Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Ending Explained

[Music] the ending of assassin's creed valhalla is intertwined with the law of the first civilization and the events that took place in the isu era making it very difficult to grasp the meaning of the visions avor experiences in valhalla and how it all links back to the beginning of time or more accurately 77 000 years ago whilst we unravel the meaning behind the story of valhalla it is crucial that you keep in mind that avon's visions of asgard and jotenheim are a window into events that took place in the isu world viewed in the eyes of a person who could not possibly comprehend the reality and advancement of the first civilization as a result avo lives through these memories in the lens of a norseman as that is aval's soul means of making sense of the visions before delving into avor's visions and what they represent we must first go back to the beginning to provide context to what's to come the isu are ancient highly advanced beings who existed long before humans inhabited the planet the issue were represented by three beings named juno minerva and jupiter it is clear that although highly advanced they were not gods as stated by minova herself when the question was proposed by ezio you are good no not god we simply came before at a point in time the eastern humans co-existed and they partook in a war that spanned 10 years during this war the issue discovered that there was an impending doom threatening their existence a solar flare that would wipe out the first civilization to counteract the catastrophe the issue proposed six solutions one being the construction of a tower that would act as a shield to humanity minimising the effects of the solar flow on the planet this proved ineffective and the isu had to look towards other ways of preserving their existence they were quick to realize that no solution could stop the inevitable end and instead they began to explore the idea of living through the catastrophe rather than preventing it entirely thus creating the sage program being able to survive the catastrophe would also allow the issue to help prevent future world-ending events by passing on their knowledge and technology to future beings the sage program allowed the issue to reincarnate themselves and be reborn into new bodies allowing their consciousness to live on past the disaster sages are born with their own personalities and memories however they also possess the memories of their past self the duality of their personality and memories sometimes works harmoniously as seen with aida an issue scientist and the husband of juno who had been reincarnated many times throughout history whilst other times the two sides of a sage the one linked to their former self and their newly born independent self can clash with one another an example of such will be shown at a later time the visions that avo experiences through the eyes of the norse god odin take place in asgard and jotunheim the locations and characters presented are shown as we currently know them if you're knowledgeable in norse mythology then everything will seem familiar to you the reality of this world subverts our understanding of the established law and pulls back the curtains to reveal that what we know as norse mythology is in reality a part of isu history before the collapse of the first civilization eight important isu figures enter the sage program in order to reincarnate themselves and live among those in the new world we later meet these sages as their new self odin becomes evil tyr is sigurd thor is half done and svala as freya odin makes it abundantly clear that loki is not to be included in the use of the sage program or as he refers to it the life tree as he believes that loki would only bring harm to humanity and has nothing of value to present in the new world nonetheless loki living up to his reputation as a cunning trickster sneaks his way to the sage program kills heimdall and takes his place to reincarnate himself as the assassin we now know as basson knowing this information brings clarity to the visions that come to evil it makes sense of odin's appearance in aval's consciousness whenever he is placed in a moral position and has to make a choice the visions are the memories of his former self odin and odin's appearance in his mind is the conflicts previously mentioned where both sides of his being are clashing odin encourages avor selfish and glory driven side he is seen meddling with aval's consciousness and swaying his morality through every important decision avor is faced with the alternate side of aval's personality is manifested in the player's choice do you give in to odin's influence or fight back against his evil nature in avor's first psychedelic trip to asgard an isu event is shown to us through a norse lens from the perspective of odin who is also mentioned by his alternate name harvey which translates to the one we see loki sneak his wolf son fenrir from jotunheim into asgard as he feared that he would be at risk in the ottenheim odin is enraged when he discovers this and imprisons the wolf fenrir this is to prevent his forcehold fate that he would die at the hands of a wolf in the battle of ragnarok from becoming reality it is shown that odin has completely banished the existence of wolves in his realm further evidencing his struggle regarding coming to terms with his fate the second key event that takes place in this vision is the introduction of the builder a man who promises to build a magic infused tower that would prevent the inevitable ragnarok from destroying asgard are you starting to see the similarity between the isu and norse mythology the builder and the tower represents one of the six solutions that was mentioned earlier where the isu attempted to build a tower that would shield them from the solar flare or as called by the norse ragnarok as pointed out in isu law the tower does not come to fruition and odin looks for an alternate method of salvation the second vision tells the story of the sage program of course once again through the lens of norse mythology odin visits jotenheim on a quest to acquire magical mead that would allow him to transfer his consciousness into another being one that would live through ragnarok whilst in jotunheim odin meets gunloader an ice giantess the daughter of the king of jotenheim satunga she lives a secluded life and focuses all her time on observing a crystal glass which presents all possible futures she mentions that every outcome she has viewed leads to ragnarok gunloader also states that within the crystal glass she hears the voices of those who came after referring to humans in the future she also says i leave them words little packets of possibility waiting for unknown ears many ages hence from her statement it can be theorized that gun loader represents one of the isu beings that we've seen communicate with the future one that had spoken to ezio adatore himself as further supported by the mysterious ezio-like voice that responds in the crystal glass saying who are you who are you odin with the help of a yotan named huracan acquires the mean necessary to complete the incarnation ritual odin and herakin meet in a cave hurricane is seen holding the apple of eden which she quickly conceals when odin arrives before concealing it she says the following line the probabilities lead us here the calculations give us hope this exact statement is said by juno when ava acquires the apple of eden in finland the place where conor kenway retrieves it in the future the probabilities lead us here the calculations give us hope this marks the first clue that hurricane represents juno in the vision back in the cave the all-knowing mammal is present and tells odin that for the me to become magical he must infuse it with the sacred waters of mamey as well in addition to presenting the blood of an acer meaning that odin must sacrifice a part of himself to the ritual odin proceeds to remove his own eye and presents it to the sacred waters that nourish the world tree this concludes the concoction needed for the ritual odin asks hurricane what sacrifice she's willing to make in which she responds my liberty sutungar and gunlowther will not forgive this trespass they will hunt me now to the edges of the nine worlds she also states that herself satunga and gun loader rule together as father mother and the sacred voice the statement solidifies that hurricane is the norse representation of juno satunga represents jupiter and gun loader represents minerva juno's story is parallel to that of hurricane hurricane speaks of sacrificing her liberty and her husband sacrificing his body for knowledge this refers to the story of juno and her husband aita as mentioned previously aita was a scientist who volunteered to participate in his wife juno's experiment to transfer his consciousness into an artificial body the attempt failed placing juno in the difficult position of euthanizing her own husband as the result of the experiment left him trapped in a bristle body unable to live in good health juno preserved ayut's genetic material making him immortal through continuous reincarnations over the course of human existence at that time the isu were not planning on using incarnation as they feared it would change humans for the worse therefore seeing juno's actions as treacherous the isu imprisoned juno in a digital realm within the grand temple where she spent many years reaching out to other humans in an effort to be freed this was juno's sacrifice her liberty taken away exactly how hirokin explains in the third and final vision odin returns to asgard to find that fenrir loki's son had grown in size at an alarming rate to ensure that the wolf remains restrained odin entrusted dwarf vivaldi to manufacture a magical leash with the ability to restrain fenrir ivaldi requests odin to provide him with a secret that only he would know due to his vast wisdom the peculiar options presented for the player to choose humans will survive ragnarok while this is true in norse mythology it is in fact referring to the humans that will survive the devastating effects of the solar flare which ended the first civilization odin attempts to trick fenrir into wearing the leash by assuring him that his sole purpose is to track where he roams a way of finding him if needed fenrir is suspicious of odin's intentions that is until tears tracks a deal with the beast he places his arm in fenrir's mouth as a pledge of faith he states that if he is to be found lying about the leash fenrir may take his arm fenrir agrees to this and waits nervously for odin to wrap the leash around his neck the leech begins to inflict pain upon fenrir in retaliation he bites off to his arm and a fight with odin ensues fenrir is once again restrained however odin does not slay the wolf as he had previously swollen oath to never kill him this scene mirrors the story of sigurd who is after all tyr reincarnated in search of his destiny sigurd is captured by the paladin folky he is tortured to the point of losing his arm although his story does not play out like tears it is a reaffirmation that fate cannot be unwoven and one must accept their destiny as it will take its course no matter what tyr reincarnated himself to live through a millennia and yet his written fate came true once again as he lost his arm for the second time the struggle to accept fate is a key theme within valhalla and it's proven time and time again that it cannot be changed similar to odin's betrayal of tyr when he proceeds to use the leash on fenrir knowing that it will cost tear his arm avail faces a similar fate when he is told that he will betray his brother sigurd although this does not happen in a conventional manner it does indeed come true as avo reflects on his journey to realize that he had robbed sigurd of his dreams his glory and even valhalla the final scene in avor's vision is that of the collapse of the first civilization or as aval sees it the arrival of ragnarok we see odin and his companions gather around the live tree and drink the magical mead in order to pass on their consciousness before leaving for the final battle that would lead them to their doom this is parallel to the isu entering the sage program to survive the great catastrophe the live tree is the program and the mead is the advanced technology they use you can also see aita at the table amongst the others as well as loki sneaking into the room at the beginning throughout sigi's warpath to conquer england he constantly his visions of grandeur leading him to valhalla a place he at the time thought was his destiny the visions become clearer through folky's brutal torturing of sigurd odin appears to align himself with 4k's results implying that sigurd had found his true calling this is because 4k's brutal methods of torture forces the human consciousness to deteriorate allowing the issue within to take control of the body and be reincarnated the visions experienced by sigurd are revealed to be tears memories these visions eventually lead sigurd an aval to a hidden vault sigurd uses the memories of his past life as tyr to speak the words that would unlock the vault and reveal the norse tree of life in reality this is not the tree of life it is a machine built by the isu to transfer the user's consciousness into a digitally constructed simulation a desperate last resort to outlive the great catastrophe valka's mother zfala is seen using the machine revealing that before she passed away she chose to live in a simulation this is likely due to zfala spending her final years in bad health opting to live on in the simulation instead aval and sigurd enter the simulation and find themselves in valhalla believed to be a warrior's end at first they are fooled into thinking this was the real valhalla until aevor sees his father on the battlefield varen died a coward and therefore in norse belief it should not be possible to find him in valhalla setting off aval suspicions of the place he discovers that it is a simulation and persuades sigurd to leave with him odin confronts aval and attempts to stop him from leaving this is presented as a physical battle with odin although in reality ava is fighting back against his former self's thoughts and influence the part of evil that is influenced by him being a sage values glory and power and avor is seen coming to terms with the fact that he does not need this in life to be content he fights back against odin's influence and severs the ties he once had with his former self becoming fully independent of odin and forging his own path he does this by releasing his axe breaking free of odin's control when a warrior dies an axe is placed in their hand and they are guided to valhalla by shattering the spawn with odin avor is truly free once avor and sigurd escape the vault it is revealed that basim is a traitor and has tracked them down to this location as mentioned before batman is the incarnation of loki and this makes sense of a previous conversation between ava and bassim during that conversation bassem opens up about his deceased son who was mistreated and vowed to take revenge on those who've wronged him at the time we assume that basim is speaking of something that had happened to his son in the 9th century when in reality he was telling the story of odin mistreating his son back when the first civilization existed relating back to the visions of odin and fenrir bastim's understanding and clear memories of his former self loki convey that the connection between a sage and the newborn version of themselves can differ greatly bassim stays close with ava and sagan throughout their journey keeping his purpose a mystery however the entire time he was in search of the mad one odin to a surprise it turns out to be aval all along a jewel ensues between the two and as they fight baton makes a remark about the wolf bite on aval's neck pointing out the irony of it all considering odin's fate basim is bested in the battle and ava connects him to the simulation trapping basin in a digital realm for a thousand years from within the simulation besson delivers a message to layla and her companions sean hastings and rebecca crane informing them that there is another impending doom awaiting them similar to the one desmond prevented in 2012 bearsem states that to prevent the end of humanity they must seek the wolf kissed the mad one and himself this is of course referring to evil as well as bersim the prevention of the coronal mass ejection by desmond was the cause of this new impending doom this is due to desmond using the global aurora borealis device as a way of shielding the planet this device has now been active for eight years causing the aurora borealis to intensify and cause another world-ending catastrophe the warning given by bersim drives layla to find aval's body and enter the animus to experience his memories doing so leads leyla back to the hidden vault where bearson is trapped whilst exploring the vault she gets attached to the simulation device and as she ascends into the simulation she drops the staff of hermes which she had previously acquired inside the digital space layla was greeted by bersim who has spent the last thousand or so years alongside a person called the reader studying the calculations that would prevent the doom of humanity berson teaches layla how to slow down the aurora borealis device in order to maintain the shield it provides for the protection of the earth while slowing it down just enough that it wouldn't become a threat within itself following his interaction with layla bearson leaves the simulation and re-enters the real world he couldn't have possibly done this prior to layla's arrival as his physical body is long dead but with the staff of ermest being present bearson could exit the simulation and depend on the staff to revitalize his decomposed body and bring him back to his prime form bersim appears to miraculously fall onto the staff after being released by the easter device although this seems coincidental that he somehow knew that layla would drop the staff in the exact spot that his aged body would fall this is entirely possible as he has spent a millennia studying all probabilities of past present and future this plan works flawlessly and versus once again awakened in a new world the modern world it is then revealed that the mind of an easy figure named alethia has lived inside the staff of hermes for centuries awaiting this one moment to be reunited with her lover loki alethia was loki's lover during the first civilization she was struck by a deadly illness and urgently needed the help of odin to survive whilst completing the animus anomalies you can hear alethia begging loki to seek odin's help to allow her to be included in the sage program as a way of living through her illness loki informs her that it's a pointless ask as he is certain that odin would not grant him this favourite [Music] this is likely due to alethia being someone who is the personification of truth and is in opposition of those who embrace divine status and hold themselves above others a mindset as such can create many enemies in isis society as the isu are generally known and defined by their human slave practices in the off-chance that you may have missed this alithea is present in the vision of yotanime as angboda the yotan who interrogates odin to reveal what he plans on doing with her and loki's son fenrir following odin's refusal to help alethia loki transfers her mind into the staff of hermes as a last resort to prevent her death leading to the current timeline of loki and alethia reuniting via a meticulous plan to use layla as a way of freeing themselves while simultaneously saving the world with bersin's escape layla remains in the grey the digital plane of existence that juno occupied after she was freed from the grand temple in this realm leila stumbles upon a mysterious figure a silhouette of a man with a very familiar voice it is revealed that since his sacrifice to save the world desmond miles has been living in the grey as the reader for the past eight years desmond's purpose has been to read the calculations of all the possible outcomes in search of a reality where the catastrophe never struck desmond explains that all outcomes examined thus far have led to the great catastrophe taking place layla proposes an alternate method which entails searching for a reality where the catastrophe did happen and those remaining few who survived found a way to break the cycle and prevent the catastrophe from reoccurring this method was originally suggested by minerva who desmond rejected when he took the side of juno laila is informed by desmond that her physical body's been exposed to a lethal amount of radiation released by activating the pedestal and without her stuff she'll succumb to her death very shortly layla comes to terms with her passing and stays behind with desmond to search for a solution in the end bersem is seen at the cabin that layla and her companions had set up camp whilst roaming around the environment you may encounter a squirrel this could be a subtle reference to ratatosk a squirrel from norse mythology who runs up and down igdrazole to carry messages between the eagle at the top and the serpent northoga at the base bearsom joins up with rebecca and sean under the disguise of being an assassin who's here to aid them his intentions are ambiguous and is not made clear whether he's a good or a bad person we know that he has done harmful acts however his actions for the most part have been justified as throughout valhalla odin has seen mistreating loki alethia and their son fenrir loki is neglected by odin and is disallowed to use the sage program these mistreatments likely stem from loki being a misfit in the norse world loki is half giant and this is partially wise looked down on by the acer it is plausible that this translates into the world of the isu as loki being part of a lower caste and as mentioned before the isu are known for their embracement of divine status and likely have no regard or empathy for those lesser than them we know that social classes exist in the asus society as juno is described as being part of the illuminate class this is why loki and alethia hid their child as their child is a product of a relationship between two different classes finally bessem requests to meet with the head of the assassins william miles desmond's father what he plans to do with william can only be speculated as the story is yet to be continued another reason also exists as to why bassim initially thought that sigurd was the madwean odin and not evil this is because avo is actually a female the name evor itself is a female nordic name another point that reinforces this theory is that when letting the animus decide the gender of the character the female model is picked for the conquest of england narrative and the male evil is picked for the asgardian story the male model for eva was originally the model for a young odin this was a key oversight from bersim who chased the wrong person for the majority of the time in england darby mcdevitt the lead writer of valhalla also stated that the option to let the animus decide is there for people who want the exact story of how it happened ava is also referred to as varen's daughter in a letter from reeve goodwin to king alfred which translates to baron's daughter finally when berson begins to suffer from the bleeding effect caused by using leila's primitive animus he witnesses evil sitting around the campfire in this scene ava is always female further confirming the gender of the character the prequel story to valhalla also chooses to portray ava as a female although this is all mere speculation and ubisoft have confirmed both genders to be canon it is safe to assume that female ava was the original protagonist of the game and the mere presence of odin within her mind glitched the animus into two data streams allowing layla to pick and choose at will it also adds more depth as to why bersim never suspected abel the wolf kissed once until the very end of the game once all the members of the order of ancients are eliminated ava receives a letter by a person naming themselves poor fellow soldier of christ ava was asked to meet with the mystery person in exchange for information on the leader of the cultists the grand magister himself once ava arrives at the meeting location he's met with king alfred who had been overthrown as a king and now lives in a humble secluded village baking bread of all things alfred reveals that he had been the leader of the cult all along and had been feeding avor information on their identities and locations the entire time alfred explains that he detested the cult and opposed their beliefs and ideals having been forced into the title of grand magister due to the death of his brother he seized the opportunity to rid the world of the cult by destroying the order from within avo was the perfect piece of the puzzle for alfred's plan and therefore used him to vanquish the cult as a way of repaying aval for his troubles alfred grants evol access to his observatory located within the old minister before leaving to explore alfred's study room avo is told that with the order of ancients coming to an end another one must take its place a universal divine order inspired by god for the betterment of man exploring alfred's study room his grand idea for a new order is expanded upon and his ideologies further explained revealing why he hated the cult and what he would do differently when creating a new order the first letter found in the study shows the thought process that led to alfred utilizing avor in order to defeat the cult revealing that spies had spotted him in raventhorpe working with the hidden one heitham this prompted the idea to send letters to high thumb about the cult being fully aware that the information would be passed on to evil alfred is conveyed as a strong believer and a committed christian and the second note left behind in his study explains his contentment towards the order in the second note it is theorized that a pious defender of christ's word named charlemagne was coincidentally found dead a week after being warned of the corruption of the order implying that the cults may have ordered the man's death to conceal their corruption from the general public alfred disagrees with the order's methods of hiding its motives by using christianity as a front to their blasphemous goals the order of ancients view humanity as inherently evil and corrupt yet contradict themselves by basing their entire belief system on worshiping the isu who inhabited no shortage of evil or corruption their blind belief this allowed them to expand their vision to see outside their own hierarchy the order's beliefs were those of the nicene creed it adopted key tenets of christianity however believed that mankind was not created by one god but was created by the isu instead and therefore refused the message of christ the letter presents that alfred agrees with some aspects of the cult such as the necessity for order if humanity is expected to live peacefully and thrive however their methods do not align with his own as alfred believes that there is only one true god and in him his new order will place their faith throughout the entire assassin's creed saga we unknowingly watch the new order that alfred speaks of come to life this order is known to us as the templar order yes king alfred birthed the templar order the ones that assassins have been at war with for centuries and avor unconsciously played a pivotal role in the templar order's inception resulting in you the player being at fault for the creation of an order that ye fight to destroy his various assassins throughout history just as the order of ancients ended so did the hidden ones when bayek founded the hidden ones he wanted them to remain anonymous seeking no glory and recording no history of their actions existing is a silent blade that spilled blood in the name of peace the hidden ones in his eyes existed to serve the greater good with no rewards or accolades attributed to their achievements a letter from bayek to his lover aya can be found in the story within this letter bayek speaks of the magus codex which references aya as one of the founders of the hidden ones the magus codex was a journal which belonged to magus this hidden one was stationed in the egyptian branch of the order it was written to keep a record of the hidden one's final assembly which was supervised by amunet also known as aya the topic of this assembly was about the creed and its many ironies bayek disapproved of having her name recorded in this journal as it goes against the idea of the brotherhood and how they solely exist to seek justice and shunned any ideas of fame and glory not to mention that having the name of a key founder listed in the codex could draw unwanted attention and lead to aya being hunted upon discovering the codex bayer constructs aya to destroy the pages to erase any reference of the hidden ones from this world and any evidence of dissent amongst the hidden ones bayek is aware that this request is unreasonable as few can keep such a secret concealed if they fail to destroy the codex which they ultimately did by it states that they will have failed in the name of righteousness the codex was never destroyed and if it was its many pages were either recreated or scattered across the world at various points in history bayek's vision of the hidden ones died with him many years in the future a brotherhood existed in the levant this brotherhood founded their own sovereign state in 1090 under hasan sabah the brotherhood had been reformed as the order of assassins altair would be part of this brotherhood of assassins known as the levantine brotherhood this was the first moment in history where the existence of assassins was recorded they were also much more public and recognized than any other branch of assassins at the time eventually altair would take leadership of the assassin's order he would greatly influence the order of assassins by doing away with the laws of old and introducing new rules and techniques to the brotherhood the reformations that took place were inspired by the knowledge he gained from the apple of eden the levantine brotherhood would go to spread its message and teachings across the world establishing the assassins as a global order the influence of the levantine brotherhood would ripple through the many generations of assassins who came after this new creed flew in the face of what bayek wanted as with the death of the hidden ones came the birth of the assassin's creed where other men blindly follow the truth remember nothing is true where other men are limited by morality or law remember everything is permitted we work in the dark to serve the light we are assassins you do not understand the true meaning of the phrase my child it does not grant you the freedom to do as you wish it is a knowledge meant to guide your senses it expects a wisdom you clearly lack they desire the secrets locked away in altair's library secrets they believe will lead them to something called the grand temple you have shown great conviction strength courage is this not why you fight to protect your people let me tell you something connor life is not a fairy tale and there are no happy endings in your haste save the world boy take care you don't destroy it nothing is true everything is permitted to say that nothing is true is to realize that the foundations of society are fragile and that we must be the shepherds of our own civilization to say that everything is permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions that we must live with our consequences whether glorious or tragic you

Channel: The brother's code

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Keywords: Assassin's Creed, Templars, Gaming, Gameplay, Story, Explained, Assassin's Creed Valhalla - The Ending Explained, Valhalla, Eivor, Ezio, Auditore, Ubisoft, Story so far, Hidden Ones, Isu, Vikings, Information, History, Essay, Video, RPG, Open World, altair, unity, odyssey, origins, black flag, revelations, assassins, brotherhood, lore, explanation, summary, modern day, desmond, loki, norse, mythology, odin, eagle, cult, shay, basim, sigurd, boss, movie, walkthrough, play, meaning, truth, first civilisation, hidden, blade, fight

Id: _pRZxai0snY

Length: 30min 44sec (1844 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2020