Mimir

Mimir, once known as Puck, was a Celtic fae who became the advisor to Odin and ambassador of the Aesir gods before the All-Father imprisoned him for one hundred and nine years atop the highest mountain in Midgard. After Kratos and Atreus freed him and had him reanimated as a disembodied head, Mimir became their constant companion, lending his vast knowledge of the realms and serving as a balancing voice between father and son. He called himself the Smartest Man Alive.

A trickster in service to kings#

In a faraway land Mimir served as a faerie king's errand boy and unofficial jester, walking among mortals to sow mischief alongside his fellow Goodfellows. When his lord at last tired of his antics, Mimir was forced to leave. After years of travel north he came to the Nine Realms and settled in the Midgardian kingdom of Lejre, where he advised its king, Aldis, and vouched for the warrior Hrolf Kraki. Hrolf betrayed Aldis, killing and usurping him, a deed that left Mimir with lasting guilt.

Mimir then approached Odin, offering him a supposed well of knowledge that was in truth laced with enough mystic mushrooms to make a god see visions. Odin tore out one of his own eyes after drinking from it, and Mimir, claiming the All-Father had gained greater sight, was hired as Odin's chief advisor and ambassador to the realms. He would only learn much later that Odin had never been deceived.

Advisor, regret, and imprisonment#

Mimir took his role seriously, working always toward peace between the realms because he believed it the surest way to avert Ragnarok. It was he who proposed that Odin marry his enemy Freya to end the war between the Aesir and the Vanir. Yet he was no mere bystander. In his early years he confessed to having been excellent at enabling the All-Father, instrumental in the exploitation of Svartalfheim, the chaining of the dwarves to Asgard's weapon production, and the enslavement of a Lyngbakr whose fat fed Odin's lamps. These were deeds he came to regret bitterly and would later seek to atone for.

Over time Mimir grew close to the Giants of Jotunheim, who set Bifrost crystals in his eyes so he might travel the realms freely. To dull the pain of the procedure he drank sixteen cups of ale. His efforts at peace were ruined by Odin's paranoia and by Thor's slaughter of the Giants. Suspecting that Mimir had aided the Jotnar, Odin imprisoned him atop Midgard's highest peak, bound to a tree that even Mjolnir could not break, and removed his bejeweled left eye to keep him from travelling. For the next century Odin tortured him daily, until Mimir's bound existence became something he no longer counted as living.

Reanimation and the journey#

After one hundred and nine winters, Kratos and Atreus found Mimir still bound to his tree. In exchange for guiding them to the true highest peak of the realms, which lay in Jotunheim, Mimir asked Kratos to cut off his head and bring it to one skilled in the Old Magic. Kratos did so, and carried the head to the Witch of the Woods, who reanimated it and was revealed to be the Vanir goddess Freya. From that point Mimir travelled with the father and son, projecting images with his remaining eye and, after they recovered his lost one from within Jormungandr, serving as the key that opened the way to Jotunheim.

Throughout the journey Mimir proved a loyal friend, addressing Kratos as brother and Atreus as little brother, sharing the history of the realms, and counselling Kratos to be honest with his son. He recognized Kratos as the Ghost of Sparta from his own land far away, and judged his ending of the Greek gods to have been just. He was also bound by an old enchantment of Odin's that left him unable to lie, and by a spell of Freya's that robbed him of the knowledge of Baldur's weakness until it was broken.

The fall of Asgard and after#

When Ragnarok drew near, Mimir continued at Kratos and Atreus' side. He worked to free the Lyngbakr he had once imprisoned in Svartalfheim, an act of atonement, though the creature had grown too accustomed to its chains to leave. During the war against Asgard he turned his Bifrost eyes into beams of light against the Aesir, though it pained him to do so. He grieved the death of Brok, and only after Brok's funeral did he at last solve the riddle the dwarf had set him: what gets bigger the more you take away from it, a hole.

After Asgard fell and Atreus departed to seek the remaining Giants, Mimir joined Kratos and Freya in rebuilding the Nine Realms. He had long carried a deep affection for the Valkyrie queen Sigrun, whom he had been unable to save when she trapped her sisters out of grief, and the two acknowledged their love even as their paths diverged. For all that he prized being the Smartest Man Alive, Mimir remained humble enough to admit the gaps in his knowledge, and he counted himself among the few gods who sought only to help Kratos rather than to use him.