After reading through the latest Legends of Asgard release from Aconyte Books, The Serpent and The Dead, I sat down for a chat with the author, Anna Stephens. My review for the book can be found here.
Were you a fan of the Marvel Thor before writing this book, and if so what drew you to the comics and the stories?
I didn’t grow up in a family that appreciated comics, and so they never featured as a part of my childhood. As a result, I came to Marvel via the movies, of which I’m a big fan, and from there through generally making myself more familiar with the MCU I learnt of some characters – Valkyrie and Lady Sif being two – who hadn’t (in my opinion) received the big screen love they deserved. Therefore, it was a genuine thrill to get to write a brand new adventure centred on them and I hope it brings them to a wider audience.
With so much history around these characters to draw upon did it ever feel hard to know what you wanted to explore or what characters and creatures you wanted to bring into your narrative?
Working with Aconyte Books and Marvel is a really collaborative process. I knew I wanted to write female characters and I wanted to show them in a positive but ‘real’ way – unafraid of their emotions and embracing of their vulnerabilities as well as their strengths. To then be given the opportunity to write a team-up as epic as Lady Sif and Valkyrie was a dream come true, and I wanted to be able to draw on their long history of rivalry and friendship to add real depth to the characters and also provide the potential for a point of strain in their relationship during their quest.
As for the ultimate enemy they face, I didn’t want to pick one of the most common villains, and I enjoyed working out how the powers of that villain could impact our heroines.
Your book has a small team of heroes leading the narrative, and it’s the first time in the Legends of Asgard series where it’s been an all female team. Was this something you knew you wanted to do from the outset, or was this dictated through the story you wanted to tell?
As mentioned above, the creation of the story is a collaborative process, and so there was a list of characters available to choose from. It was actually my amazing editor Lottie’s idea to team up Sif with Valkyrie, and I then added in Inge to give the more ‘ordinary’ perspective in that she isn’t a goddess and so, despite being an experienced and talented warrior, she doesn’t move, heal or think the way the others do. This provided a useful foil for the other two, and was also a reminder for me as I was drafting the novel that what is normal for them wouldn’t be normal for others. I found that juxtaposition fascinating and wanted to explore it.
The book has some queer representation, thanks to the relationship between Brunnhilde and Inge. This often feels like something that’s not just lacking in regular fiction, but super hero fiction too. What motivated you to include it here?
It was a very simple decision: Brunnhilde the Valkyrie is canonically bisexual, so for me I was always going to centre that as a key part of her identity, and the easiest way to do it without getting into lengthy exposition about how a bisexual woman dating a man is still a bisexual, I just gave her a girlfriend. Also, I’m sorry, but Inge is just super cool and it would have a been a tragedy not to have her in the book!
I also wanted to explore how the relationship between a mortal and immortal might work, and so the idea of giving her a female lover addressed both those factors at the same time. And you’re absolutely right, there’s not enough LGBTQ+ representation in entertainment media, or if there is, those characters almost never live to the end of the show/film/book. Having a team of three women, two immortal and one of those in a relationship with the third, who is mortal, made for both a great story and I felt more accurately represented the real friendships and relationships that I see around me.
Superhero fiction is nearly all superhero, not superheroine, and I had no interest in giving Brunnhilde a male lover, even though it would have been fun to mess with the gender expectations that came with him deferring to both Sif and his girlfriend during the quest.
One thing that I liked about this book was that where in other entries in the series that the nature of the quest felt very different, these weren’t characters trying to clear their name, or sneaking off to try and gain glory, but people tasked with a mission by their leaders to help save the kingdom. How did you go about making such a story still feel personal to the characters?
It was harder to centre the idea of personal stakes for Sif than it was for Brunnhilde. As the leader of the valkyrior, discovering that she and her sisters have been failing in their duty to escort the slain souls to Valhalla strikes at the very core of who she believes herself to be. Because of that, Brunnhilde was always going to be deeply invested in the quest, but then I also wanted to throw up the challenge of her duty and her personal feelings being in opposition, which is why Inge ends up in the situation she does.
For Sif, duty to Asgard is how she tries to prove her worth to everyone, including herself, but we did wonder whether that was enough motivation for her to be prepared to defy Thor if he forbade her from going on the quest. So, although I dislike fridging female characters to provide motivation, we decided that Sif losing a good friend would provide sufficient impetus that her reckless impetuosity would come to the fore, which in turn provided another source of tension between her and Brunnhilde, changing their dynamic and jeopardising their chances of success.
The book features some really quite frightening moments, and the nature of the threat facing Asgard is quite horrific, did you find it easy to bring an element of horror to the story?
Ha, thank you! In my other author life, I do write battle-heavy epic fantasy, so my struggle was really in toning down a lot of the fight scenes. I believe the threat always needs to equal or preferably exceed the determination of the characters fighting to defeat it. There needs to be a real element of doubt as to whether they’re equal to the task so that the reader can really visualise what might happen if they fail. It ups the stakes helps them invest more heavily in the story, which I thought was particularly important with a superheroine story – they can’t win too easily.
I also really like playing with expectations and surprising my characters in the most awful ways possible, because I’m a terrible person…
Was writing for a pre-existing property like Marvel a different process than other books that you’ve worked on?
It is very different in that I’m always conscious that there are only so many ways I can present characters that have existed in various forms for an extremely long time. It feels a bit like being trusted with something very precious and asked to both preserve it and present it in a new and exciting way at the same time. Which is a big ask!
With my own work, I can do whatever I like to my characters, and woe to any readers who think any of them are safe.
Fortunately, I also write for Black Library in their Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Horror IPs, so I’m used to sticking to guidelines that have been set for me. There’s a challenge that comes with colouring inside the lines of existing characters, so to speak, and a freedom that comes with choosing which colours to use where.
Are there any other Marvel heroes that you’d like to write for?
Ooh, lots! I really enjoyed giving Sif and Brunnhilde the prominence they deserve where the story and the quest is theirs, rather than given to the traditional (male) heroes. Because I write epic fantasy, I’m particularly suited to Asgardians, I think, but if I was ever going to delve into the modern era heroes, I think I’d have a lot of fun with a She-Hulk book.
What can we look forward to seeing from you in the future?
I’m at the extremely early stages of tossing about some ideas for another Marvel book, but nothing that I can talk about at the moment.
Other than that, the second book in my Songs of the Drowned trilogy – which began with The Stone Knife – is due out in 2022, as is a Black Library project that hasn’t yet been announced so I can’t talk about yet!
I also have a Patreon account where I write a short piece of original fiction each month, as well as providing drafting updates and discussing the editing process for longer works.
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