I’ve never submitted so many reviews to a single chapter. But curiosity got the better of me:
I've been reading the 13 issues entitled "The Kindly Ones" of the Sandman comics and came upon a scene where Loki Malice-Monger is bound again by Odin beneath the earth, under the poison-dripping snake with the guts of Narvi. The detail that slapped me in the face was this: there is another character in the scene. The woman, Loki's wife, who sits patiently, without caring for her own needs with a bowl over Loki's eyes, so that the poison does not fall from the snake's mouth into her husband's unprotected eyes. And when the bowl is full, she has to take the bowl away and throw the accumulated poison. She always hurries to get back to her husband, uncaring about millennia of hunger and thirst, diligent to her duty. But for each drop that finds its mark, Loki curses her.
The following quota depict her reaction considering that Loki had escaped his prison for 3 years, while leaving his wife behind, alone and without purpose, and after Odin offered to grant HER freedom, leaving Loki alone with the snake and she refused.
"Drip
As the first drops of poison strike Loki's face, burning their way into the empty sockets in a frenzied explosion of color and pain, he begins to curse her.
He dissects her with his words, whips her with obscenities and bruises her with curses. She begins to cry, softly, deep in her throat; then tears well up and burn her pale eyes, which she had imagined far beyond tears. The salt-warm drops fall on her husband's face, and he winces at each drop...
Drip
Each word is like a slap, a blow, a kick, a burn.
Drip
And she takes it.
Slowly the silver bowl begins to fill with poison once more. He is tied, he realizes, by his child; he cannot leave. He will not leave until the world ends...
'I'm pleased you came back, my love', whispers his wife.
... and he begins to laugh inanely, high and wordless.
He takes a deep breath and then, broken-necked-head-lolling, eye sockets bloodied and hallowed, he begins to curse her once more.
Drip"
Now imagine a woman. She is tall, as tall as Odin, with long, blond but unkept hair. She is dressed in rags that barely clothe her emaciated frame, thinned by millennia of starvation, and despite that, her bust could still be called feminine, signaling that before she entered her duty, she must have hade a nice rack.
Her name, spoken by Odin is...
Sigyn.
My curiosity: WHY?
Why did you choose this name for "the beautiful Vala"?
Author's response
Why? Because just like Gaiman is twisting the mythos to make it as gruesome as possible, i twist it the other way. Sigyn is incredibly loyal, but also very proud. The sandman scene does not match the mythos as i see it, but as my Sigyn is not the Asgård Giantess, i mainly picked a Norse name. Sigyn isn't really common, but i know a few with the name. It's also usually shortened to Sia, which is a verb meaning "to predict the future". Also, she's married to a part giant. Loke's origins are unclear, but most say that he is some kind of giant. The Norse giants are not necessarily big, though. They're just a naturally magical species, in a pantheon that doesn't make sense. People who claim that they understand the Norse pantheon completely usually haven't studied it too much. Most, like Gaiman, start at the Niebelungen and take the rest from there, but Wagner simplified it beyond recognition. There are parts of the mythos regarding Loke's punishment that details how Sigyn is fed, for instance. She just doesn't sleep.
Vanir