‘Ragnarok’ Season 1 Review: The Battle For Climate Change Supremacy

What do you get when capitalists disregard environmental hazards for their own benefit? The obvious answer is, of course, a drastic climate change. But for the small fictional Norwegian town of Edda, it’s the advent of Ragnarok—the final destruction of the world following a battle of the gods and giants.

Netflix’s newest foreign language series, titled Ragnarok, springs from the backbone of Norse mythology. This is Thor’s story albeit equally far from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s treatment of the character. It follows a young man’s journey to realizing his full ability as he is endowed with one of the most powerful gifts from the Old World—Thor’s full physical arsenal itself. David Stakston plays Magne, a typical awkward teenager who’s the freshest face in town. He’s built like a god too, with an imposing physique that he doesn’t flaunt for fear of further ostracization. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s been chosen by the town’s guardians to take up the mantle of the Norse god and save them from further ecological decay brought about by the Jutul family’s blatant tampering of Edda’s natural resources.

Now if that doesn’t sound compelling enough to you, I don’t know what else would. It’s a promising narrative that banks on global issues like climate change and backward-thinking bureaucracy. Ragnarok is Netflix’s response to the climate problem, pitting unlikely young heroes against an ancient threat to make it a little less political and lean towards positive teenage angst. Edda is a beautiful town that’s mired with the melting ice caps and poisonous levels of cadmium in their water system. A Greta Thunberg-inspired character named Isolde (Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin) discovers all this and pins it on the Jutuls (who, we would later learn, are the giants of old living among men now). Ever since the Jutuls took over the industrial business side of the town, Edda has been slowly dying—fish are dying, the water is undrinkable, and there’s an unnatural warmth being felt in the winter season. It’s not until Isolde dies of mysterious causes that Magne begins to understand his greater role in all of this. The destruction of Edda’s ecology is the new Ragnarok. That’s why seeress Wenche (Eli Anne Linnestad) bestows Magne the powers of Thor to help balance out the power play.

In a nutshell, this all looks auspiciously interesting. I was reeled in right after I saw the trailer. Who would’ve thought that climate change and Norse mythology would work well together? However, there’s still lots of room for Ragnarok to improve upon closer look.

Flaky Bits of ‘Ragnarok’ That Need More Work

Don’t get me wrong, I’m hopeful for where Netflix plans to take Ragnarok especially after such a powerful finale. But my main qualm about the show is how it mishandles its characters to the point of giving them rushed storylines. The six-episode count could be the culprit here, but there’s always a way to make characters more relatable and resonating even with such a short first season run. Case in point: we get that Thor is a noble god who was deemed worthy of wielding the Mjolnir and all that, but where does Magne fit into this? He’s teased as good of heart in the show, but there were very few instances where we saw him exhibit the qualities of someone of good heart. Stripped down of all dramatic embellishments, Magne is just an awkward newcomer who doesn’t have any friends because he also happens to be dyslexic. Though Stakston plays Magne perfectly, his character lacks sufficient emotional background to make us believe that he really was chosen by Wenche to save the town from utter destruction.

And that’s not the only case of character downplaying here. The Jutuls (an interesting play on the word Jötunns, which is what the giants are called in Norse mythology)—Vidar (Gísli Örn Garðarsson), Ran (Synnøve Macody Lund), Fjor (Herman Tømmeraas), and Saxa (Theresa Frostad Eggesbø)—are the main villains of the show, giving new life to the giants of old. But that’s the thing; they’re supposed to be giants. I’m not saying they should be literally 10 feet tall, but they should’ve at least shown their brute strength and power by exuding an aura of ferocity and ruthlessness. Instead, the only giant-like sequences we got were Vidar stripping down naked to hunt a deer and eat its heart and Fjor and Saxa engaging in an exotic borderline incestuous dance during the school prom. The Jutuls are very weak when they’re supposed to be powerful.

Apart from Ragnarok’s mishaps with the way it handles its characters, various plot threads were also left untangled. It’s still a mystery as to why Magne’s brother, Laurits (Jonas Strand Gravli), knows the music and language of the old tongue. Laurits was part of Fjor and Saxa’s weird dance number during the prom sequence, and he always expresses love for the same music that the Jutul siblings listen to. Sure, he does look like a Loki type of character, but it’s not fully established whether or not he’ll play a part in the grander scheme of Edda’s Ragnarok. Another plot mystery lies with Iman (Danu Sunth), the newcomer student months after Magne and Laurits entered the school. There were subtle hints of her possibly possessing god-like powers like that of Magne’s but it was never explored. She was just introduced as the new girl seemingly to remove Magne’s “ny gutt” (new boy) status.

Despite all these slipups, Ragnarok is done in a way that doesn’t make the Norse elements shoehorned into the plot. It feels very evolved, almost as if it was how it’s supposed to be used in the first place. The pacing for each episode never loses momentum, making sure that the stakes are where they should be—anchored on Magne’s power to expose the Jutuls’ corrupt practices and their true form for one epic showdown of the gods and beings. The cinematography celebrates the beauty of Norway with its lush landscape, breathtaking mountainous sequences, and the cold but cozy aesthetic that completes the experience of immersing yourself in a world where technology and mythology meet halfway.

‘Ragnarok’ Season 1 Overall Verdict

The campiness of Netflix’s Ragnarok is intentional and oddly fresh. We’re so used to superheroes flying here and there that we’ve become desensitized to the grandeur that it teases. In Ragnarok, though, Magne’s powers are taken to a whole new playing field. There are no tights, no brawls with aliens, and no overly-thematic dialogue. It just is. The reality that these kids live in allows them to thrive for the narrative’s sake. Ragnarok puts its environmental and political statements to good use by stressing the need to educate people about the ill effects of climate change and how it could be prevented without leaning on too-good-to-be-true gaffes. Instead, it provides a fictional perspective doused with hard truths about what could and will happen if this phenomenon continues. Overall, Netflix’s Ragnarok offers a thrilling six-episode fanfare of socially-relevant action mixed with Nordic elements that add gravitas to what it’s trying to tell us—the world is dying, and we need more than quick fixes to fix the problem.