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episode 9: Askeladd telling Thorfinn to go fetch Thorkell's head for him is just another instance in a pattern of him moving the goalpost. before it was "accomplish something great on the battlefield," then it was "bring me a head with a helmet," and now it's "defeat Thorkell the tall," and in every case, Askeladd knows he's setting Thorfinn up for failure. he can decide arbitrarily that nothing Thorfinn's ever done on the battlefield qualifies as great, he can "reward" Thorfinn for the head by kicking the crap out of him, and he can send Thorfinn in alone to fight a guy who deters an entire army with his mere presence. and Askeladd will always count Thorfinn's failures against him. "only warriors who fight on the battlefield get what they deserve" he says. this only works because Thorfinn has never had the context to understand what normal standards are. and even when he can guess that Askeladd is messing with him, he still feels like he should be able to do it anyway, because he was asked. even if they're mocking him... if he does it anyway, maybe then he'll qualify as enough to be taken seriously. but he's playing an unwinnable game, because Askeladd is making up the rules like it's Calvinball. and I think a key part of what Askeladd is doing, is pacing out the duels so they aren't constant. for one thing, he'd get annoyed if they were happening too frequently. but for another, I think it's integral to Askeladd's manipulative strategy, that Thorfinn knows he isn't worth humoring most of the time. Askeladd can't look like he's putting effort into Thorfinn. he isn't raising or training him... he's just letting the implication of Thorfinn's inadequacy simmer on the back burner. that way, when they actually do fight, he can trip Thorfinn's anger switch that much more easily. and also, when Thorfinn loses to someone like Thorkell, he still feels like it's his fault. he wasn't good enough, and that's shameful to him, even though nobody was actually expecting him to win. in Thorfinn's mind, he really desperately wants to prove their lack of faith in him wrong. he can't stand the fact that it didn't work, and there's such a deep well of frustration within him for this. and I think the discomfort of Thorfinn's character comes when you stop seeing him as a competent battle guy, and start seeing him as that very same child that he was at the beginning. he's still a kid, and he hates this. his father was trying to raise a happy, healthy son. Thorfinn is so far from that, and slipping farther still. even just Askeladd saying that Thorfinn had a bad opponent only spurs him on toward Wessex. this should be an admission that Askeladd knew the matchup was terrible when he issued that command. but Thorfinn would only take it as the loss being thrown in his face. he'd only take it in the cruelest possible way, just like he was trained to. and he still takes each pained step toward Wessex because he isn't willing to part with a man he despises, who's never done anything but hurt him worse. it's impressive that Thorfinn can withstand all of this, and you want to feel proud of him for something that his effort has accomplished... someone should be, shouldn't they? but the real gut punch of it all is that none of this is a worthy goal in the first place. and if he keeps doing this, he'll never be happy til the day he dies. also, it's just wild that Floki is here. the guy Thorfinn should really be angry at is just kicking around the plot, probably with no idea that Thors even has a living son who's turning out like this.
I really like Askeladd's deep and philosophical words. Anyway, Thorkell is one of the best characters. Thorkell has no interest in money or power, he just wants to fight strong opponents forever. He is a true battle maniac. But strangely enough, we end up loving him.
New Layout looks nice, I also liked the old one, but I guess with the new one, everyone can see the screen better and the viewers can see y'all's reaction even more. 💯
episode 10: this is a really important episode, thematically speaking. we're finally getting some of Thorfinn's thoughts... and it seems like every time we see Thorfinn's perspective on himself, he's still the age he was when Thors died. like he's stagnated there. the episode opens with this dream sequence of Thorfinn and his family in Vinland, living peacefully, when there's an invasion on the beach. and it puts Thorfinn on the other side of what he's done to countless villages by this point, along with Askeladd's crew. but more importantly, when he wakes up and goes out to that hillside... the country laid out before him isn't really that far off, in terms of a basic description, from what he'd imagined Vinland to be. and it raises an interesting question. why is this land so different? why isn't this Vinland, in any way that matters? my perception is that Vinland is a place which can only exist in theory for Thorfinn, as he is now. if he were to show up in Vinland, he'd be one of the invaders on the beach. and whatever paradise existed there would cease, because of his arrival. Thorfinn can't go to Vinland because hell is wherever he goes. he creates it for himself via the way he lives. nowhere will ever feel like the place in his dreams, as long as he's like this. but this is where we get into the part of Thorfinn's psychology that makes it impossible for him to give this up. it's effort justification. Thorfinn has committed acts that he knows his father wouldn't approve of. he's done heinous things, which are basically indistinguishable from the actions of Askeladd and his men. it doesn't really matter that Thorfinn has a reason... these are still horrible things that he's done to innocent people. and if he's still this mad about the death of his father, after so many years, just imagine what any given villager must feel about Thorfinn. think about what Thorfinn says to Askeladd. "I think you've got the wrong idea. I'm not your friend. I bet you think you have me under your control. you're full of yourself now. but it'll stop when I slit your throat someday, and you fall over and die." deep down, Thorfinn still harbors a deep well of guilt for having been helpless when his father died. he hasn't done enough to make up for it. he hates battle, and fighting... he thinks Askeladd and his men are scum. yet he acts just like them, because he hasn't earned the right to leave. he hasn't killed his master, like he promised he would. he hasn't wallowed enough, in his grief. this is self harm. but that pain will stop someday... it'll stop, when Askeladd finally dies. only then, when all his effort finally begets something... only then, when the work, and pain, and all the crimes he's committed have contributed to an end result he can accept... only when the effort is justified, will he finally be free. and until then, he feels like he deserves however much it hurts him. his accumulated shame only make this more true as time passes, but also, based on the one criteria Thorfinn cares about, he's been failing all his life. he only has to win once. but this isn't winning, if you're looking at it from an outside perspective. it's like that useless fight between Askeladd's men. "he called me stupid and wouldn't take it back" doesn't sound like a good enough reason to kill, or to die. what is accomplished at the end of a fight like that? was there anything attainable that they even wanted to begin with? and Askeladd himself puts this into it's full historical perspective: the Saxons destroyed the Romans. and we're going to destroy the Saxons next. the glory of the Roman Empire is a thing of the distant past. the process of fighting and dying is very very old, and after enough time passes, the reasons won't even matter anymore. Thorfinn is just kind of reinventing the wheel here... this isn't new, and it's as useless as it's ever been. I do absolutely love the line "dawn in the age of twilight" because whether it speaks to hope or futility is entirely a matter of perspective. the sun will still rise on a world like this, regardless of how doomed you feel. the night will come regardless too, even if you're trying to hold on to your time here. the world exists in cycles, for better or for worse. how will we emulate those who came before us as we move into the future? move forward with whose philosophy? Thors? Askeladd? which cycle are we watching manifest in Thorfinn? this is the tension inherent to his character.
Askeladd kills the messengar so that when he saves Canute. He can say that he decided that on his own. Not cause of the messanger. Making him look even better. If even 10 soldiers from the main army came to help, the king can claim that his 10 soldiers had a big impact in saving canute. Askeladd does the right thing in order to go up in society but the plan is risky.
also, I really love the discussion around these episodes... especially because of the opinions on Askeladd, Thorfinn, and the way things are shaping up with that whole relationship. Askeladd does do some pretty egregious shit, and while he has a sense of charisma about it, he's still leading men who take on life through the lens of violence first. peace literally isn't even a goal for some of them... Thorkell is such a problem, because he's a man who happens to be built to win at this particular endeavor, without contest. he simultaneously gets everything he wants (he wins every time he fights) and nothing he wants (nobody wants to fight him because of how strong he is) and it makes him feel like a spoiled child, always demanding more, more, more. but then other men seem to have a different relationship to it all. some of them may only be in the business of going to war because they don't have any other profitable skills on which to make their living. or some may not have any sense of community with anyone other than their crew. this is a lifestyle to them, and some of them might not know how to do anything else. I could see that maybe being the case for someone like Bjorn, who clearly has a bit more of a head on his shoulders than most. he tends to be unbothered by most things, only fighting when he chooses. and when he makes that choice, it's definitive... he'll eat a mushroom in order to do any real fighting, and it kind of takes his brain out of the equation. it's almost like thinking too much goes against how all of this is supposed to work. the average mindset is really as simple as two men insulting each other over dinner, and one of them ending up dead by the end of the evening. because compromise, conflict resolution, and thoughtful consideration of others, goes against the entire ideology of being a warrior.
Askeladd's story of Ragnarok, Last Judgement and End of the World... these stories are not interpreted by people about the end of the world but as a personal end. Askeladd is growing old, any ambition he has is quickly closing on him, he needs to act now should he want any satisfaction
Christianity wasn’t necessarily the peaceful way back in the day lol , the characters in this show aren’t simply black or white, they are a product of their time and are complex, the sooner you get out of the good vs evil mentality the more you’ll pick up on the subtleties
