Welcome everyone, to another episode of Vinland Saga! This episode is all about Arnheid, Gardar, and how they ended up here. Not much Thorfinn or Einar, but it’s still important for them to. So lets dive right into it!
The main thrust of this episode is Arnheid’s backstory and how Vinland Saga uses it to condemn violence. Not just “aggressive” violence, ala raiders and vikings, Vinland Saga has already made it very clear how it feels about those. Rather it’s condemning “defensive” violence, this idea of “proactive defense”, of going out and fighting unnecessary fighting fights. Of course this sounds a bit odd to us. Should we not defend ourselves against others? We also see in Sverkel’s story that simply waiting out the storm, the violence, isn’t necessarily the best option either. So what’s the proper response? What are you supposed to do when someone comes at you with the intent to kill, to steal? This is a question Vinland Saga is going to have to tackle, and one it probably will soon when Canute’s army shows up.
Getting into the details, Arnheid’s story is a bit of a tragedy. It’s about people wanting more and more, and that desire taking them away from where they need to be. Yes they left to protect themselves from future aggression, no doubt partly motivated by greed for iron. But in doing so they left themselves unprotected from the aggression of others. It’s a vicious cycle, one where no matter what you do or where you go violence will find you. It even happens this very episode, as she seems almost unable to recognize her husband. We see the toll that war and slavery has wrought on him, changing him into the very sort of monster he initially left to protect her from. As I said, Arnheid’s story is a tragedy in a lot of ways. And I suspect that’s how it’s going to end to.
As for Sverkel’s story, it’s as I said before. He doesn’t necessarily show support for Arnheid’s decision to go and help Gardar, but neither can he condemn her. He’s already tried to hide away from the violence once, to placate it by offering up others in his stead. But that didn’t work either, because violence doesn’t have any true rhyme or reason. Rather his message is one of confusion and hopelessness. The idea that, no matter what you do, violence will find you. And so the only choice is whatever you can live with. Of course Vinland Saga probably won’t be happy with that and will attempt to give its own answer through Thorfinn. But what that answer is we will have to wait and see.
Speaking of Thorfinn, he had a very small part in this weeks episode. He basically acted as a sort of moral neutral ground. He doesn’t support what is happening to Gardar, no doubt he wants him free with Arnheid. But neither can he condone killing others to set him free. We see this when he convinces Einar to step down, asking him not if he thinks he could defeat them but rather if he thinks he can live with killing them. It isn’t a question of ability, but of ethics. Can Einar live with killing someone? Is it ever just to kill someone, for any reason? Right now, Thorfinn doesn’t seem to think so. We already knew he was a dedicated pacifist, that’s been established. But now Vinland Saga is showing us just how far he will go to stick to that oath.
All in all, I feel this was another pretty straight forward but dense episode of Vinland Saga. Part of what makes the series so compelling to me is how easily it manages to convey all of these ideas without compromising on the difficulty of them. Vinland Saga constantly admonishes violence, yet also recognizes how difficult it is to avoid. Simply hiding away won’t do you any good, as it will find you eventually, but fighting violence with violence just perpetuates the cycle. While we haven’t gotten to Vinland Saga’s answer to that problem yet, I find myself drawn deeper and deeper into this question after every episode. Hopefully it manages to keep that up to the end. And it’s weird to say, but I kind of want Vinland Saga screws it up a little bit, if only for the sake of these posts haha.
Pacifism has it’s flaws as well. If you choose not to fight that leaves you open to violence against yourself and your loved ones.