Boots And His Brothers
This graph shows the positive, negative, and neutral actions of characters in "Boots And His Brothers". Boots is the most active character, followed by his brothers as these interactions drove the narrative. The brothers, father, and King all have negative actions as their purpose in the tale is to doubt Boots. Each of the objects have positive actions as their purpose is to assist boots. Boots has mostly neutral actions as he does not need to do anything positive to complete the task he simply did what felt natural.
This graph shows how the characters are described in "Boots And His Brothers". The only character who recieved significant description is the father, who was described to have a poor life to set up the need to accomplish the King's task. The other characters recieve neutral descriptions and are defined by their actions.
Boots And The Troll
This graph shows the positive, negative, and neutral actions of characters in "Boots And The Troll". Boots is the most active character as well as the only character with positive actions. The troll has the most negative actions, followed by the brother. This makes sense as the Troll literally tried to kill Boots and the brother was setting Boots up for the Troll. The other characters are not very active and are either negatively doubting Boots or neutrally observing the situation.
This graph shows how the characters are described in "Boots And The Troll". The descriptors fit the expectation as Boots is heavily positive as he is the hero of the tale and the brother is heavily negative as he attempts to set Boots up to die. The family recieved negative descriptors as well to set up Boots and his brothers as coming from a struggling family.
Boots Who Ate A Match With The Troll
This graph shows the positive, negative, and neutral actions of character in "Boots Who Ate A Match With The Troll". Suprisingly, the Troll and the family members have the same amount of negative actions. This is because while the Troll was threatening, once he was tricked by Boots he was neutral and positive. This is seen as Boots and the Troll together have only positive actions. Boot's family had negative actions because they doubted him.
This graph shows how the characters are described in "Boots Who Ate A Match With The Troll". The only character described in this tale is the father, who is described negatively to show that the family is struggling financially making it more important to defeat the Troll. The other characters are defined by their actions.
Boots, Who Made The Princess Say, "That's A Story"
This graph shows the positive, negative, and neutral actions of the characters in "Boots, Who Made The Princess Say, "That's A Story"". The only character who truly acts in this tale is Boots, and his actions are positive as he is able to tell the Princess a story that grasps her attention. All other attempts would be considered neutral.
This graph shows how the characters are described in "Boots, Who Made The Princess Say, "That's A Story"". The only character who is described in this tale is the Princess and she is described negativly as the goal of the tale is to change or prove wrong her negative description.
East O'The Sun And West O' The Moon
From this graph, it is clear that the Winds’ actions are looked at in a positive light. This makes sense, as they are aiding the daughter to find the castle throughout the story. When examining the actions of the White Bear/Prince, it seems as though the Prince’s actions are characterized as more positive overall. That is not to say that in his bear form he is conveyed as purely negative, but in this instance, it can be claimed that he is more strictly positive in his human form. It also makes sense that the actions of the daughter are positive, while the stepmother and Princess (who in this case is really a Troll) are looked at negatively.
When examining descriptors in this tale, the results largely align with those of the characters’ actions. The Winds are again described in a positive manner, although the narrator does cast the North Wind in a negative light. However, when the South Wind describes the North Wind, it is overwhelmingly positive, as in the last graph. Here, both the White Bear and the Prince are described positively by the narrator. Similar to the actions, the Prince’s descriptors have a stronger positive relationship than that of the bear. Curiously, the only descriptors for the daughter are given by herself. These are negative, as she is doubtful of herself throughout the story. Long Nose (the troll Princess) is described negatively by all of those who spoke of her, as are the Trolls that appear at the end of the story.
Taming The Shrew
The characters in this story do not have very many actions between them, since all actions are simply impressions that result as descriptions. The resolution of the story, the matrimony of the Princess and Boots, is the main positive action that happens, all otherwise interactions between the characters can be seen as negative, contrasting with the overall resolution action.
While Taming the Shrew is a very short tale, it does give insight into the character's dispositions and representations. The Princess is put forward in her descriptions as an overall negative character through her descriptions between characters. Boots however, is first portrayed as a handsome bachelor, but transitions into a michevious schemer with his negative description and actions towards the princess. Boots, while seemingly the hero of the story, who claims the Princess as his bride, is actually put forward in a negative light due to the method in which he achieves his goal.
Tatterhood
In the bar chart, we can see that are heroine, Tatterhood, had the most number of positive actions. She has three times the number of positive actions against any other character, supporting that in this tale she is the heroine, along with her overall character being of a positive nature. In this tale, there was no solid villain. The witches could be considered due to them reeking havoc on Christmas eve, causing striff to Tatterhood’s younger twin, however they only appear for a limited portion of the tale, so not much data was collected from them. Overall, their action count only was negative so we can assume our perception of the character being bad/evil.
In this graph we are visualizing the character dynamics between other characters. For the most part, other characters' perception of our heroine is mostly thought as negative throughout the tale for they see her as being ugly. It is not until the end of the tale where they can see Tatterhood is indeed beatiful, however these misconceptions were not added to the graph so in this case the misconceptions are irrelevant. The giant pink circle connecting the Prince and Tatterhood indicated that the Prince spoke negatively about Tatterhood on numerous occasions, along the lines of her ugliness. However, when we compare the two graphs together, although many spoke ill of Tatterhood, our heroine continued only to help others, seen by her positive count in the action graph.
The Cock And The Hen That Went To The Dovrefell
As is typical of the fox in folklore, the fox in this tale is overwhelmingly negative. This makes sense, as he did roast the birds and feast on them at the end of the tale. If the fox can be described as mischievous, then the Duck and Hen can be described as innocent and good-hearted. The graph illustrates this description, with both having overall positive actions. Notably, the Hen has much more positive actions than the duck, which can be explained by his heroic actions at the end of the tale.
While this story did not have many descriptors of the characters themselves, the one description that does appear is of the “Fox’s Earth”. Being described by the fox himself as overwhelmingly positive, this relationship conveys the narcissism of the fox. From the last graph, it is made clear the fox is a negative character, and this description shows the reader that he views himself and his world in a positive light. Although the reader views the fox as negative, it is interesting to see that he would beg to differ.
The Fox As Herdsman
In The Fox As Herdsman tale, our “villain” is the fox for his duplicity. The fox only demonstrates negative actions, such as eating all the animals in the herd he was supposed to be watching, and later eating all of the cream his boss, the woman was making. There was no hero for this tale, since this tale was more for giving information as to why the end of a fox’s tail is white compared to the rest of it’s body.
In the character dynamic chart, we can see that the fox is only perceived negatively, correlating with its duplicitous nature, allowing us to assume that foxes in Norse tales are presented as evil/bad.
The Giant Who Had No Heart In His Body
From the action bar chart, we can see that Boots, our hero, demonstrated the most number of positive actions, correlating with the title of being a hero. He goes on a journey to save his siblings from a Giant, and is able to do so with the aid of a Princess. Typically in Norse mythology, giant’s are perceived as the enemy of humans, only causing chaos or malice towards them. This perception is also seen in the bar chart for the Giant has the most number of negative actions, such as freezing our hero’s brother along with their wives into stone. The only positive action of the Giant is when he returns the brothers to their human form, however that is only because he is blackmailed into doing so, not of his own volition.
Based on the character dynamics graph, we can see that our villain, the Giant is most spoken about negatively. The only time he is spoken about positively is during his death when he explodes, for the death of a giant is better for the humans. Our hero, Boots is only perceieved in a postive nature, correlating with the assumption that he is good/righteous. The Princess, or heroine, is also spoken about in a positive manner, correlating with the assumption that she is also good.
The Lad Who Went To The North Wind
Immediately, it is notable that the actions of the North Wind are cast in a negative light. This makes sense, as in the beginning of the story, he is not initially cooperative with the lad. However, as the story goes on, it is clear that he does want to help the lad. Because of this, the graph can be a bit misleading in fully conveying the actions of the North Wind. The lad himself has a mix of positive and negative actions, although there are slightly more negative. This is reasonable, as he does partake in what can be seen as negative actions. There is some nuance in this however, as his negative actions are not done maliciously, but out of necessity. The landlord, on the other hand, does conduct his negative actions in a malicious manner, thus justifying the amount of negativity present on the graph.
For descriptors, the North Wind is again described in a negative manner by the narrator. However, lending some credence to the idea that this outcome might be a bit misleading, the lad speaks of the North Wind in an overall positive manner. This makes sense, as the North Wind does display gracious qualities throughout the tale. The landlord is again spoken about in a negative manner, further illustrating his nature of mischievousness.
The Master Thief
The Master Thief is a story of transformations. The important thing to note, is while the Youth is shown to be different than the Master Thief, this is due to a transformation that occurs, in reality they are the same character. The first thing to note is the minute positive actions of the Youth, in comparison to the load of negative ones. This is due to the Youth's transition to the master thief, becoming more and more malicious as the story progresses. This transformation is good insight into the story's portrayal of how power corrupts, eventually leading the Master Thief to continue perpetrating larger and larger acts of larceny.
The relationships in the Master thief are complicated at best. While the Master Thief steals from almost everyone he encounters, he usually makes it a game of sorts, one the other party thinks they can win. Of course regardless the Master Thief comes out on top, and eventually proposes more and more outlandish bets. These negative opinions of other characters are reflected in the Master Thief's winning and boasting, which draws the negativity of the crowd. The master thief at one point in his tale transforms into a Goose and an Angel. To the end however, it is to decieve a Priest and win a bet that he made. In doing so, the Master Thief is defiling something holy, not only with the Priest but by performing trickery under the guise of an Angel.
Why The Sea Is Salt
This story is a tale of twisting fates, and greed. As such, the Devil himself makes an appearance. Ironcally though, the Devil, whi is regarding as an evil character does not make any particularly leaning actions throughout the tale. In contrast, the greedy characters in the story who are envious up until their demise, are listed as having negative or neutral actions only. These characters, the Skipper and the Rich Brother all meet their fates consistent with Justice for their greed. The other major character in the tale, is the protagonist, the Poor Brother (who becomes the Rich Brother Ironically). This character can be seen with positive and negative actions, this is due to the character's transformation in character. As the Poor Brother gained power, he took reparations against his Rich Brother who wronged him and eventually maliciously deciving the Skipper, ultimately leader towards his demise.
Similarly to the action chart, the descriptions display a general air of negativity for the characters. This is in line with the constant themes of jealousy and greed that plagues the characters throughout the tale. The third person perspective, the narrator, also regards the characters as overwhelmingly negative in their descriptions and observations, furthering the point of negative outlook despite some minute positivity. The result of the story, and the fates of the characters take a higher precidence on the descriptions, resulting in an overwhelmingly negative impression.
Methods
One method we use to visualize data from the Norse tales is through a bar chart which will be known as our action graphs. The chart displays the perception of a character's actions in terms of positive, negative, and neutral. Though there are some markup inconsistencies where some tales were not marked up with neutral perceptions, only positive or negative. The graphs were generated using SVG. From the major y-axis (labeled zero; solid black line), the perceptions can go towards either of two directions. Going left, typically indicated by pink bars, demonstrates the negative action count of a character, while going towards the right demonstrates the positive/neutral (blue/yellow bars) action count of a character. We used these charts to assess if the perception of a character’s action correlates directly with their overall positivity/negativy. The neutral bars do not pertain much information for them, for they just indicate when a character did an action that was neither good or bad (hence the name neutral).
Another method we use to visualize data from the Norse tales is through a graph visualizing relationships in character descriptors. The main goal of the descriptor graphs are to visualize speakers’ perceptions of subjects in the tales. The size of the circle represents the strength of the relationship between two given characters, while the color represents the nature of that relationship, whether positive (blue) or negative (pink). The radius of the circle is calculated by subtracting the number of negative instances from positive instances, and then taking the absolute value of this number. If this subtraction results in a 0, a purple diamond is used to represent an overall neutral relationship. Through these visualizations, characters’ perceptions of each other are made more clear.