Hi! Does hel want to be in helheim?
The lore isn’t really explicit about it either way. Medieval Icelandic literature tends to give very few details about anyone's internal feelings or motives. We could speculate that she might be resentful over being exiled. Gylfaginning does describe her as “downcast and fierce-looking” (Anthony Faulkes translation.) However, we could also speculate that she enjoys ruling. Hel is not the Christian Hell, but a morally neutral underworld where the vast majority of people end up, regardless of how they lived their lives. They throw a feast for Baldr when he ends up there, meaning it’s not all doom and gloom.
But the question might be kind of moot to begin with, as it appears that at least some people might have understood Hel the goddess to be a personification of Hel the place. Helheim is a relatively modern term coined to make the distinction between the goddess and the place. The Old Norse texts just use Hel to refer to both.
Think of it like Aegir...he is a personification of the sea while also being literally the sea, with a name that just means "sea." It's not a matter of wanting to be there so much as, well, literally being there.
And as with all of Norse religion, there’s a very good chance that beliefs varied regionally and over time. There may not be one single “correct” answer.
While it's kind of old at this point and may not be 100% up to date in terms of recent scholarship. The Road to Hel by Hilda Rodereick Elilis (later Davidson) is a very accessible read that might be of interest to you.
- Mod E
