As some of you may know, I live in the San Joaquin Valley area of California, the heart of the drought situation and, as of the last few months, potential new location for future depictions of Mordor. With growing drought concerns, our ground sinking two inches every month as the water table vanishes, and forest fires frequently dotting the nearby national parks – we are literally becoming a flaming pit. Having grown up in this region, I’m used to not liking the climate around here, but even I have my limits.

The recent air quality concerns have grown so severe that I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling healthy by any measure. Currently I’m kept alive only by caffeine, generic Benadryl, and that spell they used in Weekend At Bernie’s 2. Should the music stop playing, I will go dead weight and collapse where I stand. It’s not a great life, but hey, at least I’m useful.

But the worsening conditions have made me think long and hard about what’s been happening to our world as of late and I’ve come to a conclusion. It may not be popular with everyone, I know a lot of people out there aren’t going to believe me when I say it. But I’m willing to make my case and hope that someone out there will listen. You see, I think it’s time we seriously start talking about…

Killing Surtr

Surtr, legendary fire giant and bringer of the end times, is clearly walking among us these days. One of the Jotun, the giants of Norse mythology which did battle with the Aesir, Surtr was the leader of the fire Jotun and one of the most powerful in the cosmos. In Ragnarok he is said to swing his mighty flaming sword, do battle with the god Freyr, slay him, and then set fire to the world itself. As you can probably see right now, it looks like we’re in those times. Hell, just ask India from a couple months ago about whether or not they think everything is on fire.

Some would have you believe in climate change, but that’s supported by “facts” and “science”. Anyone with any sense can tell you, you shouldn’t believe in anything invisible unless, of course, an ancient text tells you. Just ask James Inhofe, chairman of the U.S. Senate Environmental Committee.

As such, we’re going to need to look long and hard at things scientists don’t believe in, because we all know you have to be monumentally stupid to get a PhD. No, if we’re looking for answers, we’re going to need to look to the source of wisdom. Ancient texts are full of untold wisdom and the Norse mythology is so ancient and obscure that we can’t even be sure we have accurate translations of it. So Surtr is much more likely to be the cause of all of this. After all, that other God said he wouldn’t flood the Earth again.

Don’t believe me? Well what about…

The Fires

The first piece of evidence at the coming of Surtr is the sudden inexplicable increase in wildfires seen… everywhere. Being a long time resident of the California high desert, we’re pretty familiar with brush fires and forest fires being within driving distance of where we (try to) live. But most fires have been caused by things such as careless campers and people setting off fireworks uphill. You know, because stupid is eternal and all great events in history should be preceded by some dumb-ass asking his friend to hold his beer. But the mark of Surtr can clearly be seen in this place…

This is the General Grant tree, third tallest tree in the world and clocking in at over 3,000 years old. It is ancient, it is giant, and it is a tourist trap. It’s located in the middle of Grant Grove, a section of the King’s Canyon National Park in Fresno County. Grant Grove is 154 acres of gigantic things, the largest living organisms on the planet, and in a forest full of such ancient, giant trees.

This is the Rough Fire, also in Fresno County. The Rough Fire is just north of Grant Grove. Currently, as of this writing, it is the largest fire in all of California and has been burning for nearly two months straight. The gates of hell opened up and, to no one’s surprise, it was uphill from Fresno. This is a real boon for the people of Fresno, as it’s one of the few times in the history of the city where the people in the foothills are like “let’s go to Fresno!” Previously this sentence had only been uttered in hushed, defeated tones by drug addicts and people who probably could have fit in around Florida.

For everyone else it was kind of a problem. The fire is continuing to spread and has, as of the last time I checked, only been 31% contained. That means that this baby is going to keep burning for at least another month, maybe longer. So, hey, Fresno’s going to have some involuntary tourism for a while. May some god have mercy on their poor souls.

But I ask you now to stop to read between the lines here. This uncontrolled hellscape has been unleashed upon us in the home of the largest living organisms on the planet. As we speak, the land of the literal giants is on fire. That can’t be a coincidence, people!

And it is of no surprise the one story we do have of Surtr’s activities, that of Ragnarok, shows him doing really only a couple acts. First of all, he’ll be battling the gods, which, I’m sure, is happening as we speak. Secondly, he’ll have killed several of those gods before going down with the rest of them in fiery kamikaze tactics. But, most importantly in these moments, between the start of the battle and the end of the world, Surtr will set fire to Yggdrasil – the world tree. Yggdrasil, being the largest tree you could possibly imagine, was formed at the beginning of the universe and holds the world together. It is giant, it is ancient, and it will burn in the end times. Sound familiar?

The worst part is Yggdrasil, having formed at the beginning of the Earth, is probably only about 6,000 years old according to people like our friend James Inhofe – a mere 3,000 years older than General Grant. This is horrific, because we can’t be sure there isn’t an older tree sitting out there next to Grant that we aren’t aware of. One day we’re just going along with our day to day lives, the next moment, bam, whole world ends because we didn’t keep the fire from pulling that loose thread.

And I know this is true, because ancient people wrote it up, right James?

But, maybe that’s not enough for you, maybe you need more, so let’s consider…

The Sinking

Now, as I mentioned before, the valley area of California is slowly descending into hell at about 2 inches a month. This is fine, as living in the south San Joaquin Valley has prepared us for hot temperatures and people cackling at our expense. But I’m not sure I buy this whole “water disappearing from beneath the Earth” thing, or that water could support rock like that. After all, if there’s water down there, how is it disappearing? With some sort of strange pumping mechanism?

No, there has to be something else going on, and that’s when I realized what it had to be. See, as a Norse giant, a Jotun, it’s entirely possible that Surtr is bound to the same limitations as a Troll. As I previously pointed out, Jotun and Trolls were related to each other and the names just changed over time. So we have to assume that Surtr is moving in the middle of the night to avoid sunlight. From there, we have to assume the weight of his giant army is causing everything to sink as they march up and down the length of the state as they walk from the Rough Fire all the way up to North California for them to ruin things for everyone else up that way.

I’m sure you’re thinking about now, “but how is it no one would notice all that stomping around?”

Haha, you silly bastards, have you not remembered this is California? Earthquakes are frequent here and I can tell you from experience that most of us just sleep through the tremors if they don’t break 2.0. Surtr and his compatriots not only could pass through unnoticed, but as we covered before, they most certainly do because I haven’t seen them. That’s how it works, right James?

And, while I’m looking your direction, James, I have to say that you raised another great point.

The Snowballs

See, James raised a great point a while ago about how climate change can’t possibly be real because snowballs still exist. As he pointed out – it gets really cold in the winter. Now, some scientists would say that the increase of evaporation over oceans causes weather patterns to shift wildly and generate more intense storms, but my research into the ancient texts provided a way more rational explanation than that:

Ragnarok

As Ragnarok approaches, Midgard (that’s us!) is supposed to go through a period of the coldest, most bitter winter to have ever existed. This seemingly endless frozen hell is the winter to end all winters, a time when the sun may not be seen at all for extended periods of time. It would be bitterly cold, to the point that even people from Norway were afraid of it, and few would think it would come to an end. And you know what they’d have a lot of around there?

Yeah James, you got it. The recent super cold winters should be the final nail in the coffin on this whole subject. Surtr’s coming is foretold by such winters, and James had a snowball, so I think we all know where the hell this is going.

Kill the Giant

We need to kill Surtr. Now, this isn’t going to be very easy, because the stories say that he managed to carve a path through the gods before ending the rest of the world with a swing of his flaming sword. But one of the things mentioned in the Eddas is that Freyr could have won had he just had his good sword and not have given it away earlier. This leaves us some hope in turning back the tide in this battle.

So, first, we’re going to need a Freyr. A lot of the Norse gods have been cast by Hollywood in recent years. Thor, Loki, Odin, and Heimdall are all great examples of Gods who are likely to die in the coming months. But Freyr is a tricky one, having little importance in comic books, and thus no current casting decisions. We’ll have to get to work right away on beginning a production that requires a Freyr and make sure to cast him as soon as possible so we have time to prepare him for the oncoming war. My suggestion is someone who can be a dangerous pretty boy, as Freyr was a fertility god.

Meanwhile, we’re going to want to make sure he’s properly armed to put an end to the threat of the fire giant. Without his sword, Freyr is no match for the giant and will lose in direct combat with him. He must be given a sword unlike any other, one that could cut through the embodiment of fire itself and pierce the heart of the creature. My suggestion is that we turn once more to entertainment for this and go ahead and get him a sword made by this guy.

With a truly fine blade and some instructions in fencing, our man Freyr should be able to fight back the evil fire giant and put an end to this threat once and for all. This should resolve all of the world’s problems as the ancient texts informed us, either preventing Ragnarok or allowing the survivors to live in the land of eternal spring. It sounds unbelievable, but as the people on our congressional committees can tell you, only ancient texts can tell us anything about how to deal with modern problems and pressing matters such as these.

So I don’t care about what you say, or what you believe, this is clearly the work of Surtr and can be nothing else. After all, if it was something else, don’t you think we’d be doing something about it? Hell, don’t you think we’d be appointing leaders who have an idea about what we should be doing about it?  Clearly, with people like this running our congress right now…

It’s gotta be Surtr.

(I write novels, I run a twitter account, and tonight I’m throwing a bit of a sarcastic hissy fit. I’ll get better, eventually, fires die eventually…. I hope.)