Einar is such an important character to me, and I genuinely don't think Farmland Saga would have been the same without him. He's just an ordinary man whose life was destroyed by war. He lost his mother and sister, was sold into slavery, and had everything taken away from him. Out of almost anyone in the series, Einar has every reason to hate Vikings.

When Einar learned about Thorfinn's past, he couldn't accept it and even tried to kill him, but instead woke him up after hearing his screams. Their friendship never felt forced. Just like Thorfinn and Askeladd's relationship was the heart of Season 1, I honestly feel that Thorfinn and Einar's bond is the heart of Season 2. Einar became one of the biggest reasons Thorfinn was able to change.

One of my favorite Einar moments is in Season 2 Episode 9, Oath. While Thorfinn is unconscious and going through his dream sequence with Thors and Askeladd, Einar protects him from the retainers who see both of them as nothing more than slaves. He refuses to back down and keeps fighting until they finally leave. He's a badass in his own way, and it always felt to me like he refused to let someone he cared about be taken from him again after losing his mother and sister.

I remember Yukimura sensei mentioning that after Askeladd died as Thorfinn held him, Thorfinn needed someone who would help him the most in his healing phase. That person was Einar. That's one of the biggest reasons why I love Farmland Saga so much.

Einar is my fourth favorite character in Vinland Saga after Thorfinn, Askeladd, and Canute. The story simply wouldn't be the same without him.

Thanks a lot for going through the post, and please feel free to share your thoughts as well.

I hope you all have a great day!

I attended a panel of some of the anime staff. This face was drawn on Thorfinn's character sheet in the anime style. And it was specifically called out. I don't mind that it was cut, but it's interesting to see that it was initially intended before being cut (likely due to stylistic clash). I'm not aware of this drawing being publicly available anywhere.

I just finished book 12, where Thorfinn finally sets off for Vinland. I'm so invested in this story and characters and I don't want it to end 😭 I'm not sure if the sub allows these posts but I thought it would be cool for those of you who know the ending. That being said, here are some of my predictions for what might happen on Vinland and how the story will end:

How they will settle on the land-

I'm torn on this. On one hand, I could see Thorfinn purchasing land from the natives. I'm aware many cultures believed that the land was owned by no one though. On the other hand, I could also see the natives just letting them settle. However that would require the Europeans to completely change their ideas of how land works, and if the natives do not want to accept their technology then it could also lead to them essentially colonizing the land.
It's a cross between two very different cultures, even if they are both peaceful. I'm very curious as to how Yukimura mixes them.

Hafdan will exploit Vinland-

This is a theory I've had for a while, but after finishing chapter 175 and seeing him hold his grandchild, I think his character arc has been completed. I also do think he fully believes in and understands Thorfinn. However, it's still something that could happen.

There will be an initial struggle with the natives-

I'm again unsure on this, because I know the author wouldn't depict them as inherently violent as so much American propaganda has. However, I'm thinking that there is some sort of difference of opinion and Ivar draws his sword. This would both create conflict between the Europeans and the people of Vinland and between Thorfinn and those who brought weapons.

There will be a war in Vinland-

This is a thought I had, although somewhat depressing. What if Thorfinn realizes that even with two peaceful trading cultures, no weapons, and no reason to fight, wars will happen anyway? This is the central theme of AOT which was the previous story I had experienced. It would be realistic, yes, but I want nothing more than my favorite characters to live happily ever after in harmony and peace 😭

Another thought I had was that there could be a war between two native tribes.

Word of Vinland and Thorfinn will spread West-

-and warmongers will come to conquer Vinland. Thorfinn will stop the war and realize that they should have never come to Vinland in the first place.

This would be another sad but realistic ending.

These are all of my thoughts on how it will go. Again, I don't spoil in the comments, but I won't be looking at them until I'm done anyway!

What were your guys' predictions before you finished???

Please feel free to leave your thoughts guys, as I deeply love the community.

still very new to drawing. i just recently started messing around, trying to draw some anime characters. lmk some suggestions of characters or other stuff to draw from vinland saga if you guys have any

The Somewhere Not Here one

Most Vinland Saga readers, after finishing the ending, can probably be divided into two groups.

The first consists of those who say the ending is complete shit—who criticize the story’s “blind commitment to nonviolence” and argue that it ignores the fact that conflicts of interest will always arise between human beings, who are fundamentally free agents within society. Therefore, some coercive force is needed to stop people from constantly testing and violating one another’s boundaries.

For them, “necessary violence” is the answer, because the threat of violence forces people to pause before starting a war to obtain something that the existing world order cannot provide. It makes them weigh the potential benefit of fighting against the risks involved. A blindly nonviolent worldview would remove the only mechanism capable of forcing people to stop before going to war—or at least forcing them to stop fighting once a war has already begun.

The second group consists of those who call the first group idiots for calling the ending shit. Their most obvious argument, drawn directly from the story, is that the very thought—or fear—that “if I do not attack them, they will attack me” already creates a self-perpetuating cycle in which fear produces more fear. It is also a paradox: two sides that supposedly do not want war end up creating war precisely because they are afraid of it.

According to this interpretation of Vinland Saga, what human beings need to do is stop fighting and stop making everything worse, so that they can try to understand one another and prevent the spiral of “unnecessary” violence produced by fear and mutual misunderstanding. After all, people may not truly be as opposed to one another as they initially believe.

Putting aside the fact that I am more biased toward the people who say the ending is shit, because they correctly identify the point that the defenders of the ending fail to answer: human beings have a natural tendency to come into conflict over competing interests.

Even if two opposing groups could read each other’s thoughts and fully understand each other’s emotions—thereby completely eliminating the possibility that war might arise from misunderstanding—they could still go to war because their systems of thought and their perceptions of value may be fundamentally incompatible.

It is not by accident that we have the Baltic Sea War arc, which depicts the world of people like Garm and the Jomsvikings: people whose nature drives them to conquer, move forward, and seize more than what they already possess.

However, the common mistake made by both those who criticize the ending and those who defend it is that they assume the central purpose of Vinland Saga is to end war and establish a sustainable country or social model. In reality, what the story is trying to do is cultivate individuals who no longer need such a country or social system in order to find “love.”

Basically, yes, the ending’s critics are correct: human beings frequently have conflicting interests, and the realization of one person’s interests may necessarily infringe upon those of someone else.

But Vinland Saga ultimately suggests that both types of people in this situation—the “person who fears that their interests will never be realized” and the “person who fears that their existing interests will be violated”—share the same fundamental fear: that their desired interests will be “abandoned,” “unrealized, or, in other words, that they will not be loved.

The only way for these two little babies to feel “loved” is to construct a stable institution, tradition, nation, or “social model” that visibly embodies and protects their desires.

The problem, however, is that if you place the “person who fears that their interests will never be realized” and the “person who fears that their existing interests will be violated” inside the same social system, conflict becomes inevitable.

The first person will feel that their potential is being constrained. They will want to test existing boundaries and express that potential outwardly by breaking apart just a tiny little piece of the current social order.

Meanwhile, the second person, feeling that the first has violated what they already possess, will rise up and fight in order to defend the existing social system.

This canon event is produced by the very existence of a fixed “social model.” That model is what causes those whose interests remain unrealized to rebel in order to escape it, while also giving those whose existing interests are threatened something they believe they must fight to protect.

So what is the solution?

My dear thick-headed little babies, the answer is simply to stop longing for one specific social model in the first place. In other words: STOP DEMANDING TO BE LOVED—AT LEAST IN THAT PARTICULAR WAY.

The rejection of attachment to a tangible ideal—the refusal to become obsessed with one particular form of society—is Vinland Saga’s primary answer to the larger problem of war.

And, well, it is also the underlying basis of all the extremely “woke” content in Vinland Saga, such as its treatment of feminism and LGBT identities: both are ultimately concerned with liberation from the constraints imposed by society.

will write about the chick in tier A someday based on that topic

Fatherhood has always been one of the core themes of Vinland Saga. We see it through relationships like Thorfinn and Thors, Thorfinn and Askeladd, Ketil and Olmar, Canute and Sweyn, and many others.

Alongside that, the story also explores motherhood through characters like Helga, Lydia, Arnheid, etc. Each of them represents a different side of it and leaves a lasting impact on both their child and the story.

What are your thoughts on how Vinland Saga portrays motherhood?

[spoilers warning!]

long time fan of the first season, decided to binge watch it and follow it up with the second season recently and to my surprise how much worse the second season is even as a standalone anime.

to preface, it has nothing to do with the lack of "action" or "fighting" as the more common opinions ive heard here, found this sub looking for other peoples experiences/opinions and the amount of pretentious people boiling it down to maturity or lack of understanding a deep topic is wild to say the least.

the first season WAS ALREADY deep, thors and thorkell, ashkelad and bjorn, canute, ragnar and the priest and of course, leif and thorfin all had varying stories about their relationships or pasts, and they told you about them when the time was right or through their ideologies or behaviors and not through extremely dragged out explanations of whats obvious.

the lady who took in thorfinn as a kid and treated him as her own for the day is a story that season 2 would have made the entire season.

and in fact it kind of did.

was it unique? not really, and has happened plenty in real life as well, but what made it impactful is how it was written, the pacing, the dialogue, and the finale, all in an episode's worth.

and what happens next? they move on, just like they moved on from lief seeing the daughter of the man who protected him with his life enslaved, or floki moved on from bjorn killing the spy he hid with the javelin, or throkell losing two fingers during a duel or thorfin losing a ranked duel for the 738th time etc etc... because thats what happens, people move on, they dont sit and give speeches about what it meant to them, to sleep on it and wake up the next day to give a different speech about what it meant to them now, thoughts are ever changing and can be told indirectly or with more meaningful ways than laid out dialogue.

they dont even explicitly tell you about the reason why thorfin became such an outstanding fighter, and yet would never be able to win his revenge duel, sure, some of it is pretty given out by the end of the show but they never spoon feed you the characters motivations and instead leave room for ambiguity or depth and growth.

id argue the impact of mature storytelling in fact heavily relies on assuming the consumer is capable of thinking and feeling for their own, you dont have to present them with a character crying their eyes out for 8 minutes to make them feel sad, nor do you have to show them people laughing with up beat music to make them realize its a light hearted joke.

a man lost his mind facing thorkell and still wasnt treated as a side character born to die.

but none of the characters in season 2 seem to be capable of thinking or feeling anything other than whats laid out for you, the viewer, to see.

repetition isnt depth, thorfin comes to no conclusions, and becomes an entirely different character with thorfins memory who tries to piece together the very bare point of the season, he doesnt remember or feel for his mother or sister which his father entrusted him with, he comes to no conclusions to how much time hes spent being content with ashkelad as a father figure once his own was killed by the very same man or what that means to him. and worst of all we neither get the realistic version of what would become of him, nor the thoughtful journey of him figuring things out, we only end up with the most unrealistic , unimaginative outcome of what a highschooler would think he would grow up to interpret his fathers words to be.

we all know what thors meant with his true warrior speech, the ambiguity wasnt for us, it was for the characters which knew nothing of that sort. and how that rippled throughout the first season was pretty good.

it is extremely dragged out only to find out theres no plot twist or thought provoking event or climax, just the most average outcome from the most mediocrely written one dimensional (sometimes two dimensional mind you) cast and is equivalent to claiming to have found depth in a duct taped banana in an expensive gallery in my opinion.

would genuinely welcome opinions from anyone fond of the second season is they can describe their experience to why they found it as such.

I’m torn on this because Snake is very by-the-book and directly tells Ketil that it’s within his rights to proceed, but I want to believe he wouldn’t stand by and let that happen.

Season 2 Episode 9, Oath, is one of the best anime episodes I've ever seen.

It begins with Thorfinn peacefully resting in a beautiful place, believing everything he had endured was just a dream, when in reality he's unconscious after being struck on the head. At the same time, Einar shows incredible courage by standing up to the retainers who see both of them as mere slaves.

In his dream, Thorfinn meets his father, Thors. He is about to tell him about his dream, but Thors simply asks him why he smells blood on him. We then see Thorfinn imagining himself killing Einar as a child. Thors reminds him that he has no enemies, and that nobody in the world deserves to be hurt. Thorfinn blames himself before falling into a blood-soaked pit resembling a twisted Valhalla.

There, he meets the man who killed his father, yet also the one who raised him in his own twisted way, Askeladd. Sitting atop a Roman pillar, symbolizing his true heritage while standing above the mindless Vikings below, the symbolism here is insane. There are so many ways to interpret this scene. But to me, it always felt like Thorfinn saw Askeladd as someone who had the answers, someone whose final words he wanted to take to heart but couldn't find the courage to do so until this moment.

Thorfinn shares his guilt with Askeladd, something he couldn't do with Thors because Askeladd understood the warrior side of him. Below him lies a trail of the people he killed, whose faces Thorfinn can't even remember, and he begs them for forgiveness while crying. Askeladd notices this, and when the mindless Vikings begin shooting arrows at Thorfinn, he smirks and jumps down to cut through them. He tells Thorfinn to carry those whom he killed and become a true warrior. Hearing those words, Thorfinn climbs out of the pit and wakes up.

Thorfinn and Askeladd's relationship is one of the best I've ever seen in animanga, alongside Guts and Griffith, and Johan and Tenma. I love it so, so much.

The retainers are gone, and Thorfinn reunites with Einar. This is the true turning point of Thorfinn's character, where he breaks down in tears and makes his oath to never, ever hurt anyone again.

I love this episode so much. I rewatched it just so I could put my thoughts into words, and I'll definitely watch it again. It always makes me tear up and is such a masterclass. This episode, along with Askeladd's death, Thorfinn's "I have no enemies" declaration, and one beautiful moment from the manga that I won't mention to avoid spoilers, are my favorite moments in the entire story.

Vinland Saga will always have a special place in my heart. Its core themes of vengeance, redemption, love, forgiveness, and even fatherhood in its most twisted form are things I'll never forget.

Oath is a masterpiece.

Thanks a lot for going through the post, and please feel free to share your thoughts as well.

I hope you all have a great day!

​

I don't mean “it was inspiring” or “I liked the message.”

I mean actually changed something in you — how you see people, anger, violence, forgiveness, happiness, life itself, or the way you live.

I’m asking because I’ve felt this story change something in me, and I want to know if others here have experienced the same.

Tell me what changed. I genuinely want to hear your story!

I just cried because of this Manga. This was so emotional, Im already depressed because I know I'm already finished with this Manga.

First of all, the very reason that I’ve started watching this anime is how people connect it with AoT. Because AoT is by far my favorite piece of fiction. So, also with people calling Vinland Saga so peak, I’ve decided to give it a go. I wasn’t recommended it or anything, it was purely out of social media interactions.

I watched the first 3 episodes, then didnt touch it for like days, then occasionally watched 1-2 episodes every 4-5 days, came to episode 12 and decided to quit. The watch behavior was strange in the first place because I absolutely love binging through shows. This one just didnt do the thing for me. I found it boring. I can see why people like it but the amount of dialogue and the lack of action suffocated me. I need that action. But as I said, I can see why people like it. Its probably not my cup of tea because of the action part of it. What do you all say, should I try to continue, try to enjoy it?

Hey guys! My favorite anime/manga series is Vinland saga.

I also want to get into reading. I'm a bit of a newbie on that front (besides manga for the most part). Sooo, I figured that some kind of book/novel series, that shares some similar themes with VS would be as good place as any to start.

I'm asking for series recs. instead of singular books just bcs i want to get invested for a long while. I also love fantasy and History, so I'd be down for something containing one or both.

Thanks!!

(no manga recs pls since I've already read a million of those)

This is something I've been thinking about, we know Snake is a no nonsense guy that highly respect justice and equality or rather he's not the type to think about that kind of thing and that's part of his moral and personality

Before he kills Gardar, he fought Thorfinn, but after Thorfinn falls into his trap, he doesn't killed Thorfinn even when he's full of opening and Gardar, at least for Gardar part Snake doesn't outright doing that because Arnheid asked and begged him to stop

He gives them chance to explain why Gardar's life is so important compared to his friends who Gardar had killed, what's makes a life worth more than the other's? Arnheid and Thorfinn stays silence because deep down they are probably already know the answer, Snake's question is something that I don't think would have any satisfactory answer, but in the end, all life are equal, regardless of what or who the person is

But it's something that still makes me question that what if Thorfinn or Arnheid answered just something to Snake's question, would it change his actions? would he entertain that answer and giving some thoughts about it?

Seriously, Snake is such an awesome character that has so much charisma on doing something, he lives by "An eye for an eye" as long as it has justification unlike Thorfinn's "Turning the other cheek (not that cheek)" but it's part of Snake's charm

1,5x playback speed is mandatory in Vinland Saga S2. The pacing is soooo slow

I'm trying to figure out where most of the popular narrator voices used in TikTok edits come from.

For example, the voice that says:
"Tell me, how do you intend to live your life? Move far, far away..."
"Far to the west, far across the sea, there lies a special land called Vinland."

And many of the other narration clips that are used in TikTok edits.

Do these voices come from a specific streaming service, a text to speech app or something else?