  Study of the polarization of supernovae has suggested that the core collapse
process may be intrinsically strongly asymmetric. There is a tentative trend
for supernova with smaller envelopes showing more polarization, with Type Ic
having the smallest envelopes and showing the largest polarization. The recent
discovery of the unusual supernova SN 1998bw and its apparent correlation with
the gamma-ray burst GRB~980425 has raised new issues concerning both the
gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. SN 1998bw resembled a Type Ic, but was
unusually bright at maximum light in the optical and radio, and its expansion
velocities were large. This makes SN 1998bw a possible candidate for a
"hypernova" with explosion energies exceeding 10^52 erg. We show that the light
curve of SN 1998bw can be understood as the result of viewing an aspherical
explosion roughly along the symmetry axis of an exploding, non-degenerate C/O
core of a massive star with a kinetic energy of 2x10^51 erg, a total ejecta
mass of 2 solar masses, and a nickel-56 mass of 0.2 solar masses. In this
model, the high expansion velocities are a direct consequence of the aspherical
explosion which, in turn, produces oblate iso-density contours and that
accounts for the polarization. It is not yet clear how either the hypernovae or
these asymmetric models can produce gamma-ray bursts.
