Thor

Thor (トール), disguised as Freyja (フレイヤ), is one of the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) that are part of The Holy Sword of the Ice Palace quest.

Appearance
While disguised as Freyja, Thor looked like a female about the size of the Undine Asuna and had skin as white as powdery snow. His disguise had long flowing, deep brown-gold/tea-gold hair and pupils of the same colour. The disguise also had a beautiful face that was sublimed with western European beauty, and she wore a white dress.

Thor actually appears as a muscular 15-meter tall giant with arms and legs as sturdy-looking as large trees. He has a rugged and strong looking jaw and cheeks as well as a long, golden-brown beard. He has the appearance of a man who is at least forty years old.

Personality
When disguised as Freyja, Thor first appeared as if he was a helpless woman, however, after being freed, it was revealed that he was actually a strong, determined person, as seen by how he refused to retreat in order to retrieve his lost treasure, as well as how he responded to Thrym's question about their marriage. After revealing his true form, Thor was revealed to be a revengeful character, as shown by how he felt about Thrym's theft of his hammer. Thor is a character who greatly values his pride, as shown by how he was angry that he was disgraced by Thrym stealing his hammer, but he is shown to be a character who awards others for their help, as he rewarded Klein, who had freed him from an ice cage, with the fairy-sized version of his hammer.

Background
The character was created by the Cardinal System's Automatic Quest Generation Function which based the character off the mythical god of thunder of the same name in Norse mythology. Like the other NPCs created through the Cardinal's Automatic Quest Generation Function, Thor possesses a higher level of intelligence than usual NPCs and, due to his programming being connected to the language module, instead of having a scripted response routine, Thor is able to change his speech according to the situation to some extent, creating the illusion of a natural conversation. Because of this, he is more realistic than the usual NPCs.

Mythology
The Cardinal System based the character's use in the Excaliber quest on the legend of Þrimskvida, in which Thrym had stolen Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, and demanded the hand of the goddess Freyja in return for the hammer. Instead, with the help of Loki, Thor disguised himself as Freyja and infiltrated the castle of the frost giants as the supposed bride of Thrym. Even though Thor nearly blew his cover during the feast, he successfully managed to reacquire his lost hammer and proceeded to kill all the frost giants that attended the ceremony.

Setting
Like in the original legend, Thor's hammer was stolen by Thrym and asked for the hand of Freyja in return for the hammer. Thor disguised himself as Freyja to infiltrate the castle of the frost giants and to retrieve his lost hammer, however, unlike in the original myth, Thor was caught by the third guardian while attempting to retrieve the hammer on the day before the banquet, and thus imprisoned in an ice cage, though his real identity was not yet deduced.

Caliber
After reaching the bottommost floor of Thrymheim, Kirito, Leafa, Asuna, Sinon, Klein, Silica and Lisbeth came across an ice cage in the passageway leading to Thrym's room and found a female character within the cage. Although almost all of them believed that this was a trap and did not want to take any unnecessary risks, Klein still decided to go against the opinion of the group and freed the character. After freeing her, Klein asked whether she could leave the castle on her own, however, the disguised Thor asked to join their party instead in order to reclaim a lost treasure, surprising the party. Despite still doubting whether this was actually a trap, Kirito agreed to let the NPC join their party.

During the battle with Thrym, Thor (still disguised as Freyja) supported the fairies by using thunder magic to deal significant blows to Thrym. After Thrym's first HP bar was depleted and most of the party had to recover from a powerful wide area attack, the disguised Thor told the party that in order to defeat Thrym in time, they needed to find the lost hammer that would restore her to full power. After discovering the hammer by using «Lightning Fall», Kirito threw the hammer to Freyja, who easily caught it.

With the hammer now in his possession, Thor assumed his original form and size, greatly surprising both the fairies and Thrym, who had until then believed that Thor was really Freyja. Then the two giants began to clash with their hammer and ice axe. Meanwhile, the fairies used the opening while Thrym was distracted to use their most powerful Sword Skills to help Thor defeat Thrym and Thor eventually dealt the final blow to Thrym. After Thrym was defeated, Thor decided to reward the fairies for helping him reclaim his hammer by giving Klein, who freed him from the cage, an extra reward: a fairy-sized replica of Mjölnir, called «Thunder Hammer Mjölnir». Afterwards, Thor disappeared in a flash of lightning.

Navigation
Freyja Фрейя (Тор)