Alright, I landed on a chance square which lets me trade my five million in for ten million,
and that allows me to purchase an extra turn! So, I’m gonna play my Tiger Assassin which
lets me draw an UNO card and bam there we go, I got an UNO! So, I’m gonna roll the
dice here… Perfect! One, two, three, four, five, I win!
What’re you gonna do now, Mjolnir, not even Thor can save you!
*heavy white noise*
What’s got ya down, Hammer? Can’t move the pieces with your no hands?
HOW DARE YOU SPEAK OF THE CLAN OF NO HANDS!
What the fu--
Hello and welcome to the Show With Issues, I’m Auram, and I am so sorry Mjolnir, that
was just in poor taste on my part. Anyway, if you didn’t get it from the title of this
video and the opening skit, we’re going to be finding out whether or not Thor’s
Hammer, Mjolnir, is ALIVE! But, to do that, we should probably go all
the way back to the beginning; the creation and origin of the hammer itself! In the beginning
of everything, the Asgardian Odin and his two brothers visited Nidavellir, home of the
Dwarves. The Asgardians were at war with the Frost Giants and needed a weapon that could
strike fear into the heart of the Ten Realms. Odin commissioned the Dwarven blacksmiths
Etri, Brokk, and Buri to create this weapon and away they went, to work. The Dwarves used
the heart of a star to create a mold strong enough to manipulate Uru, the Asgardian metal,
into a mallet-like shape. The creation of this hammer nearly killed the Dwarves and
sent shockwaves through all the Ten Realms, as intended! It’s actually implied that
the creation of Mjolnir is what caused the meteor shower that killed the dinosaurs on
Earth and allowed humans to thrive. Anyway, Odin used this hammer to defeat Laufey, king
of the Frost Giants, and he returned home with the king’s son, Loki. Odin gave Mjolnir
to his true son, Thor, and the rest is history.
And, of course, we all know that after a while, Odin put that famous worthiness enchantment
on Mjolnir. For those that don’t know though, this basically means that anyone who the hammer
deems worthy can lift it and, in turn, gain all the powers of Thor and Mjolnir itself.
So how is it determined who is or isn’t worthy? And what’s the benchmark for worthiness
here? The obvious answer to the first question is that Mjolnir makes the final say on who
can and can’t pick it up, which is a great point for it being a living being. This is
even further supported by what caused Thor to become unworthy during Original Sin. Nick
Fury whispered something to the Odinson that caused Mjolnir to drop straight to the moon,
as if its jaw had just been dropped. As of this recording, we still have no idea what
Fury said, but whatever it was, Mjolnir didn’t like it. As far as what standard “worthiness”
goes by, it’s normally very vague and settles down to a general “you’re a good person”
thing. Most people would say that Odin has final say on who is or isn’t worthy since
he put the enchantment on Mjolnir in the first place, but this can’t be true because of
his very apparent beef with Jane Foster who is currently wielding Mjolnir as Thor.
And I think that’s where our answer lies; no one person is judge, jury, and executioner
over who is or isn’t worthy, it’s all up to us. It’s only when you are pure of
heart and your intentions are completely sound that Mjolnir will allow you to pick it up.
Take Jane Foster as an example, again; when she picked up the hammer for the first time,
she was 100% pure of heart. She had been battling cancer for a long time and knew that, “There
must always be a Thor.” Sure, you could make the argument that being “pure of heart”
or “well-intentioned” is also subjective, but in this case I think Mjolnir is just judging
everyone based off the initial time of the enchantment. Odin has changed A LOT since
he cast the Worthiness Spell, but at the time he was as good as can be, he was worthy in
his own eyes. So to recap, Odin cast the worthiness enchantment based on his ideals at the time
and Mjolnir continues to carry this out by judging who can and cannot lift it.
Odin didn’t just cast the Worthiness Enchantment on Mjolnir though ,oh no, he cast at least
25 more enchantments on the thing, and those are only the ones we know of today. So what
are these other spells? Probably the most noteworthy one outside of the Worthiness Enchantment
is the “Mystical Link” that Mjolnir and its user share. This is how it knows where
Thor is at all times, and how it can fly back to him at any given point. The Mystical Link
is actually very important when it comes to determining Mjolnir’s level of sentience.
At face value, Mjolnir just looks like it’s being controlled by Thor, but as evidenced
by Jane Foster, different people can control it in different ways. Whether it’s because
it likes the person more or just because they know how to control it differently than someone
else, Mjolnir definitely acts differently among its countless owners.
Now, the Worthiness Enchantment and Mystical Link are really the only big contenders for
sentience in Mjolnir’s power set, but I think we should still briefly touch on the
rest. Mostly because a lot of them are ridiculous, so brace yourselves. Mjolnir allows its user
to manipulate the weather, fly, sense different energies and channel them into physical blasts,
create force fields and barriers that are nearly impenetrable, teleport, manipulate
matter at a molecular level, harness alpha particles and use them to atomize things,
act as a vacuum for mystical energies, tap into the Nether World and cosmic energy, absorb
and manipulate electromagnetic energy, turn invisible and intangible, recall past events
like a flashback, manipulate souls, absorb the life force of a being, detect illusions,
shapeshift, time travel, and, finally, understand and speak any language across the Ten Realms.
Obviously, most of these were just one-off powers that were invented to be a convenient
fix at the time of the story, but still. Mjolnir lets you time travel!
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty here, how does Mjolnir stack up to the requirements
that scientists today are stating for something having “life.” Biochemist Daniel E. Koshland
Jr. wrote about the “seven pillars of life:” Program, Improvisation, Compartmentalization,
Energy, Regeneration, Adaptability, and Seclusion. I’m gonna try and simplify these as much
as possible, starting with the first pillar, Program. Program basically means that the
being has to have some kind of plan to maintain itself, for humans it’s our DNA, for Mjolnir
it could be the enchantments that have been cast on it. The second pillar, Improvisation,
is the way an organism evolves and mutates over time to accommodate changes in climate
or habitat. Mjolnir doesn’t really have an equivalent of this, but when being held
an argument could be made that it helps the user mutate and evolve since it’s granting
them their power. Moving on to the third pillar, Compartmentalization, which is basically just
that the being needs to simplify its structure to as small as possible to be considered alive.
This one is a bit hard to understand, in humans’ case, Compartmentalization is seen in how
our organs all have a specific agenda that they carry out day-to-day. Our lungs are designed
to help us breathe, our brains control the nervous system, etc. Again, Mjolnir doesn’t
really compare here. I guess you could say that the separate enchantments each act as
a different “organ” and carry out their specific functions, but that’s flimsy. So
far, Mjolnir is looking pretty lifeless, but let’s move on to pillar four, Energy. What
the fourth pillar states is that the being needs to have some source of energy, like
we need the sun, oxygen, food, and whatever else keeps us chuggin along. Now, Mjolnir
doesn’t directly need anything like food, but it does only start doing things when it’s
being controlled, so you could say that the user is the hammer’s energy. The fifth pillar,
Regeneration, is exactly what it sounds like; an organism’s ability to restore itself.
This is a bit complicated for Mjolnir seeing as the thing has been destroyed before, but
in most cases the hammer is repaired by outside forces, with the exception being very vague.
After being sliced in half by Dark God Perikkus, Mjolnir seemingly regenerated itself while
Thor was calling for its help. Again, very vague here, but when push comes to shove,
I think Mjolnir passes this pillar. Moving on to the sixth pillar, Adaptability is not
unlike Improvisation, it’s just the short-term version. An example in humans is how our body
knows to pull away from fire if we’re touching it. Mjolnir is pretty sound with this as well
because of the Mystical Link enchantment. And lastly is the seventh pillar, Seclusion.
In very simple terms, Seclusion is an organism’s ability to operate without stepping on its
own toes. For humans, it’s how our organs are able to carry out their own plans without
getting tangled with others. You could say, again, that Mjolnir’s enchantments are acting
as “organs” here and since they work individually, the seventh pillar is met.
So as far as Koshland Jr.’s seven pillars of life go, Mjolnir isn’t a shining case
of life so far. Sure, it hits some of the pillars, but most of them we had to bend the
definition a bit to have Mjolnir fit the bill. Not to mention the more traditional requirements
for life which includes reproduction and the like, which a hammer can’t really relate
to.
Alright, so Mjolnir doesn’t necessarily meet the biological requirements of life 100%,
but what about the more philosophical requirements of life like consciousness and sentience.
Let’s start with consciousness. Consciousness, at least in the dictionary, is the state of
being aware of one’s self or one’s surroundings. This is a touchy subject that has been argued
about over and over for centuries, but that definition seems to be the simplest and most
general explanation of what Consciousness is. For Mjolnir, I believe that it’s 100%
conscious because of its apparent awareness of the people who are trying to pick it up.
Not to mention the hammer’s necessary knowledge of its place in space and time so that it
can find its way back to Thor, or whoever is holding it at the time.
So what about sentience? This is a term tossed around a lot in fiction, the idea that something
created by man can eventually attain “sentience” and operate by itself. But, what does this
mean? Basically, sentience is the ability to experience and think subjectively, for
yourself. This is what separates, say, your phone from you, your ability to perceive thoughts
and carry them out without someone controlling you to do that is your sentience. This is
a bit tricky with Mjolnir. Sure, it subjectively judges people when they try and pick it up,
but it’s only doing that according to Odin’s mindset at the time of the enchantment.
So let’s dive a bit further into sentience to try and clear this up. Another idea commonly
associated with sentience are experiences known as Qualia. A Quale is an experience
one has that is 100% subjective, like “seeing red” when angry or in pain. The problem
with Qualia, and the reason why a lot of people discount their credibility, is because they’re
impossible to measure. One way people try to explain Qualia is through the “inverted
spectrum argument,” which is basically just described as waking up one day and seeing
every color you used to know and saw the day before inverted. The change in color is a
Quale that you are experiencing. You might ask someone what color they see though and
they’ll tell you the opposite of what you saw, that person is experiencing a different
Quale than you. As far as Mjolnir goes, you could argue that it experiences a Quale every
time someone attempts to pick it up. So by proxy, if Mjolnir experiences Qualia, then
it is sentient.
Alright let’s do a big recap here, Mjolnir’s Worthiness and Mystical Link enchantments
give it the ability to make minor decisions and be aware of its place in time and space,
which are some of the requirements of being conscious and sentient. While the hammer doesn’t
exactly meet all of the biological requirements and pillars of life, it is noteworthy that
it meets some. So what’s my final say on the matter? I believe that Mjolnir is a living
being that can think and act, but only when in possession of someone. All of the enchantments,
except maybe the Worthiness spell, are activated upon contact with a host. In this way, you
could also say that Mjolnir shares a mutual bond with its owner. The hammer sort of “wakes
up” when touched and the lucky winner of worthiness unlocks access to all 20-something
spells that have been cast on it throughout the years.
But that’s just my opinion, what do you all think? Is Mjolnir truly a living being,
or is it just simply a mallet-hammer thing made of space metal? Let me know in the comments!
And, of course, be sure to subscribe before you head out so you don’t miss out on anything
that I upload every other Wednesday and every Friday. Once again, I’m Auram, and thank
you so much for watching! Next time Mjolnir and I get MARRIED!