2. It's different from Roman and Greek Mythology. The Norse gods seem to be more human-like and don't do a lot of harming of humans.
Odin literally goes around causing wars and massive death to recruit talented fighters by having the Valkyries kill them and take them to Valhalla.
Loki changes into a mare and gets knocked up by a horse.
Tyr has 9 mothers.
I'm not sure how this qualifies as more human / less harmful.
Yeah, that is true, but it's certainly less out there than Egyptian mythology, and the gods are certainly less dickish than the Greek/Roman gods (for the most part).
It's worth noting that despite Odin's popularity among the nobles of the time (who also started wars and tried to maintain a death grip on power and knowledge), Thor was the god of the common man. Thor is notably much, much more empathetic and frequently was distanced from Odin when he would go questing.
Yes but it was always like that. Odin's role is very different from how pop media portrays him. While he is a badass warrior, he doesn't really fight much in the Edda. Rather he sacrifices his eye to learn of the prophecy Ragnarok and spends all his time trying to delay it as long as possible knowing that he'll eventually fail anyway.
Ironically, his treatment of Loki and his children in the name of stopping Ragnarok is probably what ended up causing it. ---
