I haven’t read much at all of the Vinland Saga manga, as followers of the site will know.  But the deeper we wade into this story (and while that feels very deep indeed, in the larger scheme of things we’re only up to our ankles) the more I’m convinced the decision to reorder events was a good one.  This is a speculative point, because I’ll never have the experience of consuming the intro to Vinland in its original sequence.  But in order for us to understand the depth of the tragedy that’s playing out here, it seems to me that we really need to understand just what is being lost.

And make no mistake – this is a tragedy.  Grasping that means seeing what Thorfinn was before he became what he is now – and seeing the father and the path he tried to guide his son onto.  It seems to me that what we’re watching is the slow death of Thorfinn – not just of the father inside him, but the human being.  It’s not a question of blame – it’s a question of circumstance.  Fairness and justice were effectively non-existent in the time and place depicted here (just as they were in Dororo).  But does that also mean human decency was, too?

History buffs among you will recognize some of the names and events depicted in this episode – I won’t bog these reviews down with reams of detail, but context matters in a story like this.  This ep finds Thorfinn – already learning to kill, and slowly inuring himself to what it does to the killer – sent ahead by Askeladd to Gainsborough to scout.  Gainsborough has an important role in the Viking story in England – it was the capital of England for all of 40 days (stay tuned), and the landing site of a very important invader who became its ruler for that short time.  Even now, most of the residents of Gainsborough are of Danish descent.

Here we see some of the tension between privateers (pirates if you’re not feeling charitably inclined) like Askeladd and the “official” Danish army regulars.  Everyone knew full-on war was coming and wanted a piece of the action – a war that was inevitable due to the decision of Ethelred the Unready (the old woman in the village takes his name in vain) to slaughter as many Danes in England as could be slaughtered.  Thorfinn’s role is clearly to figure out how much presence the English army has on the ground, and signal Askeladd’s men towards a good landing spot.

It’s truly gut-wrenching watching Thorfinn become better and better at killing.  Because it’s a brutal act, because he’s a child, and because we know what his father hoped for him.  Even so it takes incredible fortitude for Thorfinn to have survived as long as he did, and in doing so he’s gained Askeladd’s trust after a fashion.  When Thorfinn is wounded during the scouting mission and passes out in a stream, a young woman and her mother find him and take him back to their cottage, where the mother – grieving the loss of her own son to disease – nurses Thorfinn back to health (and combs the lice out of his hair).

There’s never any doubt what’s happening here – the mother knows what her daughter says about the boy’s origins is true – nor about how it will all turn out.  But that’s the nature of tragedy as a dramatic form – knowing what’s coming and being helpless to prevent it is what makes the experience so powerful (and painful).  What makes it even more painful is that Thorfinn still has enough of Thors in him to be conflicted at what he’s about to do.  He knows what will happen to the village, specifically to the women.  He knows that telling the women to flee to the woods is a futile gesture.  He does what he does anyway, and lives with the anguish – but the fact that he is anguished is proof that the human being in him isn’t totally dead.  Yet.

Vinland Saga is clearly a very complicated story – one the mangaka says he’s only now, 14 years in, beginning to tell in the manner he dreamed of telling it.  The matter of Christianity is a fascinating one we rarely see addressed in anime – it’s presented in a generally positive light so far, as with the old woman’s views on charity, and it’s notable that Leif is a Christian himself.  It may in fact come to bear on Thorfinn’s personal saga before this series is over.  But essentially, I believe that personal story is the essential core of Vinland Saga, and the mass of historical events and supporting characters ultimately a vehicle to tell it.