It is safe to say that people who cared about the Nordic series Ragnarok were left in two minds about its ending. Considering that the third season has been called the series’ last, and there will be no Ragnarok season 4, the choice to make the ending confusing did not make much sense. It could be to spark a debate or to keep the show relevant long after it stops airing. Or it could be a justification for the route of peace taken by the protagonists, which ends up nullifying the name of the show.
The creators must have named the series Ragnarok to signify the war between good and evil that was about to come, but if they chose not to do that, then they had to at least compensate for it with the explanation of a hallucination. But our favorite theory is that this is how the writers salvaged the very average script. What we mean is that none of the characters ever did anything substantial or awe-inspiring to justify the preparations for a war or even their own connections with gods and demons. That is why depicting it all as a possible hallucination is a good excuse to let the average quality of the script go.
Regardless, none of it makes those audiences happy who invested their time in watching the eighteen episodes of Ragnarok seasons 1, 2, and 3 and expected to see some things in the final season at least. They needed to see a war or at least a better resolution for the characters. Regarding the three giants, we don’t mind that Saxa found herself as the CEO of the Jutul empire, but neither Ran nor Fjor deserved a happy ending. Fjor was a murderer, and for him to just happily end up with his secretary was the worst thing that could be passed off as justice or peace. He had killed multiple people after being cruel to them in their personal lives as well; case in point, Marianne. Yet, just because Magne decided that he did not want to shed blood, Fjor ended up getting a clean chit. This also brings us to how Magne never grew as a person or a god. His brief stint with arrogance was resolved in no time at all and made it feel like a waste of the audience’s time. This disappointment is because there are nuances to a powerful person’s arrogance, the first of which is that what should they be humble and deferential about when it is them who is keeping the monsters in check?
At what point does one start differentiating between knowing one’s worth and being delusional? Let’s remember that Magne may be a god, but he was still a teenager, and he was especially prone to blurring this line, as were Laurits and the others. We saw them do that in Season 2 of Ragnarok when Magne had briefly given up his powers. In such a case, when the power got to his head in Season 3, why did everyone else become so goody two shoes instead of joining him or creating a ruckus in their own capacity?
Additionally, why was Laurits so weak all the time? In the Ragnarok of the myths, he was the one who led the giants to battle, which just shows how much of a master strategist he was. But in the series, Laurits, aka Loki, just did not have the gumption. Where was he “playing the game”? At no point were the stakes so high that the tougher side of him would come out.
Then there was the case of Saxa. She was likely based on Jarnsaxa, who was Thor’s lover in the myths. Wouldn’t it have been interesting if she actually got pregnant after the first time they were together at the end of season 2? That would have been far better leverage than whatever she came up with in season 3, not to mention that it gave the Giants an actual advantage instead of them completely succumbing to Magne’s will, which ended up fueling his arrogance even more. Magne having a child would have made such a difference to the plot.
On that note, where was the battle between Magne and Little O? Was their briefly running into each other all that we were to get after the whole thing about Laurits being pregnant and putting Magne on a leash for a year while promising the Jutuls a grown-up Little O to attack and take him out? That arc was the most unsatisfying part of season 3 and the most unnecessary because of how much of a waste it was.
But our biggest letdown was probably that we did not see any of the other gods being, well, gods. It is understandable that none of them were related by blood in the mortal world but by spirit, Odin was Thor’s father, which means that Wotan must have had some effect on Magne. Yet we never even saw these relationships discussed or addressed.
Finally, why was Turid so clueless? Her sons had turned into gods and were running circles around each other, yet she suspected nothing more than what was at the surface. Even the history teacher was a disappointment. We wanted him to be someone like Alaric Saltzman from The Vampire Diaries. That would have been very cool. Also, were the Jutuls the only giants that existed in the world? In all the years they had been alive on earth, had they really not gathered forces and powers that would help them in the prophesied second Ragnarok? It would have been quite a sight to see Edda filled with giants and gods alike, ready to fight another war in some abandoned basement.
Amidst it all, there was an angle of Ran and the therapist, Sindre. Their discussions remind us of the relationship between Lucifer Morningstar and his therapist in the series Lucifer, so we are a bit disappointed that it ended up being so boring. But then again, unlike Dr. Linda Martin, Sindre never seemed to be good at his job. On another note, we don’t mind Ran being left alive, but Fjor should have been killed. We have said this before, but Ragnarok is not a bad show. It is underwhelming but not terrible. The ending of season 3, however, made it so. A lot more could have been done, but for now, this will suffice because, at the very least, it has come to an end.
