#feel free to discuss and disagree with me i'd love to hear other ppls thoughts on this

[guideaus]

hii <3 i've really enjoyed following your recent vinland saga lb and now that you're completely caught up i'd love to hear your thoughts on the current arc! (good or bad. personally i kind of hate it lol)

hi! honestly, and i know this is kind of a cop out answer, but i don't know how to judge it at the moment. I am interested, and it doesn't feel as bad as the 3rd arc, but i think after the 2nd arc, vinland saga got a bit weird with the story's pacing and direction of events?

For the 2nd and 3rd arc, things like ketil's wealth or canute's thought of using military force to keep an occupied territory were eventually fully discussed and dealt with by the end of the arc, but the 3rd arc seemed to skip out on doing the same thing in a major way multiple ways. so, for the final arc, i keep being unable to tell if these little moments of something being brought up is yukimura actually building on a conflict, or if that's the extent of it. For example, in the 3rd arc Einar begins developing issues of being upset with Thorfinn doing everything by himself, which comes off of the 2nd arc's end having Thorfinn successfully just take 100 hits and impress his way to deescalating canute, but moments where einar or gudri express frustrating with this were derailed with the heterosexual "~oh so you caareee about him ;)" thing which felt inappropriate, and thorfinn manages to beat the main antagonist in the 3rd arc easily imo in a dumb way that didn't make sense. einar in the final arc finally disagrees with thorfinn enough to choose the settlement over him, and i kinda dont like how that was done? also everything having to do w the greek expedition not being shown at all when i imagine most ppl thought that'd be the point of the arc, lol.

So because of the 3rd arc, i cant tell if things will pay off or not, but also based off of some things from the 3rd arc, some things feel weaker in the final arc. I feel like the 3rd arc should've been where thorfinn is actually free, maybe not from violence/war, but he chooses to consider others and plan for his dream, but the 4th arc doesn't quite feel like much paid off, relationship-wise. Firstly, the beginning of the current arc has a bit of timeskips and doesn't introduce many new characters, which should be a thing when there's this group that's supposed to have been formed to follow thorfinn in a way that's only been done one other time. a lot of things like ivar's inclusion and how the people there are easily swayed as if they know neither ivar nor thorfinn make them feel like npcs in a video game, and the new characters associated with thorfinn from the 3rd arc don't seem to hold much influence regarding him, despite them all being essential to the expedition. I think after the third arc, vs started doing this thing where it seemed to be building something up plot-wise, but then it's kinda pushed aside for something else, like now where i assumed eventually thorfinn would actually confront ivar somehow, but never did. i know VS isn't a slow, character developing series, but i feel like it had to after leaving ketil's farm, but instead the 3rd arc felt awkward w the main gang, despite anilist trying to call them a found family lol.

ummm, im not sure what else to say besides the fact i can't quite tell where the plot is going anymore (not that it's off the rails nuts like jjk or something lol), but personally the quick pacing and regular timeskips frustrate me and i can't tell if some things will pay off and yukimura has a point or not. i think yukimura also kept the thought of all women being the peaceful voice of reason against men, which i dont agree with, and i can't tell if there's a suspicious thing going on with bug eyes and Niskawaji'j...

[cartoonfanorwhatever]

I kinda feel the need to post this before the finale tomorrow, but I think they seem to have rushed trough eldermourne kinda? It’s hard to put into words but since they got to Zelboldar they just started rushing trough character revelations and twist after twist and stuff. There where like at least to more arcs worth of setup done and they kinda just... resolved i the background.

Like as a small example Zirk’s quest for the all cure elixir, back when they where still searching for Zelboldar the characters talked about how they had powerful clerics that had powerful healing magic’s but that they probably did not have what he was looking for. And I thought, oh sweet Zirk will get some info to further his goal and in subsequent adventures he will get more hints and insights so that he will get his potion near the end of the show. But then they arrive in the city and boom here is exactly what he wants. I mean sure he still needs do some work for it to make it perfect and stuff but it just went a bit to smooth and fast for my liking.

and another, less specific example is ‘the capital’; a lot of plot-hooks had been set up for the third mates to go there, it’s where henry Jr. was headed, it’s where Walder’s reincarnation lived. and in general it’s been set up as a place with a lot of intrigue and suspense that is now just sorta dropped to the wayside. And some of those plot points where just dealt with in the background. (also speaking of just resolving things ‘off-screen’. They just ...whoop... saved Bookvar without any of the players being involved like it’s no big deal off screen; how crazy is that?) Like, checkov’s gun is kinda memeified now but it’s a thing for a reason. A lot of setup with no payoff is pretty unsatisfying.

The whole ‘the gods left a long time ago’ twist was awesome and felt a lot like the revelations from campaign 1′s ‘the nannerfly effect’. But that episode fell in like exactly the middle of that campaign and gave us alot of aftermath.

Here it kind of feels like if star wars had the twist reveal that Vader is Luke’s dad take place in the scene before he is taken to the throne room in episode IV. It’s like: “here is some grand new information, go deal with it here and now”

I sound a bit whiny and not super coherent probably but it’s mostly because I really like this setting and i feel like, with this campaign ending so suddenly they wasted a lot of potential. This world is so interesting and we barely got to see any of it. Murph created this awesome bloodborne-esque city continent with unique districts and stuff and added a great setup to do some “““monster of the week”””” type adventures defeating/helping put to rest ghosts and other unique and cool monsters while slowly sprinkling hints and clues to the big overarching plot sprinkled in. And than they spend like a good third or fourth of the campaign underground/in a pocket plane away from all that, and they barely got to use the awesome and fun ‘ghosthunter’ mechanic. I can think of maybe 4 times it was used or so?

Don’t get me wrong every single episode so far has been amazing and fun and i have no real individual complaints there. It’s just the grand narrative overall that i kinda feel started getting to quick in it’s pacing.

If they want to finish this story and want to move onto the next one power to them but I feel like I can at least be sad about what could have been.

tl;dr I kinda feel like Murph planned for this campaign to go on longer than it does now and he changed his mind about it not all too long ago making the pacing of the story kinda off in my eyes, and i’m bummed about it.