Summary Ragnarok’s season 3 finale revealed that the entire story was all in Magne’s head, a twist that divided viewers and re-contextualized the series.
Throughout the season, Magne battled corrupt industrialists and his brother, while dealing with supernatural chaos. However, it was revealed that these events were only taking place in his imagination.
Magne’s graduation and his decision to let go of his childhood fantasies symbolized his transition into adulthood, where he no longer needed his imagination to cope with reality.
The Norwegian fantasy series Ragnarok ended with its season 3 finale, and one controversial twist wound up casting the preceding plot of Netflix’s teen drama in a whole new light. Ragnarok was always plagued by controversy. The Norwegian fantasy show proved a success for Netflix when it began in 2020 but garnered negative reviews from critics based in the show’s home country. Reviewers complained that Ragnarok’s story of Magne, a teen who realizes he is the reincarnation of Thor, was uneven, unconvincing, and predictable. However, Ragnarok’s season 3 finale proved much more controversial and divisive than even these early critical write-ups could have predicted.
In Ragnarok season 3’s story, Magne spent most of his time battling both the corrupt industrialists the Jutuls, and his brother Laurits. By the time the series finale began, Magne had managed to broker an uneasy truce with the Jutuls and had returned to a relatively normal life. Magne alienated his love interest, Signy, with his single-minded attempts to take down the Jutuls, but he passed his exams and succeeded in graduating from high school despite all the supernatural chaos going on in his life outside school. Then, Ragnarok’s controversial season 3 finale hit viewers with a twist that was somehow simultaneously predictable and wildly unexpected.
Related: Netflix’s Ragnarok Cast & Character Guide
Netflix’s Ragnarok Finale Reveals The Show Was All In Magne’s Head
Ragnarok’s season 3 finale ended with Magne sitting at his graduation when the mother of all supernatural battles began. Jens was shot by Hod with a bow and arrow and Laurits sent a trio of giants to battle the gods as the crowd of teens and parents looked on, unfazed. Ragnarok then revealed a massive twist ending that re-contextualized the entire preceding story: it was all in Magne’s head. Viewers predicted this possibility since season 1, but it remained a divisive way to end the show.
Hod Didn’t Really Shoot Jens With An Arrow
Magne saw Hod playing with a bow and arrow during his graduation. This was already strange since Hod was the child who caught an arrow in the face during an earlier battle. However, things took a turn for the surreal when Magne watched in horror as Hod shot Jens with his arrow, but no one around him reacted to the incident. As Magne envisioned a massive ensuing battle between gods and giants, it became clear that all of Ragnarok’s supernatural events were only taking place in his head.
The Real Meaning Of Ragnarok’s Magne & Thor Comic Book Twist
If Magne had been imagining that he was the reincarnation of Thor all along, it would be reasonable for viewers to assume that none of Ragnarok’s events ever happened. However, the Ragnarok season 3 finale made it clear that Magne’s high school life was real and that the acts of sabotage that he committed to stop the Jutuls from polluting his hometown were also not imaginary. This became clear during the scene in the season 3 finale where Laurits prepared to move out. As Laurits and Jens packed their things, Magne looked back over long-forgotten Thor comic books from his childhood.
Magne revisiting these comics and finding a toy version of Thor’s hammer heavily implied that he had been using the comics to formulate the imaginary elements of the series. Magne wasn’t imagining himself as a superhero while doing nothing. Rather, he had been filtering his real-life experiences through the heightened lens of a cartoony comic book reality. Ragnarok’s coming-of-age story did take place in reality, but the environmentalist antics of Magne and his friends were the only part of his heroic adventure that really happened.
Related: Every God In Netflix’s Ragnarok (& How They Compare To Norse Mythology)
Why Magne Stopped Imagining Ragnarok’s Fantasy World
As he graduated from high school, Magne realized he no longer needed the comforting fantasies of his childhood. He moved on from the world of his imagination and grounded himself in reality, as the final Ragnarok episode’s opening prophecy obliquely predicted he would. This was signified by Magne getting rid of his old comic books, a move that proved he no longer needed to use them as a coping mechanism to make sense of the morally ambiguous realities of adult life.
Related: Where Was Netflix’s Ragnarok Filmed? Norway Filming Locations Explained
Magne & Signy’s “Nine Steps” Reunion Explained
The Ragnarok season 3 finale began with a prophecy stating that Thor had only “Nine steps left to step in this world.” This turned out to be true in a metaphorical sense as Magne apologized to Signy, was rebuffed, and later reconciled with her. He took nine literal steps toward his love interest and dropped the rose he received for graduation, a metaphorical stand-in for Thor’s hammer. After all of Ragnarok’s MCU nods and references, the show dropped its fantasy elements for this sweet moment. As they embraced, Magne faced reality and left behind his imaginary adventures once and for all.
Why Ragnarok’s Series Finale Is So Divisive
Any sort of “It was all a dream,” “It was all in their head,” or “None of it was real” series finale finds itself subject to controversy. However, this twist was an especially divisive way to end Ragnarok because some events, like Isolde’s death, did happen. This meant there wasn’t a clear division between the show’s reality and its fantasy. The season 3 finale’s closing scene confirmed that Isolde did exist and died years earlier, thus confusing the story of the show. The misleading teases of Ragnarok season 3’s story aside, the show seemingly contradicted its own message with this twist.
Back in Ragnarok’s season 1 finale, Magne was diagnosed with schizophrenia by a Jutul-affiliated psychiatrist and accused of making up his alter-ego. In the context of that episode, Magne needed to stand up for himself and beat these accusations, but the series finale confused this message when the show proved that Magne was delusional all along. In retrospect, it now seems as if the show’s villains were in the right in this instance, and whether Magne always knew he was imagining things or did need to receive treatment for hallucinations was left frustratingly open-ended.
The Real Meaning Of Ragnarok’s Ending
As divisive as Ragnarok’s ending is, the show’s final outing did at least have a solid message. The image of Magne putting down his rose — and, by extension, his imaginary hammer — signified the idea that the end of childhood is a death of sorts wherein one loses their connection to their younger self’s boundless imagination to face the responsibility inherent in the world of adult life. Thus, the hero of Ragnarok needed to leave the world in his mind behind by symbolically killing off his alter-ego Thor.