Looks like the end of the To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts anime. Flawed as it was, I really enjoyed it. In this final episode, the antagonist, Cain Madhouse, bids farewell to our heroes(?) Hank and Schaal with a passing reference that caught my narratological eye:

“It’s a shame, but it appears

the time has come for me to go.

Let us meet again, Hank.

And you as well, the next Gleipnir girl.”

Gleipnir? I’m relatively sure this name has not been used in the series until now. That was the name of a special chain that the gods forged (or, more accurately, “asked” the dwarves to forge) in Norse mythology. You see, there was this giant wolf, Fenrir, whom even the gods feared. So it took them three tries, but they got a chain strong enough to restrain him. Word on the Asgard streets was that Gleipnir would hold Fenrir until Ragnarok. So the gods were just doing their part to put off the end of the world.*

So Cain is calling Schaal a chain that holds back a wolf. A wolf like… Hank?

Hank in his Incarnate form. Even heroes have their dog days.

Schaal does help Hank not to give in to his wolf side completely, as Cain tries to goad him into doing. Hank seems to benefit from having a woman around to keep him grounded in humanity. His first one was Elaine, the creator of the Incarnate program. Up until she betrayed and shot him, her presence embodied his hope. (Then Cain shot and killed her.) Schaal exerts a balancing influence on Hank, making her the next “Gleipnir girl”. If true, then Schaal might well be moving up on Cain’s hit list.

Or maybe this was just Cain’s way of telling his old war buddy to ditch the old “baIl and chain”. Epic burn, my friend!

Note

  • Oh, for the good old days, when all we had to worry about was epic wolves and the deaths of the gods…!