Off to the rave

There's some suggestion that the Vikings preferred dying at home because then they could join the family in death, and Hel was believed to be a neutral place like the world of the living, not the cold, wet and boring place the Christians later said it was. If that's true, going to Valhalla was probably a perk of dying in battle. You couldn't be with you loved ones, but you got to party in Valhalla.