Summary

• Hellblade 2 explores Celtic lore with the giants representing human suffering in 10th-century Iceland.
• Giants in Hellblade 2 symbolize natural disasters and evil people, offering varying insights.
• Senua's confrontation with giants in the original Hellblade reflects her deep-rooted fear of death.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 focuses a lot of the game's main narrative on overcoming the giants plaguing the land. Although the original Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice focused on the mythological creatures for the final events in the game, the second game further explores these concepts in some meaningful ways. That said, because of the allegorical nature of the game, it's natural that confusion may arise when trying to understand certain key elements, like Senua's relationship with the giants.

[Warning: Spoilers below for Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice & Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2]

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was an experimental narrative action game developed by Ninja Theory and released in 2017. It centers around a Celtic warrior named Senua who is traveling to Helheim to save the soul of her love, Dillion. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, released May 21, 2024, revisits the concept of giants but transforms them in a huge way symbolically to help drive a new narrative in the sequel. One which sees Senua eventually rise as a hero to the people.

Hellblade 1's Giant Reveals Senua's Fear Of Death

The common consensus among Hellblade players is that Senua's battle with Hela represents Senua overcoming her fear of death. While Senua struggles with many representations of her psychosis, such as Valraven and his power to create hallucinations, her driving force is her fear of death - both of her own and of those she loves. Naturally, she faces that fear head-on when she confronts Hela and her Hel-Walkers (who also appear in God of War's next sequel, Ragnarok) in the game's final act.

The goddess of death takes the form of a giant human figure that is pale white on her right side, and a charcoal black on her left. Though Senua is victorious, seemingly overcoming her fears, in Hellblade 2, the giants take on a different significance. This is likely alluding to Senua now leading a tribe of Celts through Hellblade 2's new and unfamiliar Icelandic vistas with the knowledge that her choices have a significant effect on the people around her.

Hellblade 2 Reinvents Senua's Relationship With The Giants

Giants Represent The Horrors Of The 10th Century

Hellblade's approach toward mental health made it truly impactful, specifically its depiction of psychosis, in both its narrative and gameplay. In her journey through the first game, she must battle with various entities that are representative of her own struggles, trauma, and fears. This all culminates in her final confrontation with Hela.

Though Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice ended on a rather sobering somber note, where reality finally comes into focus, and it appears as if Senua had really been fighting her own demons the entire game, Hellblade 2 takes a different approach. This time, integrating much more of Celtic lore into the main narrative, the Pictish warrior's interactions with the giants this time around are focused outward to negative elements in Senua's world in 10th century Iceland. Not only this but in Hellblade 2, Senua gets confirmation of these giants via outside characters.

Senua is overall an unreliable narrator, as she suffers from psychosis and hallucinations as a result of her mental illness. That said, by the end of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, it's heavily implied that at least some, if not the majority, of events that occur in the game also happen to other characters in the narrative, lending credence to the fact that in Hellblade's universe, mythological giants and monsters do exist, and they are a plague to the people living in the area.

Hellblade 2 Introduces New Giants

Illtauga & Saegeirr Represent More

Rather than representing the internal struggle in Senua's mind, in Hellblade 2, giants represent natural disasters like volcano eruptions as well as people who caused suffering to others or experienced intense suffering themselves. In order to defeat the giants, Senua must know the giant's true name. During the first interaction when she is navigating around molten lava, the first giant is named Illtauga.

Like many things in Hellblade 2, there are multiple elements to Illtauga's character. Not only does she represent the physical threat of volcano eruptions to people, but she also represents a woman who lost her child, a sentiment and corresponding sorrow that, unfortunately, Senua can closely relate to. Returning her baby to the giant helps provide closure to Illtauga, thus ending her suffering and reverting her from her monstrous form into a burnt memory, holding her child.

Most recently, Iceland experienced a volcanic eruption on March 16, 2024, on the Reykjanes peninsula.

The next giant, Saegeirr or Sjavárrisi, is a representation of giant tropical storms, hurricanes, or just the powerful sea, which during the 10th century would wreak havoc across coastal towns that relied on the ocean for virtually everything. He is represented by a monstrous giant with a torn mouth who uses his arms to move himself. Eventually, upon reaching the eye of the storm and saying his name, Saegeirr can finally rest, with the Hiddenfolk whispering, "Every monster was once a man."

This is further elaborated in a previous underwater scene, where Saegeirr's experience as a human is described. Saegeirr was a man whose lands were taken over by marauders, and who betrayed his villager's leader to appease them. For this, he was outcast, and would eventually allow the sea to consume him, turning him into the giant Sjavárrisi.

What Do Hellblade 2's Giant's Mean?

The Giants Have Many Meanings

Unlike the original Hellblade which almost exclusively focuses on Senua's trauma and suffering, Hellblade 2 tackles elements of suffering among society during 10th century Iceland. The sometimes brutal conditions that both humanity and the elements wrought on the people during this time period were impactful, and each giant explores the suffering of an entire population of people rather than a sole individual in Senua. The giants, while still at times representing elements of Senua's emotions, also represent the outward world and the struggles of people.

Viewed from a mythological lens, the giants can also represent actual giants that Senua is able to defeat in Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 as a result of her being a seer. This casts her in a heroic light with a unique ability to kill them, something no one else in the narrative has been able to do. Although the final giant fight is much more allegorical in nature than the first two giant battles, this could still hold true if looked at literally, as it does maintain ties with Norse mythology.