Nothing feels like home. The Viking gang is back to base to enjoy their meat, booze, women, and the duel between Askeladd and Thorfinn. The duel ends up as expected but then the episode will hit you deep with an unexpected life question: what are you a slave to?

Japanese Original Episode Title: 海の果ての果て

Plot

Askeladd and his men return to their village in Jutland to spend the winter, rich in treasures won from the Frank battle. Everyone welcomes them back, but there is one person in the crew that doesn’t care about any of this: Thorfinn. The day and time for their duel is here and even though Thorfinn has become quite skilled with his daggers, he still gives in and gets angry at Askeladd’s remarks and offences about his father which caused him his victory. As the men drink and celebrate inside Lord Gorm’s house, Thorfinn is outside watching the ship, where he sees a vision of his father talking to him. Later, when a slave girl named Hordaland brings him food, she asks him if there is anything on the other side of the ocean and then Thorfinn tells her about Vinland. Winter passes quite fast and the Danish army along with the Vikings start their assault of England, which goes terrifically well until they reach London. 

Episode Highlights

Askeladd is quite the character: Even though he appears to be a tough cookie, Askeladd’s morals seem to be much more profound than the ones he portrays to have. This is somewhat apparent from the introduction of his character and the way he deals with Thors and his death. ‘You should be grateful to Thors. He was a man worth more than a hundred bratty kids like you.’ This indicates that although he went through to complete the job of assassinating him, he has some sort of regret for killing an amazing warrior like him. Carrying on with the way he treats Thorfinn, he might look like he is using the kid for his own purposes, but if he really didn’t care for him, he could have killed him anytime he wanted. Last but not least, his conversation with his uncle and later when he talks to that kid about slavery and says, ‘It’s terrible. The guy who’s a slave to money holds a whip, and pretends to be the master of the slave he bought with his money. Everyone is a slave to something’, raises the question of: to what is Askeladd a slave to? The way I see it, it’s not honor or pride neither lust for money or women; it’s probably thirst for glory and extreme ambitions and this will probably be the reason for his death sooner or later and the funny thing is, that he already knows it himself. He takes pleasure of completing mercenary jobs and feels fulfilled by it, which is quite ironic now that he killed the greatest warrior of them all, Thors, to be left so bittersweet.  

Canute, the Legolas of Vinland Saga: Can it be? Will there be a fair knight with long blonde hair that will make all the ladies go insane? Stay tuned girls because this lad looks like a goddamn Valkyrie. 

Themes & Trivia

Jutland: Jutland is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri, respectively. West Jutland is characterized by open lands, heaths, plains and peat bogs, while East Jutland is more fertile with lakes and lush forests. Southwest Jutland is characterized by the Wadden Sea, a large unique international coastal region stretching through Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

Hordaland: Hordaland is a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark, and Rogaland counties. Hordaland is the third largest county after Akershus and Oslo by population. Before 1972, the city of Bergen was its own separate county apart from Hordaland. Hordaland is the old name of the region which was revived in 1919. The first element is the plural genitive case of hǫrðar, the name of an old Germanic tribe. The last element is land which means ‘land’ or ‘region’ in the Norwegian language.

Comments

The ladies of the village have no modesty at all and Askeladd seems to love that. The scene where that girl says to the other that Thorfinn looks quite cute but the other says that Askeladd looks stronger and has more money, makes you really question their standards. Actually, it makes you question if anything has even changed to the slightest in our day and age. 

Everyone is a slave to something. 

That is definitely true Askeladd, especially to their own mistakes. On another note, the guy with the axe at the end is Thorkell and it seems like he will be quite a treat for the next episodes to come. Maybe he can take the place of the short hairy dwarf carrying an axe, so we can have our LOTR fantasy complete. Canute for Legolas, Thorkell for Gimli, let’s make it happen.

Vinland Saga

Summer 2019 | Anime Info | Simulcast