This thing is the main issue.
It's been a while since I last did a PE discussion on this wiki, even more so doing a removal. Life has been busy, but I wanted to come back to do this.
So this is a concern I had about Hela I have had ever since the second season on the TV Show What If… released her main episode. People didn’t think it was a problem for a bit, but after further discussion I decided to give this removal a shot. Keep in mind this is covering her appearance in Thor: Ragnarok not some weird proposal, saying her What If… version doesn’t count, which I mean is pretty obvious she doesn’t there.
What's The Work[]
Thor: Ragnarok is a film in the very popular Marvel Cinematic Universe and the third film in the Thor sub-series. The film stars, well, of course, Thor Odinson, who returns after a long search for potential infinity stones, only to discover Loki has taken over Asgard by impersonating his father, Odin. When they go to find him, they end up discovering a hidden evil family member Thor and Loki don’t know about, and they need to deal with her threat. And that family member:
Who Is She?[]
Hela is the goddess of death and the first-born child of Odin. When she was born, Odin was a vicious conqueror, and she was his commander-in-chief, leading many battles to take over all of the nine realms under Asgard’s rule. However, later, Odin abandoned his warmongering ways and tried to become a peaceful ruler. By this point, Hela’s ambitions outgrew his, and she was becoming dangerous and getting beyond Odin’s control, so he imprisoned her in Hel (basically Hell).
During the film's events, after Odin dies, Hela escapes from her prison and embarks on her conquest of not just the nine realms but everything.
Why Doesn't She Qualify?[]
Okay so the main issue that I have with Hela is her potential care for Fenris, her pet wolf that is pictured above. This kind of issue is somewhat weird and does even require some information from What If… as I already mentioned to understand the issue fully, but bear with me.
So, in the film itself, there is already some potential room to interpret her as genuinely caring about Fenris. When she first arrives back on Asgard and goes into her chamber, she sees Fenris’ dead body and comments, “What have they done to you?” in a somewhat sad tone. Now, you could potentially interpret this as her sadness about losing a valuable asset, which was what was argued for a long time. There was also the argument about her not reacting to his death, which honestly is one I need to argue against cause we don’t even see if she saw it and was really distracted with having to face down an army.
There is also the matter of her backstory. In the film itself, it does imply that Hela was raised as a weapon by Odin and never really had a choice in the path she took. Though in the film this backstory isn’t really given a ton of elaboration. The main reason I am bringing it up will become clear later.
Now, in the film itself, there is already room to doubt Hela counting, but what really brings this whole thing full circle and really reinforces my thoughts on her not counting is Hela’s What If… episode "What If... Hela Found the Ten Rings?", which shows a version of Hela who instead of being banished to Hel is banished to Earth. Now, yes, I will fully acknowledge that this is an alternate universe I am talking about where Hela does take a radically different path, but there are still aspects to consider when it comes to this. It is worth mentioning first that the main premise of What If… is that everything was the same until one thing happened that drastically altered things, admittedly the series does kind of play loosely with how they fully apply this, but it is still there and there isn’t anything about Hela’s stuff in the episode that contradicts canon.
In the episode, we get more elaboration on Hela’s backstory, which fully shows what the film implies. Hela was raised to be a weapon from birth and never really had any choice in what she ended up becoming. Odin also treated her really badly to raise her this way, including one scene that is really notable of Hela playfully playing with Fenris and Odin taking Fenris away from her to teach her about how he could become a threat, with child Hela clearly shown to be incredibly distraught over her father doing this. The episode itself really leans into the idea that Hela had the potential to become a better person, and the reason she turned out so badly in the original timeline was her being locked away alone for centuries in Hel.
Again yes, I know this is coming from an alternate universe. But these specific qualities, her backstory and her care for Fenris are stuff that the film already implies, so these aren’t out-of-nowhere stuff only the episode is introducing. In the film itself, these aspects were only really dismissed in the first place cause of potential ambiguity, but now that another canon work, even if one from an alternate universe, is leaning even further into the interpretation of Hela being raised as a weapon from birth and genuinely caring for her pet wolf. I don’t really think I can dismiss these any longer, remember, being a CM isn’t the default.
Verdict[]
It is somewhat of a weirder case than usual, but in the end, I am leaning on a cut.