Norse by Norsewest



"''My name is Inga, and I'm from Sweden,

I could fall in love with you!

If you meet me, on Ibiza,

I can show you how to party too!''"

- Inga From Sweden, "My Name is Inga"

A sort of generic northern blend of Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Everyone is liberal, blond and absolutely gorgeous. The streets are clean, the people are intelligent and creative, it always snows, they have Ikea and saunas, and the area pumps out an amazing amount of hot foreign exchange students (both male and female) with cute accents to tempt American high school students. The chances of meeting a pair of beautiful, buxom, blonde twins who won't rule out a Twincestuous threesome with any given tourist is uncannily high.

Everyone either skis or snowboards, and eats a lot of chocolate. About the only other thing anyone remembers is that LEGO was invented here.

On the rare occasions when negative stereotypes of Scandinavians are shown, the stereotype of choice is to portray them as painfully naive. Finns are known to be violent when their Berserk Button is pressed.

Going back a little farther in time, one might have seen the region crawling with Valkyries, Vikings and trolls.

Named for a certain port of The Lost Vikings II.

Anime and Manga

 * The Ensemble Darkhorse Nordics in Axis Powers Hetalia are rather attractive, both purposely by the creator and in countless fanarts.
 * Subverted with Sweden and Denmark. While both are handsome, tall and blond, Sweden is reserved and sort of terrifying, while Denmark is an alcoholic that may or may not be a crazy Stepford Smiler.

Commercials

 * The Swedish Bikini Team, who first appeared in Old Milwaukee beer commercials and became something of a pop-culture phenomenon in the early '90s.

Film
"Ophelia (In disguise): Hello I am Inga, from Sweden!
 * Beowulf. More trolls, fewer Ikeas. The 2007 film even has Grendel speak Old English, and one or two references to "sea raiders".
 * And an awful lot of mountains. In Denmark. Uh, no.
 * Trading Places, the Sweden/Switzerland confusion is Lampshaded in this conversation on the train on New Years Eve:

Coleman (Disguised, more accurately, as a priest): But you're wearing...Lederhosen..?"


 * In Earth Girls Are Easy, it's Finland that seems to be confused with Switzerland. The movie features a TV ad where two bikini-clad blonde woman invite the viewer to come Finland, whilst showing scenes of Alpine skiing and yodeling. While skiing is indeed quite popular in Finland, yodeling most certainly isn't.
 * Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson from Mel Brooks's The Producers.
 * Played in the remake by actual Norse woman(well, Norse-American, anyway) Uma Thurman.
 * It's possible that the now mostly-forgotten Trope Maker for the portrayal of Sweden (and by extension the rest of the Norselands) as "sexy" was the Mondo Movie Sweden: Heaven And Hell. Now much more infamous for being the original source of The Muppets' "Mah Na Mah Na".
 * King Ralph features the King and Queen of Finland as minor characters. Unlike Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Finland is not (and has never been) a monarchy. When questioned about it by the Finnish media, the film-makers claimed this was supposed to be an intentional lampshading of Hollywood Atlas.

Literature

 * Terry Jones's book The Saga of Erik the Viking which lent its name but not its plot to Terry Jones's film Erik the Viking.
 * In Mike Nelson's Death Rat!, by Mike Nelson, a group of Danish agents pursue the protagonist at the behest of his rival. They are portrayed as brave, intelligent, and exceptionally capable in matters of surveillance and hand-to-hand combat, but woefully awkward, excessively proper, and prone to apologizing profusely for things like using "sauna" as both a noun and a verb.

Music

 * Inga From Sweden, the page quote.

Newspaper Comics

 * Hagar the Horrible

Webcomics

 * Scandinavia and The World manages to both avert this and play it straight. The comic shows the Nordic countries' stereotypes of each other rather than the Hollywood stereotype of them, and goes out the way to show that the countries have their own distinct cultures.
 * Out of all the characters, Sister Sweden plays this trope the straightest, although that's possibly not the best word choice in this context.
 * Iceland and his sister are beautiful, although Sister Iceland is rather flat.
 * A sauna makes an appearance in one comic and is referenced in another.
 * Othar from Girl Genius is orignially from Norway. He's blond, handsome and utterly insane.

Western Animation

 * Vicky The Viking
 * UK children's animated series The Saga of Noggin the Nog. (As told by the Men of the North Lands.)
 * Metalocalypse does this too, having both Sweden and Norway appear like this in their respective episodes. With Skwisgaar and Toki hailing from said countries, it makes for several related jokes. Especially when Skwisgaar's mother appears. They also burn down Finland and kill the Queen of Denmark (whom Skwisgaar thinks is Dutch).