On the surface, "The Stranger" is a tale of a lost soul struggling to comprehend their purpose in the world and beyond. We are born of a chaotic universe which yet seems to stifle us with its unceasing natural and ordered progressions. Our souls are ordered within themselves, yet we fight the spiritual entropy that seeks to reintegrate us with the light. In this tale, the stranger is Odin, and even though he does not know it consciously, the soldier is bound to him eternally.
Many who follow the Northern tradition are drawn to Odin. It seems many consign themselves too easily to this god, branding themselves with the symbol of the "Knot of the Slain", the Valknut, eager to taste the pleasures of Valhalla. But you see, the key behind the symbol of the Valknut is that of binding. Those chosen by Odin (and not the other way around) are doomed to their wyrd, but not all may reach or even desire Valhalla. Do you desire eternal struggle? Odin may also hinder as well as help. Odin was thought of as untrustworthy, fickle, and many a failed battle was blamed on him. There are examples in the old tales of Odin placing the 'war-fetters' on opponents so that they will be unable to take up arms against their enemies. So victory or death, your eternal fate is spun for you, reintegrated into his army for the next cycle of struggle. Odin is the god of chaos, death, and destruction. When he has bound your soul, when the elder strands of genetics that, like snakes, entwine your core-being and inject the venom of eternal ancient races into your blood, you cannot reject your calling.
Many do not know this, but Odin was not always the leader of the gods as in the later Scandinavian myths. In fact, the original Germanic sky god is actually Tyr, whose role eventually became one of the lesser-known Norse Gods, known mainly as the one who lost his hand in the jaws of the Fenris wolf. The older Germanic form of his name, Tiwaz, is related to Zeus and Jupiter (Dyaus Pitar). These are the names which are derived from "dieus", the Indo-European word for a god. So the basic root for a god is that of Tyr. One of Odin's many names is that of Sigtyr (God of Victory). The English day of the week, Tuesday, is derived from him, which in French is Mardi, which means he is also related to Mars, the Roman god of war. Wednesday comes from Old English, Wodnesdag, or Woden's Day. In French this is Mercredi, or Mercury, the Greek Hermes. Hermes was known as the prince of tricksters, the thief at the gates, the bringer of dreams, the patron of travelers, the governor of the tongue and speech, and of course magic.
So we have two similar gods with similar functions, except they exist for different reasons. Tyr has come to symbolize law, justice, order and balance. Odin symbolizes chaos, untrustworthiness, and trickery. Each god has been related to war and death, but where Tyr's warring involves the righting of wrongs, to mete out justice by the sword and tip the cosmic balance towards law and order, Odin's objectives are chaotic, destructive, and bend the balance towards entropy. This prevents the universe from stagnating into changeless order, by injecting it with life and dynamism, for only with becoming do beings evolve. Yet order must exist to ensure that the universe does not dissipate into unbound energy, for this is the disintegration of being. Now you know why there are black holes amongst the stars above because they are great soul complexes that have imploded upon themselves. The ecstasy of Odin is also the bane of gods and men.
These two eternal co-existing principles of chaos and order (fire and ice) coalesce together to form our material universe and the world of Midgard. The balance cannot shift too far in one direction or the other, as the imbalance will destroy all forever. This is the secret of Ragnarok. When the balance has shifted too far, the great war between the two extremes must be fought to form a new world.
The soldier will live again to fight another day, and maybe in his next incarnation he will be fighting on the side of law and order? But the stranger within who tempers his justice with ecstasy and bloodlust knows his true path.
— Daemonskald, 34th Summer