Originally Posted by
themarkus
Finally
As an example on what I mean about not "getting Aaron" I'll pose this. Aaron posed that he wanted to explore worthiness and what it meant to be Thor buuuuut.
1. Odin put that enchantment on Mjolnir to keep Thor modest and humble.
2. Gorr, a militant Atheist, thought all gods were unworthy of..... worship? Power? being called gods? Existing?
3. Thor fights Gorr and hears this, he feels a nagging suspicion that it might be true but it doesn't affect his opinion about himself.
4. Thor fights Nick Fury Sr., who says "I hope this makes you a better man." Paraphrased. Then whispers in Thor's ear "Gorr was right" and INSTANTLY Thor's not worthy.
5. Thor becomes depressed, consumed by the feelings of inadequacy. Jane picks up the hammer and is Worthy because there has to be a Thor.
6. Going with the whole Storm-in-hammer/Sentient mjolnir controlling who is worthy then it means that. Mjolnir/Motherstorm listened to Gorr and was on the fence because Thor still thought himself worthy, but when Nick Fury made Thor doubt himself, the Storm was suddenly on team Gorr. Worthyness to possess the power of Thor is determined by the hammer.
7. But Thor is then seen struggling to become Worthy of Mjolnir again, to again possess the powers of Thor. It's shown that it's not a binary Worthy/not worthy, it's a meter. If you are 1% worthy you can maybe lift the hammer off the ground or something. If you're 100% Worthy like Jane was, then the hammer will fight for you, it will create illusions or take your human form. It will talk to you.
8. So Thor is gone (in old Asgard) but when he comes back and finds that he's unworthy of Mjolnir. After the initial depressed sulking, when he wants to become worthy again, he doesn't look to the new Thor and try to emulate her. Instead he wants to know who she is. Meanwhile, Jane is basically doing Thor things. In Aaron's own words, she's not JanThor she's THOR. Ok.. So if She's worthy but her characterization is "Thor" just with some more feminist quips here and there then why was Thor unworthy? Because he thought he was? Because Jane is a human but has the same qualities as Thor? Because the Hammer says so?
9. We don't see any revelations from Thor Odinsson. He doesn't figure out what makes the hammer think you are worthy. At the end of the fight vs Mangog when the hammer was destroyed in the sun, he could just barely hold a small pebble (which Jane could easily drop in his hand).
10. Then Thor is back and he's unworthy, but he's back to doing Thor things but now he's also drinking too much and living on a boat. He's having a lot of issues with his father. But he is still not worthy. I assume, but the pebble is never referenced again.
11. War of the realms comes around and Thor does more Thor things and ends up in the Sun, he releases the Mother Storm over Earth, rebuilds the hammer and is Worthy again. Why? Apparently through sacrifice of Mjolnir/his eye. What I've said here others have said before and much more eloquently. I've merely made a list to encapsulate my way of thinking.
Worthiness is, according to Aaron determined by either.
A) The Hammer/Enchantment
B) The Storm
C) Thor Odinsson.
If Gorr was right, then all gods are unworthy of the Power of Thor/the God-Tempest/a weapon to hit things REALLY hard because all gods are Uncaring assholes. But apparently mortals are as long as they fulfill Thor's ideals. Though Gorr can't be right because if he was, then Thor should be inherently unworthy.
If the Enchantment/Hammer determines worthiness, then self-doubt should not mean that you are unworthy unless thinking you are unworthy makes you unworthy in which case, you must apparently think or know that you are worthy to lift it but then it means that lifting the hammer every morning or every fifth minute in the bath to see if you are worthy makes you unworthy because you aren't certain you are worthy. If this is the case, then Nick Fury telling Thor that Gorr was right should make Thor unworthy. But Odin can't lift the hammer either and Odin either thinks he is worthy (or knows he is) or he assumes he can circumvent the Enchantment and doesn't have to be worthy. I either case, Odin did not talk with Thor about this and even though he might have thought Gorr was right, because Odin's opinions (according to Aaron) on how Gods should treat humans are pretty obvious. But that shouldn't matter because Odin wouldn't put an enchantment on the hammer that said you had to care for humans to be worthy....... But apparently he did and he is unworthy of the hammer? But he wanted Thor to be humble and being humble CLEARLY means that you need to care for humans/midgard. Something Thor didn't stop doing even when he thought he was unworthy. But then why is Odin unable to lift the hammer? He cannot bypass the enchantment to not be an asshole to humans by being the All-father, but he clearly thinks he's worthy of lifting it because he's the All-father but only those who are humble and care about humans can lift it but then why can't Thor lift it? Raaaaah!
Moving on.
If The Storm decides who is worthy, and if doing things that Thor would do makes you worthy in the hammer's eyes. Then how could the hammer think Gorr was right when Gorr murdered millions of innocent gods and used an evil necrosludge weapon? And why did Nick Fury telling Thor Odinsson that Gorr was right have any effect on the Storm deciding who is worthy? Is Nick Fury the absolute Authority on who gets to use Magical hammers? Otherwise, why does the Storm care? If the Storm just hated gods then why could Thor or Odin lift it to begin with? Either way, if what Gorr said was true, then the Storm's opinion wouldn't matter unless the hammer was evil and thought that all gods should die? And if that's the case, how was Thor worthy of lifting it in the first place?
Finally.
If worthiness is based on Thor Odinsson's opinion on whether you should be worthy or not and the Hammer listens to Thor's subconscious. Then it means that him doubting himself about being worthy and picking up the hammer every fifth minute to check is just something he does for fun? because he deep down would "feel" he was worthy? But if he doubts himself, then he cannot be the source from whence worthiness comes because he is worthy of the hammer and if he feels/is worthy then he should not doubt it. But since he does doubt his worthiness he cannot be the reason he is worthy? I mean, people are complex and can hold different opinions and thoughts about things but here it should be pretty clear. Even IF the worthiness is a 0-100% scale him feeling worthy would mean he's worthy. But it would mean also that days when he felt unworthy he would become so and then he would feel even less unworthy until he changed his way of thinking and that's clearly not the case.
So in conclusion. Aaron hasn't actually defined what makes one worthy of Mjolnir or as a God. He's actually complicated it from "You are worthy in the eyes of Odin" to the mess above. Cates however are taking some steps to define how Aaron's worthiness works. Also, I'm only talking about things Aaron's written. Involve anything before that from Fraction or JMS and everything Aaron says about Hammer Worthiness becomes completely nonsensical.