73 pages • 2 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Hammer of Thor
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 41-46Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 41 Summary: “When in Doubt, Turn Into a Biting Insect”
Hearth challenges the giants to an arcade game contest—any game of the contestants’ choosing. The giant gets a perfect score in skee-ball, but Hearth blows his score away in pinball, which the giants whine isn’t fair until Magnus points out Hearth never said the contestants had to play the same game. Next, Blitz does a makeover on the “ugliest” giant in the room, winning by a landslide. For the last challenge, Utgard-Loki pits Magnus and Alex against the bowling champions for a doubles game. The winner will take the usual prize, “which is, of course, the losers’ heads” (328).
Magnus and Alex go first, neither getting their balls anywhere near the pins. The champions each bowl a strike, and Alex makes a show of going to the restroom, actually turning into a horsefly to eavesdrop on conversations. The champions’ lane is normal, but the pins in Magnus and Alex’s lane are the White Mountains in New Hampshire on Midgard. Having no idea how to bowl across worlds, Magnus throws his second ball into the champions’ lane, cracking the floor and making the giants bowl gutter balls.
Chapter 42 Summary: “Or You Could Just Glow a Lot. That Works, Too”
To win, Magnus and Alex must throw a perfect game in the final frame. Hearth signs Frey’s name, which makes Magnus remember how Jack cut a hole between worlds back on Alfheim. He concludes there’s an invisible portal to New Hampshire in their bowling lane, and if they can make it visible, he can close it; however, this strategy would require him to touch Alex and possibly see inside her mind. Preferring not to lose her head, Alex takes his hand, and as they stare down the alley, Magnus glows like the sun. He sees glimpses of Alex being yelled at and beat up, and while he doesn’t know if the anger he feels is his or hers, he does know that “we’d both had enough of illusions and pretending” (337).
Before the light fades, Magnus sees the portal close, and he bowls a strike. Alex transforms into an elephant and bowls hard enough to knock down all the pins in all the lanes, making them the winners. Alex and Magnus ask for Utgard-Loki’s information instead of the severed heads of their opponents, and the rest of the giants give the group five minutes to talk, after which they “are free to chase you down and kill you” (340).
Chapter 43 Summary: “You Keep Using the Word Help. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”
Utgard-Loki reveals that the Skofnung Sword can break Loki’s bonds and that he’s orchestrated the entire wedding to get the weapon and free himself. In old Norse tradition, the “bride-price” goes to the father of the bride, rather than the groom as in modern weddings, which means Loki would receive the sword as a gift. Further, the hammer would be given to the bride’s family, meaning Sam’s new husband would take it, rather than it being returned to Thor. The group realizes they’ve been collecting items for Loki, and Utgard-Loki chuckles at the irony, saying it’s “pretty funny, except for the fact that Loki wants to get free so he can kill everyone” (344).
The group has two options. Either Utgard-Loki kills them and takes the sword so Loki can’t get it, or they take the information he’s given them and “Find a way to change the rules of Loki’s game, the way you did today at our feast” (348). In the distance, the bowling alley doors boom open. The five minutes are up, and Utgard-Loki’s giants are on the attack.
Chapter 44 Summary: “We Are Honored with Runes and Coupons”
The group takes off running, Magnus lamenting that “one of these days, I would love to exit a world without being pursued by an angry mob” (349). Hearth leads them to a tree surrounded by wildflowers, and the goddess Sif, Thor’s wife, pulls them through a door in the trunk right before a giant stomps on them. They emerge in her palace in Asgard, Bright Crack, complete with a heavenly choir to follow the announcement of the palace’s name. Sif dislikes Sam and Alex on sight but takes an instant liking to Hearth and Magnus.
Sif asks the group if they have the information to find Thor’s hammer. When no one responds, she shows them what they’ll get for helping her—little gold figurines of Thor’s hammer which are also coupons for a free entree at certain restaurants in Asgard. Abruptly changing her mind about hearing the details to find the hammer, she sends them downstairs to Thor’s “man cave” to tell him, asking them not to send him into a murderous rage because “I don’t have time to hire another group of heroes” (357).
Chapter 45 Summary: “Pigtails Have Never Looked So Frightening”
Thor’s “man cave” is an actual cave with glowing stalactites and two enormous televisions. The god wears a Metallica T-shirt and gym shorts, and his hair is in pigtails that seem to say, “I can wear my hair like a six-year-old girl and still murder you” (361). Magnus tells Thor about their attempts to retrieve the hammer, ending with the wedding between Sam and Thrym. Thor laments about when Thrym’s grandfather stole his hammer and how Loki tricked Thor into dressing as the bride to get the hammer back. Thor is glad he won’t have to do that again and thanks Sam for shouldering the burden. Sam says she isn’t; Alex is.
Chapter 46 Summary: “Here Comes the Bride and/or the Assassin”
Alex and Sam have been discussing the switch for a while and have decided it makes the most sense. The group tries to talk Alex out of it, but she doesn’t budge. A small army of gods and einherjar will wait outside Thrym’s cave. As the bride, Alex can insist upon seeing the hammer, and when Thrym brings it out, Thor will use it to kill everyone. The wedding is in the morning, so Thor invites the group to stay overnight, announcing that tomorrow they’ll “ride forth to a glorious matrimonial massacre” (371).
Chapters 41-46 Analysis
Chapter 41 has a topsy-turvy, comic element in which all characters’ expectations are subverted, and each protagonist uses their wit and cunning. The tournament shows Hearth and Blitz winning at their own contests, bending the rules as Sam did. When it comes to Alex and Magnus’s competition, the giants have figured out that Magnus’s group is on to their usual tricks, so they create the portal in the bowling alley as a way to secure victory. Alex’s horsefly trick harkens back to when Sam did something similar in The Sword of Summer. During Blitz’s crafting contest, he wasn’t supposed to receive help, but Sam transformed into a horsefly to sabotage Blitz’s competitor. Alex doesn’t rig the bowling tournament while transformed, but her form does allow her to understand how the giants are cheating, which ultimately leads to her and Magnus winning the tournament. Alex transforming into an elephant to bowl a full 300 score in one frame is the ultimate version of bending the rules to beat the giants at their own sabotage.
Alex and Magnus’s previous argument about healing receives closure in Chapter 42. A few chapters ago, Alex was against Magnus healing her, but when he did and nothing happened, Magnus gained some of her trust. Her decision to trust him is helped by the fact that losing will mean she loses her head, and by comparison, letting Magnus see some of her past is a minor inconvenience. Alex’s revelations show how consequences put a situation in context.
The title of Chapter 43 is a reference to the famous line from The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” In The Princess Bride, the word was “inconceivable,” which one of the characters kept using to describe situations that both were and were not inconceivable. Utgard-Loki promised to help the group, but when he gives them information, his version of “help” boils down to laughing at the irony that they’ve been helping Loki and telling them to find a way to stop the trickster god from being freed. Despite repeatedly telling the group he’d help them, Utgard-Loki wasn’t really helpful at all, much like the misuse of the word “inconceivable.”
The palace of Bright Crack (also known as Lightning or Bilskirnir in Norse) is the palace of Thor and Sif in Norse myth. Riordan modernizes both the palace and the gods within. Sif refers to herself as Thor’s “trophy wife,” which is both literal because she’s beautiful and ironic because she creates trophies from her hair. Magnus likens Sif to Rapunzel, and while there is no known connection between the two, Sif bears a striking resemblance to the Rapunzel fairy tale with her long golden hair and tower home. Thor’s man cave is in the basement of the palace and ironically resembles an actual cave. Riordan pokes fun at the stereotype of manly men who appear tough in public but then hang out in windowless rooms while wearing casual clothing and watching television. The choir that sings whenever Bright Crack’s name is said is an example of the humor Riordan incorporates into the story. The choir itself is amusing, and the way the characters react to the choir adds to the humor and also enhances their personalities.
Alex and Sam switching places is what Magnus sensed the girls weren’t telling him in Chapter 33, and their agreement on this shows their commitment both to one another and to stopping Loki. Alex believes Loki will try to control the bride, and she knows she can resist him better than Sam. Sam has also vowed to Allah that she will only wed Amir, and switching with Alex allows her to keep her promise while hopefully not alerting Loki to the deception. The final line of the chapter shows how the Norse gods are always true to their natures. Though weddings are often a cause for joy and celebration, Thor turns this wedding into a battle, referring to it as a massacre and being excited to fight.
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