Christian Bone of We Got This Covered does end up noting the likelihood of an inversion of Norse mythology concerning Hela and Loki but if there were any credence given to the theory that Hela and Loki are mother and son it would have to be an MCU creation much like the idea of Loki and Thor being brothers, since in mythology Loki is the son of giants and yet still mentioned among the Aesir, a group of gods in the same mythology. It’s worth noting however that the mention of Loki and Hela being the only ones in the family that use sorcery in any real sense of the word is largely due to how the Marvel universe has been allowed to translate to the big screen, as Odin is by far stronger than Hela in mythology no matter her affinity and role as a goddess of death. There are reasons however why we don’t see Odin simply open up with his full force in the MCU and they’re plentiful to be certain, since the Allfather does have those above him that can possibly fight him to a standstill or even put him down, but there aren’t many. In that regard he’s been seen as seriously under-powered in the MCU and fashioned as more of a physical brawler and elder statesman than anything. While Anthony Hopkins is definitely a great actor, he’s not exactly an action star, and in reality, or mythology at least, Odin is a god of war, but also excels at trickery and spellcraft, much like his ‘daughter’.
It’s also worth noting that in Norse mythology that Hela is the daughter of Loki, hence Christian’s mention of the inversion between the source material and the MCU. In this light it might make sense that she’s a bit less powerful and experienced than Loki, but apparently as the big bad she needed to be nigh unstoppable, at least until she met up with Surtur, who was fated to bring about Ragnarok. With how things have been handled in this point in the MCU when it comes to mythology and how the story originally goes versus how they wanted it to go it’s a wonder that anything is recognizable at this time. No offense to the theory of Loki being Hela’s son, but it would mean that she gave birth to him after conceiving him with Laufey and then just left him on Jotunheim with the frost giants. Now no one’s saying that Hela would be good mother material in the first place, but it does kind of make sense why he was so small and frail when compared to his brutish brethren, and why his skin turned white when Odin adopted him. It’s a curiosity to be sure, plus the jet black hair and the affinity for sorcery does raise a few questions, which would mean that the MCU was playing around a bit with mythology once again. One has to wonder what might happen if they want to incorporate Greek mythology at one point, just who’s going to be the father, mother, son, daughter of who. The best part of this is that it’s all a story and that means it can go in any direction that a person wants so long as people are willing to pay attention.
Those that have studied Norse mythology and follow it to the letter, as much as they can, are likely shaking their heads at what has become of Thor and the Norse pantheon in the MCU, but hopefully some of them are a little more accepting of what’s been done since realistically the Marvel universe has taken a lot of different myths and tales from the histories of mankind and reworked them in a number of different ways. Rob Bricken of Gizmodo has something else to say on this matter. The trick is to not take anything too seriously and just have fun with it, since a lot of those that have studied Norse mythology at some point in their lives would no doubt wish to correct this theory in a big way since according to the stories it’s Loki that gives rise to Hel, Jormungandr, and Fenrir. While we haven’t had a chance to meet the serpent Jormungandr we did get to Hel, aka Hela, and Fenrir, in Thor: Ragnarok. We even got to see Hulk pummel Fenrir while in turn being dragged about by the great wolf before the great wolf was flung into the abyss. It’s kind of hard to think just who we’re going to see in Thor: Love and Thunder since there’s apparently another villain coming. One might think that the studio would want to include Bor, Odin’s father, or one of his brothers, who have made their appearance in Marvel comics at some point.
Whoever it is we know at this point that Hela probably won’t be there thanks to the ending of Ragnarok.
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