Recently I bought a beautiful and well-written comic about Norse mythology called “Vei&rd
Recently I bought a beautiful and well-written comic about Norse mythology called “Vei”. It is a Swedish work by Sara Bergmark Elfgren and Karl Johnsson. I bought the full French translation, in one volume, but I know there is an English translation too, though it is in two volumes.Anyway - the story takes place during the mythical times of Norse mythology, and so the Norse gods are quite present. And I wanted to talk about it due to its interesting despiction of Freyr. As fertility gods, both Freyr and Freyja are depicted as fat, heavyset people. It is especially telling as all the other gods are either svelt, skinny or muscular - they are the only two fat gods of the Norse pantheon shown. Even Loki, depicted here as a shapeshifter enjoying all sorts of body types, does not change himself into a fat person.I can’t show much of Freyja because she spends most of her time naked, and Freyr unfortunately has a little role in the overall story, appearing just here and there as a background character. He is a strange mix of Nordic traditional body image (bearded, thick, heavyset, hairy) and “pretty boy” (jewels, long well-taken-care-of hair, a fair doll-like face). After all Freyr, due to his association with things like the sun, fair weather, peace and prosperity, tended to be considered one of the most beautiful male gods, alongside Baldur. (And sometimes people treated him as some sort of Norse Apollo).Though here, interestingly, Freyr seems to have a strong design influence from the Greco-Roman figures of Bacchus and Dionysos, mostly due to the fact he is constantly seen drinking throughout the comic and is a played a bit as a joke as the “drunk god of the group”. (Bacchus himself was often depicted chubby or fat, and Dionysos also had the “pretty boy/feminine boy” vibe of Freyr here) -- source link
#fat character#fat god#comic book#fat folklore#my favorites