The only sin greater than terrible writing is the people who choose to approve it. In the case of Ragnarok Season 3, the biggest victim of this crime is Magne, aka our resident teen Thor. We had accepted that he was boring, and we had also not complained when he showed no character development for two complete seasons of the show. But come Season 3, he starts acting differently. The difference was jarring, but we would have still accepted it if the writers had not tried to introduce that psychological twist at the end, making us question everything. Was it their intention to say that three seasons with narratives spanning over a year and a half, which were presented as a series from 2020–23, were all the imagination of a troubled mind?
Spoiler Alert
Why Did Magne Imagine Ragnarok With The Gods And Giants?
There are a few ways to interpret this if we don’t see the terrible writing as the reason for this disaster. Let us assume that gods and giants did exist in the modern world and that Magne was, indeed, Thor, who had been there for the fight. Ragnarok has been called the “fight to end the world” in Norse mythology. A lot happens before it, with the forces of good and evil gathering in one place and too many pieces being set in motion, from which there is no coming back. This is the reason Ragnarok was so inevitable: the need for the dominance of one group was way too strong. It basically followed the importance for the world to have a clean slate. Looking at it in a modern context, neither one of the Jutuls was a menace the way giants of old had been, and none of the gods were that benevolent or godly, to begin with. While Thor was known for his arrogance, even in the myths, he had to prove himself worthy of being a god, and we are not quoting this from the Marvel movies.
Basically, none of the characters of Ragnarok seasons 1, 2, or 3 were strong or determined enough that the world, or even the town, deserved to be annihilated for their sake. Magne recognized that if they fought now, it would be completely unnecessary. It was an easy victory for the gods, and the giants admitted defeat only because they were outnumbered, and reaching a truce was easier. So basically, the purpose of Ragnarok had been fulfilled, and a new age was ushered in where everyone found their own place. The gods returned to normal life, and the Jutuls continued gaining the power they so desperately wanted by keeping the environment clean. It wasn’t a hard solution, and it made sense. There was no need for Ragnarok. The Jutuls polluted the environment not on purpose but because they did not care to do things differently. They were not out on an agenda against humans; they simply wanted to be powerful. Their objective could be achieved, albeit with a few minor changes in their process, and the gods would go back to having no problem with them.
Had Vidar still been the head of the Jutul house, this would not have been possible, but with Magne and Saxa leading things, a different conclusion was reached. However, we have to understand whether Magne’s purpose was fulfilled. We would like to believe that the means and the end were coded into him right from the moment he was declared the chosen one. He may have achieved his purpose, but the means to do that had him fighting against his very nature for which his hammer, Mjolnir, was forged. Waton suggests that the hammer has been controlling Thor rather than the other way around. Mjolnir was not built for peace, but for war, and if Magne comes up with a way to evade that, that negates its very purpose, which the hammer may not have liked. That is why it causes Magne to have those hallucinations by calling out to that part of him that was born to fight the great Ragnarok. As long as Magne remains stronger than Mjolnir, things will be alright.
Was Magne Schizophrenic?
The second situation, the one we hate, is that Magne was indeed delusional because of his schizophrenia. Even his official diagnosis was ambiguous for the audience because of how the events played out. But let us still question for a second whether this is a real possibility. In season 1 of Ragnarok, Laurits made it a point to tell anyone and everyone that Magne did not have friends. He also did not speak highly of his intellectual capabilities. Remember when it was their first day in school, and Laurits said condescendingly about his big brother that “he was good at other things”? At home, Laurits may have been occasionally affectionate and nice, but mostly, he loved to pick on his brother. Turid was supportive, but we don’t think she could be the complete support system that Magne needed.
Being an isolated teenager can be tough, and things not going according to plan, like the move to Edda, must have built up a lot of frustration in Magne. We are only told at the end of season 3 that Magne was an avid comic book reader. This is a glaring loophole since it has been shown time and again that Magne cannot read. What did he do with the books, then? Let us assume that he looked at the pictures and weaved his own stories or used some app or device to help him through. Stories can become a safe space for people unable to make sense of the world around them, and this was probably the start of Magne’s schizophrenia.
Edda had some mythological significance, one that was also the plot of Magne’s favorite comic books. If he did not like the move to town, maybe he could make the most of it by indulging in this fantasy. And once he started doing that, maybe he decided to extend it as well. Isolde was the only friend Magne had in Edda and probably in his whole life. Even though they had known each other very briefly, her death hit him hard. Maybe he made villains out of Jutuls, or, in other words, deemed them to be villainous supernatural beings, because Isolde claimed that they were the bad guys, and along with that, Magne had a need to fit them in his comic book world.
We got a glimpse of one of the comic book covers, and it was of Thor ripping apart the mouth of a wild beast. This was the exact way Magne had killed the Jutuls’ pet in Season 1, indicating that his hallucinations started way back. Magne probably drew the connection between Loki and Laurits because they were both queer. We suspect that Laurits had a regular case of tapeworms, and it was Magne who made it out to be the Midgard Serpent. The final scenes of the comic books showed us that a lot of the giants seemed to have blonde hair and blue eyes, a description that perfectly fit the Jutuls. We don’t know if those physical features are a geographical thing or a support for Magne’s delusions.
In the end, Magne preventing Ragnarok might have been his own moral dilemma or something he read or heard on a fansite for the comics and felt would fit in well with the world he was creating. His imagining of Ragnarok was probably the end of the story he had been spinning in his head for over a year. Once it was all over, he had his moment of clarity or confusion, and to navigate either, he had to let go of the source of it all—his books—so that he could start taking his medicines and working with a therapist to live the life of a normal human that he had always wanted. This scenario would not have been a bad conclusion if it had only been explored better. Right now, it just feels like an eyesore in an otherwise average series.
