#thorffin karlsefni thorson

[guess-ill-dye]

I've watched vinland Saga and have been reading it, and honestly, it made me question how I act and everything really. That's how you know a piece of media is good. So ig spoilers for Vinland Saga, bcs I'm gonna talk abt how it affected me (there will be a part 2, so not everything is here)

Thorffin is such an amazing character. He grows so much throughout the story, and you can see that the change is gradual and that it is hard, and I think that is what good character development is.

Prologue kid Thorffin lives a very happy normal life, and I liked that backstory where we get to see the before his father's death Thorffin, and who his father was. I thing Thors came to the same conclusion that he tried to teach Thorffin when he was young and that he ultimately understood:

This page means a lot. The fact that even though the knife is cutting his hand, he is still clenching it tightly and is not letting go of it because he does not want his son to go though the same path he went to (being a warrior and killing a lot of people) so that he can come to that realisation. Another thing that really shows how Thors is and just how good and changed he is since his days as a Jomsviking is this

When he knocks down the man into the water, he throws him the oar so he doesn't drown. He is not only trying to to kill him by not using lethal force (even tho he could), but he is actively trying to make him stay alive.

When Thors dies, that completely changes Thorffin. He is consumed by rage and is fueled by revenge. The anime shows how he started surviving with Askellad's band (after he joins them to try and avenge his father by killing Askellad), and the moment he started using the same knife his father wanted him to stay away from to kill someone. I think that was a great part, and it really helped to understand how the whole little kid to violent person process went, and that it wasn't sudden at all. I also like the war and fight scenes bcs they are just good and I enjoy fighting in media soo yeah.

There is a lot that goes on, not so meaningful for Thorfinn but a lot for another character that also develops in this story, Prince Canute. Watching him go from someone who was afraid to speak to someone who gave orders around with confidence is amazing honestly. And even if it seemed sudden, that it was solely after Ragnar's death, that caused Canute to have to speak up for himself and no longer have a safe shelter in Ragnar, it was gradual, with that being the point where the most changing takes place after he talks with the monk and realises that God banished us from paradise, and lets us suffer here on earth, and that the only way a attaining his love is to die. "Death completes man." And he decides that he will create paradise on earth. I like his motivations.

Again gradual change (I got lost kinda)

Again, he does speak for himself here, but Rangnars death makes him have to do it, and he gets no choice: he either changes or changes. He is really similar to Thorffin. Being in the battlefield at just 5-6 years of age, he really had to become the violent person he did in order to survive. Or atleast it was the only option he saw.

When Canute plans on killing his father, the king, and taking his throne, Thorffin becomes his personal guard, and again the story is not focused on Thorffin at this point and then there is this

Askellad dies after killing the king, and Canute ascends to the throne of England, not Denmark yet, tho. In this scene we see just how important Askellad was for Thorffin, even tho he was constantly threatening to kill him in a duel, and we see the weird and twisted father figure that he became for Thorffin.

AFTER THE PROLOGUE

Now this is the part where Thorffin changes for the best, after becoming a slave in a Danish farm. He meets Einar there, an English man that turned into a slave after his village was plundered by vikings, where his sister and mother were killed and he was captured as a slave. After being introduced to Thorffin, Einar learns that through hard work making a wheat field and harvesting it he can pay for his freedom back and be a free man again.

At this point Thorffin has nightmares about his time as a warrior, and I think that is (probably) a good depiction of trauma and how it affects him, and that he cannot remember when he wakes up.

We see those dreams, of him killing people without ever seeing their faces, which speaks a lot about how he did that killing. He saw the people he killed as obstacles in his path, just bodies that attacked him that he had to attack back. On those nightmares he sees his younger self killing Einar's family, and cannot stop himself. I think that it proved that now that he is not on the battlefield environment he becomes empty (his own words), no longer being filled by his rage and wish for revenge.

(This is him having those nightmares, where he screams and tries to reach forward)

After that we get another character that I think evolved a lot from the beginning to the end of this part, who is the masters son (I dont remember his name so yeah). He thinks that his father does not treat him like a man (he is 17) and wishes to prove his worth in the battlefield, which his father disagrees to, instead wanting him to spend his life in his farm continuing his legacy. He then meets two guests (warriors who are hired to guard the farm) and they take him drinking in an attempt to get the master's favor, and then they try to solve the son's problems with and initiation ritual to becoming a man: killing someone. They get the idea to kill a slave, and, you guessed it, they picked Thorffin and Einar. Since they are slaves and their lives belong to the master (and his family, therefore his son) he can kill them. They first tell him to kill Einar, who fights back and resists. Then Thorffin offers himself to die instead

Then when they mock him for not wanting to live, and cut him with their swords multiple times, he says this

That seems pretty reasonable for Thorffin to say imo. He spent so much time in constant rage, and he never saw much joy in life. I once saw a yt video (yes this is on topic) about how people who were traumatised as children, opposite of the whole "your trauma made you stronger" way of thinking, actually makes it way harder to believe things will get better, since people who had relatively happy childhoods can look back and say-"life used to be good, so it can be good in the future too", and if you had a bad childhood it's most likely you'll think-"life was also bad back then. It's bad now. What tells me it will be okay in the future? Not much." And I think that is how Thorffin is thinking. Then Snake, the guest's boss comes and stops them and they go back to their lives.

Another thing that is completely off topic: he is short and often times described as small and a "midget". Look at this height difference alr

And yes I also like him bcs I am short as well, why do you ask

Anyway I have hit the image limit so I'll make a second post abt this to finish this up (I hope), so yeah

(Link to the second part of the post once I make one will be here :DD)

REBLOGS GREATLY APPRECIATED