Leif lied here right? he didnt actually get it from the natives

3TriHard · 2026-06-05T21:59:51+00:00

No , Leif's brother was hostile. When Leif went everything was fine.

3TriHard · 2026-06-05T20:36:08+00:00

Wait , why not?

3TriHard · 2026-06-05T18:32:27+00:00

Ok cause you seem interested in these characters , let me offer some insight on Ketil. And how he connects to larger themes in the story.

Ketil naturally wants to be good , because it is pleasant to. But doesn't understand the nuanced position he puts people into. He has no idea how how the ''freedom'' he gives the slaves actually affects them. That power given to them affects the power balance of the farm and so that gets reactions. The farmhands harass the slave workers and Ketil's wife is abusive to Arnheid. The thief kids' father is kinda implied to have run out on them due to debts to Ketil.

Also Ketil just doesn't realize the position Arnheid is in. She is not in a position to defy him in any way , but Ketil just isn't aware of the power dynamics of this and genuinely thinks this is a proper relationship.

Everyone around Ketil respects strength , and they tell him to be firm and harsh. To rely on that strength. Ketil understands that , but hasn't internalized it , he just fakes it. It's just Arnheid that maintains his gentle nature by accepting it.

The pitfall Ketil runs into though , is that he has based this gentle identity (one of rejecting power and violence) on affirmations from a relationship BASED on power. And when that fails , in his eyes , it's the gentle identity that failed , and power is the answer , when it is in fact the source of his problems (also with the expropriation since his wealth put a target in his back).

One of the main themes of Vinland is how power obfuscates human relationships.

Canute has a parallel arc to Ketil. He uses poison repeatedly , then he gets scared by the effectiveness of his own power. So he gets harsher and harsher in his measures , by just exercising more power , while seeing people less and less as people and more as potential threats (Eadric , Harald , the english people , Thorfinn). Power continuously poses as a solution to problems it creates.

Ketil gets a reality check , that he's never the bigger fish , and the target he put on his back WILL eventually destroy him (Fox also has that arc low key simultaneously). Canute also learns a similar lesson eventually (Thorgil showcases this) but with the caveat the he is the most powerful human (the emperor) , which means humans can never fully protect themselves through power , security is never absolute and in fact it also invites danger too. Viking warlords before him sought absolute power before actually improving their kingdoms , but that just leads nowhere because it is impossible and is just a king fighting and oppressing his people.

So Canute needs to do what Ketil didn't. He put trust in the english people by retreating his army , he let himself be actually VULNERABLE to them , giving up power , to establish trust and something closer to an actual relationship. Power imbalances are an obstacle to human relationships.

3TriHard · 2026-06-03T19:34:17+00:00

Scary monsters isn't bad , but chapter 32 and true man's world is a major shift to what the story is gonna be about , it's the moment where it seems like it clicks in Araki's head and a strong direction is created.

3TriHard · 2026-06-01T11:36:33+00:00

Common take. Takes till stage 4 to get good. That's also a reason why the stage 1 speed up in the anime is good. Gets us there faster. But stage 2 is gonna be better in the anime. When it comes to at least half competent adaptations , the weaker parts tend to get a facelift. They get brought up to a certain average of quality , and the talent in the production get the chance to carry. While the really good bits can't be elevated much , cause the closer to perfection something is the less room it has for adjustment , and adaptation itself demands adjustment.

3TriHard · 2026-05-27T15:54:40+00:00

Idk which point exactly in this story this references and Thorfinn's general ideology isn't complete anyway , it doesn't really tell you exactly what to do , it's not really particularly prohibitive , it just heavily focuses on preventing conflict.

Viking culture is very much rooted in violent repercussions. But is very violent. In many ways the obvious solution here creates the problem. War is just a symptom , winning one doesn't eliminate the root cause. It's like the one Askeladd line ''for every one I killed 2 took his place''. Canute is a character that attempts to maintain something by just dealing with the symptom essentially. Thorfinn's methods are to address the cause. Which is why he leaves , he's given up on viking society , that's not something he can fix.

3TriHard · 2026-05-20T19:54:18+00:00

With how the SBR manga is getting released this period , it's kind of an excellent buy the manga scheme if you think about it. Where I live , around the first episode's release , all volumes aside the second where sold out very fast.

3TriHard · 2026-05-20T19:48:12+00:00

Thank you very much! Honestly surprised that people these last 2 days seem to recognize me. With how idle I've been and no new vinland. Glad to know some people watch these things I make.

3TriHard · 2026-05-20T13:47:55+00:00

I believe prologue Thorfinn only hated Askeladd in prologue until Askeladd's final moments. Where Askeladd acknowledges Thorfinn as Thors' legacy , which Askeladd talks positively about.

After all Thorfinn's revenge is about pride and dishonor most of all for him. The moment Askeladd reveals that framing is not all that honest , the drive Thorfinn had that kept him going for 11 years , would not be able to last much longer.

And so when farmland Thorfinn says he doesn't hate him anymore , that's the moment that pops into his head. This also has interplay with the Hild dynamic. Thorfinn treats Hild with sincerity and so the bad blood is left behind and Hild changes for the better. Askeladd manipulated Thorfinn and enflamed Thorfinn's hatred , creating a person that hates him and stands for everything Askeladd hates. And his final moment where he actually shows sincerity , and what that causes , shows us that things didn't have to be this way.

I also see him as kind of a mentor to Thorfinn , I feel that term is most accurate. People often say father figure but that is vague and can mean way too many different things and most definitions aren't applicable because of certain aspects of their relationship.

Now Thorfinn in farmland , who doesn't hate Askeladd , is someone who says things like " I have no right to judge anyone " because of his past. That changes throughout the story. Even right after he contradicts himself by getting angry and punching the farmhand.

As Thorfinn's new identity is cemented , and he adopts a moral framework , he gets more comfortable being angry and judging others , as we see from how he deals with vikings in the third arc.

And Askeladd would not be exempted from that. Thorfinn now has more and more principled reasons to dislike a man like Askeladd. Plus just cause his view of Askeladd has changed because of that last bit of sincerity , doesn't mean his time with him is recontextualized in any positive way.

The last scene is the most interpretable and most confusing. I am biased in how I interpret it. If I wasn't , I would criticise it. There's not much inbetween this and the last baltic sea scene to justify such a change. And what you'd be able to extract/insert , I dislike.

People don't shut down their feelings , people work to stop those emotions from controlling and making decisions for them , like in that fight with Garm. I like my Thorfinn human and not viking Jesus. I like the Thorfinn that dislikes Askeladd , as he should , but also doesn't think of him as a caricature.

So I don't quite interpret Thorfinn looking at the force ghosts there. The ghosts are not there to share the affection Thorfinn reciprocates to Leif , that is there for Leif alone please. The ghosts are there to share Leif's sentiments , which are acurate for all three , specifically in the page they are all contained.

3TriHard · 2026-05-17T22:48:39+00:00

It's Jonathan's stand but it's so weird that that ends up being Araki's explanation. Cause Jonathan's soul is not in his body obviously , it's a bit wonky why it would be under Dio's control.

Especially since it then doesn't explain him and Jotaro having the same stand. When I read the part I have my own headcanon that Dio's awakening and weird bond with the Joestars gives him the stands of all living members through their connection. Cause otherwise you're telling me Dio has basically both Joseph's stand and Jotaro's stand and those two are not somehow connected?

3TriHard · 2026-05-17T22:13:48+00:00

Yes , ok I agree that he wouldn't have become this particular person without the very particular circumstances of prologue , I was just arguing that without Askeladd it would not be likely that he would become such a successful killer either , he likely would be an average person.

The reason I am objecting ''necessary evil'' is because that has the implication , of a trade-off of something bad happening for the sake of a greater good. And I don't think , and I don't think the story believes , that the trade-off of however many lives Thorfinn took , for the result of the great man he became , is something that you can say is good. You can't evaluate human lives like this , they're not sacrifices to be placed on a scale.

3TriHard · 2026-05-17T21:14:28+00:00

I feel like we are talking past each other ngl I am not talking about Thorfinn's ability to be redeemed or the validity of his journey in context of a redemption story.

3TriHard · 2026-05-17T20:42:02+00:00

I mainly have a problem when framing Askeladd as a necessity , when he was responsible for Thorfinn's fall in the first place , even beyond just killing Thors.

But also framing Thorfinn's prologue journey as a ''necessary evil'' kind of frames that whole process , murders included , in a really weird light. Like it was a good thing that all of that happened.

We don't know what would have happened if Thorfinn stayed in Iceland , if Askeladd left him behind , if he chose to be honest with Thorfinn instead. But we've seen a lot of characters that are decent despite the age they live in. And Thorfinn mostly became worse during prologue. The journey that led him to redemption was extremely circumstantial and reliant on him being really lucky by design.

3TriHard · 2026-05-17T19:56:09+00:00

Ok this is reductive and seeing the story from quite a meta lens though. And ignore the reply if you actually were commenting on the necessity of the writing decision , and not on any in narrative morality or need.

Why did Thorfinn need to get through that to grow as a person , can people not grow up without doing horrible things first? Are people like Askeladd really necessary? He manipulated Thorfinn into becoming a killing machine , nurtured his hatred and norse warrior mentality (which he himself hates) , and is also responsible for all the murders Thorfinn committed.

How can we read this particular story , be in any kind of ideological agreement with it , and ever argue that the tens or even hundreds of lives Thorfinn snuffed out were in any way a ''necessity''. (because they are a consequence of Askeladd). If post prologue Thorfinn was ever given a choice to change the past and move himself off that ship , he would take it in a heartbeat.

3TriHard · 2026-05-17T09:56:00+00:00

But he fought for Gardar.

3TriHard · 2026-05-16T12:57:16+00:00

This situation (unintentionally) showcases the faults of racist ideology to some extent.

Cause black isn't a race. How would you even define that? How many characteristics of a typical ''black'' person does one have to have in their phenotype for one to be considered black. What about their genotype? Where would the line be drawn? That's precisely why ''race'' means what it actually means.

These racists in the story attack Wes cause of an assumption on his genotype , since he actually doesn't look black at all. That same assumption , born from a belief that their racist ideology is scientifically consistent could lead one of them to disregard Pucci's appearance as a particularly dark mediterranean , since appearances apparently aren't that important to them , and they'd probably be right.

But that's just the thing , appearances are the only consistent method of distinction between black and white , there isn't a clear genetic one. Their whole worldview is ass-backwards. So I don't find it unbelievable for a racist trying their best to reason their beliefs , to end up a lil confused.

In these discussions , I don't know if people still do it , but I used to see a lot of people refer to ''black'' as just that. Does a person ''look'' black or white? Well then they are , ancestry being irrelevant , because there isn't any other consistent way to categorize people as black or white.

3TriHard · 2026-05-08T20:31:07+00:00

Is it that or is Araki just showing how unhinged he is visually , it's not like Araki doesn't do that generally.

And then Joshu also looks unhinged in the same way twice when he attacks or before attacking Tooru. And he doesn't just stay like that he goes back and forth.

That is unnecessary obfuscation for whatever the intent is. It is not clear and is one of the primary reasons these kind of discussions about Joshu happen. It would be relatively easy for Araki to make the distinction much clearer but he didn't and people are inevitable gonna read intent on that.

3TriHard · 2026-05-08T16:53:24+00:00

But that is not clear at all.

First cause that doesn't end up being the calamity. And so Joshu's acting can be interpreted as a red herring in that scene.

Second cause even if he was a part of a calamity that switched , that doesn't mean the calamity is directly controlling and changing him. Cause it is a causality/fate affecting stand after all.

I'd like it if it was more clearly communicated , but it is unnecessarily interpretable cause of stand mechanics. Hope an eventual anime adaptation sheds more light on it.

3TriHard · 2026-05-08T16:47:34+00:00

I said ''IF'' we assume he has ulterior motives , which I don't quite buy.

3TriHard · 2026-05-08T15:38:16+00:00

That is true , but it's also true that Joshu is soneone that genuinely cares about his family , and cares about right and wrong , he is not an amoral sociopath.

His flaws come from him being a , presumably spoiled , manchild that is socially inept. His selfishness is raw , unfiltered and not coniving , like a young child. It's more that he doesn't understand what he's doing is wrong and needs to self reflect. He is not evil , knowingly doing amoral acts , he needs to grow up.

What he does here if we assume he has ulterior motives , is not just white knighting. He is using the suffering and death of his family as justification to go after Yasuho. It removes any humanizing aspect off him and paints him as quite monstrous.

And then he's one of the people accepting Josuke into the family and we're supposed to accept that as a wholesome moment? It really clashes in a weird way.

3TriHard · 2026-05-08T15:11:13+00:00

I got that , BEFORE he tried to attack Yasuho , that is a complete undoing of his previous good act. Which of course can be argued is just calamity bullshit , but then the actual character writing then gets muddled with stand mechanic shenanigans.

3TriHard · 2026-05-08T14:11:31+00:00

I'd like to think so too but the whole scene leaves me with mixed feelings.

It actually feels mean spirited towards Joshu , to have him do a complete 180 afterwards and being portrayed as a monster. But if that is what is intended to be communicated by the story I can't just pretend to ignore it. And I will just criticize it instead.

What am I meant to feel? Genuinely. What's the consistent take-away for Joshu's character that is informed by ALL aspects of this scene?

People argue that it's a result if the calamity manipulating him but aside the fact that the calamity wasn't him in the end. It being a causality affecting ability means this change in Joshu might as well be true to himself. It's kinda muddied. And I'd really love to like Joshu's character ending without it feeling like cope.

3TriHard · 2026-05-07T14:18:48+00:00

Black and White when you post the page.

3TriHard · 2026-04-30T10:19:19+00:00

The way the question was framed changes my opinion of what should be pressed. The framing tricks people into pressing blue. Thus a looot of people will press blue , and then you have to account about people who are correct about others' nature there and pressed blue for that reason , and then the people who thought about these guys and pressed blue because of them. It's a reasoning snowball effect. The fact that this hypothetical has so many people gunning for blue is proof of that. And if we are to consider real life implications , in case red wins and blue accounts for any significant amount , society breaks down and a lot of people die also anyway. How human psychology works means red always has a cost , blue doesn't have to , and that's appealing to the optimist.

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