The symbolic meaning of Loki—the dangerous narcissist within us all

I've been studying mythology pretty intensely for a while now—really fun and fascinating stuff! And I find the more I learn about mythology and its symbolism, the better I'm able to write and conceptualize, it's like the secret code that unlocks your mind's potential.

I've already made 2 entries concerning mythology (I'll add a tag for it if I can do that in here), and with all the extensive notes I've been making lately I thought it would be a good idea to extract some of it, try to work it up into something more readable, and drop it in here. Much of it will probably still sound like notes to myself though, sorry about that.

My focus at first was on Norse mythology. I had written my freshman term paper on it and was always fascinated by it, but decided to dig deeper. I started by downloading a few books. The particular ones this entry is focused on are:

• In the Days of Giants
• Asgard Stories

In the Days of Giants is a much better book, but it didn't include the most important story—Ragnarok—about the death of the gods, so I also got the other one. Here are the stories I think are most important for understanding Loki and his place in the pantheon:

In the Days of Giants:

• The Beginning of Things (prologue)
• The Magic Apples
• The Dwarf’s Gifts
• Loki’s Children
• The Quest for the Hammer
• Baldur and the Mistletoe
• The Punishment of Loki

Definitely read the last 2. And the preface, it gives some good information to help understand the mythology, for instance that the Frost Giants represent winter, cold, snow and ice, storms etc, and that dwarfs represent the spirits of the mountains and the caves, and of mining and fashioning metals and precious stones. You could skip any of the others if you want, but reading them will really enhance your understanding of Loki's relationship with Thor and the rest of the Aesir. Actually I really enjoyed the entire book.

Asgard Stories:

Just the preface and the final tale, The Twilight of the Gods. Those are the only ones I read from this book. Mostly I wanted to read the story of Ragnarok (the Twilight of the Gods) because I was very surprised it wasn't included in the other book. It’s really the most well-known of all Norse tales.

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Narcissist Notes—on Loki:

Obviously the Narcissist was well known always, and a huge part of Norse mythology is devoted to endless warnings about the untrustworthiness of the wicked-hearted, who bear glad tidings while cloaking wickedness against you in their hearts, for they secretly burn with envy at any good things that befall you, and they lust to enact their revenge against you when they think it safe to do so, though until that time they take great pleasure in pretending to be your friend, while gloating evilly inside.

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Finished the book. It ends with the final fate of Loki, as if the entire book is only about his arc toward ever-increasing evil and deceit, and ends the only way it can, with everyone hating him and determined to make him suffer the punishment he deserves for all his many crimes.

One thing I noticed was the strong similarities with the story of Abel and Caine in the Bible, but that one is hard to understand. In light of Loki's arc in this book however, it all makes much more sense. Interestingly, Loki invented the fishing net and it was used against him to capture him. Similar to how it was the children of Caine who brought Craft into the world and taught it to Man.

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This occurred to me this morning while looking through Asgard Stories. Crappy little book, conceived to bring Norse tales to children and add a strong Christian element to them. It’s poorly written compared to In The Days of Giants, and much seems to be left out. Fenris Wolf never even shows up for Ragnarok!

But there’s some explanation of some of the symbolism. I need to look back at it—oh, I remember, it's explained that the Giants are personifications of Winter, Cold, Ice and Storms or something similar. I think the Aesir, like all gods, are the elements of the Psyche personified. They put in a paragraph at the beginning of the book that essentially said “Forgive the silly Northerners, they lived long ago and didn't know there’s only one God, so they made up stories about many gods." Well, understanding the nature of the psyche as divined by Jung, the many archetypes can unite into the One, the Self. This happens during Individuation. And of course, all the Pantheons I'm aware of have an Allfather, the King of all the Gods and literally the father of them all too.

I suddenly realized the importance attached to Loki. Not only is he a warning to be watchful against your narcissist friends and family etc, but against narcissism in your own heart as well. This parallels the same insight I had about Satan—he's the deceiver inside your own heart and mind, and God is your better judgement, that you should listen to more. I think it's part and parcel of a proud warrior culture. How often Thor bristled with indignant pride or simmered resentfully when made to look bad—that's him giving in to his inner Loki.

Also, interesting that Thor's death came from Loki’s child the Midgard Serpent, after he killed it. The mist of its poisoned venom drifted into his face and killed him. That’s exactly the punishment for Loki in his cave, the poison venom of a serpent dripping into his face for all eternity. It also symbolized his poisoned thoughts and words and resentment. Plus it’s a freaking serpent! The poison-tongued deceiver of the Garden of Eden. In fact, I believe thinking back, that all the gods died due to Loki's children. It was the narcissism in the Norse warrior culture that killed it eventually, and they saw it coming from the beginning.

One important thing said at the beginning of Asgard Stories is that the writers decided Norse mythology is a good place to start for we descendants of Northerners, we Teutonics. We can understand them far easier than the subtle and very different myths of the Mediterranean. They said the simple directness of the Vikings is much closer to our own heart, as well as being much more direct and easier to understand than all other myths/religions. This seems to be true.

All the pantheons (the ones I know anyway), though they do have multiple gods, always have an All-Father, the greatest of them all, the literal father of all the other gods. So it actually fits the human psyche better than a monotheism (with a split-off Devil for God’s evil side).

Another important factor—Loki was killed by Heimdall, and also killed him. It's intense watchfulness that destroys the narcissism in your heart, though it can still take you out in its wicked deceitful death throes.

I was wondering why Balder is the god of beauty, but so is Freya. I think he’s the beauty of the natural world and she’s probably human beauty. Maybe?

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More thoughts, and further explanation on earlier ones—

Noticing a lot of connection between Loki and serpents. One of his children is the Midgard Serpent, the monster who wraps himself around the world and eats his own tail, and kills Thor in the Twilight of the Gods. Loki is the Norse equivalent of Satan, and in Genesis Satan is seen as a serpent who told Eve to eat the fruit the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is often shown as an apple. Golden apples were very important in Norse mythology.

Poison-tongued serpent is an epithet usually applied to liars and deceivers and flatterers. Satan tempts and deceives people, in some accounts it's really all he can even do. You must stay strong against his deceits and cast him from your world or his poison will seep in little by little and destroy you.