5 Mythical Warriors Felled By Incredibly Stupid Loopholes

5 Achilles

Of course, we have to start with the guy whose heel is responsible for the term that describes this sort of thing. This is the story you’re most likely to already be familiar with, but here’s a brief summary anyway: Achilles’ mom, Thetis, wanted an immortal son. To accomplish this, she held baby Achilles and dipped him in the River Styx, but in the same way you cannot cover an entire chip in queso with one dip due to the interference of your pinched fingers, so was Achilles left with a single undipped spot: his heel.

After countless battles where his heel simply didn’t enter into the equation, finally, an enemy learned of his lone caveat and hit him in the heel with an arrow. A heel wound that, I guess, killed him? That part’s still strange to me. If your heel is your only weak point, why not cut off that foot? Could he even have something amputated? We have to stop before we get further into the weeds here.

4 Siegfried

The origin of Siegfried’s invincibility might be even more metal than a bath in the River Styx. Apparently, after slaying a dragon, Siegfried bathed in its blood to earn his invincibility. Like Achilles, however, he hit a snag when it came to one specific bit of his surface area. A leaf fell on him while he was bloodying himself all over, leaving a weak point right between his shoulders.

This might have been even more annoying than Achilles’ deal because first of all, a leaf? Secondly, “the space between your shoulder blades” is so much worse to have as your weak spot than a heel. That’s like the first place anybody would try to stab you, which is precisely how Siegfried met his end, getting stabbed with a spear in the back. Honestly, I’m more surprised nobody ever managed to get him there by accident.

3 Baldr

From a young age, Baldr had dreams of his own death, which understandably worried his mother, Frigg. She made a list of everything she could think of that could kill her sweet son, and went around, making everything in the world swear not to harm him. Apparently, Baldr was an absolute legend, because everything agreed.

Well, everything that was asked. Here’s where famous trickster Loki enters the picture, and finds out from Baldr’s mother that there was one thing she just straight up figured would be fine: mistletoe. Since the Norse gods knew how to throw a fucking party, they were all celebrating Baldr’s new invulnerability by hurling stuff at him and watching it do nothing. Except that Loki had snuck off and made a spear out of mistletoe wood. He handed it to Baldr’s brother Hod (Loki was a real dick), and Hod watched his secret mistletoe spear shish-kebab his bro, who died instantly. 

Loki left the party after that, which was probably the right move.

2 Diarmuid O’ Duibhne

I’m not particularly familiar with Irish mythology, but I might have to get into it after reading about Diarmuid O’Duibhne. He was a great warrior, but he had a strange geasa, which is a sort of unbreakable vow: He would never pierce the skin of a pig. 

This was all a man named Roc needed to hear. Roc’s son had been killed by Diarmuid’s father Donn, when Donn crushed him between his thighs like a watermelon. Roc then resurrected his son as a boar, knowing that Diarmuid wouldn’t be able to strike him. Literal decades later, Diarmuid was hunting when this son-boar charged him, and his geasa made him hesitate before striking it with the pommel of his sword instead, but not quick enough to stop the boar from fatally goring him.

1 The Witch King of Angmar

A little more of a modern bit of mythology, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most badass “um, actually”s ever uttered. The Witch King of Angmar in The Lord of the Rings’ deal is that “no man can kill him.” Unfortunately, his backwards views on gender were his undoing, when he was slain by Eowyn, who was famously “no man.”