I’ve been dancing around it for most of the series, but it’s time to acknowledge the elephant in the room and just admit it – Askeladd is the main character in Vinland Saga.  Not only that, but he’s the most interesting character, and it’s a pretty high bar with this cast.  Now all that may change in the material the anime hasn’t reached, but the anime is what it is, and the manga is what it is.  If we get a second season (I’m actually coming around to believing there’s a chance) I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

What a complicated vipers’ nest of a man Askeladd is.  He really is a true magnificent bastard in the true literary sense.  I certainly don’t like him per se, but I feel as though I understand him.  As well as anyone can, anyway.  And what’s more I pity him, no less so than I do Thorfinn albeit for very different reasons.  I’ve never felt that the smartest people were particularly the happiest as a rule – if anything the opposite tends to be true – and Askeladd is living proof of that.

It was clear from the final moments of last week’s episode (uncharacteristically recycled in the cold open here) that Askeladd was approaching this duel with Thorfinn in a much different manner than his usual.  I feel as if there are times when something happens to remind Askeladd how miserable he truly is and this sets him into a funk, and the death of Bjorn at his hand is certainly one such event.  While I don’t doubt that there was a part of him that mourned Bjorn and even considered him almost a friend, I think what was really bothering Askeladd here that Bjorn – a member of the race of brutes he so contemptuously looks down on – was capable of such powerful feelings for him, and he was unable to reciprocate.  The episode title was “Lone Wolf”, and it could hardly fit Askeladd any better.

With someone as complicated as Askeladd, their actions are always going to be a matter of interpretation.  But I truly believe he was trying to help Thorfinn here (and generally has been since the beginning) – to set him free by pushing him away once and for all.  Letting off steam too – I’m sure battering the kid senseless felt good for Askeladd in that trying moment.  Throwing away his sword, goading Thorfinn on, then effortlessly subduing him with his bare hands.  Does anyone truly believe it would have mattered if Thorfinn had two good arms?  Askleadd has his number and always has.

As for the story Askeladd told the boys (and Thorkell), it was fascinating in its own right but there were multiple layers of subtext to his telling it.  How many people has Askeladd shared this with over the years, I wonder?  I wouldn’t be stunned if this were the first time – there’s no indication that he’s ever loved anyone or even can love anyone apart from his mother, or that he’s had a real friend.  We now know the source of the name, a little more about the nature of the Artorius myth his mother kept repeating like a mantra.  But if one were to envision a backstory for a man like Askeladd, I imagine this would have hit very close the mark for most of us.

Let us never forget, Askeladd is half-Viking himself.  Olaf’s blood courses through his veins just as his mother’s does.  He learned a hard lesson at just 11 years old – legends don’t save people, and neither do Gods.  The only thing that can save a person is another person, and he decided to be that person.  And let’s not forget that in telling this story, Askeladd is giving Thorfinn the template for how to kill him (should he have the will).  Askeladd is no warrior – he makes no bones about it.  Killing Olaf in his sleep and framing his brother?  If it serves the goal, do it.  Askeladd is not only no man of honor – he holds honor in contempt, and the only God he serves is the God of practicality.

Of course Thor’s existence is a wild card in all this.  I think that was the one time in all of Askeladd’s lonely, blood-stained journey that he doubted his own despairing view of the world.  But then he killed Thors, which he’d been paid a lot of money to do, and that was that.  Name-dropping Thors to Thorfinn here was undeniably cold as ice, but as with everything this man does it was thoroughly calculated.  As with the pummelling I’m sure it felt good, but Askeladd wants to make sure Thorfinn understands he’s been wasting his life and there’s no way out on the path he’s chosen.  It’s not what Thors would have wanted, and whether he kills Askeladd or not it will have accomplished nothing except destroying his soul.

So what does Askeladd want now?  Does he want Thorfinn to abandon him for good, or to kill him in his sleep?  His acknowledgment to Canute that the prince is better-suited to rule is more or less an admission that his own life has been a waste as much as Thorfinn’s, but he’s fully aware of that fact and has been almost from the beginning.  Askeladd never liked himself and now more than ever he’s become that which he reviled.  The most fascinating – and poignant – moment of Askeladd’s tale was when he bemoaned “people without beauty” popping up everywhere, because it was a reminder that he’s a man who has aspirations and fully understands the degree to which his life has been an abomination.  He’s no saint to be sure, but that’s not a fate I would wish on anybody.