Ragnarok

"There were pictures and songs of gentle Jesus meek and mild. In one of them he preached in a clearing to a congregation of attentive curly animals, rabbits, a fawn, a squirrel, a magpie. The animals were more real than the divine-human figure. The thin child tried to respond to the picture, and failed.
They were taught to say praters. The thin child had an intuition of wickedness as she felt what she spoke wicked into a cotton-wool cloud of nothingness.
She was logical child, as children go. She did not understand how such a nice, kind, good God as the one they prayed to, could condemn the whole earth for sinfulness and flood it, or condemn his only Son to a disgusting death on behalf of everyone. This death did not seem to have done much good...
The thin child thought that these stories... were both human make-ups... Neither aspect made her want to write, or fed her imagination. They numbed it."

I picked this passage because I thought it gave a lot of insight into the girl's young mind. She's so young, yet she's already got the wisdom and logic to see that maybe the things she's being taught aren't true. I see her as being very smart for being skeptical, and in my opinion, people should learn to be more skeptical of what teachers teach us, because there are things to be gained from questioning what's presented as "true;" it's important to discover what is true for you personally.
The thin girl finds the stories from her mother's books to be more interesting than the stories taught to her in her scripture lessons, and another reason I picked this passage was because it resonated with me personally. I've tried a handful of times to devote myself to christianity, but it simply didn't click or make sense to me for many reasons, one of which is similar to the thin girl's perspective. This is highlighted in the last paragraph, and says that the stories of the religion simply do not spark the thin girl's imagination in any way.

The humanization of the gods

     “Hermodur bowed to the queen of Hel, and said that he had come to beg for Baldur’s return to Asgard. Gods and men, an all creatures, were helpless with grief, and needed the young god to bring back their liveliness, their power to hope. Most of all, said Hermodur, the goddess Frigg had asked him to be Hel for Baldur’s return, for she could not live without him. To this, Hel replied that mothers throughout time had learned to live without their sons. Every day young men died and came quietly over her golden bridge. Only in Asgard could they die in battle every day, as a game, and live again to feast in the evening. In the hard world, and in the world of shadows, death was not a game.

     But this death, said Hermodur, had diminished the light of the world.

     So, said Hel. It is diminished, then. (105-106).

     I chose this passage because it exemplifies an important distinction between gods and humans. Just a few pages earlier, we are told that Baldur’s death is worrisome to Odin because “gods don’t fall dead”. I would suggest that the greatest catalysts for Ragnarok are the death of Baldur and the subsequent refusal of Loki to weep (although this probably wasn’t necessary; the original poem states that Hel’s reasoning for offering this compromise was that if someone killed him in the first place, they wouldn’t weep).
     What is most important to draw from this thought is the first major instance of the gods experiencing a tragedy that occurs only for humans: the loss of a friend/relative. Another important aspect to draw from this is the fact that even the most cunning cannot escape the end. Certainly, had Loki known that by killing Baldur he would seal his own fate, he would not have done so.
     I think that the final humanization of the gods is what was missing for the coming of Ragnarok. I assume that this is due to the fact that in stories written by men, there must be some connection to our species.

Ragnarok: Creation Story

"The gods made the world from the dead giant. The thin child was disturbed at having to imagine this; there was no scale by which she could measure it, although she could grasp the shadowy semblances that linked the bits of dead Human to the creatures and structures in the world."

Byatt, A.S. (2012-02-07). Ragnarok: The End of the Gods (p. 26). Canongate U.S.. Kindle Edition.

After reading this relatively short passage from Ragnarok, I immediately became enveloped in the character of the thin child. It was remarkable to see how she, at such a young age, began to question some of the hardest ideas to grasp in life. To think in such a methodical, intelligent way illustrates the uniqueness of the thin child. But what grabbed my attention the most was the parallelism to the idea of religion. In this creation story, the thin child questions the authenticity of the story, which parallels to the many thinkers today that argue against the idea of the creation stories involving a God. At such an early stage of the book, the author, through the thin child's actions, has the reader already making connections to the questioning of religion and its authenticity. Like the thin child wondering how the world could be created from a dead giant, many people wonder how a God could create the world in 7 days and 7 nights. This parallelism sparked an extreme amount of interest in me and made me want to continue reading the novel.

Ragnarok

“The thin child, despite the war that was raging, was more afraid of eternal boredom, of doing nothing that mattered, of day after day going nowhere, than she was of death or the end of things . When she thought of death she thought of the little boy across the road who had died of diabetes.”

I picked this passage because this selection explains why the “thin child” would rather read fantasy, mythological stories, as opposed to a religious book, like the Bible. To the thin child, religion and the idea of an eternal life after death bored her. So to counteract with what she was continuously taught in school and in religion, she would read or make up stories with multiple gods; they involved more action and relatable events. Instead of an all-powerful God, her characters were much more than just powerful; they had flaws and personalities such as being a bully or too cunning. She had created them to escape the daily life apocalypses she was experiencing. She wanted her life to have more meaning. These stories gave her life more meaning when she reread them; she was reviving and ending life through her characters.

In addition, most people use religion to give there lives more meaning because of the “story” aspect in religious texts to imagine something much greater. Similar to the thin child, instead of using religion literature-since she found the idea of God and religion to be boring-she would supplement her own stories she found fascinating to cope with the time.  Everyone has their own way with handling situations; she chose stories that broadened her imagination. Also, I wanted to mention the significance of the last line I quoted. She had a very limited personal experience with death. When she thought of death, she thought of the “little boy across the road who had died of diabetes.” This highlights how as a child, she may not have completely had a grasp or a developed idea of death. She was a child who was much more stimulated by the stories she read. They were much larger than life to her. Throughout this book, this premature developed mind helped her completely transform the idea of “death” with the gods.

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods

"The thin child knew, and did not know that she knew, that her elders lived in provisional fear of imminent destruction.  They faced the end of the world they knew.  The English country world did not end, as many others did, was not overrun, nor battered into mud by armies.  But fear was steady, even if no one talked to the thin child about it.  In her soul she knew her bright father would not come back.  At the end of every year the family sipped cider and toasted his safe return.  The thin child felt a despair she did not know she felt."

This excerpt from Ragnarok really stood out to me because of how fear can impact people.  In literature, children are considered symbols of purity.  They are oblivious to judgment and the evil of the world.  However, in this selection from Ragnarok, even the thin child was exposed to feeling fear.  think this speaks volumes because it shows that no matter how much much a person wants to ignore their true feelings they can't runaway from it.  Like in the text, the thin child and the family pretended the father would come back, but fear was still present in the back of their minds.  People can hope and pray for the outcome they want, but deep down, they already know what the expected outcome is.

Ragnarok

"In the thin child's mind, there must have been a time when the sun and the moon, created by the gods, moved at their own sweet will, meandering maybe, pausing maybe, extending a lovely day, or a lovely summer, maybe, or a dark dreamless night." (58)

What I have enjoyed most about this book is simply the beauty of the prose. The word choice and imagery is a treat to read. This quote exemplifies that opinion. The imagery created here of a time where the seasons and the days occurred in an almost leisurely fashion really speaks to me. This quote is also very important because it points out a stark contrast between the modern setting of the book, and a potentially more idyllic time. The thin child imagines a time when the sun and moon moved with leisure sometimes stretching out a day that they wanted to experience more of. In the modern age, it is almost as if the war and the fear that comes with it are the personification of those mythological wolves within the story. The moon and the sun symbolize human freedom and free will that to some extent is lost in war and violence. The troubles we experience in the world serve to chase us out of free will and leisure, pushing us towards a more serious and troubled existence. It is for this reason that the thin child escapes to her mythological world. She maintains a sense of wonder and imagination even in the face of adversity.