In class, we went over the story about Tyr and Fenrir, how Tyr sacrificed his hand in order to bind the wolf. Now, I don’t think it will surprise any of us that the god of justice binding the wolf is generally seen as a sacrifice for the greater good. That motif of course popped up in class. However, something we did talk about is there was an agreement, or at least implied agreement, that the gods weren’t supposed to be trying any funny business with Fenrir.
This reading would imply Tyr, the god of justice, broke his word to bind the wolf. In short, implying a necessity to do wrong in order to bind chaos. It also would put the gods and goddesses in the wrong, in this case.
What are our thoughts?
I've talked about this before in different ways and at different times, and I think this story is one that should be understood in an almost entirely poetic/figurative way. Fenrir, the wolf, is outlawry and chaos and strife (since wolves were regularly used this way in the literature of the time). Gleipnir, made up of things that don't exist, is that which keeps outlawry from overwhelming Midgard. Justice, honor, law, mercy, love, and all the other abstract concepts that mostly exist because we collectively agree they exist are the sorts of things that bind the Wolf. The gods, including Tyr (whose name basically means "god"), create and make use of these things that don't concretely exist. They also employ a frequently used strategy of theirs: making a very carefully crafted agreement that means something rather different than what their opponent understand the agreement to be.
Law and Order aren't real in the same way that, say, rocks and trees are. They still function, however, and their functioning sometimes requires some very careful manipulation