Garm

Garm, called Hrodvitnir by the Aesir and the Hound of Hel, was a monstrous Jötunn wolf imprisoned in Helheim and the father of Skoll and Hati. Soulless, feral, and able to tear rifts between the realms and devour entire concepts of reality, he was among the most dangerous beings in all the Nine Realms. Freed by Atreus and later subdued by him and Kratos, Garm became the vessel into which the soul of the wolf Fenrir was transplanted.

The pup who devoured a season#

Centuries ago Garm was only a small pup, but he soon began eating parts of Midgard, including whole mountain ranges. More dangerously still, he chewed through the very fabric of the realms and consumed metaphysical things. Among them was a season that had once existed between winter and spring: Garm devoured it so completely that it no longer existed and could no longer even be identified, its name and nature lost to all, though everyone retained the faint certainty that it had once been real. No consequence followed its erasure, marking him as perhaps the single most destructive being in all the realms, able to consume the structure of reality itself without apparent limit.

Seeing the threat in him, the Norse God of War Tyr lured the wolf to a safer place, letting Garm gnaw on his arm as a distraction while he led him into a trap. Once the gates of Helheim opened, Garm realized he had been deceived, and in his rage tore off Tyr's arm, though the god would in time regrow it. As one of the Jötnar and the father of Skoll and Hati, Garm was a sworn enemy of the Aesir; Odin took his children hostage to make him cease his fighting against them.

Loosed upon the realms#

Garm was found chained in Helheim by Atreus and Thrud, who were searching for the last piece of Odin's mask. Seeing the beast in chains and in poor shape, Atreus naively wished to free him, ignorant of who he was, and Thrud's warnings could not dissuade him. To pass behind him they had to unlock some of his chains, waking him, and with his bonds already weakened the wolf tore the last chain from the ground and fled, free to wreak havoc.

His freedom proved disastrous, as Heimdall had warned. When Atreus returned to Sindri's house, he found it under attack by Hel-Walkers that had come through rifts Garm had torn. After a long fight the attackers were slain, and Freya and Atreus sealed the rifts, but the others were horrified to learn what Atreus had done. Tyr called freeing the wolf madness, and Freya warned that Garm would chew through the fabric of the realms now that he was loose. Kratos defended his son, insisting it had been a mistake they would fix together, and the two returned to Helheim.

Subdued and reborn#

Atreus first hoped to tame Garm as he might any other wolf, but when that failed Kratos resolved that they would have to kill the beast. In the Silent Clearing they wrapped his chain around a pillar and snapped his neck, seemingly killing him. Yet as they tried to leave, a revived Garm attacked again, and they found that no matter how near death he came, he could always restore himself. Atreus reasoned that the wolf had no soul to kill in the first place, which gave him an idea. With Kratos boosting him onto the beast's head, Atreus drove in his knife, which he now realized held the soul of his pet wolf Fenrir.

Garm ran off in pain, and they pursued him, finding his bindings scattered across Helheim and the wolf at last whining and hiding in a cave. When Atreus noticed the color of the wolf's eyes and asked whether he was truly Fenrir, the beast emerged to lick the boy's face. Fenrir's tame and gentle soul had overridden Garm's soulless body, averting the threat of a realm-destroying hound and giving Kratos and Atreus a powerful and loyal ally.

Powers of a realm-eater#

Garm's most fearsome power was his ability to tear open holes between the realms, allowing him to travel anywhere and to admit Hel-Walkers wherever he went. Beyond consuming matter, he could devour entire concepts, as he had with the lost season. He possessed immense strength, able to break through the stone and ice of Helheim with ease and to wield his torn chain as a weapon, along with tremendous durability. Most troubling of all was his amortality: Garm recovered from any wound and revived even from death, which Atreus believed stemmed from his lack of a soul, or from already residing in the underworld, where with no essence to part with he simply rose again. He could also loose blasts of ice from his mouth and erupt ice from the ground with a stomp. By his nature, his dangerous abilities, and his feral state, he stood as one of the greatest threats the realms had ever faced.