Odin's Beholders are usually seen in human form in the comic though the included player handbook tells us that the two can take the shape of crows. In Norse Mythology, the two ravens belong to Odin and their task is to fly all over the world, gathering all sorts of information, which they will then report to the king of the gods.
In Ragnarok: Into The Abyss, we don't know if Odin's Beholders used to do that since we know nothing about them and Odin himself hasn't made an appearance yet and is hardly ever mentioned by anyone (apparently, the goddess Freya is now the supreme ruler of the realm of the gods, though how this could have happened and where Odin is, no one knows and the manhwa doesn't seem to care enough to give us all the details about all this).
Huginn and Muninn first appeared in Volume 1 of the graphic novel as mere shadows watching Fenris Fenrir. They weren't even properly introduced then and they just came across as mysterious shadowed figures that readers knew absolutely nothing about. Unfortunately, Odin's Beholders are never properly introduced to us.
Yeah, it would have been much better if this was shown to us, but now we're expected to go through the manhwa as if this was fact already so that the next time we see these two, the comic is operating under the impression that we already know who Huginn and Muninn are.
If people didn't bother reading that player handbook, then they would likely be lost and would end up wondering who these strange figures are and where they suddenly came from especially since their appearance in volume 1 could hardly be classified as a proper introduction, considering we only saw their shadows and briefly at that.
The graphic novel apparently doesn't care about things like that though as it just keeps showing these 2 mysterious figures to us seemingly whenever it wants to. We see them in Chapter 22 of Volume 3 wherein they easily save Sara Irine and Skurai from Nidhogg. This simple act brings forth a number of questions all at once:
- Exactly what kind of powers and abilities do these two have that they can easily save Sara and the wielder of Talatsu from the dragon?
- How powerful are they?
- Why did they save the swordsman and the Valkyrie?
- What are they planning?
- Whose side are they on?
- Who are they working for?
The next time we see these two is in Volume 3, Chapter 23 where we find that they've transported Skurai to the headquarters of the Assassins' Guild.
Considering the two subsequently try to convince the swordsman to destroy the entire guild in the very next chapter, we can thus surmise that the reason they brought Skurai here is for this very purpose, though why they want the assassins terminated, we still don't know.
Huginn and Muninn confuse and annoy us further as they make another appearance in Chapter 27 of Volume 4 wherein they tell the leader of the assassins that Chaos is the name of the guild's destroyer before killing said leader.
Once again, it just has to be asked, what are these two planning? What in the world are they up to? What do they hope to gain by doing these things? Are they working for someone or doing all of this for their own plans?
Do you think we'll ever know the answers to all these questions about Odin's Beholders (Update: unfortunately, the comic abruptly ends in Volume 10 and we never got to find out more about these two)? What's your theory on what these two are up to and why they're doing the things that they're doing?
*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Arthur Rackham (Public Domain) from Wikimedia Commons
- Said image is meant to represent Huginn and Muninn because they take the form of ravens in Norse Mythology
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget
