I think that’s one of those situations where religion starts to creep in as a myth goes from tall tale and hope to belief system. A culture that values bravery, integrity, loyalty creates an ideal afterlife where that’s rewarded, but also has two problems. For one, Odin isn’t a perfect example of those values. He’ll be that most of the time, but he fights to win and not every win comes cleanly. He knows it, we know it; sometimes you have to fight dirty. He’s not all powerful and can’t beat fate anymore than we can. Which is the second problem. No mortal can be guaranteed of their death. Go to war often and you increase your chance of dying in battle, but some drown on the way there when the ship sinks (Rán’s cut), some die shitting their brains out from dysentery, some die days after the battle is over from infection, and some make it through to age out naturally. And just like Odin trying to stave off his fate at Valhalla, most people don’t actually want to die any time soon. Glorious death in your twenties sounds glorious when it’s a rousing bard’s tale, but also, getting to live a full life that’s not one violent day after another is nice too.

I’m also not actually convinced Valhalla is a reward. Strip away the “glory” and it’s an endless cycle of party/die until the day Ragnarok can no longer be held off and then everyone goes to a battle that their team, including Odin, is fated to lose. Norse Hel actually sounds like the better afterlife. Quiet, comfortable, reunited with ancestors. I’ve often wondered what parts of the myth/belief system have been lost. Freyja gets a cut of the war dead and should have an army to rival Odin’s, but we don’t know precisely why she gets that or her plans for them, what their afterlife is like, and she’s conspicuously missing at Ragnarok. Thor gets a small mention of taking humans in at Bilskirnir, but again, no details except it doesn’t appear he requires them to be warriors; forever the god of the average people.

I look at it the same way I look at all religion; wishful thinking on the part of mortal creatures aware of their own mortality, but I do find it interesting to see how they develop and rewrite it over the years when “it’s like this” collides with “well, that guy didn’t meet the requirements but we want to think he’s there”. And despite my joke about “no Christians in Valhalla”, Odin doesn’t require fealty or mortal submission, he takes dead warriors for his doomsday meat shield. Haakon the Good was Christian but the bards wrote him into a seat at Valhalla. The rules of murderers and oath-breakers get the lowest Hel also seem quite flexible. Erik Bloodaxe was a murderous, fratricidal, oath-breaker whose violence was exceptional even in a violent time; he got in.