Hod Mindseeker – Hod or Hoder, the blind brother of Baldur
https://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Hod_Mindseeker#ixzz7fLQAUjeS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6%C3%B0r
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lose-your-marbles.html
This poor wolf seems to have forgotten his identity. Before you interact with him for a quest , if you speak to him he says, “Hoody-hoo! Do I know you?” As you interact with him on side quests you find that he has in fact lost his marbles.
Höðr (Old Norse: Hǫðr often anglicized as Hod, Hoder, or Hodur) is a god in Norse mythology. The blind son of Odin and Frigg, he is tricked and guided by Loki into shooting a mistletoe arrow which was to slay the otherwise invulnerable Baldr.
According to the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, the goddess Frigg, Baldr’s mother, made everything in existence swear never to harm Baldr, except for the mistletoe, which she found too unimportant to ask (alternatively, which she found too young to demand an oath from). The gods amused themselves by trying weapons on Baldr and seeing them fail to do any harm. Loki, the mischief-maker, upon finding out about Baldr’s one weakness, made a spear (in some versions an arrow) from mistletoe, and helped Höðr shoot it at Baldr. In reaction to this, Odin and the giantess Rindr gave birth to Váli, who grew to adulthood within a day and slew Höðr.
To ‘lose one’s marbles’ is to lose one’s mind. In the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny Humphrey Bogart linked insanity with marbles when he showed his character, the demented Lt. Cmdr. Queeg, restlessly jiggling a set of metal balls when under stress in court. Bogart’s performance was so affecting that many have supposed the film to be the source of the phrase. It is American, but originated in the late 19th century, not the 1950s. The expression has now been shortened to simply ‘losing it’. The point is that the person in question has, as in another earlier variant, ‘a bit missing’.
The current list of all the (known) Grizzleheim/Wintertusk references are located here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references, I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Hod Mindseeker image is from Wizard101, and are copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
Loki Tricking Hodr is borrowed from Wikipedia and is in the public domain
“Losing My Marbles” by Tracy Hambley is (c)Potluck Press
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
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