John Gwynne’s The Hunger of the Gods argues that the institution of thralldom—the word used in this fictional world for enslavement—is a corrupting force that dehumanizes both the enslaved and the enslaver, breeding a violent resentment that ultimately fuels societal collapse. The brutal system of controlling the gods and their descendants through enslavement is not a sustainable power structure but a catalyst for an apocalyptic backlash. The novel shows how stripping individuals of their agency and treating them as property directly leads to the formation of revolutionary movements and the unleashing of destructive powers, suggesting that a society built on such subjugation will inevitably be consumed by the violence it creates.

The experience of enslavement erases identity and familial bonds, leaving the enslaved with a singular, overriding desire for either freedom or vengeance. This is most clearly seen in the thralls’ shifting loyalties. Kráka and Ilmur are both thralled to the Battle-Grim but betray them without hesitation to join the Raven-Feeders. Their decision is not driven by malice but by the promise of liberation: They never chose to join the Battle-Grim, and they feel no obligation of loyalty toward those who have enslaved them. Similarly, Varg’s journey begins when he kills his owner, Kolskegg, an act of rebellion against a life of servitude that sets him on a path to find agency among the Bloodsworn. For these characters, the bonds of thralldom are chains to be broken by any means necessary, and loyalty belongs only to those who offer a way to break them.

The privileged of this world are just as morally corroded by the system they perpetuate. They view the “Tainted” not as people but as objects, tools, or status symbols. Jarl Störr’s power is defined by his collection of enslaved Berserkir, whom he forces to fight for him. The language used to describe Berak, a member of Störr’s Berserkir army, illustrates the distance between enslavers’ perceptions of the enslaved and their own self-perceptions. The capture of Berak by Agnar and his sale to Störr is treated as a simple business transaction, a trade in valuable property notated perfunctorily in the book’s summary prologue: “Jarl Störr purchases the Berserkir Berak from Agnar” (xxvi). Later, when Elvar bargains with the enslaved Seiðr-witch Uspa, Berak’s wife, Uspa speaks of him in a very different way: “If I do this, you will free my husband as well” (60). To Uspa, Berak is not property but a beloved husband, and she looks “deep into Elvar’s eyes” for confirmation that she will free the man she loves (60).

The novel presents the rise of Lik-Rifa and her army as the ultimate and inevitable consequence of this systemic oppression. The Raven-Feeders’ mission is explicitly framed as a revolutionary war to end the enslavement of the Tainted. After freeing Kráka and Ilmur, Myrk promises, “Never again will you wear a thrall-collar, little hound. Lik-Rifa’s freedom is the first step to freeing all the thralled Tainted in Vigrið” (48). Lik-Rifa herself consolidates her power by positioning herself as a liberator, telling the abducted children that their parents betrayed them and that she is their true mother. By weaponizing their trauma, she transforms the victims of an oppressive system into the vanguard of an army poised to destroy it. Seeking only her own power, she threatens to enslave or destroy humanity—ironically, exactly the outcome the humans were trying to prevent when they enslaved the gods in the first place.