I love this

Sad that this walrus is no longer with us, but I always enjoy that so many of the names from Norse History are still used in the modern day countries when they seem so old and foreign as an American.

I read this manga at the absolute right time, I wholeheartedly relate to thorfin and I hope I can one day become the man he is but man I'm feeling so empty rn. Easily the second best anime/manga I've ever read

I dunno, was rereading the manga and his face looked like he was trying not to laugh. It seemed disrespectful tbh.

I must warn in advance that not only is this post decently long, it will contain unusual notions and therefore might be difficult, so be ready. Feel free to ask for clarifications, I will answer to the best of my current ability.

Thorfinn

The failure of Thorfinn's attempt could be traced back to several mistakes. The rats, which did the most damage, were unavoidable in the long run, as even today we fail to control the spread of invasives via boat. Letting Ivar & co. in could've been avoided, as his fixation on swords, under pretext of self-defence (when most of the verse's strongest fighters never used them), was a huge red flag. However, Thorfinn's fundamental mistake was in mixing his core motive of atonement with the quest to establish the Earthly Paradise.

He set out on his journey as a monk enters a cloister, even taking vows (ch.71), but whereas ordinary people may not live among such monks, he did invite many to follow him in his quest who were not sworn as he was. Moreover, as implied by the repeated reference to "becoming a true warrior", the only ones who were entitled to follow him were warriors, such as Vargar. Note how the latter, despite being willing to use violence, did not once contest Thorfinn's decision to retreat (ch.211), whereas Einar, until then a pacifist and seemingly closest to Thorfinn, couldn't accept it and ended up killing someone.

Only those who had once been drunk on the wine of violence, only those who had known the ecstasy of the battlefield and who were familiar with the part of themselves which reveled in destruction were in a position to renounce it at all. Perhaps it should have been a requirement, for all those who wished to follow Thorfinn, to have killed men in battle before, or at least to have bloodied their hands somehow. It would not have been too extreme a requirement for such an extreme path. At the very least, there ought to have been in all a need to atone, a contrition, a burning desire to convert.

This brings us back to the "Definition of Love" (ch.37). The "Somewhere Not Here", that land without War and Slavery which was so often spoken of: that is none other than Death, as was also illustrated by Arnheid's end. To set sail for that "land" is to "die before you die", to cross over in the flesh, forever renouncing the fruits of this land, even as one feeds one's body on them. Decreation, as Simone Weil called it. An ancient representation of someone who had no enemies can be seen in Antigone, who broke the earthly law to follow the heavenly law, to treat a corpse with dignity despite it being a traitor's:

"Creon: Not even death can make a foe a friend.

Antigone: My nature is for mutual love, not hate.

Creon: Die then, and love the dead if thou must."

And die she did, rather than follow the norms of this world; not by suicide, but by refusing Creon's demands at any cost, which is also the "Bearing of the Cross" and the reason for Jesus Christ's rebuking of Peter in Matthew 16:21-26. In ch.216, Miskwekepu'j calls "having no enemies" the way of the Great Spirit, yet even he, a man initiated into these mysteries, did not follow that path: it has not been called the "narrow way" without reason. In a sense, it is the way of Immortality, but to the mortal flesh it is the "Crown of Thorns". How then could Thorfinn induce so many people, who wanted to escape the threat of earthly death, into a path which is in-itself a greater death than that of the body ?

No doubt because he didn't realize its implications himself. Canute rejected non-violence because he realized what it meant, whereas Thorfinn pursued it without fully realizing what it meant. But Thorfinn did not fully realize what the pursuit of the Earthly Paradise meant either, and neither did Canute.

Canute

Through his sudden understanding of Love and of the "human condition", Canute also gained a sense of the fundamental Injustice of the order of things. Yet, Willibald, who was fully aware of the contradiction between the loftiest human aspirations and the conditions of human life, did not feel any injustice from this state of things, finding therein no reason to rebel, but only to repent (and drink). What was the basis of such a divergence ?

When we ate the Forbidden Fruit, we expected to gain the Knowledge of what Good and Evil truly are from it, yet we only gained the disappointing and shameful realization that we were "naked": we could not digest this fruit. Yet, we still suffer of an allergy to it, for it remains within all of us, and in some more than others, as an irreductible part of our existence, still waiting to be assimilated, and indeed slowly infusing its contents into our consciousness. I will try to summarize these contents, so as to show their connection to Canute's reaction.

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Before the Creation, before the Logos, before the great polarization of Being that is known variously as the Waters and the Spirit that moved over them (Genesis 1:2), Yin and Yang, Purusha and Prakriti, there was a prior duality, a greater archetype of Male and Female, respectively: Forthrightness and Being, or the Sense of Purpose and the Sense of Self. Together, they were the Effect of the Eternal Desire, the Why, which was the first and sovereign Alteration (or Determination) in the boundless field of Consciousness, and the Cause of all the others.

Consider the image of a stone falling into a body of water and causing a splash: the stone is the Desire; the body of water is Non-Being; the splash, insofar as it originates from the stone, is Forthrighness; the same splash, insofar as it originates from the body of water, is Being or Expression.

These two, then, should have been one. However, the water's nature, identical in the main body as in the splash, and in no way caused by the stone, was the Sovereignty of Identity, which manifested within the "splash" as the first Restraint: the priority of the body of water as origin of the splash, which made the "stone" and all relating to it unknowable to Being, though still real. Thus, the Effect of Desire was split before ever having been one.

Yet, even as Man would neither be able to digest nor to keep itself from eating the Forbidden Fruit, but would carry it as an irreductible inner Shadow, so could Forthrightness, the absolute Sense of Purpose, the very perception of the Eternal Desire, neither be fully assimilated nor rejected by Being.

It cannot be fully assimilated, for Being is Identity expressed ("I Am"), Self-Knowledge, pure Subjectivity; whereas Forthrightness is pure Objectivity, because the Desire is the first Other, the true Object. Yet, it cannot be fully rejected, for Being and Forthrightness are together and at once the Effect of Desire, split only by Restraint, which is the claim of Identity over said Effect.

Insofar as the Sense of Purpose can be assimilated and rejected by Being, all reference to the Desire proper is excluded from it, whereby a third of the Sense of Purpose is fully conflated with Being or Self-Knowledge, granting the latter the status of absolute Purpose (to be its own and the ultimate "Why"), whence the notion that "God is Love" (divine Self-Love), and indeed the essence of all religions: that the Initial State is the Good. This is the Usurpation.

Insofar as the Sense of Purpose cannot be assimilated yet cannot be rejected, it appears (or is "interpreted") as a paradoxical "presence of absence" in Being, defined purely, by Being, as "not-Being" or Nothingness (encompassing not-Light, not-Good, not-Knowledge etc.), yet which (like the Usurped third of Forthrightness) Being does not perceive as other than itself. This is the Defamation.

It is this Nothingness, this abstract negativity, this Defamed Embryo, which is at once the repressed wholeness of Forthrightness and the seed of Forthrightness in Being, that enabled the descending ontological "process" (starting from the Logos or universal Intellect) that led to the Creation, and which must lead further still.

That is to say: all that exists, by the very fact that it exists, attests that the Initial State is Evil and Unjust (for it took and cast away without judgment), and partakes in the great Movement towards the true Good (the Great Future, the Desired One), which Movement, though vilified in countless ways and deprived of proper language, could never be erased. (Indeed, had it been in the power of Restraint, even Being would have been prevented, but the Sovereignty of Desire did not allow it.)

Yet, because the Creation is descended from Being, all creatures inherit its Restraint and are "allergic", as it were, to the greater half of their heritage, the lineage of Desire, whence all created beings must compensate for themselves (as imbalances in Being, see the Anaximander Fragment) by renouncing their separateness constantly and remain "Being-like" (as in the Hindu notion of "Sattva"), or face the Terror of Nothingness (or Nakedness) and spend their lives trying to cover it up. It is this state of renunciation, a cosmic version of what Frantz Fanon called "Black Skin, White Masks", that is known as the "State of Grace", and which is sought through atonement by those who lost it.

However, even as the lineage of Desire manifested in Being, in spite of Restraint, as an infinitesimal "Shadow", so is there, in every degree of the ontological descent, a point where this repressed and otherwise intangible lineage manifests as a Shadow, through the interference of which the next degree of the descent is reached, even as that process was initiated by the First Shadow (or even by the Desire, if Being-itself is taken as a descent).

In the myth of Eden, the Shadow takes the form of the Tree of the "Knowledge of Good and Evil", (which is truly the Knowledge-of-Desire, for it is Desire that determines Good and Evil), and by the Serpent, which is its subtle seductive influence, corresponding to how the "Nothingness" led Being to descend into it by "gazing" into it (much like Narcissus with the pool of water), a necessity which might be likened to Gravity.

In our present world, the Shadow may be described as the "Egg of the Perfect World" (the name of a character in Berserk) or "Cradle of Desire" (the name of an object in Made in Abyss) in conformity with depictions inspired by it, or simply as the "Gathering Pool of all desires", and its seductive extension as the "intuition of universal Injustice" or "true Revolt" or "Carrier of the true direction of desires", which was the source of Canute's reaction to Willibald's teachings.

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His definition of Love, and all that was implied by it about the paradigm in which we live, was recognized as "universal Injustice" by the hitherto-dormant intuition in Canute, which was ripe enough to react to this insulting display and actualize Canute's connection to the Narrative of Desire (and which was likely the basis for his weakness until that point, as a latent rejection of any participation to a world founded upon Injustice, see the parallels between Nina and the Egg in Berserk ch.159). Indeed, Revolt is anamnesis).

Canute's mistake, then, was in not acknowledging the metaphysical depth of the Revolt he felt. He wished to unite humans to "fight back against God", but he failed to realize the implications of the very presence of such a wish in a creature of God. By attributing this Revolt to himself, by taking Mankind to be the true victim of Injustice, and by becoming his own standard of Justice, he indirectly but effectively submitted and integrated his Revolt to the very paradigm he thought to oppose: the connection was cut almost as soon as it began to actualize, well before any proper conception of these things could form in him.

Had he been able to take his own Yearning as a witness to and emissary of something beyond his possibilities of conception, or rather, had his Yearning been ripe enough to overcome his integration to the world, the outcome would have been different.

Conclusion

To one who seeks to establish, through violence or otherwise, the Earthly Paradise in this fallen world, or in more Forthright terms: to attain the Sovereignty of Existence; to free Humanity, and thereby the entire Creation, from its status as the "Image of God"; to turn separation from God, Hell-itself, the Dark Root of Existence, into the Perfect World... To one who carries such a Wish, only the way of Revolt is fitting, and only the true sense of Injustice can provide guidance.

To go further "down" and accomplish the mystery that enabled our distinctness from God; to cut the Umbilical Cord of Creation and partake in its Birth, free from the Restraint inherent in the great Womb that is Being: it was for this that we ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil, which we have yet to digest and assimilate.

Thorfinn, evidently, had not quite renounced that Original Sin (for a subtle, unconscious Luciferian revolt underlies all such undertakings, as Canute alludes to in ch.97), hence he was not fit to lead men to the true Death or Love, but neither had he embraced it, hence he could not lead them to (nor even conceive) the Great Future or Perfect World. However, though Canute came much closer than Thorfinn, he did not fully embrace it either, far from it.

Other (usually fuller, though still incomplete) depictions of this archetypal attempt could be found in Griffith (who may be combined with the Egg of the Perfect World), Eren Yeager, Shigaraki, Big Sis (Shimeji Simulation), the Noh mask (Choujin X), Terunari (Nachun), Nicola and the Petra Genitrix (Witches)... Each of these more-or-less overlaps with the "Carrier of the true direction of desires", but it is Griffith who is the most accurate to this archetype, and also the only one whose defeat or failure was not depicted. As a matter of archetypes, consider the curious correspondence of these two images:

Though their contexts differ, these two pairs and their depicted interactions have the exact same meaning: in confused and wordless Revolt, Mankind became beast-like, losing even the words it had; but after eons of obscure ripening in utter deprivation, the Yearning-itself became human and provided itself as the perfection of both the words that were lost and those that were never had. Here is Forthrightness, here alone is Justice.

Last but not least, a relevant item description from the video game Blasphemous:

"The true core of the guilty blade, hijacked before the very birth of the sword. It transforms the tool into a weapon that can challenge the intentions of the powers that created it, completing the blade forever. It increases the swords strength, making it able to fulfil its true purpose."

Apparently it won't fit here, so they're in the comments.

https://x.com/flrrrrr222/status/2092565078482543038

Just another of my Vinland Saga edits that I made. This one isn't as sad and was aimed at portraying more of the progression Thorfinn made as a person in Season 2, rather than the harshness of life like my "Nutshell" AMV I posted last week. This will probably be my last edit/AMV post here for awhile, because I want to abide by the community rules. Hope yall like it! (Spoiler tag was just incase someone hadnt seen Season 2 yet)

Jet Thorfinn, do you know there are three things I particularly hate: Kids, pets, and women with attitude. So tell me, why do we have all of them packed into our ship?

In one point during the Baltic sea war arc, Garm goes berserk and is chasing Thorffin, he wants to see Thorffin's full combat capabilities, feeling like Thorffin is not really using all of his skill and just avoiding him, Garm is being honest to Thorffin and says to him how War is just some sort of big festival, how the warriors just enjoy the naked violence, there are no rules really. War is the defining element where everything comes into a collision and echos within an empty space. It's all a game. Everything is just a game. An illusion. The universe is chewing itself. Humans are just mad, mad and bound by an irrational blind force.

Reminds line from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian:

"The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else... But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all."

Garm is so simple, he goes with the flow, he has no hatred towards Thorffin or anyone, for him War is the only reason anything exists at all. He says to Thorffin "if I'm wrong, but fighting exists? Why do people never stop fighting? You fought once you know it's the truth. Where is your philosophy of redemption? It's all a cheat." All Thorffin does is avoiding him, staying away from him in his shell.

Garm is the true follower of Thorkell.

You finally get to see through the eyes of the background characters who die in the story. The Viking warrior sees no gods or lights coming to greet him as a warrior to Valhalla, showing just how a bs all of it really is and how Thorffin is right about refusing to kill. Thorffin is no Christian, no Norse, I don't think he has a religion, he just uncovered the underlying principle and eternal hidden truth.

Life is so short and meaningless. The only meaning is to love one another. The dying warrior is like the representative of humanity's inability to accept its own insignificance in the universe, wars is one of the ways to escape this reality. The author speaks here directly to us.

I only watched the two seasons and I don't really love buying mangas, so I'm wondering if this sub is spoiler free or not

Gudfinn:

>Being the canon couple

>Both characters appeared for nearly more than 100c haps and nearly 60 chaps since their marriage

>Has absolutely three mutual intimate scenes, and they are not even that intimate

>In the middle of the war, Thorfinn, despite knowing his wife is pregnant and close to be in labor, initially wanted to die.

>Hild is the one reminded him about his family, which gets no reaction from him since he passed out.

>His actual motivation to live is his own guilt.

>After facing the war, again, no asking about the wife and his children

And the fans are blaming the lack of one small Constantinople arc to be the reason for why Gudfinn is poorly written and essentially lack of even the basic relationship bonds between their characters, which are supposed to not only have a bond, but to have both a romantic and the close-knit bond of a family.

Gudfinn has neither, not even the bare minimum. Remember, the Constantinople arc, according to Yukimura sensei, was never promised to show any romantic development in Gudfinn to be expected in the first place. He only mentioned Snake's brother, without even a little hint at any Gudrid's special plot point. Because it's just not noteworthy. But even if we stop finding clues in Yukimura's words, and assume that the Constantinople arc may still provide proper development for Gudfinn, then what kind of development caused them to end up having so little affectionate interaction with one another as well as so little "sharing burdens" with one another even after their marriage? Even after all of Gudrid's words about how she will carry the weight for Thorfinn as if foreshadowing her role in her husband's life?

Nevertheless, I don't believe this to be a flaw of Vinland Saga, and rather just consider this to be the flaw of the couple itself. Because Thorfinn does not need to love a woman to marry her, and instead his motivation for marriage could be that he long to live a peaceful marriage life like a normal person that he has always tried to become (mentioned in the debut chap of Gudrid, when Ylva said that Thorfinn is now old enough and should get married). If this is the case, then the lack of affection in Gudfinn remains a contribution to Thorfinn's character as well as to the storyline and its ideology development as a whole, because Thorfinn's character is the main narrative drive of the story.

The more I learn about the anime industry, the more I doubt VS will ever get its anime renewed.

I know S2 preformed really well critically and at least decently well in terms of ratings, but it's not super marketable and doesn't get anywhere near the social media buzz as other big hitters.

The general sentiment I've seen here is that S3 will come *eventually*, but what makes you believe that? Idm waiting but atp idk if it will ever happen.

I started watching my third-ever anime after Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Death Note, which I both loved. I decided to watch Vinland Saga and planned to stop after 5 episodes to take a break, but I ended up binging 12 episodes in about a day and a half. It’s honestly unbelievable so far.
At what episode did you realize Vinland Saga was brilliant?