#Vinland Sanga

[cosmicjoke]

I like how Thorkell is like this big idiot, but who has so much experience living life at this point, he’s also not actually stupid, and picks up on things with more keenness than most.  Him realizing that Gudrid is in love with Thorfinn was pretty funny, haha.  But I actually found it incredibly moving when Gudrid offers to fight Thorkell in Thorfinn’s place, and screams at Thorkell about why none of them can just leave Thorfinn alone.  This quote here:

“I’m just sick of all of this!! Of all these people like you!!  Thorfinn’s just trying to live an honest, true life!  He’s trying his hardest to be a gentle person!!  Why do you all have to keep preventing him from doing that?!  Why can’t you just leave him alone?!”

Oof, that got me right in the heart.  Thorfinn IS trying his hardest to be a gentle person, but he keeps getting dragged again and again into violence.  Thorfinn’s own confession at his father’s grave, about wanting to do right by Thors’ lesson to him about nobody being his enemy, but it being so exhausting, got right to the heart of this story and it’s moral lessons, of course.  As did Thorfinn’s fight with Garm, in its way.  When Thorfinn taunted Garm about wanting a “challenge” and throwing away his only weapon against a deadly opponent, it was the same sentiment being expressed, that it’s always the harder path to walk, finding a way to not kill someone who’s trying to kill you, and still keep your own life, to not hate your enemy, or even see them as an enemy, when they treat you as one.  That’s the challenge, that’s the exhausting part.  That’s what Thors meant by being a “true warrior”.  Taking that harder path.  And it’s a path Thorfinn has walked admirably up to now, despite the best efforts of so many to stop him. 

Of course it’s an idealistic message, and one could accuse this story of not existing within the realm of realism in how Thorfinn has, up to this point, managed to stick to his promise not to kill anymore.  The real world isn’t often so accommodating.  But I think one thing this story does so well, even as it wrestles with this somewhat idealized notion of pacifism, is that Thorfinn DOES still use violence when he has to.  He still beats the snot out of people, breaking bones, breaking faces, knocking people out, etc...  He still uses and relies on violence to get out of certain situations.  I was worried, early on after the conclusion of the arc with King Canute, that the story was going to take Thorfinn’s ideals to an extreme, and have him able to navigate and solve every, single situation he found himself in through diplomacy and talking, without ever having to get physically violent, and then, I think, it might have been in danger of tipping over into the realm of too idealistic to believe.  But instead, Thorfinn realized rather quickly that he could still fight without killing.  He could still fight and win without killing and without sacrificing himself.  Violence isn’t something that can ever be fully escaped.  The human condition won’t allow it.  Nature won’t allow it.  Thorkell’s warning to Thorfinn about how his dream of creating a nation where there will be no war is impossible to achieve is, in fact, true.  But Thorfinn is still determined to strive for it, no matter how difficult, or even impossible, the task may be, and it’s in that striving that Thorfinn becomes a hero.  Even as it causes him personally untold strife and hardship, he’s proven himself committed to the ideal. 

Once again, I’m excited to continue on reading. 

[mazusu]

what are your favorites anime opening and ending ?

hey there, anon!! i hope you are doing fine! woahh i really like many ops and eds, so i’m gonna list my top 5 for each one!

openings:

sakuramitsutsuki, spyair - gintama op 13;

i wanna be, spyair - gintama op 21;

hello, world!, bump of chicken - kekkai sensen op 1;

diver, nico touches the wall - naruto shippuden op 8;

mukanjyo, survive said the prophet - vinland sanga op 1.

endings:

some like it hot!!, spyair - gintama ed 17;

possibility, sanagi - gintama ed 9;

fighter, bump of chicken - sangatsu no lion ed 1;

shura, does - gintama ed 5;

tenchi gaeshi, nico touches the wall - haikyuu ed 1.

ok gintama has one of the best ost out there ♥ also i really like these bands a lot, so yeah o//

send me “what’s your favorite..” asks 💫