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In Thor: Ragnarok, we learn that the eternal flame of Asgard could re-animate people then why wouldn't they use it to bring back people close to Thor? Does the eternal flame reanimate only evil people?

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    Spoilers incoming After watching the movie, I reckon that the eternal flame only reanimates someone's body alone - not what makes them who they are (their soul, if you believe in that). So when the Goddess of Death used the eternal flame to reanimate the army of dead warriors and her wolf, it was so that she would have an army under her complete influence (soul not included). I feel that if this is the case, why would Thor or Loki have any motives for "resurrecting" their dead parents? Besides, Odin doesn't exactly have a body to reanimate anyway, so yeah...
    – XeLa
    Oct 31, 2017 at 3:31
  • Yes, I was thinking along those lines too but the 'dog' just seemed back to life in a soul having, free minded but loyal to Hela way. The skeletal warriors definitely weren't back in 'living' way :D
    – user76639
    Nov 3, 2017 at 1:05
  • Actually I got the impression it was the missing infinity stone. Its the right colour after all. Nobody really tried to use it as such. Nov 3, 2017 at 14:35
  • Except we already know Odin doesn't want to keep two stones so close together.
    – OrangeDog
    Nov 3, 2017 at 14:46
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    Spoiler "not what makes them who they are (their soul, if you believe in that)" although when the fire guy came back he remember what his purpose in life was ... to destroy Asgard
    – Mike
    Nov 8, 2017 at 18:21

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During Thor : Ragnarok, the Eternal Flame is explained to be the true power of Surtur, along with his crown. When you combine Surtur's crown with the Eternal Flame, you are able to resurrect Surtur and bring out his true form, which is able to destroy Asgard singlehandedly.

Conversely, we've seen Hela resurrect Fenrir and her army through use of the Eternal Flame... albeit it took on a distinctly green color, which is associated with Hela, never with Surtur. Here's my guesses :

  1. Only Surtur can fully resurrect through the Eternal Flame. Hela was only able to twist the artefact through her own magic so she could summon her army from the dead. They all have a limited, animalistic level of conscience with absolute loyalty to Hela. I don't believe Fenrir being seemingly "intelligent" is a plot-hole, as he's roughly as smart as the average zombie soldier from what we've seen.
  2. The Eternal Flame can resurrect any and all dead creatures, though it only gives them a limited amount of intelligence. Basically the same as before, but anyone can wield it.

Personally, I believe guess number 1 to be true. We've seen Loki's illusion and various magic spells to often devolve into or stem from green arcanic energy, which when combined with Hela's own emerald color, would mean Asgardian magic (shared by both Hela and Loki, although on differing scales) is simply green.

Now Hela is an uber-powerful warlock on par with Odin, which indicates a very high level of power is needed to trifle with the Eternal Flame. Hela openly dissing the Space Stone also confirms the Eternal Flame's power is far higher. Given that Odin is the only other individual who could have wielded that flame, and given he is an irrational racist certainly unwilling to manipulate Surtur's magic + the Eternal Flame does not seem to grant sentience, it's pretty obvious why they never used it on Thor's mother.

They didn't want a zombie grandma lying around.

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    Sorry, Odin's an irrational racist?
    – OrangeDog
    Feb 7, 2019 at 20:28

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