Vikings: Valhalla
“Destinies”, Season 3 Episode 8
What do I know about this series going into it?
Almost nothing. The description says it’s a drama, though I seem to recall somebody saying on a podcast that it was a comedy. I assume it’s a period piece about Vikings.
Recap
We’re in Norway, north of Kattegat. A man on a horse approaches two wood collectors.
He’s looking for Magnus Olafsson. They report his soldiers are in the north, on their way to Stromsfoss. And it turns out they actually work for Magnus and are chopping wood for his meeting, how convenient!
The horseman accompanies the woodcutters to the meeting. The soundtrack announces, “This guy is planning to assassinate Magnus!” loud enough that the characters should really have noticed. But they don’t; Leif1 pulls out two axes and attacks Magnus, shouting, “You killed my sister!”
“Stop!” says Magnus. “It’s me!”
Opening credits, during which I try to figure out what that means. Is this one of Leif’s friends, pretending to be Magnus?
When we return, Leif and Magnus are sitting across a table from one another. “How did you know of Freydis?”, Magnus asks. Leif answers: “He poisoned Jomsborg.”
Now, linguistically, Freydis sounds like a woman’s name and Jomsborg sounds like a place name. But in context those two sentences sound like Freydis is the man who poisoned Leif’s sister, named Jomsborg. I think the former is more likely but I’m not sure about this yet.
Some other people join the table, and in the conversation I learn that the guy that Leif attacked is named Harald. So why did Leif think he was Magnus?
They discuss the approaching conflict: the current king, “Svein”, is either already dead or will be soon. Magnus has the backing of the Pope to succeed him, but somebody at the table – maybe Harald, maybe someone else, I can’t tell them apart yet – has the backing of everyone in this particular room.
Elsewhere, a woman enters a village by boat. She walks into a quiet tavern, where she meets another woman. They give each other’s names: the newcomer is Freydis (so that solves that mystery), and the other woman is Queen Aelfiguo (whose name I’ve definitely got wrong, as the caption disappeared halfway through my writing it down). They discuss their concerns about Magnus, who leads the Jarls, a group of people who are planning to attack Svein. And they mention Harald is the prince who is contesting Magnus for the throne.
So let’s put some more pieces together. The royal family consists of King Svein, married to Katla or Katja; his mother, the Queen Mother, named Aelfiguo; and his brother, Prince Harald. Svein is still alive, but Magnus is leading a rebellion; he already has the backing of the Pope and the allegiance of a people called the Jarls. The only thing I don’t understand is why Harald wants to fight Magnus to become king, if his father his still alive and still king. Does he actively want Magnus to kill Svein, opposing only Magnus’s intention to rule after him?
In the meantime, we go to Magnus. He’s king of the Jarls and clearly the bad guy. He also seems deathly ill. He announces to the Jarls that after he dies Queen Emma, his wife, will rule. All of the lords of the dominions under him agree to this, with one of them clearly hesitant but falling in line. Curiously, though, the dominions they name are regions in Britain: Wessex and York and East Anglia and Mercia and so on. I thought we were in Norway?
Magnus, on his deathbed, meets with one of the lords under him, the hesitant one. He warns this lord that if he wants to rule England, he must support Emma for now. The lord accepts, but as soon as he leaves the room he warns Emma that the Earls have no intention of making her queen. As soon as Magnus is dead, he claims, they will renege on their pledge of loyalty to her and instead fight each other for control of England. He recommends that she send for “Edward”, who will solve this problem somehow; she says she already has.
The way they both are acting is very curious. Clearly he’s being disloyal to her, and pretending otherwise; clearly she knows this; and clearly he knows that she knows.
Meanwhile, in a forest somewhere, a man approaches King Svein and his retinue with a report: their target is alone and vulnerable. They surround the pond where a man is bathing naked and call him out: Magnus Olafsson!
So hang on. I thought the sick guy was Magnus. Are there two characters named Magnus? But then this Magnus is wearing a cross very similar to that of the older Magnus in the previous scene. Are we jumping forward and backward in time?
Svein confirms that this Magnus is “here to meet with the Jarls and steal my throne” and that he is there to kill Magnus – but the guards are secretly already on Magnus’s side and kill Svein instead, declaring Magnus the new king. So we are jumping forward and backward in time; the scenes in England are flashforwards to an older Magnus, ruling the Jarls after many decades.
While they’re chopping Svein up into little bits, one of the guards warns Magnus that “Harald is back” and will challenge him for the crown.
Young Magnus enters the throne room of Queen Aelfiguo. She commands the guards to stop him, but they too have already changed their loyalty. She warns him that he will find running the country much more difficult than merely conquering it – dramatic irony, given that we already saw he will live and rule to a ripe old age – and Magnus kills her. Then he approaches Katja, who I hadn’t noticed is heavily pregnant. She begs for mercy, but he says the royal child is a threat to his rule and he has no choice. Just before he kills her, though, she offers to give up Freydis in exchange for her own life.
Elsewhere, a sunburned man enters a snowbound cave looking for Harald. And in another elsewhere, a man sits down for a talk with his wife.
This man says that he understands why she - Freydis’s mother - freed Freydis after he locked her up. I have no idea what that’s about.
Meanwhile, Katla (I finally got her name right) has summoned Freydis into a trap. She enters the throne room, empty of all but Katla herself, when suddenly Magnus appears. Freydis desperately and loyally wants to defend Katla – “get behind me!” – but soon realizes that Magnus’s people have surrounded her and Katla is not their target. Katla apologizes; she had no choice, and Queen Aelfgifu (I got the rest of her name this time!) is already dead.
Meanwhile, in the cave, the sunburned man is ambushed by somebody else, and they both deliver seemingly-fatal wounds to each other.
In the room of the dying king, captions say “Canute groans.” I know who King Canute is historically; actually spelled Cnut, he is a Danish king who conquered England. But does that mean I completely misunderstood this? I thought this guy was Magnus. So these aren’t flashforwards after all?2 His wife, Emma, comforts him as he dies.
Back in Norway, Prince Harald arrives in the throne room just as Magnus is about to be crowned king. He reminds the Jarls that they had sworn allegiance to Harald before swearing allegiance to Magnus. The only reason they supported Magnus was because they thought Harald was gone. But he’s not gone now, is he? There is a lot of murmuring: the Jarls are now on Harald’s side.
But Magnus pulls out his trump card: Freydis, who he captured but did not kill. She is the leader of the pagans in Norway, and has a son with Harald. The pope will excommunicate anybody who supports paganism over Christianity. What will the Jarls do? They debate amongst themselves, and agree: Harald and Magnus will rule together. Harald accepts readily. Magnus accepts too – but only if Harald agrees to burn Freydis as a witch and swear that Norway will never return to paganism.
Harald agrees, putting his ambition before his lover. Freydis is taken away to be burned during the next day’s coronation.
That afternoon, Leif – who saw Freydis come in, and had thought she was dead until then – meets with the priest. He wants oil of a particular type, because he’s going to do “something I swore I would never do again”.
Back in England, Canute’s funeral is held in the cathedral in Winchester, after which his body is sent out to sea in a burning boat.
Back in Norway, Harald and Magnus are crowned.
I wonder how the power-sharing agreement works from a legal standpoint - under what circumstances they can override one another, and who wins when they disagree.
Freydis is dragged out to be burned at the stake. Magnus looks more gleeful than he should – what does he get out of this? Her utility towards kneecapping Harald’s claim to the throne has failed. So is he killing her just to torture Harald, or is there another motive?
Aha. Freydis is accused of having murdered Olaf Haraldsson. Magnus’s patronymic name is Olafsson, so maybe she killed Magnus’s father and this is his revenge. They tie her to the stake and prepare to light. But she calls upon the Norse gods: “strike down your anger, and redden these walls with blood!” As she does, parts of the town around them begin bursting into flames and explosions. The people react with fear: she’s a witch!
And we see that, secretly, Leif has been shooting flaming arrows in tandem with her declamations.
Magnus commands the priest to light the pyre anyway, but it bursts into flames thanks to Leif before he can do so. The pyre’s fire is heavy with dark smoke, however – and under cover of that smoke, Leif leaps onto the pyre, frees Freydis, and has two confederates put a bag over her head and pull her away before she can give away the game.3
Meanwhile, Emma has been betrayed; This “Edward” that she sent for never received the message, and the traitorous lord (Earl Godwin) has invited somebody else to be crowned. But it turns out the somebody else is her stepson, and they are more friendly than Godwin expected. He leaves in fury, knowing he has lost.
A family approaches the snowbound cave. They wake up one of the two dead guys, Stigr, who is injured, not dead.
In the middle of the forest, Freydis meets Leif and Harald, who planned her escape together. She is furious: she wants vengeance, she can’t let Harald co-rule with the Magnus, who killed her people! But Harald stops her: I’ll deal with Magnus. She’s not happy: he got what he always wanted, at her expense. But they reconcile, and he convinces her to go with Leif to Iceland.
Harald returns to the throne room. He commands the guards to take Magnus to a cell. The Jarls initially react with fury at this betrayal, but he says: “This is my ruling!” A king is allowed to throw people in jail, after all, and he said it before Magnus did.
The Jarls wisely decide not to interfere and declare allegiance to Harald, now the sole ruler of Norway.
Unresolved questions
What happened to Katla? Did Magnus keep the agreement or kill her once she delivered Freydis?
What will the Pope do when he discovers that Harald has thrown Magnus in prison?
Will Harald ever bring Freydis and their son back to Norway?
Ratings
These ratings evaluate the finale-of-the-week from an angle that its writers never intended: how well it works as an individual episode watched in isolation. The analysis accompanying each rating is written from that point of view as well.
The ratings do not necessarily apply to the episode if it is watched in the proper context. And it should go without saying that none of them apply to the series as a whole, which I have not watched.
Story: 8/10. Political intrigue and shifting loyalties in ancient Norway and England. The plot was complex and interesting and (not knowing the history) I had no idea who would win in the end.
Writing: 6/10. The dialogue was perfectly serviceable – slightly above average for television – but ultimately forgettable. The only line that stands out in my memory is Freydis’s desperate “Get behind me!”, but that’s obviously due to its delivery rather than its originality. Nothing else grabbed my attention in particular.
Production: 5/10. Good background music and a well-realized world. I have praise for the costuming and set design and judicious use of dozens if not hundreds of extras. Unfortunately, the acting was uneven. The actress playing Freydis was stellar, and Canute and Katla also brought believability to their parts, but Queen Emma and several of the Viking men felt at times like they were reading lines. (Which Viking men? Beats me, I couldn’t tell them apart; see below.)
Characterization: 6/10. Some characters were fleshed out better than others. I genuinely wonder, if Magnus is as manipulative and good at turning others to his side as the plot seemed to imply, why he wasn’t the first to throw Harald in a cell. After all, he had plenty of time to plot while Harald was secretly meeting Freydis in the forest.
Accessibility: 3/10. It took longer than usual to understand the main plot, misunderstanding basic parts of the story until I finally got it sorted out. The side plots (like the guy in the cave) went right over my head. But the biggest problm was that half of the main characters and most of the side characters are identical-looking Viking men with beards. I have no idea who is who; I could only identify Harald, for example, by the black part of his shirt, and couldn’t identify anybody else until their names were brought up.
I presume that if I watch the series from the beginning I’ll get a better introduction to the characters. Some of them have noticeable scars, and probably for exactly that reason: to help you tell them apart, because Harald probably has more than one shirt.
Closure: 7/10. One of the two primary plotlines – who will rule Norway – was fully resolved. The other was mostly resolved, but it would’ve been nice to see a few more specifics about how Queen Emma and whoever-that-is plan handle their rule together, or how the Earl of Traitorminster was tricked into thinking they were enemies. (I assume the regular viewer knows more than I do about these things.) There were a few threads left dangling, however - with the ultimate fates of Freydis and Katla in particular left unknown.
Do I want to watch the series now?
No question about it. With the exception of the uneven acting – which I can live with, as long as it doesn’t get too bad - it’s almost like this series was made for me. Political and military intrigue in a costume drama setting, with shifting alliances among multiple characters of differing agendas? Real consequences, with named characters who can die? It’s not the best example of the genre, but sign me up!
His name is given in the caption when he shouts.
Only while reviewing my notes after the episode did I figure out how I made this mistake. Magnus is said to be “king of the Jarls”, and the first thing Canute did on screen was address his “Earls” - pronouncing it “Jarls” - who in turn spoke of him as their king. I assumed this meant they were the same person, not realizing that “Jarl” is the Viking equivalent of an Earl and not the name of a nation.
How much does she still believe in the old gods, now that she realizes the miracle she thought they wrought was done by a human hand? Conversely, how much missionary work has this spectacle just undone among the public?
great one as usual!
fun fact: many middle age societies really did singled out theft and robbery as a worst offence than other crimes, under the assumption that if you killed, say your neighbour, you did it because you really didn't like him specifically, but if you are a thief you are probably going to steal again
I almost forgot that this spin off existed, I remember really liking the early seasons of Vikings, but dropping of after the fourth and assuming I wouldn't have liked this too, maybe I will give it a chance, even if political schemes with constantly changing allegiances isn't really my thing