Nyo!Iceland and Company

WALL OF TEXT

I don't really know if there are actual official designs made by Himaruya-sensei himself, or if Nyotalia is completely fanbased, but either way I've decided to mix and match nyo ideas and designs, so if you don't like them you are plenty welcome to ignore them.

So it's always bothered me that Iceland never had any real contact or consciousness of magic like Norway does. I don't know what it's like in Norway, but Icelanders have always been known by their earnest belief in faeries and other things of such manner. Highways will swerve around large boulders where faeries are believed to live, people will ask permission from faeries in caves if they can build houses in the area, and occasionally rocks will be given their own numbers to honour those that live in it.

But even Norway's character has little contact with magic, but that just got me thinking a little. The Norse mythology, as I understand it, does not divide things up into good and evil like most cultures and religions do. It's more a sort of chaos/nature/female versus order/culture/male kind of thing. I already favoured the idea since typically (typically!!) women lack the upper body strength to fight with axes and swords and things of the such that the nyotalia girls would play a little different role than their counterparts. Since the Vikings and males were of the "culture", I thought the females would be more of the "nature" aspect, of which the magic and Norse creatures belonged to, and therefore develop and sustain and deep and lasting relationship with these creatures. Even the other three Nordics, though I believe would have a weaker connection to the magic (especially Finland, who never had a Viking culture) would still bear the consciousness of it nonetheless. I think female Iceland and Norway would have the stronger relationship, interacting with the creatures on a daily and constant basis and being aware of spirits and other magicals wherever in the world they went (as in, they could see England's buddies too). This is my own theory, and I am quite fond of it.

(As a side note, I think Alice Kirkland would be significantly better at the dark arts than Arthur as well. However, my theory is that she got in deep trouble with the devil and such as a result of this and afterwards became very extremely religiously diligent, ditching the dark side entirely. But not Flying Mint Bunny and her pals, of course. Those dudes are safe. )

Keep in mind as you read this that I have a very weak grasp on Norse culture and mythology and haven't yet made the time to really research it. Most of my knowledge of it are snippets I've picked up here and there along with the actually quite educational explanations under Humon's artworks and her humourous webcomic, "Scandinavia and the World". I have not researched any of those creatures in my sketch up there. Just two generic faeries. The last one was supposed to be a troll, but it ended up odd. At the very best it would be a juvenile Far South troll? Probably among the more friendly, Danish variety.

And hey, I don't know lady Iceland's female name, so if you know of the commonly agreed one or have any ideas of you own, feel free to comment along and please type in the phrase "swing dancing" if you happened to read through all of this. Thank you, you are beautiful people and I love you.

hetalia (c) -sensei