Gorr asks an incapacitated Valkyrie if the gods did anything to save her sisters-in-arms from being slaughtered by Hela, Valkyrie sheds a single tear.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: Her sleeveless Sakaar outfit showcases her impressive arms. Like Thor, it's a Justified Trope due to her Super-Toughness. Despite returning to her Valkyrie outfit for the climax of Ragnarok and even Avengers: Endgame, she is shown to have taken another sleeveless armor ensemble during the events of Love and Thunder.
  • The Smart Guy: Despite her ample physical talents, this is her main role among the good guys in Ragnarok. She's the only one who knows how to fly a ship or get around Sakaar's tech and is also the only one with any personal experience with and knowledge of how to fight Hela.
  • Sole Survivor: Of the Valkyries—the rest were killed fighting Hela.
  • Stepford Snarker: Her acid wit and devil-may-care attitude are largely a front to cover up the fact that she's clearly still grieving over the loss of her fellow Valkyries at Hela's hands. By the end of the film, she's gotten her vengeance and seems to have become more genuinely cheerful.
  • Super-Strength: An inherent trait of Asgardians and hers is an exceptional one. She rips up fighter ships with her bare hands and in her first scene rather casually sends an enemy flying hundreds of feet much as Thor did shortly before (the first hint that she is an Asgardian).
  • Survivor Guilt: Being the only survivor of a battle with Hela has left her bitter and disillusioned about Asgard. Doesn't help that she only survived because one of her fellow Valkyries, possibly her lover, took a sword for her.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: In Love and Thunder, Valkyrie says "We're gonna die!" after Thor's failed attempt to convince the other gods in fighting Gorr the God Butcher.
  • Tribal Face Paint: She has white markings on her face. Bruce wonders aloud what they represent (one theory being people she's killed). Given that Topaz also wears them, they seem to indicate working for the Grandmaster. Rather appropriately, they appear to resemble chains.
  • Try Not to Die: Her last words of advice to Thor before he leaves to fight Gorr alone at the Gates of Eternity.
    Valkyrie: Hey. Don't die.
    Thor: Yeah, I know.
  • Twofer Token Minority: She's a black bisexual woman.
  • Valkyries: She was once a member of a group of female warriors known as the Valkyries. As the last surviving member of the outfit, it's an Appropriated Appellation.
  • Why Won't You Die?: In a rare version where it's the hero saying it towards the villain, Valkyrie gets really frustrated that she can't kill Fenris with an Asgardian Gatling gun:
    Valkyrie: This stupid dog won't die!
  • You Are Number 6: She is referred to as "Scrapper 142" in Sakaar.
  • Your Worst Memory: Her defeat at the hands of Hela and the mass slaughter of her fellow Valkyries — which Loki forces her to relive.

    Frigga 

Frigga

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frigga_thor_1028.png
"It's only because I worry over you that you have survived."

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Portrayed By: Rene Russo, Chanique Greyling (young)

Voiced By: Véronique Augereau (European French dub), Rebeca Patiño (Latin-American Spanish dub), Mercedes Montalá (European Spanish dub), Kumiko Takizawa (Japanese dub), Márcia Coutinho (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World | Avengers: Endgame | Loki note  | Thor: Love and Thunder

"Everyone fails at who they're supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person, of a hero... is how well they succeed at being who they are."

The wife of Odin, mother of Thor and Loki, and Queen of Asgard. As Odin falls into the Odinsleep, Frigga takes care of him, unaware of what Loki is doing on the throne. She was raised among witches, and therefore is as formidable a sorceress gifted with sight that peers beyond the physical realm past spirit and time, and taught Loki his infamous mastery of illusions.


  • Action Girl: Thor definitely didn't get it all from his father.
    • Thor: When Laufey and his goons try to assassinate Odin during his Odinsleep period, the first Frost Giant to enter the chamber gets cut in half by a single sword slice from her.
    • The Dark World: She easily bests Malekith in combat, taking him on alone armed with nothing but a shortsword and superior skill. It's a shame he brought Kurse along.
  • Action Mom: She's a Magic Knight who taught one son magic (and his combat style is very similar to hers) and can guard the other son's girlfriend splendidly on her own.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Frigga in the comics has strands of gray hair styled into braids as opposed to her having gold hair in the live action Thor movies.
  • Ambiguous Situation: Thor: Ragnarok and its promotional materials never address at any point who Hela's mother is and indeed, whether she could be Frigga or whether Hela came from a time before Frigga was married to Odin. The hidden murals in Asgard's throne room only show Odin and Hela; there is no sign of Frigga or any other female figure who could be interpreted as being Hela's mother. In Avengers: Infinity War, Thor eventually refers to Hela as his half-sister, confirming that Frigga is not her mother.
  • And Starring: Gets billed as "With Rene Russo."
  • Armor-Piercing Question: When Frigga visits Loki during his imprisonment in Dark World. When Loki screams angrily that Odin is not his father Frigga calmly asks if she is not Loki's mother. Loki is floored and eventually says she isn't, but his heart's not in it.
  • Back for the Finale: Makes an extended cameo in Avengers: Endgame, which, while not the last Marvel movie, concludes the Infinity Saga. Thor and Rocket cross paths with her while time-traveling to 2013, and she and Thor have a touching mother-son moment together.
  • Badass and Baby: A flashback in Thor: Love and Thunder shows that Frigga used to take baby Thor strapped to her chest when she went into battle.
  • Battle Couple: She and Odin work together in protecting Asgard from the Dark Elves.
  • Beneath the Mask: Frigga gives the impression of being an Incorruptible Pure Pureness Queen, but she's actually as devious as her son Loki, who follows in her footsteps. He's the sole person who gets to see her true self—even Odin is ignorant of the fact that his wife has betrayed him by spending time with Loki during the latter's incarceration, which is a flagrant violation of the king's orders.
  • Big Sleep: Her eyes are closed after she is fatally stabbed by Kurse.
  • Bodyguarding a Badass: Odin is the most powerful being in the Nine Realms, but he's helpless during the Odinsleep, so it's Frigga's duty to guard him as he recuperates. She kills one of Laufey's goons who attempts to assassinate her husband.
  • Brutal Honesty: The wisest person in Asgard doesn't make any bones (though she usually does follow it with something supportive and inspiring). Especially when Thor in Endgame approaches her and confesses to being an idiot:
    Frigga: Idiot? No. A failure? Absolutely.
    Thor: That's a little bit harsh.
  • Bully Hunter: In an effort to make sure that Thor does not grow up to be a bloodthirsty conquerer like his half-sister Hela, Frigga tries to teach him from infancy to protect the helpless by taking him into battles to defend innocent civilians from marauders. He finally learns this lesson by the end of Love and Thunder, and honors his mother's memory by passing her teachings and Stormbreaker down to his adoptive niece Love Gorrsdottir, so they may be free-wandering agents of kindness, unbound by political-interests and bureaucratic red-tape like being an Avenger would, who travel the universe to defend the innocent whenever and wherever they are needed.
    Thor: [to Love while handing her Stormbreaker] I remember what my mother used to tell me; Listen to grown-ups, and if you see anyone who is scared or picked on, look after them, okay?
  • Composite Character:
    • Her name, magical powers, and role as the Queen of Asgard and wife of Odin come from All-Mother Frigga.
    • She gets her role as Thor's biological mother from the comic's Gaea, as well as her more youthful appearance, compared to Frigga's regal elder appearance in the comics.
  • Consummate Liar: It's suggested in The Dark World that Frigga is this, and that Loki had learned to be crafty from her. She ignores Odin's royal decree that she can never see her adopted son again, and she visits Loki's dungeon with an illusion of herself for the past year without her husband knowing. Also "it takes one to know one", and Frigga can read her duplicitous son like a book. She later tells Odin, "You've never been a very good liar," which implies that she's an excellent one. Frigga then proves it when she deceives Malekith with a false image of Jane.
  • Cool Helmet: Much like her son, she can be seen wearing a winged helmet in battle during a flashback scene of Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Death by Adaptation: She didn't die (at least permanently) in the comics, but she's killed in The Dark World.
  • Defiant to the End: She's held in a headlock by Kurse while Malekith walks over to Jane. Just as he reaches out to take the Aether from her, Jane disappears, revealing that she's an illusion.
    Malekith: WITCH! Where is the Aether?!
    Frigga: I'll never tell you.
    Malekith: I believe you. [Kurse stabs Frigga through the back]
  • Disappears into Light: During her funeral, her body turns into motes of light that disappear shortly after.
  • Dual Wielding: In a flashback scene of Thor: Love and Thunder, Frigga goes into battle wielding two swords, one in each hand.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Goes out fighting against Malekith in order to protect Jane and the Aether.
  • Generation Xerox: In Avengers: Infinity War, Loki shares Frigga's fate — both die protecting another person (Jane, Thor), both briefly use illusions (to conceal Jane, to hide a dagger), both attempt to take on a much stronger foe (Kurse, Thanos) with a short sword/dagger, both have their quick attack repulsed, and both are Defiant to the End: "I'll never tell you" / "You will never be a god."
  • Face Death with Dignity: Endgame implies that she knew exactly when she was going to die, and was fully prepared for it.
  • Gold and White Are Divine: Her garments are exclusively gold and white in Thor, but she varies her palette in The Dark World.
  • Good Counterpart: To Loki.
    • In Thor, they're linked through their sorcery and trickery which contrasts to Thor and Odin upfront combat attitude. Frigga is happy being the Queen consort of Asgard with a supporting role in her husband's reign, whereas Loki is miserable having to play second fiddle to Thor, the Crown Prince. Loki's envy and resentment towards his brother eventually lead him to commit fratricide (although the enchantment Odin had placed on Mjölnir revives Thor), while Frigga is devoted to Odin and protects him from Laufey's mook.
    • In The Dark World, Frigga represents what Loki was (more or less) before his Face–Heel Turn, and what he can be once again if he's willing to atone for his past misdeeds. While she can be tricky and even treacherous (her visits to Loki's dungeon is technically a crime against the Crown), she generally uses her talents for the greater good, and in her final valiant act, she defends Jane from Malekith.
  • Good Parents:
    • Even though Loki isn't a child of her blood, she loves and dotes on him as if he were. She pleaded with Odin to commute Loki's death sentence to life imprisonment.
    • She supports Thor's relationship with Jane, being happy that he is happy.
    • Even though the time-travelling version of Thor in Endgame isn't, strictly speaking, her son as she knows him, she still imparts some much-needed advice on him that lifts his spirits.
    • It is shown in the opening flashbacks of Love and Thunder that Frigga tried to teach Thor compassion for the weak by taking him into battle to defend the innocent in infancy. It may have taken fifteen centuries and seven movies for him to finally understand her lessons, but he honors his mother's memory by passing down her compassion to his adoptive niece Love Gorrsdottir, so they can travel the universe to defend the innocent together.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's blonde, and she's kind and respectful towards Jane, unlike Odin, who rudely equates the human woman's presence in Asgard to that of a goat at a banquet table.
  • Happily Married: To King Odin.
  • Headbutt of Love: In Endgame, she shares one with a time-traveling Thor as she brings him back from over the Despair Event Horizon and her little boy cries in his mother's arms.
  • The Heart: Of the Asgardian Royal Family. When she dies, the family collapses into shambles. Odin becomes more bloodthirsty and stricter, which leads to Thor plotting behind his back to escape Asgard and exact revenge on Malekith. But the most affected is clearly Loki, who has an off-screen Tantrum Throwing because of his inadvertent role in her death.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Died keeping Jane Foster and the Aether out of Malekith's clutches.
  • Hidden Depths: In The Dark World, she gets a fight scene against Malekith and wins. Further, it's revealed that she's the one who taught Loki magic, and she uses the same sorts of illusions he does.
  • The High Queen: She is beautiful, gracious and regal.
  • Holy Halo: She is depicted with one in the Asgardian frescoes in Ragnarok. Well-earned, given that she was a loving wife and mother, and died protecting Jane, a mortal she has just met.
  • In a Single Bound: She can be seen jumping into a battle with a pretty impressive leap in a flashback scene of Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Lady of War: When fighting Malekith, she was wearing a queenly dress and handled him with great skill.
  • Like Parent, Like Child: Frigga has influenced her adopted son Loki to a tremendous degree. She taught him magic, and he also "inherited" Shared Family Quirks (fidgeting with hands when nervous), her talent for deception, her elegant comportment and her fighting style (i.e. relying on speed and agility). Both are very perceptive about other people (lampshaded by Frigga in regards to Loki), not to mention that Loki is In Touch with His Feminine Side and beautiful in a feminine manner. Loki initially tried to rein in Thor's violent, impulsive side, and Frigga does the same with Odin. They even die similarly by attempting to protect another person and ambushing a much stronger foe with a short sword/dagger and being Defiant to the End.
  • Magic Knight: In battle, she employs illusion spells and is very adept with a sword—Loki definitely takes after her in this regard (albeit with a preference for daggers).
  • Mama Bear: Even though her sons need no protection, Frigga still defends them.
  • Master Actress: Odin never suspects that she has transgressed his command to not visit Loki in prison. Frigga isn't as honest, moral or obedient as he believes she is.
  • Master of Illusion: She was Loki's instructor in illusion magic. She uses an illusion to visit him during his incarceration, and she conjures a copy of Jane to mislead Malekith.
  • May–December Romance: Implied. Infinity War refers to Hela as Thor's half-sister, meaning Odin was married to or at least slept with someone before Frigga. Also, take into account that their actors were born seventeen years apart with Anthony Hopkins having been born in 1937 and Rene Russo in 1954.
  • Meaningful Funeral: In The Dark World, Asgardians come to pay last tribute to their queen and other fallen in a beautiful ceremony. During the long scene, no one says a word. Loki, a convict for life, is not allowed to attend.
  • Mentor Archetype: As revealed in Loki, she was the one who showed Loki magic and encouraged him to learn it. Loki did not believe he could ever do it, but she kept saying that he can do anything.
  • Morality Chain: For her entire family:
    • She's this to her husband Odin, to the point where her death causes him to become hellishly bloodthirsty.
    • She's one for her adopted son Loki: In The Dark World, she's shown to be the only family member Loki still connects to and takes advice from before calling her away. Her death also is what leads Loki to help Thor in the first place. Also, in Loki, footage of her death is what leads to Loki agreeing to help the TVA.
    • In Endgame, she's the one that helps a depressed Thor get back on track after all his losses and suffering from previous movies.
  • Morality Pet: To Loki. Played with because it's been shown that he loves Frigga the most, but his affection for her didn't stop him from committing his actions.
  • Motherhood Is Superior: While Loki's adoption creates all kinds of drama, it all revolves around Odin. No one says that Loki is not Frigga's son.
  • Mysterious Past: It's unknown how she came to meet and marry Odin. In Avengers: Endgame, she mentions that she was raised by witches.
  • Never Mess with Granny: She's beginning to go grey, but she's still capable of taking down Frost Giants and even The King of All Dark Elves in single-combat if the need arises.
  • Not So Stoic: Frigga is generally pretty serious and manipulative for the most part, but when she encounters her son's future self in Avengers: Endgame, his startled reaction actually causes her to shout in fright.
  • Only One Name: Only her first name is mentioned.
  • Parental Favoritism:
    • She favours Loki because he shares a lot more in common with her than Thor (i.e. Loki is In Touch with His Feminine Side), and as his instructor in magic she has spent more time with him. In The Dark World, Frigga wilfully breaks the law against Odin's wishes so that she can visit a jailed Loki, but she doesn't do the same for an exiled Thor in Thor. Furthermore, the latter immediately believes Loki when he lies to him that Frigga forbade his return after Odin "died" of stress during Thor's exile. It's lampshaded by Thor when he asks his brother, "You think you alone were loved of Mother?" As explained by his actor:
      Hiddleston: Rene Russo and I, always, from the very first film, part of the backstory we created was that Frigga was really the most attentive to Loki when he was a child. And Odin didn't really know how to connect. He connected much more with Thor. They were sort of cut from the same cloth. And Frigga and Loki had this kind of beautiful, sensitive, more artistic relationship. And it was actually her who taught him all his magic.
    • However, unlike Odin, there's no evidence that she ever treats Thor harshly. He always speaks highly of her, mourns her death and she even gives him advice and counselling when a time-travelling version of him meets her in Endgame, which helps get him out of his funk.
  • Proper Lady: The most graceful and poised member of the royal family.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: The self-described wisest person in Asgard, and she can certainly back that up. She is a royal who does something and a devoted parent to her wildly different sons. Seeking counsel from her in Endgame is what finally sets Thor on the right path.
  • Related in the Adaptation: In the comics and original myths, she's Thor's stepmother, but in the movies, she's Thor's biological mother.
  • Reverse Grip: Her preferred method when wielding a blade, as demonstrated in her fight against Malekith. As Loki is proficient with short melee arms as well while employing a similar grip, he likely picked this up from her as well as his illusion tricks.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: She personally guards the king during the Odinsleep in Thor. She also fights Malekith to protect Jane Foster and the Aether in The Dark World.
  • Sacrificial Lamb: Kurse shows how dangerous he is when he manages to disarm, restrain and kill her.
  • Satellite Family Member: She's defined by her reactions to the actions of her family members.
  • Seen It All: Raised by witches and reigning as the Queen of a Magitek space empire, very little gets past Frigga. Lampshaded in Endgame, where she doesn't bat an eye at seeing her son from a decade into the future accompanied by a talking "rabbit".
  • Shared Family Quirks: She has passed down a tic to her adopted son: like her, he fidgets with his hands when he's nervous. Loki also picked up Frigga's mischievous smirk.
  • Shipper on Deck: She's delighted seeing Thor with Jane.
  • Silk Hiding Steel: Being queenly, graceful, and proper doesn't stop her from being a formidable sorceress and swordswoman.
  • Single-Stroke Battle: She slays one of Laufey's mooks with only one swing of her sword.
  • Straight Man: She's more collected and calmer than her husband; she's not subject to rash decisions based on anger. In a deleted scene from Thor, Frigga reveals to Loki, "I asked [Odin] to be honest with you [about your Jötunn heritage] from the beginning. There should be no secrets in the family." If Odin had listened to her, a ton of problems would've been prevented.
  • Time-Shifted Actor: She is portrayed by Rene Russo in Thor, Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Endgame, but Chanique Greyling played a younger Frigga during a flashback scene of Thor's babyhood in Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In Thor, she slashes a single Frost Giant before getting casually slapped to the floor by Laufey. In The Dark World, she's an accomplished swordswoman who easily bests Malekith.
  • The Trickster: Downplayed compared to her adopted son Loki. She is implied to be his tutor in cunning, but unlike him, Frigga maintains an air of being virtuous. In The Dark World, she technically commits treason by secretly visiting Loki, an enemy of the Crown, in his cell for a year, which her king has explicitly forbidden. Odin—whom she notes is not a very good liar—is plainly unaware of this. Malekith attempts to insult her by calling her a witch after he falls for her trick with Jane, and Frigga merely smirks with satisfaction—like Loki, she thoroughly enjoys outwitting her foes. The fact that she taught Loki how to turn flowers into frogs (and not vice versa) also speaks volumes about her.
  • True Sight: Implied, when she easily recognizes her own son from the future. Plus, it would make sense for a Master of Illusion to know how to pierce through such trickery.
    Frigga: I was raised by witches, boy. I see with more than just eyes, as you well know.
  • Trying Not to Cry: When Loki denies that she's his mother in The Dark World, Frigga knows that he doesn't mean it, but his words still sting, and her eyes become wet and redden slightly. She then tries to brush off his hurtful comment with a fake smile and a dismissive, "Hmpf."
  • Universally Beloved Leader: Judging by the attendance and the reaction of the mourners at Frigga's funeral, all of Asgard love their Queen.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend: She not only takes care of Odin in the Odinsleep, but guards him as well. She takes pride in this, as witnessed by her interaction with Odin while they prepare for Malekith's invasion:
    Odin: Despite all I have survived, my queen still worries for me.
    Frigga: It is only because I worry for you that you have survived.
  • Viking Funeral: She receives one in The Dark World.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: She never stopped believing in Loki's redemption. Thor considers this the greatest lesson Frigga ever taught him which came at a time when he was stewing in his Failure Hero status.
    Frigga: Everyone fails at who they are supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person, of a hero... is how well they succeed at being who they are.

    Heimdall 

Heimdall

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_heimdall_4.png
"Be warned, I shall uphold my sacred oath to protect this realm as its gatekeeper."
Click here to see him during Thor: Ragnarok

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Portrayed By: Idris Elba

Voiced By: Mario Arvizu (Latin-American Spanish dub), Juan Carlos Gustems (European Spanish dub), Jiro Saito (Japanese dub), Widemir Normil (Canadian French dub), Maurício Berger (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World | Avengers: Age of Ultron note  | Thor: Ragnarok | Avengers: Infinity War | Thor: Love and Thunder

"The universe hasn't seen this marvel since before my watch began. Few can sense it, even fewer can see it. But while its effects can be dangerous, it is truly beautiful."

The gatekeeper of Asgard and guardian of the Bifröst, the most loyal warrior of Asgard. His eyes see and his ears hear all that takes place in the Nine Realms. With his Super-Senses, Heimdall ensures that no enemies are able to get past his watch and that Asgard is safe.


  • Action Dad: Love and Thunder reveals that he had a family, with his son Axl being a major supporting character.
  • All There in the Manual: In Norse myth, Heimdall is actually a Van (being from Vanaheim) by birth: he's not obligated to look Nordic any more than Hogun is — even if his Marvel Comics version does. However, in the Prose Edda, he's described as "the whitest of the gods."
  • Ascended Extra: Despite the popularity and acclaim of actor Idris Elba, Heimdall doesn't have much a role in the films he appears in until Thor: Ragnarok, and is the only Asgardian (other than Thor and Loki) to appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Infinity War.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: He ascended to Valhalla following his death, and is the first person to greet Jane when she arrives.
  • Baritone of Strength: He is one of the strongest warriors in Asgard and has a deep and powerful voice, courtesy of Idris Elba.
  • BFS: He uses a big sword to activate the Bifröst. He also uses it in combat, especially after taking it away from the Bifröst to prevent Hela from moving to other worlds.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Played straight in Infinity War as he's the first onscreen character to bite it and the first of many. He's also one of the few characters that died in that movie and Endgame not to return in some fashion.
  • Chekhov's Gun: His theft of the sword of Bifröst is what initially prevents Hela's evil from spreading past Asgard.
  • Colorblind Casting: Thor director Kenneth Branagh invoked this with regard to the casting of Idris Elba as Heimdall, saying "If you have a chance to have a great actor in the part, everything else is irrelevant."
  • Cool Helmet: It's gold and horned!
  • Cool Old Guy: He's of the same generation as Odin, and is scary cool.
  • Cool Sword: His sword can control the Bifröst bridge.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    Thor: Sometimes merriment is a greater burden than battle.
    Heimdall: Then you are doing one of them incorrectly.
  • Defiant to the End: After suffering a beatdown in Infinity War, he uses his remaining strength to summon the Bifröst one last time to send the Hulk back to Earth to warn everyone about Thanos. This results in the Mad Titan immediately killing him, although Heimdall gives off a defiant smile as he passes away from his wounds.
  • Dies Wide Open: In Infinity War, his eyes remain open after Thanos stabs him through the heart as punishment for sending Hulk to Earth with the Bifrost.
  • The Dreaded: He stands alone between Asgard and the other eight realms. There's a reason the Warriors Three are terrified he might find out they're plotting to subvert Loki's rule.
  • Dreadlock Warrior: In Ragnarok, he has a style change after being banished from Asgard by Loki to ensure he doesn't find out about Odin's disappearance.
  • Dying Smirk: After Heimdall sends the Hulk to Earth to warn the planet of Thanos's attack, Thanos kills him. Heimdall, knowing he's given the universe a chance, dies with a faint smile on his face.
  • Everyone Has Standards: It's implied in Thor: The Dark World that Odin's willingness to stage a huge attack on the Dark Elves with the intention of slaughtering them and Maleketh regardless of casualties disturbs even Heimdall, which would explain why he chose to distract his king while Thor, Loki and Jane leave on their own to find him.
  • The Fettered: He has an eternal duty which he takes with utter seriousness. He never leaves his post, except when Bifröst is sealed, and his loyalty to Asgard is absolute. Choose to fight him, though, and you face a Beef Gate.
  • Fling a Light into the Future: In Infinity War, he uses the Bifröst one last time to send the Hulk back to Earth to warn them about Thanos. If Doctor Strange’s comments later in the film are anything to go by, this has given the Avengers the one (and only) means out of 14 million to defeat Thanos — something confirmed by the events of Endgame, when the Hulk is crucial to undoing the Snap.
  • Gate Guardian: As guardian of the Bifröst he defends Asgard from all who would seek to attack it.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: As he is The Driver and functionally an Almighty Janitor. However, his job's importance is played up thoroughly, and he's implied to be near or superior to Odin in power. A little bit of his powers of sight are shown in Ragnarok when he gives Thor the ability to see what happens on Asgard during his imprisonment on Sakaar.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Heimdall is already down for the count when Infinity War opens, so, given that he's no longer a threat, it's very likely Thanos would have let him live. Instead, Heimdall uses the last of his strength to send the Hulk back to Earth, and Thanos kills him for it.
  • Hero of Another Story: The only reason that there are any Asgardian civilians left to save in Ragnarok is that he has been functioning as a one man resistance and rescue team, with no help, no back up, and only his skill and sight to aid him.
  • Human Popsicle: Loki freezes Heimdall with the Casket upon his "act of treason" (trying to attack Loki for attempting to destroy Jötunheim with the Bifröst). He's able to break through.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: He meets his end in Infinity War, courtesy of Thanos wielding Corvus Glaive's glaive.
  • Informed Ability: While his powers are undeniably useful and his prowess as a warrior doesn't disappoint, he never displays anything remotely close to Odin's level of power in spite of the rumors. Best shown in Ragnarok, where he is one of the last Asgardians still standing and proves extremely capable, but openly admits that Thor is their last hope, not him.
  • In the Hood: In Ragnarok, after he has been stripped of his position and golden armor he goes into hiding wearing a hooded cloak as he leads Asgard's citizens to safety.
  • La Résistance: Leads the Asgardian resistance when Hela takes over Asgard.
  • Light Is Good: Has golden eyes and armor, and visually some solar motifs. He's also unquestionably heroic. However in Infinity War he refers to his ability to summon the Bifrost (what amounts to a giant beam of light) as "Dark Magic".
  • Lightning Bruiser: And Genius Bruiser. He was hand-picked by Odin to guard Bifröst because he has no weak spots.
  • Loophole Abuse: He uses this to magnificent efficiency:
    • In the first film, twice he uses this to fudge his oath of loyalty to Loki as king. The first time he leaves his sword in the Bifröst ignition for the Warriors Three to activate. The second time he waits for Loki to fire him before attacking him, so it will technically not be betrayal.
    • In The Dark World, Thor approached him to help him and Loki escape to Svartalfheim and take the battle to Malekith. He mentions what they plan to do is treason, and yet goes along with it, taking the initiative to distract Odin:
      Odin: You have called me for an urgent matter, Heimdall, what is it?
      Heimdall: Treason, my lord.
      Odin: Whose?
      Heimdall: Mine.
  • Nice Guy: On his job as the guardian of the Bifrost, he’s strict, no-nonsense, and professional. Off it, he’s kind, wise, and fatherly.
  • Not So Above It All: During the 1970s, he played a part in a bet between Thor and Loki (which the latter lost) that resulted in Loki becoming the infamous D.B. Cooper, with Heimdall acting as his cosmic getaway man via the Bifrost.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: After Hela slaughters the Einerjar and the Warriors Three, he protects, rescues, and leads the Asgardian civilians, singlehandedly.
  • One-Man Army: See the above trope. He doesn't lead La Résistance, he is the Resistance.
  • The Omniscient: Downplayed Trope. He can see and hear anything he wishes in the Nine Realms with perfect clarity, but he has to be looking for it, which is why the Asgardians fail to notice Thanos's designs on the Infinity Gauntlet. There are also a number of things he can't see even when he is looking, which always catches his attention. Dark Elf cloaking tech, for example, fools his sight perfectly but he can still hear their engines. However, his ability is useful for communicating with anyone, anywhere — even someone on the other side of a Wormhole. It is also invaluable to keep one step ahead of the literal Goddess of Death and her roving army of minions.
  • Pet the Dog: When Jane first arrives in Valhalla, Heimdall is the first person to warmly greet her, despite them never really knowing each other when they were alive. Somewhat justified in that he wished to show gratefulness that Jane rescued his son from certain death.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: Kenneth Branagh has explained that he chose Idris Elba for the part, not because he needed a Token Minority, but because he thought Idris was a very good actor.
    Bob Chipman: To everyone who pitched a fit about Idris Elba playing Heimdall; every scene he's in may as well be subtitled THAT'S WHY.
  • Race Lift: He's white in the comics and black in the film. Might also be an In-Universe example, if the myths are based on them and Heimdall's position meaning he cannot leave his post then it is not unlikely that the Norse never saw him but had heard of him enough to know his name and position.
  • Rebel Leader: Works this role as the leader and main asskicker of the Asgardian resistance.
  • Sacrificial Lion: After surviving near-death in almost all his film appearances, he’s the first onscreen character to perish in Infinity War, proving to the audience that anyone can die.
  • Scary Black Man: The Warriors Three are terrified of him because of his power, SuperSenses and deep voice.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He is killed in the opening to Infinity War, but his final action of sending the Hulk to Earth is the only reason why any of the Earth-based heroes learn about Thanos and the threat he poses to the universe.
  • The Stoic: One imagines standing as the eternal guardian of the gateway to all the Nine Realms either requires or breeds a certain emotional detachment. He's friendlier in The Dark World, at least to Thor.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: For his Super-Senses. Asgardians, when Heimdall temporarily shares his abilities with them, temporarily gain these eyes, as shown by Thor on Sakaar, as a means for the latter to check on Asgard.
  • Super-Senses: Heimdall possesses extraordinarily acute sight and hearing that allow him to observe everything that happens in the Nine Realms, should he choose to look or listen. As shown in Thor, his senses can be clouded by Loki's Perception Filter. In The Dark World, dark elf cloaking tech fools his sight but he can still hear their ships' engines. In Ragnarok, he states that he saw Loki coming with The Cavalry. While never addressed in the movies, in the comics Heimdall selectively blocks unneeded information to avoid Sensory Overload.
  • Undying Loyalty: It's stated in the first movie that the only reason Odin is not afraid of Heimdall is because of his absolute loyalty. The second movie plays with this: Heimdall is loyal to Asgard, not to the Allfather.
  • Unflappable Guardian: For all of Asgard. Though he's more prone to employing silence than the typical Obfuscating Stupidity and friendliness.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: He's Sif's brother in the comics, but there is no sign of that in the movies. In the myths, he's one of Odin's bastards.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • A variation in The Dark World: You know the Dark Elves will be a threat when even Heimdall can't sense their presence. This may be related to the possibility that the Dark Elves predate him.
    • He is the very first character to appear on screen in Infinity War... Lying on the ground and slowly dying from the wounds after his fight with Thanos and the Black Order. The Mad Titan himself got out of said fight completely unscathed.

    Bor 

Bor Burison

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bor_borison_tdw_9233.jpg

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Portrayed By: Tony Curran

Voiced By: Salvador Reyes (Latin-American Spanish dub), Marcelo Sandryni (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World

Father of Odin and grandfather of Thor, he led the war against the Dark Elves 5000 years before the events of the film.


  • Adaptational Weapon Swap: He is shown wielding the magical spear Gungnir during the battle of Svartalfheim. In the comics, Bor never used Gungnir and usually fights with large axes instead.
  • Alliterative Name: Bor Burison.
  • Ambiguously Evil: With the revelation in Ragnarok that Odin used to be a tyrannical warlord who mellowed out at some point, it's unclear if Bor, his father, was a conqueror as well. If so, this adds a different meaning to his fight against the Dark Elves, as it would mean that he wasn't protecting the realms out of nobility, but for the sake of having lands to conquer.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Leads the Asgardian charge. It runs in the family, apparently.
  • Authority Sounds Deep: He was King of Asgard before his son Odin, and his voice is deeper than Thor's.
  • The Cameo: Not him personally, but Asgardians with his long-antiquated helmet design appear on Hela's murals.
  • Cool Helmet: Wears his helmet from the comics, with downwards-curving horns.
  • The Extremist Was Right: His utter destruction of the Dark Elves (aided by their own ruler Malekith) is portrayed as a good thing due to the threat they posed to the entire universe and the peace that came with their end.
  • Long-Dead Badass: By a few thousand years; he's Odin's father who defeated the Dark Elves previously.
  • Off with His Head!: Not Bor himself, but a statue of Bor gets accidentally decapitated by Thor when he escapes from Asgard with a Dark Elf ship, much to Loki's sarcastic amusement.
    Loki: Well done, you just decapitated your grandfather.
  • Our Founder: Depicted in huge statues in Asgard. Thor accidentally decapitates one of them with a Dark Elf ship while escaping from Asgard.
  • Posthumous Character: King of Asgard before Odin, long dead before the events of either film.

Lady Sif and the Warriors Three

    In General 

Lady Sif and the Warriors Three

Thor's closest and most loyal friends. Upon his exile, they plan to defy Loki and return their friend to his home.


  • Badass Crew: Asgard's greatest warriors, other than the Odin family and Heimdall.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Fandral is blond, Hogun is brunet, and Volstagg is a redhead.
  • Dork Knight: Every lovable one of them is a warrior.
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: After Hela kills Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg, they are never mentioned again and Thor doesn’t even wonder about their fates despite being his closest friends. Granted, he had more important things going on, and it's possible that all that he had lost was weighing down on him, but it's still very jarring after seeing how close he was to them.
    • Lampshaded in Love and Thunder, wherein Korg, reciting Thor's Trauma Conga Line, refers to them as "that guy, and that guy, and whoever that is."
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: The Warriors Three to Thor are his best guy friends; Sif might count as a platonic one.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Played with. Both Sif and Fandral have swords, but Hogun uses a mace and Volstagg an axe. Regardless, they're second only to Thor in heroism.
  • Knight, Knave, and Squire: Fandral is the Knight; the soldier with the more classy outlook towards battle who's the Asgardian equivalent of Officer and a Gentleman, Hogun is the Knave; on the basis of being the most stoic of them, a quiet warrior who's a quick thinker, and Volstagg is the squire; in that, while not being the newbie or New Meat at all (in fact, he looks to be the older among them), he's the Fun Personified among them.
  • The Magnificent: The Warriors Three have these kinds of sobriquets, but they aren't referred to in the first film itself.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Inverted, the group is always referred to as "Lady Sif and the Warriors Three". Played straight in a deleted scene for Thor, where an Asgardian reported to Loki and addressed them as "Warriors Three and Lady Sif".
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: All four of them are like Thor in this regard.
  • Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The Warriors Three are all dispatched by Hela in Ragnarok, in their respective first scenes. Whilst Hogun at least puts up a bit of a fight, Fandral and Volstagg are instantly killed off by Hela upon her arrival on Asgard. Poor Fandral didn't even get a speaking line. This is averted by Sif because doesn't even show up in this film, having been already banished by Loki offscreen. It is in Infinity War where she dies offscreen due to Thanos's Infinity-Gauntlet-powered fingersnap, although she is resurrected by Endgame.
  • True Companions: To say that they're Thor's dearest and most loyal friends is an understatement.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Even though they grew up together and loved each other like a family, all four of them now hold Loki in nothing but cold contempt and hatred after his actions in The Battle of Manhattan.
  • The Worf Effect: The Warriors Three are killed off to underline how big of a threat Hela is.

    Sif 

Lady Sif

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_lady_sif.png
"I am sometimes dangerous, but only toward those who are deserving."
Click here to see her on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Portrayed By: Jaimie Alexander

Voiced By: Ingrid Donnadieu (European French), Karla Falcón (Latin-American Spanish dub); Elena Silva (Thor films), Celia de Diego (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 1 appearance), Inma Gallego (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 2 appearance) (European Spanish dub), Junko Kitanishi (Japanese dub), Angélica Borges (films, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2), Andrea Murucci (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 1) (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Loki note  | Thor: Love and Thunder

"I will die a warrior's death. Stories will be told of this day!"

One of Thor's oldest friends and the only female warrior of Asgard.


  • Action Girl: She's one of Asgard's best warriors. Her badassery has even reached memetic levels in-universe, as seen in "Yes Men".
    Coulson: [She] climbed a giant metal killing machine. Speared it with her double-bladed sword. It was pretty badass.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In-Universe, Sif's role in the play staged by Loki in Thor: Ragnarok is reduced to her screaming for help as Loki dies.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She has greater similarity to 'the grim' than her other boisterous companions.
  • Amnesiac Hero: She's hit with a Kree memory eraser in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Who You Really Are", leaving her with only children's education from Asgard. Luckily, it can also put her memories back.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Lost her left arm during an offscreen battle with Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Arrow Catch: During the battle of Vanaheim, Sif stops an arrow fired at Thor by getting it stuck through her shield.
  • Ascended Extra: She has a very limited roles in all her movie appearances but is one of the few movie characters to appear in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - in fact both her guest appearances in episodes of that series gave her a bigger role than she has in movies.
  • Back for the Dead: Subverted. In Love And Thunder her first scene sees her being left to die by Big Bad Gorr. She even insists in being left to die by Thor until the latter tells her she wouldn't go to Vallhalla for not dying in the battlefield. She's seen pretty much alive at the end of the movie, and is training her beloved nephew in Asgardian combat.
  • The Bus Came Back: After six years of being absent from the MCU, Sif reappears as a memory construct in an episode of Loki, and she makes her full-fledged return in Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Bus Crash: According to the Russo Brothers, she was one of the many offscreen casualties of Avengers: Infinity War. With the reversal of the Snap in Endgame, she is alive again (although she doesn't appear, nor is she mentioned).
  • The Conscience: Craig Kyle stated in Thor: The Dark World – The Art of the Movie that he considered Sif as "Thor's conscience, in a way". She tries to give him advice at times, but he rarely listens.
  • Crazy-Prepared: As shown in a deleted scene of Thor, she brought her entire arsenal of weapons to the coronation.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Usually to her friends in a good-natured, playful way (further shown in the deleted scenes), but she can also be coldly mocking at times.
    Sif: [seeing Thor showing off in front of the whole court] Oh, please.
  • Disabled in the Adaptation: She loses her left arm in an incredibly brutal off-screen battle with Gorr. In the comics, she still has two arms.
  • Double Weapon: She wields a double-bladed sword. One of the two blades is retractable, allowing for Sif to fight with a single-blade.
  • Dual Wielding: Sif has two swords that can join together at the hilts.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Subverted. When Thor finds Sif after having battled and lost against Gorr, Sif resigns herself to die where she is, noting that she will reach Valhalla soon. But Thor tells her that bleeding out on on a battlefield after the danger is over doesn't actually count as dying in battle, Sif immediately resolves to stay alive at all costs.
  • Glory Seeker: As the quote above indicates, she was ready to go down fighting the Destroyer.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Downplayed. While she may be jealous of Jane's relationship with Thor she accepts it and bears Jane no ill will for it. Even her actress said she's above all that, the most antagonistic Sif gets toward Jane is a glare because Jane's presence is threatening Asgard, not because she's dating Thor.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: In the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Yes Men", where she joins forces with the team in hunting down Lorelei. They team up again looking for a Kree in S02E12 "Who You Really Are".
  • Handicapped Badass: Sif can still fight just as good despite only having one arm by the time of Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Hopeless Suitor: To Thor, as he's in love with Jane.
  • Hopeless with Tech: Inverted. Coulson tries to explain to Sif how to use The Bus' touch screen, but she proves perfectly familiar with the interface from her time in non-magical alien societies. She even calls the system "antiquated."
  • Hot-Blooded: She can be quite impulsive when she gets frustrated.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Her appearance on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D shows she's not completely gotten over her feelings for Thor, but the second film has her protecting Jane and even breaking her out at Thor's request, and she displays no resentment towards them.
  • Lady Legionnaire Wear: Her battle armour in The Dark World includes a segmented skirt, because she is a lady warrior.
  • Lady of War: Instead of the boisterous Leeroy Jenkins approach of some of her friends, she has a more composed and refined fighting style.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: She uses her shield to protect herself or others, and also hits opponents with it.
  • Not So Stoic: Though Sif is primarily a serious woman who rarely expresses any emotion other than pensiveness and anger, she lets out a horrified "Shit!" when Thor tells her that bleeding out on a battlefield after the battle was lost won't get her into Valhalla.
  • No Body Left Behind: The Russos have stated that she was among the Snap's casualties in Infinity War. She would later be among those restored by Bruce Banner five years later.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: After not being seen since ''The Dark World'' she reappears in Love and Thunder- her entrance in the movie is shown being wounded and left to die by Gorr the God Butcher after an off-screen battle. Given how powerful Gorr is portrayed in the movie, it is really impressive she survived. Lots of gods didn't.
  • One of the Boys: She's an Action Girl who hangs out with an all-guy group of warriors.
  • Promoted to Love Interest: Inverted. She is a major love interest, and later wife of Thor in the comics but portrayed as being Platonic Life-Partners with Thor in the movies.
  • Put on a Bus: She doesn't appear in Ragnarok due to Jaime Alexander's scheduling conflicts with Blindspot. Word of God explanation is that Loki banished her from Asgard so she couldn't uncover his secret. Ironically, not being in Asgard saves her from being killed like The Warriors Three.
  • Red Is Heroic: Sif's armor is partially red in color.
  • Secret-Keeper: Her guest spot on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. makes her the only character tied strongly to a particular film series rather than the MCU as a whole to know that Coulson is still alive. He asks her to let him tell Thor himself.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: Most of her outfits have either no sleeves or simply metal shoulder caps, though she does wear braces to protect her wrists. The exception is when she travels to Jottunheim with Thor in his first movie. Then she wears full-length sleeves to protect herself from the cold.
  • Sole Survivor: Thanks to being off-world during the events of Thor: Ragnarok and being revived from the Decimation, Sif is the only living member of Thor's personal circle of friends and one of two living named Asgardian females, the other being Valkyrie, as of Endgame.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: She got banished from Asgard which was then destroyed by Surtur, snapped away alongside half the universe for five years, and lost her arm fighting Gorr the God Butcher, so it's a well-deserved break for her when she finally gets reunited with Thor and the other Asgardians at the end of Love and Thunder, and trains her nephew, Axl, in the ways of Asgardian combat.
  • Tomboyish Ponytail: Wears one when going into battle. She seems to have dropped the habit during Thor: The Dark World.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend:
    • Implied as of Thor with Sif to Thor (she's Thor's main love interest in the comics and his wife in the myth). According to interviews, this was more explicit in scenes that were later cut. This was made more explicit in The Dark World, in that she tries to reach out and comfort Thor's increasing broodiness, and yet gets the courteous-yet-curt reply of:
    • Her guest spot in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reveals she lost her first love to Lorelei's seduction magic and is still hurting over Thor not choosing her.
      Lorelei: Never to get what you desire. Not Haldor; not... Thor.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: She's Heimdall's sister in the comics, but there is no sign of that in the movies.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: She sees the Inhumans as nothing but dangerous weapons that have to be put down, though she's convinced to spare Skye for the moment, after she shows undeniable signs of wanting to learn to control her powers.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In spite of being resurrected after the Time Heist, she's nowhere to be seen in the Battle of Earth.
  • Xenafication: In the myths, Sif is a sweet, lovely lady displaying Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold, and associated with the earth and marriage, while Marvel's Sif is a Aloof Dark Haired Action Girl. Though in the comics, the black hair is explained by Loki cutting her gold hair as a prank, and in apology giving her black hair made by dwarfs. (In the myth he cuts it too, but gives her a gold headdress). It's also implied in Thor that Sif wasn't always an Action Girl.
  • You Go, Girl!: It's implied that Sif had to put a lot of work into being taken seriously as a warrior, hence why she's still called "Lady Sif".
    Thor: And who proved wrong all who scoffed at the idea that a young maiden could be one of the fiercest warriors this realm has ever known?
    Sif: I did.
    Thor: ... true ... but I supported you!

    Fandral 

Fandral the Dashing

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_fandral.png

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard, Warriors Three

Portrayed By: Josh Dallas (Thor), Zachary Levi (Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok)

Voiced By: Emmanuel Garijo (European French, Thor: The Dark World), Gerardo García (Thor), Arturo Cataño (Thor: The Dark World) (Latin-American Spanish dub); Hernán Fernández (European Spanish dub); Fuminori Komatsu (Thor), Daichi Endō (Thor: The Dark World) (Japanese dub), Léo Rabelo (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World | Thor: Ragnarok | Thor: Love and Thunder note 

"Nothing personal, boys!"

A charming warrior who often hits it off with the ladies of Asgard.


  • Blood Knight: They all love battle, but Fandral seems to especially enjoy it.
  • Chick Magnet: Can be seen chatting it up with a couple of women during the post-Vanaheim celebration in The Dark World.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Particularly in The Dark World, where nearly every single line that comes out of his mouth is a witty one-liner.
  • Expy: Of/to Errol Flynn's version of Robin Hood, to the point where one S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who sees him with Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun in New Mexico calls him "Robin Hood" on the radio.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Fandral has blond hair and he is one of Asgard's most valiant warriors.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
    • He's skewered by a Frost Giant's ice spike during the raid on Jötunheim. He lives, but has to be carried off the battlefield.
    • Hela kills him in Ragnarok this way with throwing swords she summoned.
  • Royal Rapier: He uses one and is implied to be Asgardian nobility.
  • Swashbuckler: Fandral is practically an Errol Flynn Expy.

    Hogun 

Hogun the Grim

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_hogun.png

Species: Vanir

Citizenship: Vanir, Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Vanaheim, Asgard, Warriors Three

Portrayed By: Tadanobu Asano

Voiced By: José Luis Reza Arenas (Thor), Dafnis Fernández (Thor: The Dark World) (Latin-American Spanish dub); Andy Fukutome (European Spanish dub); Tadanobu Asano (Japanese dub), Flávio Back (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World | Thor: Ragnarok | Thor: Love and Thunder note 

A stoic and quiet warrior, he is a quick thinker and highly observant.


  • Ascended Extra: His role in Ragnarok gives him the most lines of the Warriors Three, and he also lasts the longest against Hela before dying. Possibly to compensate for him being Demoted to Extra in the previous film.
  • Carry a Big Stick: He uses a spiked mace.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion: He ultimately still loses to Hela in a one on one fight, but he lasts the longest out of the Warrior's Three, and is the only one to get a hit in.
  • Defiant to the End: Refuses to yield to Hela no matter what. Takes a while, but she kills him.
  • Demoted to Extra: He makes a brief appearance early in The Dark World, having remained in his home realm to help rebuild it after the Marauders' attack, and has only one other appearance in the film, which is no more than a reaction shot, during the portal-hopping battle in the finale.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Hela comes back to Asgard and demands submission to her, he refuses to kneel. He and most of the Einherjar army ends up killed anyway.
  • Epic Flail: In Ragnarok he's wielding a flail instead of his mace.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Hela kills him in Ragnarok, impaling him on a large spike she summoned.
  • The Quiet One: He rarely speaks, so when he does, the others listen.
  • Race Lift: Hogun in the comics is vaguely Mongolian-looking and based on Charles Bronson. Here, he's Japanese-looking. He seems to have grown an impressive beard during Thor: The Dark World, which hearkens back to Asano's portrayal of Genghis Khan in the film Mongol.
  • Not So Stoic: Even he gives a big grin when they find Thor on "Midgard".
  • The Spock: Far more logical and stoic than his companions.
  • The Stoic: He always acts completely serious and composed.

    Volstagg 

Volstagg the Voluminous

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_volstagg.png
"Do not mistake my appetite for apathy!"

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard, Warriors Three

Portrayed By: Ray Stevenson

Voiced By: Octavio Rojas (Latin-American Spanish dub), Eduard Farelo (European Spanish dub), Shunsuke Sakuya (Japanese dub), Júlio Cézar Barreiros (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World | Thor: Ragnarok | Thor: Love and Thunder note 

A large Asgardian warrior, his healthy appetite does not decrease his love for battle or his loyalty to his friends.


  • Action Dad: He is an Asgardian warrior and father of three children.
  • Adaptational Badass: Volstagg has a habit of being portrayed as a Miles Gloriosus in the comics. Here, he's an able bruiser, and holds fast even when the Destroyer has him dead to rights.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: (Coldly to Loki) "If you even think about betraying him (Thor)..." Loki, having received his fair share of death threats if he betrays Thor, cuts him off at that point.
    Loki: You'll kill me? Evidently, there'll be a line.
  • Big Eater: Do not mistake Volstagg's appetite for apathy!
  • Big Fun: The big guy out of the quintet formed by Thor, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, he's also always the life of a party.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: If you're sitting in the mead hall, sit next to him because he's a lot of fun. If you're standing on a battlefield, stand next to him because he's fierce!
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He is the physically largest and the most fight-happy among the Warriors Three, and uses a gigantic battle axe in battle.
  • Expy: Of/to William Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff.
  • Fiery Redhead: If someone can rival Thor for hotbloodedness, it's this guy.
  • Fun Personified: Always the life of a party, smashing mugs with a jolly laugh while asking for refills just like Thor.
  • Friend to All Children: In deleted scene for Thor, in Earth, he helped a little girl taking her toy ball from under a car... by lifting said car with one hand. Granted, he also has adorable children of his own in Asgard.
  • Gate Guardian: For his last scene, Volstagg seemed to have replaced Skurge as the warrior manning the Bifrost.
  • Gentle Giant: The largest amongst the warriors of Asgard, and quite easily the sweetest and goofiest.
  • Happily Married: Volstagg is married and has three adorable children. One of them sits in his lap during the feast after the Battle of Vanaheim.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Hela kills him with summoned throwing swords of hers in Ragnarok.
  • Oh, Crap!: Counts as a Tempting Fate.
    Volstagg: Hush! Heimdall might be watching...
    Guard: [enters the room] Heimdall demands your presence!
    Volstagg: ... We're doomed.
  • Punny Name: "Volstagg" is a play on the William Shakespeare character Sir John Falstaff.
  • Stout Strength: Heavier set than the other warriors, but also very strong.

Other Asgardians

    Eir 

Eir

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/f4879229_7000_4448_b884_f443694222fc.png

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Portrayed By: Alice Krige

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World

An Asgardian courtier and physician.


    Tyr 

Tyr

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/f7be2220_2633_480d_8d70_125968f3368b.png

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard, Einherjar

Portrayed By: Clive Russell

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World

Commander of the Einherjar.


    Skurge 

Skurge the Executioner

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_skurge.png
"I'm just a janitor."

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard, Einherjar, Hela (formerly)

Portrayed By: Karl Urban

Voiced By: Alfredo Gabriel Basurto (Latin-American Spanish dub), Frédéric Paquet (Canadian French dub), Filipe Albuquerque (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Thor: Ragnarok | Thor: Love and Thunder note 

"I just want a chance to prove myself."

A one time defender of Asgard who becomes the Death Goddess Hela's henchman.


  • Adaptational Heroism: He is far less bloodthirsty and evil than in the comics, happy to act tough to get some respect, but not really all that wild about actually hurting anybody, which is a rather large difference between him and his bullying, sadistic, and power-hungry comic self.
  • Adaptational Wimp: He is much less intimidating than his comic-book counterpart, his laziness, cowardice, and general incompetence making him a far inferior substitute to Heimdall in guarding the Bifröst. In terms of combat ability, he is also not quite as powerful as the comic version, but remains a highly capable warrior to even Asgardian standards.
  • Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Skurge had little ambition and mainly sought to serve Amora the Enchantress with almost blind loyalty, being The Stoic. In the movie, Skurge is an ambitious warrior eager to move up in the ranks, yet he is also more emotive and visibly struggles to carry out Hela's cruel requests.
  • Almighty Janitor: Inverted case, as Skurge appears to have been demoted down from Bifrost guard to an actual janitor when Hela enters Asgard, and then gets promoted to "head flunkie" despite having little to no power of his own.
  • Bald of Evil: He is the bald henchman to the evil and destructive Big Bad Hela.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Downplayed - his M16s run out of ammunition during his Heroic Sacrifice, but they were still definitely firing a fair bit longer than they should have been before running dry (his M16s' magazines look to be 30-round ones).
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Hela conjures a menacing axe for Skurge to use after making him her executioner, a nod to his original Bloodaxe from the comics. He never uses it, not having the spine to, and ditches it when he deserts in the final battle.
  • Butt-Monkey: Pretty much nothing goes right for him in Ragnarok — he first appears chatting up a couple of women and not noticing that Thor's calling on the Bifrost... until one of the women brings it to his attention... and he opens the Bifrost... and brings through not only Thor but the head of a dragon from Muspelheim which ends up "drenching my work-place in brains" and sending the women running off screaming... and then Thor ignores his request to stay so that Skurge can announce him, flying off to confront Loki-as-Odin, and by the time he does catch up, it's all gone pear-shaped. He is thereafter reduced to janitor of the Bifrost, and conscripted by Hela because it's Join or Die. Finally, though, he gets a Heroic Sacrifice, going out in style by Dual Wielding his M16's against Hela's undead army.
  • The Casanova: Implied. He proudly displays his collection of items to impress the two women at the Observatory.
  • Celebrity Paradox: In The Avengers, Iron Man mockingly calls Hawkeye Legolas, suggesting that The Lord of the Rings movies exist in the MCU. Skurge's actor Urban played Éomer in those movies.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He starts working for Hela once she takes over. Towards the end, he betrays her by taking out all her undead troops, but it costs him his life.
  • Collector of the Strange: Since getting the job, he's been using the Bifröst to steal and amass an extensive collection of "stuff" — specifically, trinkets and weapons from across the Nine Realms, including a pair of M16 Assault Rifles from a place in Midgard called "Tex-arse".
  • Conscience Makes You Go Back: Once he sees Hela's undead army starting to swarm the ship full of Asgardian refugees, he decides to make amends, takes his two M-16s, and fights the undead off with them, at the cost of his life.
  • Dark Is Evil: He becomes Hela's executioner and dressed in dark armor. Subverted, as he can't bring himself to harm innocents and turns against Hela to save the Asgardians.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Skurge is dressed in a dark armor, but has some standards and some noble qualities and even when he serves Hela, he is conflicted to do something evil for her, even moreso with his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Deal with the Devil: Karl Urban describes his alliance with Hela as this.
  • Dirty Coward: Hela notices his "survival instinct" as he's the first Asgardian to join her, purely out of fear of her powers. He redeems himself at the end with his Heroic Sacrifice.
  • The Dragon: Hela designates him as her "executioner", which means he executes her vision and also the people she wants dead.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Even after becoming Hela's right hand man, he still has scruples about carrying out her more brutal commands.
  • The Executioner: When Hela takes over Asgard, she takes Skurge as her executioner.
    Hela: When I was young, every great king had an executioner. Not just to execute people but to also execute their vision. But mainly to execute people. Still, it was a great honor.
  • Gate Guardian: Skurge takes over Heimdall's job of guarding the Bifröst after Heimdall is banished from Asgard.
  • Guns Akimbo: As well as his Bloodaxe, Skurge also wields two M16 rifles, a classic image lifted directly from Walt Simonson's epic run on The Mighty Thor.
  • Heel–Face Turn: He eventually decides to stand up to Hela and take out her undead troops to help the Asgardian survivors escape. He pays for it with his own life.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: He decides to fight Hela's undead soldiers off, without caring about his own life anymore, to free the escaping ship carrying Asgardian refugees and give them a chance to survive.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Has shades of this; he seems desperate to be remembered. This is contrasted with his own sense of survival and self-serving nature. However, when Hela's Berserkers threaten to storm and kill the last of Asgard's citizens, he finds it in himself to rise up and be remembered.
  • I Call It "Vera": Has named his two M16 rifles "Des" and "Troy."
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Hela kills him with a thrown blade through the heart.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: After Skurge eventually regrets siding with Hela, he leaps out of the escape ship full of the Asgardian citizens to save them from Hela even if it ends up costing him his life in the process.
  • Large Ham: He really tries, but all of his attempts fall flat, such as when he tries to intimidate Asgard's population into giving up the Bifrost sword, or when he tries to hype up his collection of nicked goods (which includes a scooter, a pair of M16's and a shake weight).
    "BEHOLD!! My stuff."
  • Legacy Character: Hela claims to have been the Executioner for Odin, so this Skurge isn't "Skurge the Executioner" until she passes that title to him.
  • Les Collaborateurs: Once a defender of Asgard, Skurge decides to ally himself with Hela when she invades Asgard to save his own life.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: He is lazy, sleazy, and cowardly, but he clearly doesn't enjoy hurting people and serves Hela mostly out of a desire to survive and because she shows him a degree of respect. In the end, he doesn't kill anyone, except for Hela's undead hordes when he turns on them, and he actually saves people from her even.
  • Redemption Equals Death: His Heel–Face Turn redeems what he did when joining Hela, but he ends up killed in the process. He knew it was a one-way ticket to Valhalla since he was seen previously siding with Hela and was now betraying her.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: How he initially handles getting on the ship to leave during the climactic battle on the Bifrost.
  • Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Skurge is hilariously useless as lackeys, and especially executioners, go. He fails in executing a single person in the whole movie (though, to be fair, this is due to conscience more than anything else), and can't even seem to do simple things like ensure that the Bifrost Sword doesn't get stolen from under their nose. All he does is follow Hela around like a lost puppy in absolute and entirely justified terror of her. Loki found this out before Hela did.
    Hela: Skurge, where's the sword??
  • What You Are in the Dark: Has the chance to escape and board the ship fleeing Asgard and is wearing a hooded cloak to hide his identity but upon seeing Hela's hordes about to attack and kill the civilians, he discards his cloak and grabs his M16's to destroy the zombies and gives his life to save them and allow them to get on the ship.

    Balder 

Balder the Brave

Species: Asgardian

Appearances: Loki note 

An Asgardian warrior implied to have been murdered by Loki.


  • Ambiguously Related: It's unclear if he's still part of the Asgardian royal family, as the statue display depicts him alongside Odin and Thor which fits with his status as Thor's brother and Odin's son but the lack of previous reference to him makes this doubtful.
  • Demoted to Extra: A major member of Thor's supporting cast in the comics, Balder is only briefly mentioned to exist.
  • The Ghost: He's referenced in a book of Norse legends in Thor, which states he was murdered by Loki. In Loki he's mentioned by Loki himself, confirming he exists within the main MCU timeline.
  • Red Baron: Known as Balder "The Brave".
  • Remember the New Guy?: Despite having never appeared even before Hela's reign of terror and Surtur's destruction of Asgard, Loki revealed that Balder the Brave does indeed exist in the MCU and that Loki is familiar with him. Loki even lampshades it by pointing out that no one's even heard of Balder.

    Asgardian Signaller 

Asgardian Signaller

Species: Asgardian

Voiced By: Kenneth Branagh

Appearances: Avengers: Infinity War (Voice only)

An unknown Asgardian who sends a distress signal when the refugee ship is attacked by Thanos.


  • Creator Cameo: For Kenneth Branagh, the director of the first Thor.
  • Distress Call: Sends one when the Asgardians are attacked by Thanos.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He is such a minor character that he doesn't even appear in the flesh, but his distress signal is what allows the Guardians of the Galaxy to come and save Thor. If he hadn't been there, Thor would have probably died in the void of space, and the Guardians wouldn't have found out about Thanos' quest to find the Infinity Stones.
  • Uncertain Doom: It's unknown if he was among the Asgardians who were killed by the Children of Thanos or if he was one of the few who managed to escape. Assuming he survived, we don't know if he was turned to dust by Thanos' Snap at the end of the movie or not either.
  • The Voice: Is never actually seen on-screen, only heard in voiceover during the opening of Infinity War.

    Axl 

Astrid Heimdallson / Axl

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Voiced By: Kieron L. Dyer

Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder

Heimdall's son.


  • Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Renamed himself from Astrid to Axl, expressly after Axl Rose, a reference that Korg also shows recognition towards.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Axl acts as the leader of the Asgardian children when they were kidnapped by Gorr and uses Stormbreaker to bring all of them back home to New Asgard.
  • Canon Foreigner: Axl has no comic book counterpart.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: In Asgardian culture, Astrid is a unisex name whose meaning is derived from elements such as "god" and "beloved". On Earth, it's primarily a girl's name, meaning "divinely beautiful". Thus, he decided to change his name to "Axl" to avoid embarrassment.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": He doesn't like being called by his birth name "Astrid" and insists on being called "Axl" instead.
  • Embarrassing First Name: He doesn't like the name his father gave him, possibly because on Earth and in the present day, Astrid is a girl's name. Instead, he calls himself Axl, after Axl Rose.
  • Hero-Worshipper: He tells Thor that he considers him his hero.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Thor has to coach him a bit on how to use his powers.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: He and Thor have a strong bond even though Axl is a young teenager in Asgardian years.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: For obvious reasons, he decides to change his name, asking to be called Axl in homage to the Guns N' Roses frontman.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Was not mentioned before in any of the other films.
  • Shock and Awe: After being imbued with Thor's powers for a limited time only, Axl is able to temporarily conjure and manipulate yellow lightning so he and the other Asgardian children can combat Gorr's Shadow Monsters.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: Once he starts to get the hang of his powers his eyes turn gold like his father's.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: He's inherited his father's all-seeing and shared vision abilities. However, his powers are still developing so it takes him more effort to use them.

    Grace 

Grace

Species: Asgardian

Portrayed By: Eliza Matengu

Appearances:' Thor: Love and Thunder

The wife of Heimdall and mother of Axl.


  • Aerith and Bob: Unlike most Asgardians, she has a pretty common human first name.
  • All There in the Script: Her name is never said during the film and is only revealed in the credits.
  • Canon Foreigner: She doesn't seem to be based on any character from the comics. Heimdall was never even married in the comics.
  • Good Parents: She is very much concerned about her son's abduction by Gorr the God-Butcher. When he's brought back to New Asgard at the end of the film, she's overjoyed and runs to hug him before asking him if he's okay.
  • Satellite Family Member: We don't know much about her except that she's Axl's mother and Heimdall's wife.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Heimdall never mentioned having a wife in any of his previous appearances.
  • Token Minority Couple: She and Heimdall are among the few named black Asgardians (along with their son Axl and Valkyrie), and they were a married couple.

    Dag 

Dag

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dag_3.png

Species: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): S.A.B.E.R.

Portrayed By: Abraham Popoola

Appearances:' The Marvels

An Asgardian employed by Nick Fury onboard the S.A.B.E.R. space station.
  • Older Than They Look: Dag looks to be in his 30s, but when Yusuf Khan tries to advise him on saving up for retirement he reveals he's several centuries old. Amir Khan promply snarks that Dag and Yusuf are the same age.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Unlike most of the other S.A.B.E.R. personnel, Dag allows himself to be eaten by a flerkitten, though he doesn't enjoy it and grimaces while holding his nose as it happens.

    Elliot Randolph 

Professor Elliot Randolph

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/randolph_elliott.jpg
"One must adapt. Recent events have thrown us all for a loop."

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian, American

Affiliation(s): Asgard (formerly), Berserkers (formerly), University of Seville, S.H.I.E.L.D. (formerly)

Portrayed By: Peter MacNicol

Voiced By: Juan Antonio Castro (European Spanish dub), Renato Rosenberg (S1), Alfredo Martins (S3) (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Pretty crappy time to be on Earth if you're not a local, so... I am laying low."

A Norse Mythology professor that Coulson talks to about finding the pieces of the Berserker's staff. Turns out he's a part of it as well: The original Berserker himself.


  • Actual Pacifist: At one point during his interrogation, he mentions that he is a pacifist now.
  • Ascended Extra: Originally a One-Shot Character from the first season, he returns in Season 3 with a much more important role: helping S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue Simmons.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Asgardian attitudes towards humans living brief lives in comparison to them return here from Thor: The Dark World. Randolph isn't very concerned about issues on Earth, as humans live and die in a time much less relevant to him, to the point where he doesn't really think a band of anarchists using his staff to wreak havoc is a real problem, since in his mind they'll all die soon anyway. Likewise, he attempts to reassure Ward by telling him the darker effects of the staff will wear off in "only" a few decades, not thinking about how long that period of time is to a human. Coulson is noticeably unimpressed by this rationalization.
  • Dirty Old Man: Not too old by appearance, but he counts by sheer age. In his first scene, he is arranging a date with one of his students, and he spends a decent amount of screen time hitting on Simmons. Also, the reason the Berserker story got out in the first place was because a French girl he was sleeping with liked stories, and he wanted to impress her. Turned out her brother was a priest, who wrote it all down.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Though he's retired now, he went from being a mason to a screaming berserker warrior.
  • I Choose to Stay: Opted to stay on Earth when the rest of his comrades returned to Asgard, as he decided he rather liked being here.
  • Jumped at the Call: Signed himself up to become an Asgardian warrior so he could do something other than busting rocks all day.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: The Team estimates that he's been alive for a thousand years and his only complaint is a student putting too much Lit Crit and not enough History in their paper. He's had numerous paramours over the ages.
  • Never Gets Drunk: "Usually Asgardians can hold their drinks, but one night, I tried to hold all the drinks."
  • No Name Given: His real name is unknown. "Elliot Randolph" is just an alias he uses in his human disguise.
  • Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Subverted, he initially appears to be this, but his backstory seems to indicate that he was a Berserker who was one of Asgard's finest warriors.
  • Pals with Jesus: Averted (or "Pals With Thor" is, anyway). When asked if he knew Thor, he scoffed at the idea that a simple mason/soldier would have met the future king of Asgard.
  • Play-Along Prisoner: He could walk out pretty much any time he likes, but as he points out, Norwegian prisons have nice beds, steady meals, plenty of books and a lack of ATCU agents looking for aliens.
  • Really 700 Years Old: He looks like a middle aged man but he's been on Midgard for centuries. This is why Coulson recruits him to help with the Monolith; he's been around for longer than it has.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Subtle example. When S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered Mjolnir in the desert of New Mexico, Agent Phil Coulson called upon Randolph for a consultation. This was never mentioned before but it's justified, because guess whose viewpoint is the focus of the plot in Thor?
  • Retired Badass: His days of berserking are long behind him — now he's a professor of Norse mythology, though he plans to retire elsewhere after the events of his episode.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He deserted the Asgardian Army (implied after the final battle with the Frost Giants in 965 A.D.) to live a more fun and comfortable life on Earth. He definitely does not want to go back to Asgard, and it's implied his low profile is also to keep off Heimdall's radar, as Odin takes desertion seriously.
  • Seen It All: Part of what gave him away. He was far too calm for someone who was attacked by super-powered men and locked in an interrogation room. Coulson also points out that he didn't ask any questions when Coulson mentioned he had met aliens. "Most people are very curious about that."
  • Super-Strength: Enough to curve a knife with just one hand and effortlessly rip prison bars out of their sockets.
  • Walking the Earth: He implies that he did this for quite a while before settling down, and that now that Asgardians have made contact with humans again he might do so once more. In fact, this is why he signed up for the Asgardian army and came to Earth in the first place.
    Randolph: Honestly, I think I just wanted to travel.
  • We Are as Mayflies: One of the perks he enjoys from living on a mortal world is the fact that his problems mostly die of old age if he waits a century or so.
  • The World Is Just Awesome: He stayed on Earth because he loved it too much to leave.

    Lorelei 

Lorelei

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lorelei_aos_9700.jpg
"Men kneel before me. I do not bow to them."

Species: Asgardian

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard, Dogs of Hell (formerly)

Portrayed By: Elena Satine

Voiced By: Gloria Núñez (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Lorelei: And women can rule your land? Can they not?
Rooster: You'd be the first.
Lorelei: Yes. I will.

An Asgardian who arrives on Earth shortly after the team's discoveries at the Guest House facility.


  • Adaptational Badass: In the original comics she has no fighting skills whatsoever. This version, is able to give Lady Sif a good fight, which would put her in the same league as Loki. Sif notes that she is highly trained.
  • Adaptational Wimp: However, her magical abilities are far more toned down. Physically too, she is weaker. While the show version is Sif's equal, the comics version survived a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Odin wielding Mjolnir.
  • Arch-Enemy: "Yes Men" establishes her as one to Sif, both because they're foils and also because of what happened to another man in Sif's life.
  • Bodyguarding a Badass: Although Agent Ward is a Badass, Lorelei is almost as strong as Loki and Thor.
  • Break Her By Talking: Her method of choice when dealing with women standing in her way is crush their morale since she can't crush their free will. Both May and Sif end up on the receiving end.
  • Character Catchphrase: "Do you prefer her to me?"
  • Compelling Voice: She has the ability to make men do whatever she tells them to. If they can resist the voice, making physical contact will overpower them. It explicitly doesn't work on women, and nothing is said about whether it's reliant on sexual preferences one way or another.
  • Crossover: It is indicated that Lorelei escaped from confinement during the prison break that Kurse initiated in Thor: The Dark World. Astute readers who watched the movie will note that Loki has somehow supplanted Odin and has taken his place while maintaining his likeness. So when Sif says that Odin wants her back alive, it's actually Loki speaking. In other words, Loki has some unknown plans for Lorelei.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Puts up a good fight against Lady Sif.
  • Cruel Mercy: Sif spares her because Odin orders her to, though Sif does acknowledge killing her would be the easy way out. Leaving her alive is more painful for Lorelei because she'll be unable to talk, imprisoned in a tiny cell, presumably for life.
  • Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: She brainwashed and raped Ward, and it's implied she also slept with many other of her previous thralls. While she is a villain anyway, no mention of it is made later, and Ward is treated as partially at fault for not being strong enough to resist her. Also qualifies as Double Standard Rape: Female on Male and a form of Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal.
  • Evil Plan: Find strong men, build an army, take over some place, and rule as queen.
  • Evil Redhead: She's a villainous Asgardian with scarlet hair.
  • Femme Fatale: As Sif notes, wars have been started by her feminine uber-wiles.
  • Fish out of Water:
    • When she arrives on Earth, she begins her first conversation by talking about Earth as "Midgard" to a total stranger, calls Death Valley (where she landed) the "Valley of Death" when told its name, and simply takes a water bottle someone is holding when she needs a drink, not realizing it would be more reasonable to ask.
    • She expected gold to be used as currency on Earth, like it is on Asgard:
      Lorelei: I ask you for gold and you bring me paper!
  • Foil: To Sif; while Sif is a Tomboy who loyally fights for Asgard despite having rejected its gender norms, Lorelei is a Girly Girl who performs femininity to The Vamp extremes and wants to rule. It could be argued that the two both had discontented reactions to the limitations imposed on women and then went opposite routes — Sif beat them by joining them, Lorelei beat them by making them beat each other. "That's the difference between you and me — I don't take orders."
  • Functional Magic: Her mind control is explicitly called "sorcery" by Sif.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: It's even part of her modus operandi to seduce men.
  • Jerkass: Said to prefer taking men who are already spoken for. On two occasions, she then rubs this fact in the other woman's face.
  • Kneel Before Zod: "I don't kneel to men. Men kneel to me."
  • Post-Rape Taunt: Gives one to Sif, taunting Sif about how she made her former lover Haldor into her plaything.
  • Sex for Services: Her favorite "reward" for particularly "strong" men is them becoming her "plaything".
  • Squishy Wizard: By Asgardian standards, she is a delicate magic-user.
  • Super-Strength: By Earth standards, she could beat their strongest warrior in arm wrestling. Not restricted to that though. She pimpslaps May across the room into unconsciousness, and then matches Lady Sif on a push-off.
  • The Vamp: Lorelei has the ability to seduce men into doing her bidding, be it with her Compelling Voice or through physical contact.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: It is unclear what has happened to her following Asgard's destruction in Ragnarok.
  • Women Prefer Strong Men: She "upgrades" twice in her debut episode. From an average Joe to the leader of a group of bikers, to Agent Ward.

Creatures and Weapons

    The Destroyer 

The Destroyer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_destroyer_thor_4937.png

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Thor | What If...?

An extremely powerful set of armor created by Odin to defend Asgard. As one does not wear it, but project their consciousness into it, it can be misused.


  • Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: When it is impaled from the back by Sif, it completely rotates every part of its body to face her, knocks her away and then removes the spear by standing up while the blade slides out by itself.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, the Destroyer cannot be harmed by Thor's best blows with Mjolnir, is strong and fast enough to smack Thor around, and its heat ray can slice right through Mjolnir or an Asgardian. In the film, once Thor gets his powers and hammer back, he effortlessly blocks its heat ray and then smashes it apart.
  • Animated Armor: Controlled with a user's mind.
  • Breath Weapon: The heat ray of the Destroyer is fired from the opening in the helmet. It looks like a Wave-Motion Gun. SHIELD evidently realized this similarity too as Phil Coulson demonstrates on Loki with the firearm they created from reverse-engineering it in between Thor and The Avengers.
  • The Brute: Temporarily a non-sentient one to Loki in Thor once he takes the throne.
  • The Dragon: For Loki after ascending to the throne. He sends the Destroyer after Thor to prevent him from returning to Asgard.
  • Fighting a Shadow: Killing the Destroyer doesn't harm its user, it is controlled by an extension of the user's mind. In a sense, the fight with it could be considered the first battle between the Asgardians and Loki.
  • Having a Blast: They come from the eyes.
  • Head Blast: The Destroyer can open up its face to fire energy blasts from an aperture in its head. When it does this, part of the facial structure retracts downward into the lower face.
  • Implacable Man: Until Thor gets his powers back and is able to fight it, it hunts him down without regard for anything else.
  • Magitek: One of the only real examples shown from Asgard so far, with the rest of the "magic" being Magic from Technology.
  • Menacing Stroll: Walking along and batting aside warriors in its path.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Destroyer. You weren't expecting it to help you repair your roof, were you?
  • Power Glows: The opening in the face glows when it is about to fire.
  • Something Only They Would Say: When Coulson and Sitwell get their first look at the Destroyer, Sitwell asks if The Destroyer is one of Tony's creations.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In the film, it isn't shown what happened to it after it was destroyed. The tie-in comic Fury's Big Week shows that S.H.I.E.L.D. took custody of it, and are now trying to reverse-engineer it. As shown in The Avengers, they are successful.

    Sleipnir 

Sleipnir

Species: Asgardian Horse

Citizenship: Asgardian

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Thor | Thor: The Dark World Prelude | Thor: Ragnarok (fresco)

Odin's steed, an eight-legged horse.


  • Absent Animal Companion: Although he served as Odin's personal steed in the first Thor film, he's inexplicably absent in the following movies.
  • The Cameo: In Thor: Ragnarok, a depiction of Sleipnir can be seen on the original mural in Odin's throne room.
  • Cool Horse: Sleipnir is Odin's personal steed since the time of the Asgardian wars of conquest and expansion.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Sleipnir is a black horse, but he serves as Odin's loyal steed.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Sleipnir was already used as a steed by Odin during his conquests of the Nine Realms, which happened millennia ago.
  • Rearing Horse: Sleipnir rears when Odin arrives on his back to save Thor and his friends from the Frost Giants.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: In the myths, Loki is Sleipnir's mother which makes Sleipnir half-siblings with Hela and Fenris. In the MCU, Sleipnir doesn't seem to have any connection to any of them.
  • Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: Sleipnir looks almost exactly like a normal horse from Earth, but he has eight legs instead of four. According to Norse Mythology, the greater number of legs allows him to run faster.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Sleipnir is only seen in Thor and the comic book prelude to Thor: The Dark World. His fate remains unknown. It's unclear if he's still alive after the destruction of Asgard or not.
  • White Stallion: Played With. While Sleipnir is black colored, he's depicted as a white horse on the original mural in the throne room, and he serves as the noble steed of the King of Asgard.

    Hugin and Munin 

Hugin and Munin

Species: Asgardian Raven

Citizenship: Asgardian

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Thor | The Avengers | Thor: The Dark World

Odin's raven familiars.


  • Animal Eye Spy: It's implied that Odin uses them as this to watch over the Nine Realms, just like in the myths and the comics. When Thor goes to Midgard in The Avengers to stop Loki, Odin sends his ravens to keep an eye on him.
  • The Cameo: They make a brief appearance in The Avengers, watching over Thor after he took Loki from the Avengers' Quinjet in Germany.
  • Clever Crows: The two serve as Odin's spies in The Avengers and watch over Odin during the Odinsleep.
  • Dimensional Traveler: They're implied to be capable of traveling from one Realm to another, since they were able to come to Midgard in The Avengers to watch over Thor and Loki while the Bifrost was destroyed.
  • Divine Birds: They're a pair of Asgardian Ravens who serve as familiars to the Allfather Odin.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Their fate after Loki casts down Odin at the end of Thor: The Dark World remains unknown. It's unclear if they are still alive after the destruction of Asgard or not.

    Fenris 

Fenris

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5ebf53f3_90c3_40cd_9044_caf7cc890c7e.jpeg

Species: Asgardian Wolf

Citizenship: Asgardian

Appearances: Thor: Ragnarok | What If?

Fenris was a giant wolf who served Hela during the times of the expansion of Asgard around the Nine Realms. Millennia after her death, she is resurrected by Hela with the Eternal Flame and put at her service during her oppressive rule on Asgard.


  • Adaptation Species Change: Originally a Jotun, as the son of Loki and a Jotun sorceress. Here her species is merely listed as "Asgardian Wolf".
  • Adaptational Nonsapience: Fenrir could speak in the original myth and the comics, and even had a bit of an awesome ego. Fenris in the film is just a mindless beast that serves Hela.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In the myths, Fenris eventually grows large enough for the upper part of his mouth to reach the sky. Here, she’s only 23 foot tall and 35 foot long.
  • Alternate Self: Queen Hela's version is briefly seen in a flashback of What If...?
  • Back from the Dead: Upon coming back to Asgard after being sealed by Odin for millennia, Hela destroys the floor of Asgard's Weapons Vault to reveal a crypt in which Fenris and her long-forgotten army are resting. She then resurrects them all as undead using the Eternal Flame.
  • Canis Major: A huge monster wolf, many times larger than a regular one. Justified as she is actually part of an in-universe species called "Asgardian Wolf", which naturally grows to be that big.
  • Composite Character: As Hela's Right-Hand Attack Dog, she takes the role of Garm from the myths.
  • Disney Villain Death: She falls off of Asgard's waterfalls into outer space at the end of her fight with the Hulk.
  • The Dreaded: When Heimdall and the other Asgardians find Fenris at the Bifrost Bridge, they all start to fall back instead of taking their chances with the giant wolf.
  • Furry Reminder: She sniffs Banner when he crash lands in front of her.
  • Gender Flip: According to Word of God, Fenris Wolf is a female in this movie, while the mythological Fenris and Garm she is based on were both males.
    • Ironically though, this gender change makes it closer to its 616 comic counterpart who is actually gender fluid, being the father of all Wolf Gods but the mother of the first Storm Giants by mating with Surtur as a female wolf. Though for the majority of its comic appearances, it usually presents or is regarded as a male wolf.
    • What If...? would have Hela refer to Fenris with male pronouns, meaning that he's either male in that universe or that Fenris is actually gender fluid like in the comics.
  • Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: She has green-glowing eyes after Hela revives her with the Eternal Flame.
  • Hellhound: A giant canid that serves the ruler of Hel.
  • Horse of a Different Color: Hela uses Fenris as her mount when riding into battle rather than the normal horses that the rank-and-file soldiers ride.
  • Immune to Bullets: Valkyrie unloads a Gatling Gun taken from the Asgardian armory onto Fenris, but it is nothing more than an annoyance.
    Valkyrie: This stupid dog just won't die!
  • Non-Human Undead: Given the Sickly Green Glow of her eyes as similar to the Berserkers', it's highly likely that Hela's magic combined with the Eternal Flame made her into an undead hellhound.
  • Oh, Crap!: When Hulk grabs her by the tail and swings her around. And again when he suplexes her. Its quite possible that it was the first time she actually faced a challenge.
  • Not So Stoic: Inverted. She's usually vicious and violent, but she pauses in confusion when Banner smacks down on the Rainbow Bridge in front of her. Also, during one scene in which Hela is enthroned in the palace, Fenris is seen merely lounging around docilely in the background.
  • Right-Hand Attack Dog: Hela unleashes her upon Asgardian refugees on the Bifröst during the Final Battle. Luckily for them, the Hulk steps in to fight the giant wolf.
  • Sadly Mythtaken: Note that In-Universe, the myths are mistaken but out-of-universe the trope still stands.
    • This version of Fenris is 23 feet tall and 35 feet long, which is still nowhere near as large as her mythological counterpart (who as previously mentioned, is big enough for the upper part of his jaws to reach the sky). She also doesn't get to kill Odin, nor is she Loki's child and Hela's brother.
    • The beastly companion of Hela in the original mythology is Garmr, a monstrous wolf/hound. Though Fenris is associated with Hela as brother and sister, they are not considered companions to one another.
  • Savage Wolves: A giant and vicious wolf in service of the Goddess of Death. She bites Hulk hard enough to make him bleed, which is more than almost any other character in the movies can claim to have done.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: In the comics, as in the original myths, Fenris is Hela's brother and Loki's son. Here, she's just a monster that serves Hela.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: As What If…? shows us, as a puppy, Fenris was an adorable Big Friendly Dog until Odin reared him and Hela into living weapons of war.

    Warsong 

Warsong

Species: Valkyrie Steed

Citizenship: Asgardian

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Avengers: Endgame | Thor: Love and Thunder

Brunnhilde's winged steed.


  • Adaptation Name Change: In the comics, the name of Brunnhilde's winged horse is Aragorn. In the MCU, his name is Warsong.
  • Cool Horse: Warsong is Brunnhilde's personal winged steed that can open portals to anywhere in the universe.
  • Pegasus: Warsong is a winged horse.
  • Thinking Up Portals: He's able to open portals to anywhere in the universe, but can only transport whoever is currently riding him. When Brunnhilde, Thor, and Jane need to travel together, they rule Warsong out as he can't carry all of them, but when Jane needs to pull a one-man rescue without the aid of Stormbreaker or the Thunderbolt, she instead rides Warsong into battle.

    Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder 

Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/f4bfad67_b71d_4b32_8d04_a437a5ea8560.jpeg

Species: Indigarrian Goats

Citizenship: Indigarrian, Asgardian

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder

Thor and Korg's goats that originate from the planet Indigarr.


  • Adaptational Backstory Change: In both Norse Mythology and the comics, Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder are supposedly native to Asgard. Here they were given to Thor as a gift from the Indigarrians for driving off invaders.
  • Amplified Animal Aptitude: They obey Thor and Korg's commands, and later save Korg and pull him to safety from Gorr's monsters of their own initiative.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Both of them arrive just in time to help Thor, Jane, Valkyrie, and Korg escape Omnipotence City.
  • Celebrity Paradox: Assuming Norse mythological texts such as Poetic and Prose Edda exist and are based on occasinal human interactions with Asgardians, then Thor should have already had the goats long before any of the movies started. However, since the MCU's Earth's history already has significant differences from ours, it is possible they are simply not mentioned in their version of the Eddas.
  • Horn Attack: Since they are giant goats, they can use their huge horns as ramming weapons.
  • Horse of a Different Color: They are huge goats that can pull an Asgardian Skiff.
  • No Indoor Voice: At no point in the movie are these mystical goats capable of making a noise that isn't an incredibly loud scream.
  • Noisy Nature: Both of them keep on screaming in a high-pitched, human-like manner at every opportunity.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Not totally serious, but they stop their constant screaming when Thor suggests the possibility of eating them, and stare ominously at him.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Both of them are prone to constant, loud and high-pitched human like screams, which finally wore away what little patience The Guardians had left for Thor's irresponsibility.
  • Unishment: The deafeningly loud duo of goats were given by the devoutly religious Indigarrians to Thor as a backhanded "reward" for saving them from an army of bandits... by flying full-speed into their priceless crystal temple and bringing it crashing down on the bandits' leaders. Unfortunately for them, Thor thinks they're awesome.

Allies of Asgard

    King Eitri 

King Eitri

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b9e66e0d_ca8f_4ce1_8ceb_896e36a80dbb.jpeg
"You were supposed to protect us! Asgard was supposed to protect us!"

Species: Dwarf

Citizenship: Nidavellirian

Affiliation(s): Nidavellir, Asgard

Portrayed By: Peter Dinklage

Voiced By: Santos Alberto (Latin-American Spanish dub), Katsuhiro Kitagawa (Japanese dub)

Appearances: Avengers: Infinity War | Thor: Love and Thundernote 

King of the Dwarves, an ancient people that are close allies to the Asgardians.


  • An Arm and a Leg: Eitri has had his hands plunged into metal by Thanos, and they are encased in solidified chunks of it.
  • Casting Gag: A man with dwarfism cast as a Dwarf...and he's the tallest character in the movie. Especially since Peter Dinklage's dwarfism was a core part of his other most notable role. This isn't even the first time he's done this.
  • Fiery Redhead: The King has bright red hair.
  • Irony: In spite of being a dwarf, Eitri is twice as tall as Thor, who is well over six feet in height.
  • Last of His Kind: By the time Thor, Rocket and Groot reach his realm, he is the last remaining dwarf after Thanos exterminated his entire people.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Zig-zagged. Certainly has the surly personality and smithing skills of your average Dwarf, but other than his beard he couldn't look more different. Apparently MCU dwarves are giants, but with the proportions of a human with dwarfism.
  • Oxymoronic Being: Eitri, the sole surviving dwarf... who is on the order of ten feet tall, making him taller than the Hulk or Thanos, to say nothing of everybody he actually interacts with in the film. Made even better by him being played by Peter Dinklage.
  • The Perils of Being the Best: Thanos forced him and his people to make the Infinity Gauntlet for him so he could better manipulate the Infinity Stones, and how does Thanos reward them? He slaughters his entire race, leaving Eitri the only survivor. But, in a literally classic example of the trope, Thanos merely takes Eitri's hands.
    Eitri: "Your life is yours," he said. "But your hands... Your hands are mine alone."
  • Really 700 Years Old: He's very old, or at least enough to call the 1,000-year plus old Thor "boy" by comparison.
  • Shoot the Builder: Played with; Thanos destroys Eitri's hands to prevent him forging weapons against him. It's his knowledge that's important however. Others can always provide the hands.
  • Shown Their Work: He is a giant dwarf. This might sound oxymoronic at first, but in Real Life it's theorized that dwarves weren't supposed to be short in the original myths, and it was a mistranslation brought on by Christianization. Any references to the Dwarves being "small" were supposed to mean "lesser", to indicate that they were beneath the gods in power. In Avengers: Infinity War we find out that the Dwarves are essentially a client state to Asgard, relying on them for protection and supplying them with weapons in exchange. Eitri's massive appearance implies that this theory is true in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: He was the one who forged Mjolnir and the Infinity Gauntlet. He makes Stormbreaker for Thor in order to defeat Thanos.
  • Uncertain Doom: It's unknown if he turned to dust following Thanos's finger snap or if he survived. Although considering the snap was undone in Endgame, it may be a moot point if he did.
  • You Will Be Spared: His life was his in return for building the Infinity Gauntlet. But the rest of his people wouldn't be.

    Darryl 

Darryl

Species: Human

Citizenship: Asgardian

Affiliation(s): Asgard

Portrayed By: Daley Pearson

Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder

A tour guide in New Asgard.


    Runa 

Runa

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b968a91e_9e68_4c4c_ad3f_d568abc0901f.jpeg

Species: Light Elf

Citizenship: Alfheimian

Affiliation(s): Alfheim, New Asgard

Portrayed By: Peg O'Keef

Appearances: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

A shapeshifting Light Elf who conned Dennis Bukowski into thinking she was Megan Thee Stallion.


  • Captain Ersatz: A shapeshifting elven prankster may remind some of Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream, but where Marvel is concerned, she's also a stand-in for Impossible Man (an extradimensional being rather than an elf).
  • Con Artist: Impersonates Megan Thee Stallion and cons Dennis Bukowski out of a large amount of money.
  • Didn't Think This Through: She seems to be very short-sighted for such an old woman.
    • She cons Dennis Bukowski out of a large sum of money by playing on his stupidity. Problem is he finds out, and sues her for damages.
    • She and her lawyer try to claim diplomatic immunity to get out of being found liable. The judge shoots them down, pointing out the case is being tried in Los Angeles and Thor's speech about how Asgard is not a place but a people is not legally admissable in court.
    • She decides to impersonate the judge administrating her trial while the trial is ongoing. This lands her sixty days in jail in addition to having to pay back Dennis.
  • Diplomatic Impunity: Runa's lawyer tries to get her out of being sued by Bukowski by claimg that as the daughter of an Elfin diplomat to Asgard (and now to New Asgard) she has diplomatic immunity. The judge shoots it down, pointing out that her immunity only applies in New Asgard, and they're not in New Asgard.
  • Harmless Villain: Her inability to be subtle or put any amount of thought into her cons makes it impossible for her to use her powers effectively. The only person she managed to fool was Bukowski, and even he was able to recoup his losses in court due to Runa compulsively undermining her own case.
  • Humanshifting: Is able to transform into other people.
  • Immortal Immaturity: In her default form she resembles an elderly woman, but being a Light Elf it's unclear how old she actually is. Either way, she acts like an overgrown teenager who refuses to accept that she's done anything wrong and attempts to use her powers to dodge the consequences of her actions.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The only person she ever managed to fool was Bukowski, which even his own lawyers thought was funny.
  • Not Helping Your Case: Transforming into the judge in the middle of her trial to try and get her case dropped. Her own lawyer calls her out on it, reminding her that impersonating a judge is illegal, while Pug notes to Dennis this will make it easier for them. Indeed, the actual judge charges her with contempt of court on top of her losing the suit against Bukowski.
  • Perfect Disguise, Terrible Acting: Despite being good at shapeshifting into other people, Runa doesn't bother trying to actually act like the people she's impersonating - having Dennis buy her a Passat while impersonating Megan Thee Stallion, drinking a massive amount of an energy drink while impersonating Dennis and remaining her mischievous, manipulative and jolly self, even when she's trying to pass herself off as the judge hearing her case.
  • Pointy Ears: She has pointy ears, as it is common for elves in media.
  • Rapid-Fire "No!": Starts babbling "No" over and over again after the judge rules against her and sentences her to 60 days in jail for impersonating him.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Her lawyer initially tries to use the fact that she's the daughter of a Light Elf diplomat and thus has diplomatic immunity. However, the judge shoots it down.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: Uses her powers to con Dennis out of a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars and when she gets sued for damages, she tries impersonating the plaintiff and later the judge to get the charges dropped.
  • Shapeshifting Seducer: She signed up on a shady "celebrity dating" site as Megan Thee Stallion and tricked Dennis into giving her an absurd amount of money. Whether there was any romance involved or it was just a money scam isn't made explicit.
  • Shapeshifting Trickster: She first scams Dennis out of $175,000, then uses her shapeshifting to try to get out of legal trouble by impersonating Dennis and later the judge, or to turn into Pug and loudly announce to two secretaries that he enjoys harassing women. Although it's more like a shapeshifting prankster, given how childlike she acts and how blatant all of her tricks are.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Perks: She uses her shapeshifting powers to con a gullible man out of a large sum of money, and repeatedly tries to use them to get the case against her dropped.
  • Womanchild: Despite looking like an elderly woman by Midgardian standards, Runa acts like a hyperactive teenage girl.

Enemies of Asgard

    King Laufey 

King Laufey

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_3877.JPG
"You're nothing but a boy, trying to prove himself a man."

Species: Frost Giant

Citizenship: Jotun

Affiliation(s): Jotunheim

Portrayed By: Colm Feore

Voiced By: Sebastián Llapur (Latin-American Spanish dub), Gonzalo Abril (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Thor

"You've come a long way to die, Asgardian."

The King of Jötunheim, a Frost Giant, and the biological father of Loki. Over 1000 years ago, Laufey invaded Earth (Midgard) in an attempt to conquer it, but Odin and the Gods came to Earth's aid and pushed them back to Jötunheim and defeated them, and took the Casket of Ancient Winters, a powerful artifact, from them. Since then, Laufey desires peace first, but if possible, to get the Casket back.


  • Abusive Parents: Left his weak and tiny (for a Frost Giant) infant son out in the cold to die. Said son, Loki, was then found by Odin and raised as his own. Said son later kills him in order to gain the approval of his adoptive father.
  • Action Dad: Laufey is the warrior king of the Frost Giants and the biological father of Loki, even though he chose to abandon his son and left him to die for being a runt.
  • Adaptational Personality Change: Laufey in the comics was a violent, mean brute. Here, his behavior is much more befitting a king: he's formal, soft-spoken, and wants to avoid war just like Odin.
  • Affably Evil: Almost always calm, even-toned and polite when talking to the Asgardians.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Like all Frost Giants, he has blue skin.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Casket of Ancient Winters, a device that can freeze entire landscapes and his old weapon.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: He is presented as the main threat at the beginning of Thor before the reveal of Loki's manipulative scheme.
  • Covered with Scars: His face bears several noticeable scars. The implication is that Odin and the Asgardian army inflicted them on him during the war between Asgard and Jotunheim.
  • Creepy Monotone: Laufey always speaks in a calm, steady voice.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: While Loki is revealed to be the one who allowed Frost Giants into Asgard, and makes a deal to allow them inside in force, King Laufey is assumed (at least in-universe) to be the primary antagonist of Thor.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: For such a mighty warrior, all it takes is two shots from Loki to disintegrate him. Though those two shots came from Odin All-Father's spear, one of the most powerful weapons in Asgard's general vicinity.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He's clearly a malignant character, but even he doesn't want full-out war needlessly, as he has experienced it, and has seen the costs that come from it.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: Frost Giants, whether openly violent toward Asgard or not, are always seen as evil when confronted, whether overtly or not.
  • Evil Plan: In the Dark Ages, he wanted to plunge Midgard into a new Ice Age. Odin put a quick stop to that, but the results of that plan set the stage for the events of Thor.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Speaks in a low, calm voice that demonstrates both his villainy and his authoritative demeanor.
  • Gender Flip: In Norse Mythology, Laufey is Loki's mother, and a Frost Giant called Farbauti is his father, but much like in the source comics, Laufey is the father and a unidentified female the mother.
  • An Ice Person: Though he's more skilled at controlling it than other Frost Giants.
  • Karmic Death: The child that Laufey abandoned to die ends up being the one who kills him.
  • Our Giants Are Bigger: Frost Giants are bigger than Asgardians.
  • Parental Abandonment: To infant Loki and later tells Loki that Odin should have left him to die instead of saving and raising him as his own son.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Laufey is evil, but he's not stupid. He knows that Odin's a dangerous enemy, and wants to make sure that the Asgardians fire the first shot so he can have the moral high ground when he starts the war, which sees Loki cleverly manipulate this strategy against him by using it as a setup. Loki allows Laufey and a few Jötunns into Asgard to assassinate Odin (giving Laufey a reason to believe that he has an ally within Asgard and thus not needing an overt reason to kill Odin and maintain his posture) while he sleeps, but only so Loki can then turn the tables on Laufey, kill him, and give himself the moral high ground in order to start a war with Jötunheim.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He was prepared to let Thor and his buddies go after they invaded his nation and violated the truce, because he knows that Thor is an immature boy that doesn't understand war.
    Laufey: You know not what your actions would unleash... I do. Go now, while I still allow it.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: All Frost Giants have red eyes, but his seem to glow to show the unique threat he poses.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Personally led the invasion of Midgard during the Dark Ages, wielding the Casket of Ancient Winters.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: In the comics, he was killed by Odin centuries ago, when Loki was still a baby. In the film, he is left alive, but only temporarily. In the end, Loki kills him. However, when comics Laufey was resurrected while this Laufey stayed dead, the trope was temporarily inverted until comics Laufey died a second time in War of the Realms.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The fact that Loki was offering to let him have the Casket of the Ancient Winters back with no strings attached once Odin was dead should have raised several red flags. Loki's terms never provided for any sort of permanent immunity for Asgard once their plan had been carried out, which should have reeked of "too good to be true". If Loki were serious about the agreement, he would have made Laufey promise to stay out of Asgardian business once he had what he came for but instead Loki implies that Laufey will be free to do as he pleases once he enacts the assassination of Odin and Loki can be installed as ruler of Asgard.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Laufey is manipulated by Loki into boosting his reputation at the cost of Laufey's own life.
  • Villain Has a Point:
    • He's right and quick to point out that pre-Character Development Thor is just a fight-happy Manchild, and he's also right about how much a war between Asgard and Jötunheim would cost both sides.
    • Laufey also correctly points that the House of Odin is full of traitors and that Odin himself is a liar and a thief, which is proven true later in the movie itself when Odin adopted his son and didn't tell him the truth of why he did so, causing Loki to angrily berate Odin, which puts him into Odinsleep, while Thor's half brother tries to murder his own kind in a misguided effort to win Odin's approval, while in Thor: Ragnarok, Odin himself was a conquerer that made Asgard to what it is today alongside his daughter Hela, only wanting to become a benevolent king after Asgard had Nine Realms and didn't want to expand any further, no doubt having seen the true costs of building an empire.
  • War Is Hell: Tried to stop Thor from bringing on the fight because, unlike Thor, he knows the damage of war.

    Malekith 

Malekith

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5c04f5341e8852f0a356acdd32418fc6.png
"Darkness returns, Asgardian. Have you come to witness the end of your universe?"

Species: Dark Elf

Citizenship: Svartalfar

Affiliation(s): Svartalfheim

Portrayed By: Christopher Eccleston

Voiced By: René García (Latin-American Spanish dub), Santi Lorenz (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World

"Your Universe was never meant to be, Asgardian! Your family, your world will be extinguished!"

Leader of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, Malekith attacks Asgard following the end of The Avengers, setting in motion the events of Thor: The Dark World.


  • Adaptational Badass: In the comics he's not a great fighter, and is much more prone to use his shapeshifting skills and various schemes than to face his opponents head-on. In the movie, his characterization is changed, probably so that he would make a more impressive Big Bad (in the comics he's merely The Dragon). Another possible reason for the change is that the comic book version of Malekith, whose favourite tactic is to deceive his enemies by pretending to be someone else, would've been too close to the movie Loki.
  • Adaptational Dye-Job: Traditionally blue-skinned in the comics, he has pale white pigmentation here. Also, the blackened half of his face is on the right side instead of the left.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: While Malekith in the film is still evil, he comes off as a decent person compared to his comics counterpart, who's even worse by being an Ax-Crazy sadist. Furthermore, Comics Malekith nearly killed Algrim just to get a chance to kill Thor, the film shows him having a genuine Villainous Friendship with Algrim.
  • Aliens Speaking English: He can communicate directly and fluently with Asgardians (who seem to speak English since they can converse with Americans). The Dark Elves have their own tongue but he is the only one seen using any language besides that.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Gets both of his arms cut off by Thor in their final battle, though the Aether has started to reform his arms.
  • Bad Boss: He is very ready to throw his own men under the bus, should he need to.
  • Big Bad: Serves as the main antagonist of the second film, The Dark World.
  • Black Eyes of Crazy: Malekith has black sclerae, highlighting his role as a primordial being who desires to destroy all of existence.
  • Braids of Action: Keeps his long hair in one.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Loki is Thor's adoptive brother whose ambitions of ruling the Nine Realms created a personal conflict with the home and the people he grew up with. Malekith had no previous personal ties with Thor and he intended to use the Aether to cover the Nine Realms in complete darkness.
  • Creepy Blue Eyes: Very light and piercing, overlapping with Icy Blue Eyes.
  • Dark Is Evil: He and his race were born in primordial darkness, and they despise the universe of light it became.
  • Death by Looking Up: Had just enough time to see his mothership crash upon him after being teleported back to his homeworld.
  • Dirty Coward: Threw his entire invasion fleet under the bus by depowering his ships to crush Asgard's forces when he lost the Aether during their first skirmish and to flee the battle, killing anyone who was on board at the time. He even has the gall to claim Asgard forced his hand and they will be the ones to pay for his own cowardice.
  • Establishing Character Moment: The moment he realizes he's going to lose against King Bor, he turns off his own battleships' power, dropping them on the Asgardians and killing absolutely everyone on board (implied to be nearly the entire Dark Elf population) solely to clear his own escape.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Whether he's speaking English or his native tongue, his voice is quite deep.
  • Fantastic Racism: To other Asgardians and mortals. He considers them "light based vermin".
  • Flat Character: His goals and motivations are relatively unexplored in comparison to other Marvel Cinematic Universe villains.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: It should be obvious what kind he has, but just in case half his face burned by Thor's lightning because he invaded Asgard and killed its queen.
  • Humanoid Abomination: After absorbing the Aether he turns into this freaky looking thing with Combat Tentacles.
  • Irony: At the end of the first war with Asgard, he dropped his fleet onto the battling armies, slaughtering both sides to cover his escape. Jane Foster warps his collapsing mothership right on top of him, killing him after he was soundly beaten by Thor.
  • Jerkass: Malekith, on the whole, appears to be a rather unpleasant individual, and rude to boot.
  • Karmic Death: He sacrificed most of his people by making their ships drop on them and his enemies. He's ultimately defeated by his own ship dropping on top of him.
  • Make My Monster Grow: During the climax of the Convergence, when Malekith starts releasing the energies of the Aether, he grows to about three times Thor's height. Though when Thor delivers the final blow on him with Mjölnir, he immediately reverts back to his normal height.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Accursed". If you haven't got the message yet, then you're screwed.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: It seems that life and light disgust or "poison" Dark Elves in general, and he seems to treat both as threats that need to be put down.
  • One-Winged Angel: After being powered up by the Aether, he transforms into a monstrous humanoid thing.
  • Our Elves Are Different: From a race of Sufficiently Advanced Alien demi-gods with Pointy Ears called the "Dark Elves".
  • Outliving One's Offspring: He dies centuries after his entire family does.
  • Pet the Dog: Seemed genuinely remorseful when he had to infect Algrim with the darkness to turn him into Kurse.
  • Pointy Ears: He's a pointy eared Dark Elf.
  • Really 700 Years Old: A god like the Asgardians. Probably older than them, since Loki says that Asgardians live for about five thousand years or so, but to remember "a time before the light" Malekith would need to be at least a few million years old. (See Time Abyss below.)
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: King of his people and the Big Bad of The Dark World. It's implied in interviews that in regards to his plan for destroying the Universe, his Elves are with him all the way.
  • Sorcerous Overlord: Of the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens variety. He's lord of the Dark Elves that lives in a barren land and seeks to extinguish other civilizations. He nearly destroyed the universe at first, and then tries doing it again, using the power of the Aether.
  • Time Abyss: He's older than Odin, and possibly older than the universe itself.
  • Two-Faced: Due to half of his face being burned off thanks to lightning from Mjölnir.
  • We Have Reserves: To escape in the first act, set millennia in the past, he sacrifices reserves of his men, and then escapes with his lieutenant and a skeleton crew of elves.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: He's a Dark Elf with white hair.
  • You Killed My Father: Directly involved in Frigga's death, causing Thor and Loki to have an uneasy alliance. Ironically, cut content, according to Word of God, means that he once lost his own family.

    Algrim / Kurse 

Algrim / Kurse

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/algrim_tdw_8017.jpg
"Let my life be sacrificed. It is no less than our people did, or you have done."
Click here to see him in his Kurse form

Species: Dark Elf

Citizenship: Svartalfar

Affiliation(s): Svartalfheim

Portrayed By: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World | Loki note 

Malekith's lieutenant who is one of the few Dark Elves to survive the war against Odin's father Bor, and continues to serve Malekith. Malekith allows him to use an ancient Dangerous Forbidden Technique, transforming him into the nigh-unbeatable Kurse.


  • Adaptation Distillation: In the Thor comics, Algrim/Kurse was a minor villain, whose only appearance had been in the same issue where he died, until an omnipotent Cosmic Entity revived him and made him massively powerful as part of a crossover that had nothing to do with the main plot of The Mighty Thor. For understandable reasons, the movie gives him a rather different backstory.
  • Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Algrim/Kurse does work for Malekith for a time, but Malekith betrays him and Algrim — a noble soul — swears loyalty to Thor and Asgard, in fact being the one to kill Malekith himself. In The Dark World, Malekith does sacrifice his own people but doesn't betray Algrim personally. Algrim has Undying Loyalty towards his master and becomes Kurse as a result.
  • Body Horror: What happens to him (and all other Dark Elves) when transforming into Kurse; as described by the art book, his armor is basically grafted onto his body, with no sign of it being reversible. He gets this a second time when Loki detonates the black hole grenade on his belt, generating an implosion that sucks his body down into a vortex, starting with his legs, insides, and then his eyes.
  • Cool Helmet: He gets one for his transformation, which also obscures his identity during the Trojan Prisoner gambit.
  • The Dragon: He's Malekith's most trusted and capable Lieutenant. He was already a great warrior, but when he becomes Kurse, he easily kills scores of Asgardians and Thor is no match for him in pure physical combat. Even Mjölnir causes little harm. Not only that, he completely overpowers Thor in battle, something that his master, even when empowered by the Aether, was unable to do.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He rarely speaks, but when he does, it's in a deep, baritone voice.
  • Eye Scream: His eyes are visibly (and audibly) ripped from their sockets by the black hole grenade that Loki set off.
  • Hero Killer: As Kurse, he's both incredibly strong and not without a fiendish intelligence. He first kills his share of Einherjars, then is the one to stab Frigga to death, and during his battle with Thor and Loki, he appears to kill the latter.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Loki manages to defeat him by activating the black hole grenade on his belt that the Dark Elves earlier used to great effect against the Asgardians.
  • The Juggernaut: As Kurse, he shrugs off everything that's thrown at him. It takes a black hole grenade to finally get rid of him.
  • Mighty Glacier: Slower than the Hulk, or Thor, but much stronger and tougher.
  • Mythology Gag: Pre-transformation, Algrim wears a red-and-yellow helmet, the same colors as comic book Kurse.
  • Neck Lift: A signature move once he becomes Kursed.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: Kurse is only defeated by being sucked into a miniature black hole. Nothing else so much as puts a dent in him.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: All the other Kursed have their doll masks become their faces in the prologue. Since Algrim was disguised as a Marauder, his Kurse form has a more expressive and demonic visage.
  • No-Sell: He smacks Mjolnir away like it's nothing into an entire mountain. Alongside Hela and Eternal Flame Surtur, he's one of the strongest villains in the Thor movies.
  • Painful Transformation: Algrim's transformation into Kurse has him burning from the inside out and thrashing wildly in his prison cell.
  • Scary Black Man: More so as Kurse because he's basically a demon, but also less so because his armor has been grafted on and thus conceals his skin.
  • Smarter Than You Look: As Kurse - he may look like a giant, monstrous demon, but he's still sharp as a tack - and more than smart enough to decide that maybe releasing the guy who's somehow got a cell all to himself and who only looks amused by Kurse's rampage might not be a good idea...
  • Super-Strength: As Kurse, he's more than a match for Thor, being able to beat up the thunder god in single combat.
  • Time Abyss: He's older than Odin, and possibly older than the universe itself.
  • Token Competent Minion: Algrim is the only Dark Elf other than Malekith portrayed as dangerous to the heroes. He manages to infiltrate Asgard, kill countless soldiers, kill Frigga, almost kill Loki and even overpowers Thor himself with ease.
  • Touch of Death: As Kurse, he can fry people by grabbing them with a choke-hold.
  • Trojan Prisoner: He's sent into Asgard disguised as a marauder prisoner just after being given the Kurse stone, knowing that when the transformation kicks in, he can break out with ease.
  • Undying Loyalty: Seems to be a racial trait. They might be evil, but Algrim and the Dark Elves in general are also unyieldingly loyal to Malekith, even after he sacrifices a whole fleet to escape. Taking up the "Kurse" is very much this: a Dark Elf will willingly submit to the painful and eventually deadly transformation into a giant monster, and fight for their people until it kills them.
  • World's Strongest Man: He's much stronger than Thor, one of the very strongest beings in the universe.

    Surtur 

Surtur

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_3871.JPG
"You have made a grave mistake, Odinson!"

Species: Fire Demon

Citizenship: Muspel

Affiliation(s): Muspelheim

Portrayed By: Taika Waititi (motion-capture)

Voiced By: Clancy Brown (English), Víctor Covarrubias (Latin-American Spanish dub), Benoît Rousseau (Canadian French dub)

Appearances: Thor: Ragnarok

"I am Asgard's doom, and so are you. All will suffer, all will burn!"

A giant Fire Demon and the ruler of Muspelheim who is prophesized to bring about "the end of everything" during Ragnarok.


  • Accidental Hero: By plunging his giant sword into the ground (Hela on the other end of it), burning and shattering Asgard, he ironically ends up saving its people from Hela.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, he's basically equal to Odin. Here, he gets effortlessly trounced by Thor at the beginning of the movie. Though this is a justified case, as Surtur walks with a noticeable limp and seems to clutch his side, indicating that he had not yet fully recovered from his previous battle with Odin. After his crown is put on the eternal flame, he's back to the same level as his comic counterpart, treating the Incredible Hulk as a minor annoyance.
  • Affably Evil: Aside from bouts of Insistent Terminology, he's remarkably patient with Thor's antics and well-mannered at the beginning of the film.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Surtur already stands at around 30-feet tall in his normal form, but says he grows "as tall as a mountain" when fully empowered. The reality is actually much, much bigger, as he can be seen dwarfing Asgard's mountains when finally unleashed.
  • Badass Boast: Even though they fall on deaf ears considering that he's laying waste to an empty city, many of his lines are this.
    Surtur: Tremble before me, Asgard! I am your reckoning!!
  • The Bad Guy Wins: The heroes are forced to allow him to come back and destroy Asgard to stop Hela from getting any stronger. The citizens of Asgard survived due to being evacuated, but he still destroyed their homeworld.
  • Because Destiny Says So: Unlike Thor, who wants to avert Ragnarok, Surtur is not only fine with his role in it, he actively aims to make sure the prophecy comes to pass.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Thor admits he thought his crown were actually giant eyebrows or something.
  • Big Red Devil: Well, he's a gigantic demon made of magma, so he's pretty much this by default.
  • Came Back Strong: Loki resurrects him by putting his skull and crown in the Eternal Flame, which brings him back to his original strength as a skyscraper-sized monster.
  • Celebrity Paradox: In Infinity War, Tony Stark calls Ebony Maw Squidward.note  If he ever met Surtur, he would probably quip the Fire Demon sounds like Mr. Krabs.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: After appearing and seemingly being defeated in the opening, he returns to destroy Asgard and kill Hela.
  • The Comically Serious: Unlike Hela and the Grandmaster, Surtur never snarks or cracks a joke and is entirely serious, which contrasts with Thor and his light-hearted antics and quips.
  • Creator Cameo: Taika Waititi, the film's director, did the mo-cap work for Surtur.
  • Crown-Shaped Head: Surtur's Horns of Villainy is also his crown. Despite his serious, threatening demeanor, he gets a little defensive about his crown.
    Surtur: This is my crown. The source of my power!
    Thor: Oh, that's a crown? I thought it was a big eyebrow.
    Surtur: [annoyed] It's a crown!
  • Decoy Antagonist: After initially being presented as the villain that will destroy Asgard he's easily trounced by Thor and Hela becomes the major antagonist instead. He only appears again when the heroes actually choose to revive him at his full power in order to stop Hela.
  • The Dreaded: At his prime, Surtur's influence is so powerful that even Hela is horrified when he's revived by the Eternal Flame.
  • Evil Is Burning Hot: He is a Fire Demon who desires nothing else but to raze Asgard to cosmic dust.
  • Evil Is Hammy: He is normally serious most of the time, but as soon as he is brought back to life and starts laying waste to all of Asgard, he starts hamming it up.
    Surtur: I AM ASGARD'S DOOM!!!
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Fitting his demonic appearance, Surtur speaks in a deep, gravelly voice.
  • Evil Versus Oblivion: The Oblivion to Hela's Evil: where she has grandiose goals of universal conquest, he just wants to blow up Asgard. He's also one of the few cases where Oblivion is the one the heroes are rooting for.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Hela expected his crown to be bigger. It got bigger.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: He wants to destroy Asgard because that's what he was prophesied to do, and that's basically it. He doesn't even seem to care if his actions actually end up harming anyone or not or what happens after that, only that the physical place of Asgard is destroyed. This, by the way, is pretty accurate to the original myths, where Surtur gets little mention, and is more or less there to bring the curtain down at the final fate of the gods.
  • Godzilla Threshold: The only reason Thor brings him back is because he's the only one who can permanently get rid of Hela.
  • Horns of Villainy: He looks like a classic devil and his crown is decorated with two horns. Please, don't mistake them for the eyebrows.
  • Horrifying the Horror: The only time Hela loses her smug, confident composure is when she realizes Surtur's full power has been awakened. It's the one time she appears genuinely worried.
  • Insistent Terminology: He is rather picky with wording. First off, his magnificent crown is not a "big eyebrow" — it's a CROWN! Secondly, when said crown is placed into the Eternal Flame, he'll grow as big as a MOUNTAIN! Not as big as a house. It's all very important.
  • Invincible Villain: In the brief scene where he's shown at full power he swats the Hulk away like an annoying flea and he barely reacts when Hela (who herself trounced Thor, Valkyrie, and Loki like it was nothing) hits him in the chest with multiple skyscraper-sized spears.
  • Large and in Charge: He is the Lord of Muspelheim and towers over all the other Fire Demons.
  • Magma Man: He seems to be made of eternally burning lava and rocks.
  • Make My Monster Grow: He starts off several times Thor's size, but once he's exposed to the Eternal Flame he grows to Kaiju-sized proportions.
  • Meaningless Villain Victory: He gets to destroy Asgard like he always wanted... after everyone but Hela has already evacuated. Then he explodes, and, because Asgard is destroyed, his Purpose-Driven Immortality goes with it. The most he could possibly get from it is peace of mind from finally getting to fulfill his singular purpose in life.
  • No-Sell: Hela hits him with skyscraper-sized spears, and he barely reacts.
  • Not So Above It All: Despite his serious, threatening demeanor, he gets a little defensive about his crown.
    Surtur: This is my crown. The source of my power!
    Thor: Oh, that’s a crown? I thought it was a big eyebrow.
    Surtur: [annoyed] It's a crown!
  • Off with His Head!: Thor kills Surtur early in the movie by knocking his block off. Ultimately, it doesn't stick.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Becomes this at the end when his helmet is thrown into the eternal flame and he destroys Asgard.
  • Playing with Fire: He's literally a giant made of fire.
  • Purpose-Driven Immortality: Surtur claims that he cannot die until he destroys Asgard. He succeeds in this goal at the end of the movie, annihilating both Asgard and himself.
  • Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": He starts enjoying himself a little too much when he begins his destruction of Asgard.
  • Resurrective Immortality: Surtur can be killed, but it’s implied that he will eventually come back to life after a long time if Thor’s comment about Odin killing Surtur "half a million years ago" is accurate. Also, he cannot truly die until he brings about Ragnarok and destroys Asgard. Putting his skull into the Eternal Flame allows him to come back immediately.
  • Serkis Folk: He is rendered in CGI. Who performs the motion capture? Why, Taika Waititi (the director of the movie) himself!
  • Slouch of Villainy: Surtur is first seen lounging on his throne.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Upon running out of solutions to stop Hela, Thor decides to unleash Ragnarok itself to take her out, by ordering Loki to put Surtur's skull in the Eternal Flame. Surtur ends up destroying Asgard with his gigantic sword, defeating Hela in the process. This is particularly driven home by Hela's realization immediately before her defeat that her attacks, which utterly destroyed the other Asgardians she fought previously, can barely even scratch the fully empowered Surtur.
    Hela: You can't defeat me.
    Thor: No, I know. But he can!
  • Super-Toughness: Hela throws spears at him that rival the size of Asgard's buildings, and he doesn't even flinch after the first one.
  • Sword Beam: He can shoot streams of fire from the tip of his sword.
  • Sword Drag: Drags his sword behind him as he's about to execute Thor as the latter is his prisoner at the beginning of the film.
  • Taking You with Me: He knows that Asgard's destruction will also kill him, but he doesn't care, so long as his destiny is fulfilled.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Stabs Hela with the tip of his flaming sword through her platform down into the planet's core, unleashing a pyroclasm that engulfs the city, instigating a wildfire that quickly spreads throughout the world, before breaking Asgard in half, and then having the burning planet explode shortly after, with Hela in the direct center of it all.
  • Took a Level in Badass: At the start of the film, Thor apparently kills him. By the end, the Hulk is swatted aside like a pest after getting in a good hit, and although Hela manages to get in some good stabs, she's clearly outmatched.
  • The Unfettered: Surtur is absolutely unconcerned with anything else other than decimating Asgard. And he's really into it. After the Hulk jumps to him and gets in a good lick, Surtur simply flicks the puny green rage monster away and continues his single-minded drive to annihilate the world. Even Hela barely provokes much of a reaction, despite her sticking him with skyscraper-sized necroblades.
  • The Worf Effect: At full size and power, he tosses Hulk away with one hand like a rag doll and easily defeats even Hela. This demonstrates how powerful he truly is, and underscores his Worf Had the Flu claim.
  • Worf Had the Flu: His swift defeat at Thor's hand at the start of the film is justified, given that he was deprived of his power source and thus nowhere near his prime. He's also walking with a noticeable limp, indicating that he has yet to fully recover from his battle with Odin.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: He could potentially live forever as he is fated to never die unless he brings about Ragnarok, but he just hates Asgard that much.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: He's presented as an intimidating villain who promises the destruction of Asgard, a place the audience has associated with heroism for several films. However, as Ragnarok illustrates, Odin was an imperialistic conqueror who won dominion over the Nine Realms through war and blood, so Surtur could be seen as the ultimate living weapon of liberation from a galactic dictatorship.

    Marauders 

The Marauders

Species: Various

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World

A band of ragtag invaders from many races that begin raiding along the Nine Realms after the destruction of the Bifrost Bridge.


  • Canon Foreigner: In the mainstream comics, there are no space pirates named "Marauders". Instead, the Marauders are the lackeys of X-Men villain Mister Sinister. There was also a villainous gang of outlaws called the Marauders in the first volume of The Outlaw Kid comics.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Marauders recruit individuals from many races.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Wisely decide to surrender after Thor kills their strongest warrior in one blow.
  • Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Their standard tactic is to attack the weak and engage in savage destruction.
  • Space Pirates: They raid and kill along the worlds that form the Nine Realms.

    The Kronan Marauder 

The Kronan Maraunder

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/korg.png

Species: Kronan

Affiliation(s): Marauders

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Thor: The Dark World

A Kronan and a member of the Marauders.


  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He is the largest and the strongest of the Marauders, and seems to be their leader as well.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: After he's killed, his entire army surrenders.
  • Mythology Gag: The Kronans were the first villains Thor ever encountered in the original Silver Age Journey Into Mystery comics.
  • No Name Given: We never get a name for him. Originally, he was suggested to be the MCU's version of Korg, and then Thor: Ragnarok came along.
  • Rock Monster: He's seemingly constructed of rocks, and is blasted apart by a blow from Mjölnir.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Killed in a Curb-Stomp Battle by Thor.

Alternative Title(s): MCU Nine Realms

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