How Vinland Saga Crafted the GREATEST SCENE in All Anime!

at its heart Vinland Saga is a story about how violence exists in Cycles the first Arc of this story follows two characters at opposite ends of the cycle one character as he enters the world of hate due to tragedy and another character in his Twilight years who doesn't have much time to make up for all the evil he has brought to the lives of so many thorfin and askalad the greatest heroes and villains of Finland Saga brilliantly the author is able to have the climax for both character arcs take place in a single scene which I believe is the greatest scene in all anime and possibly one of the greatest scenes in any medium I've ever seen also this video will have massive spoilers if you haven't seen or read Vinland Saga I highly recommend doing that first and then you can watch this video after you've been incredibly moved and you need a YouTube video essay to watch for closure in order to properly understand what makes this scene so amazing we're going to have to summarize the story from the perspectives of the main character Dr Thor Finn and the main villain ascalad these summaries will not cover every detail more just the important things you need to know to understand the character that we're talking about thorfin's Story begins with him as a child in Iceland he's happy despite having a somewhat difficult life surviving the land's cold Winters his father Thor's used to be the strongest living warrior in the Known World until he decided that he needed to escape the cycle of hatred and violence for good thores did this by faking his own death so that he could escape the yams Vikings to live a quiet life with his family in Iceland this worked for a time until Floki learned that Thor's is still alive Loki is a vain man who is jealous that someone so much stronger than him can even exist this caused Floki to always feel like Thor's was looking down on him even though he probably wasn't and now he desires revenge for his wounded pride of course Floki is too afraid of fighting the strongest man alive to kill Thor's himself so he hires the Viking askalad to do the deed for him Loki gets Thor's to leave his home by asking him to rejoin the yams Vikings only to lead him into askalad's trap thorphin wants to go on an adventure so he weeks on board the ship much to his father's dismay once they are ambushed thores is able to beat up most of the Vikings without a weapon and defeats their captain askalad in a duel unfortunately thores is a pacifist and refuses to kill askalad when given the chance which gives time for askalad's right-hand man Bjorn to jump ship and take thorfin hostage Escalade gives Thor's an ultimatum either throw down his sword and die or Bjorn will murder his son without giving it a moment of thought Thor's sacrifices himself so that his son can live this is the turning point for thorfin where his life is irreversibly changed by violence askalad a Despicable Viking who lives for greed murdered his own father to make it all worse the only reason Thor's died was because thorfin was weak he disobeyed his father's commands and became a liability which led to Thor's death orphan almost hates himself for being weak as much as he hates askalad for killing his father orphan's hate doesn't only drive him to want to kill askalad he wants to overpower him thorphin wants to prove once and for all that he is no longer weak thorphins hate for himself and ask lad causes him to follow askalad's group of Vikings in the hope that one day he will be able to kill askalad in an honorable duel where he comes out as the strongest orphan's first duel against askalat is a young child obviously results in defeat after suffering through this loss thorphin spends many years becoming a seasoned Viking to one day be strong enough to fulfill his only desire he raids tons of villages and murders many innocent people during this time however even after becoming a fearsome warrior in his second duel against askalad he loses his cool and is not able to win his only desire in life has twice evaded him thorfin is desperate to get askilad to agree to another duel askalad takes a advantage of this and asks thorfin to defeat the strongest man in all of Britannia Thor Kell the tall thorphin also loses this fight but not without taking a few fingers off of the Viking brute this impresses Thor Kell since he loves War but is so strong that no one is ever able to challenge him in combat so he lets thorfin live in the hopes that they will one day have another exciting battle or Finn and askalad are leaving London after failing to defeat thorkel and the King Swain orders his son Knute to stay with the fifth of the troops to get more battle experience however in reality the king does this because he wants his weak cowardly son to die to thorkel this results in Knute getting kidnapped a survivor of knut's army finds askalad and asks them to save the prince the greedy askalad sees this as an opportunity for power and murders the messenger after all he can't have the main Army show up to save The Prince and steal all the glory from here thorfin saves Knute all only for askalad to take them to Wales to avoid battling Thor kill the tall after traveling on foot through the harsh Snowy Mountains of Wales for a long period of time askalad starts to run out of food for his Vikings so he raids a nearby Village even with all the Village's food there's barely enough for his men to survive so askalad decides to murder every man woman and child in the village this is another irredeemable Act of evil committed by the main villain ascalad and another reason for thorfin to kill him one girl escapes the Viking raid and tells a nearby Village of askalad's presence which reaches Thor Kell the tall Thor kill starts trailing askalad and this Chase culminates in thorphin dueling thorkel over the life of askalad since thorphin doesn't want anyone other than himself to kill his greatest villain with the help of askalad thorfin is able to defeat the strongest man alive and as promised askalad will dual thorphin for a third time once they get back to safety after returning home thorfin Waits until askalad's wounds heal to fight him but not for his own wounds to heal so thorpin only has one arm shockingly askalad throws his sword away for the fight despite his opponent potentially being the strongest human being in the known world since he was able to defeat Thor Kell although he did have a little help askalad not taking thorfin seriously as an opponent and rages him and he blindly attacks only for ascalad to respond perfectly thorphin can't defeat askalad even when he's unarmed because every time they fight he doesn't use any strategy and just throws out blind rage hoping it will be enough when it never is losing his third duel despite being so strong leaves thorfin depressed and directionless he can't achieve his only goal in life he can't avenge his father and he can't become strong because something is holding him back after getting in a fight with some random Vikings thorfin is thrown in jail Leaf a sailing Merchant who is friends with Thor Finn from his days in Iceland Phi finds him here and gets him out of jail orphan is about to follow leaf on the boat back to Iceland to see his family for the first time in 11 years but then something stops him thorphins still can't let go of his hate for askalad his hate for himself being too weak to beat ask lad in a duel and the lack of resolution for his father's death that he's been searching for this whole time so he leaves Leaf in search of askalad once more skull ad was born as the bastard son of the Viking Olaf and his Welsh slave mother Lydia although Lydia was once Olaf's favorite slave to sleep with once she became sick and Delirious Olaf forced Lydia to live in the barn with their kid in order to keep himself and his mother alive askalad began working all day in fact askalad isn't even his real name it means covered in Ash and others gave it to him as a nickname since he usually got a bunch of Ash on himself from work one day Lydia's sickness got so bad that when she saw Olaf she thought he was the legendary Knight artorius who came back to save the Welsh people in response to being touched by his sick Barn slave Olaf pulled out his sword to murder the woman only to be stopped by askilad after having a decent sword fight Olaf decided that askalad had potential to become a great warrior so he started to treat him like one of his legitimate Sons but something happened during askalad's childhood seeing how the Vikings cast aside him and his mother revealed that every human around him only cared for greed lust and violence askalad was only ever respected by his family for his ability to enact the violence onto others not for who he is as a person modern psychology has shown that when a young child is mostly surrounded by evil people who abuse them and their parents then that child is statistically more likely to develop anti-social personality disorder this means that the person stops seeing humans for their individual worth and start seeing every human as a part of a collective that they feel disdained towards this is exactly what happened to askalad's brain during his childhood every Dane was a part of the group of evil Vikings and his mother that he loved was a good Welsh woman so he developed an anti-social personality towards all Danes because of this askalad was never truly capable of loving a Dane or loving himself because he is half Danish just like with thorfin asgalat is driven by both self-hatred as well as a hatred for others and askalad also had his own evil father figure that he needed to kill to kill his father askalad did the same thing that thorphin did he became one of those truly despicable Vikings so that he could both become stronger and gain the trust of his father but unlike thorphin he didn't need an honorable duel to enact his Vengeance ascalad used his brother's sword to murder his father and his other brothers ended up murdering that brother for askalad's Crime of course he didn't really care because he hated all Danes the same after this murder ascalad was able to inherit his father's wealth for a new purpose he wanted to become a powerful enough Viking by murdering guilty and innocent people alike so that he could one day use his ill-gotten gains to protect the one group of people that he cares about most his mother's people from Wales Lydia was the only good thing about askalad's life and he couldn't let her down after many years of being a Despicable Viking askalad murdered thorfin's father Thor's for money becoming the evil father that he once sought to destroy ensuring that the cycle of violence would continue on to the next Generation despite all of the evil askalad committed for money he wasn't much closer to saving Wales he let time pass him by committing heinous acts as a viking leader without ever gaining enough power to achieve the only goal in his life that was until he got word from a messenger that Prince knut had been captured from thorkel's army a young member of royalty being in the hands of the enemy that is a powerful person that askalad could mold into being the type of King that would ensure the safety of whales instantly askalad knew what he had to do so he cut off the head of the messenger in order for this plan to work the only person who could save the prince is himself after saving Knute askalad traveled to Wales he claimed that they were traveling by foot and not by boat to be considerate to the Welsh people for allowing them safe passage but it was really because he wanted to help Wales as much as possible in case they were at war with the Danes askalad also chose to travel through Wales so that he could force Knute into signing a peace treaty with the country although Prince knut may be a coward he is also adverse to violence askalad knows that if he can mold Knute into being a stronger man then he wouldn't have any desire to break the peace treaty while the current King of the Dane Swain breaks every peace treaty that they enter in order to gain the trust of the Welsh people askalad tells them that he is a descendant of the legendary Welsh Knight Artorias this convinces the king that he is more Welsh than he is a Dane so they agree to his peace treaty while marching through the snowy mountains of Wales askalad and his Vikings are running out of food so his only choice is to raid a local Village when they don't have enough food askalad decides to murder every man woman and child in the village of course this is the last thing that askalad wants to do but he knows that Prince Canute is the best chance Wales has of not being invaded by the Danes so he sacrifices one Village to the Vikings and the hope that he can save hundreds more another reason askalad murdered everyone is because if a single person escaped Ward could reach Thor Kell of their presence in Wales unfortunately one girl was able to escape so all of the villagers deaths were in vain before learning that they are being pursued by Thor Kell askalad makes sure to murder Prince knut's protector Ragnar Ragnar is the embodiment of the devouring mother Sheltering a child he cares about from all danger and conflict out of fear from all the pain his child would endure when put into the real world as long as Ragnar is alive then Canute will never become strong enough to be king so askalad has to kill him after some time askalad learns that thorkel is trailing him not too far behind so they begin marching naturally his greedy band of Vikings care most about self-preserve Innovation so they turn on askalad in the hopes that they won't have to fight Thor Kell the strongest man alive they want to give up Knute in the hopes that thorkel will let them live but askalad will not let go of his only chance at protecting the people he loves most the only two men who stay loyal to ask alad are his right hand man Bjorn and the angry boy thorfin ascalad tasks them with protecting Knute while he fights the rest of his own men in this fight askalad is finally honest with his followers and tells them that he has always hated every single one of them because they are worthless Danes before askalad can die thorkel reaches them after learning that all of askalad's men want to surrender Thor kill murders almost all of them because he is a crazy man who only lives for the thrill of battle and he is upset that they tried to deprive him of his greatest pleasure before Thor Kell can murder askalad thorfin rides in on Horseback to challenge thorkel to a duel if thorfin wins he and askalad both get to live live and ask alad has to do a third duel with him and if he loses then they are at the mercy of thorkel in an odd twist of fate the hatred that askalad brought into thorfin's life is now the only thing keeping him Alive With a Little Help for maskelad thorfin is able to defeat thorkel and save both of their lives Knute returns no longer a cowardly Prince but as a strong leader during the battle Knute realizes that because of his bloodline he has the power to become a good King who could free the world of needless suffering and slavery this realization combined with the death of Ragnar caused him to change Newt is also aware that his father has been putting him in danger to get him killed because Swain doesn't think that Knute can be a good King Knute knows that either him or his father are going to have to die and now he has the determination to make sure that he will be the one who survives knute's plan to overthrow his father combined with how he no longer fears death impresses Thor hell so Thor Kell teams up with Knute and askalad to defeat Swain the band of Vikings returned to Gainesboro for the upcoming Imperial Council in order to have a political Advantage at this Council askalad thinks that it would be best to implant the idea in the heads of the people that Swain is trying to murder knut if the people think that the king wants Prince knut dead and then the king issues his son to return to the battlefield or be in danger then the people would realize that the King was trying to murder his son and the people could potentially turn on him to achieve this ask lad orchestrates an assassination attempt with a female slave as a Decoy for knut and he pays an assassin to shoot the decoy this results in the Assassin murdering the slave and forth in murdering the Assassin these deaths are just more sacrifices towards askalad's final goal but before he can proceed with the Imperial Council askalad has to battle thorfin in the duel he promised askalad defeats the boy easily and explains that thorpin can never win because he is too blinded by rage to fight strategically in order to provide some sense of closure to the kid who saved his life so many times askalad explains his childhood story askalad is wise enough to realize that he is in the cycle of violence that was given to him by his father and that he has now passed on to thorpin askalad explains his childhood story to thorfin in the hopes that he can finally understand that they aren't all that different but thorfin rejects this reality and returns to the belief that murdering askalad will finally bring him closure now that ascalet has won his duel against thorfin for the third time everything is in place for him to win at the upcoming Imperial Council and to eventually save Wales just as askalad predicted the people think that the king wants knut and dead so he is not able to put him in a dangerous position everything is going perfectly at the Imperial Council until something terrible happens King Swain got word from a messenger that the king of Wales refused to become vassals to the Danes for the second time this makes the king worried that Wales is sowing the seeds of rebellion so he proclaims that they will attack whales in the coming spring this shocks askalad he was so close to fulfilling his life's desire of protecting the people he loves most only for it to be ripped away from him at the last second yam's Vikings Commander Floki notices askalad shocked response from hearing that they will invade whales and he tells the king that invading whales may be askalad's weakness askalad decides to protest the King on this matter he says that they would gain little from invading the mountainous terrain of Wales since the land is both bad for farming and hard to navigate the king responds by congratulating askalad on being a loyal vassal who speaks his true feelings only to whisper the truth to him in secret Wales or Knute choose one the king continues by explaining how he doesn't even care about whales and only want to ask glad to help murder his son Swain tells askalad that he knows his mother was a slave and finishes the conversation by saying the worst possible thing askalad could hear the only merchandise Wales produces is slaves now askalad is put in an impossible situation help the Old King murder Knute in the hopes that he won't attack whales later despite breaking all previous peace treaties or else the people he sacrificed everything for will be enslaved In This Moment askalad realizes that all of the terrible sins he has committed all the evil he's brought to the lives of so many has been worthless his entire entire life meaningless there's only one thing that he can do after a life of suffering the final sacrifice askalad needs to protect whales is himself askalad pulls his sword out and threatens the king in this moment askalad becomes truly free to show the world who he really is and announces his real name given to him by his mother Lucius artorius castis he says that he is the legitimate King who deserves to rule over the land of Britannia in a single slash of his blade askalad or should I say Lucius cuts off Swain's head askalad is intentionally playing up his Insanity to make people think that Knute isn't involved with the death of his father although this is true on some level this is the most honest insane ascalad has ever been in in his whole life ascalad always hated himself and everyone around him for being greedy Vikings who deserve to die and since he's half well she always saw himself as better than all of the Danes around him now askalad is finally being honest with everyone he really believes that the Danes are scum of the earth and that he deserves to be king of all of Britannia not Swain ascalad is playing a character here to help Knute and in turn to help Wales but this character is more honest than the person he pretended to be when he was a viking I love the moment when Floki yells at askalad you killed the king only for him to reply with what are you talking about I'm right here alive and well askalad has a genius character Arc that is completed in this scene he's introduced as the irredeemable villain who murders an honorable man like Thor's just for some coin askalad then transitions to being a sympathetic villain once you understand his backstory and realize that all of the evil he commits is done to protect the people of Wales from Viking invasions however once Swain threatens to enslave all of the whales askalad is no longer a villain he's not even an anti-hero he's the main character askalad lived a terrible Life as a viking he killed so many Innocents that there is nothing he can do to redeem himself and he knows that he hates himself ultimately he is an irredeemable villain but in this one scene we're all still rooting for him to save whales from the Danes this is why Vinland Saga is so genius the author introduces askalad as irredeemable only to reveal at the end that his cause for fighting is more just than the main character's desire for Revenge not only is this scene the climax of askalad's character Arc but also the moment where he is irrefutably the hero of Vinland Saga the actual main character thorfin arrives at the Imperial Council to find askalad battling all of the Vikings thorfin needs to be the one to kill askalad so once again he risks his life to save his greatest enemy unfortunately this time thorphin is too late before he can save ascalad Knute stabs him through the heart it's at this moment that thorfin's entire world comes crashing down his entire life's purpose was to become stronger than the guy who murdered his father and now it's been robbed from him in this moment thorfin wants to keep askilad alive almost as much as he wanted his own father to keep living it's at this point that we need to ask something does thorfin only have hatred in his heart for askalad is that what drove him to stay by his side loyally when everyone else betrayed him and caused him to battle the strongest Viking in all of the lands just to save his life maybe the reason why thorphin wasn't able to defeat askalad in the third duel wasn't just due to being overcome by rage maybe it's because on some level thorphin doesn't want to kill askalad there is no life for thorphin outside of askalad askalad evil as he may be is thorfin's entire purpose the promise of receiving closure for his father's death it's all in ascalad or maybe on some level thorfin loves askalad of course this isn't a normal form of love it's more like thorphin has an extreme level of dependence on askalad and can't live without him it's a twisted form of love mixed with tons of hate after thorphin lost his father he was searching for resolution to heal his pain he thought he'd find it by becoming stronger than his father's killer but he stayed loyal by askiland's side for so long that askalad became his second father both thorfin's greatest villain and only living Father Figure is askalad and now that's being taken from him askalad tells thorphin after the third duel you still can't kill me even though it's been 10 years the that means you're an idiot maybe what askalad was trying to say is that thorfin isn't an idiot just because he becomes full of Rage during every duel rather thorfin's an idiot because he doesn't realize that he doesn't want to kill askalad thorfin can't admit to himself that on some level he needs askalad more than askalad needs him thorfin's conflicting emotions of love and hate tear him apart right after askalad's character Arc reaches its Climax and sudden conclusion so too does thorphins the genius of Inland saga's writing is that the Story begins with ascalad is the irredeemable villain and with thorfin is the hero and ends with askalad heroically sacrificing himself to save thousands more while thorfin is a directionless viking who's murdered countless innocence we were watching two character arcs in Reverse both trapped within the same cycle of hate but askalad was trying to find a way out of the cycle that would save lives while thorfin only learned how to take them in a genius twist the villain becomes the hero and the hero becomes the villain ascalad offers thorf in his life with the little time he has left to which thorfin refuses the last thing thorphin actually wants is for askalad to die it can't end this way but it's out of his control because this isn't thorfin's story it's askalads and askalad's story has finally come to an end this loss breaks thorphin although askalad was the one who feigned Insanity to achieve a political goal thorfin is the one who actually goes crazy askalad was his world his love and his hate and now thorfin is nothing this death causes the current version of thorfin to reach the climax of his own character Arc thorfin's brain snaps from the loss of askalad the king approaches thorfin and starts talking to him but he doesn't really hear he attacks wildly at the king because unbridled rage is the only way he knows how to express himself scarring knut's face forever thorphin is hauled away Kicking and Screaming from askilad's dead body [Applause] in a beautiful moment he drops the knife his father gave him to use only for protection a promise that he broke we see all of thorfin's memories from being a happy child to a vengeful teen orphan dropping the knife represents how his life of vengeance is being ripped away from him so his weapon is no longer valuable thorfin's only one desire now is for askalad to come back to life just like how he felt 11 years prior when his father died at askalad's hands tragically thorfin's Story begins with him losing a father and it ends with him losing another father a smart man who wrote books I didn't read once said that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself this quote definitely Rings true for me and a part of the reason I love this scene so much is because of all of the conflicting emotions thorfin hates askalad but he also needs him more than anyone else in his life when I was first introduced to ask glad I thought he was an irredeemable villain but by the end I was rooting for him to be the hero Wales deserves when I was introduced to thorfin I thought his reason for fighting was justified given the circumstances but by the end I saw how his Vengeance turned him into less of a hero than the villain who created him I've never felt more emotion watching a scene from any other TV show than I did watching the finale of Finland Saga and guess what that's only the finale of The prologue Finland Saga is an absolute Masterpiece I also love all of the other arcs in the manga so if you guys want I might make a video on season two if you guys want me to continue covering Vinland Saga into season two please like subscribe and I also have patreon for donations and if you don't want me to keep covering anime I will make more videos about Dark Souls and video games so don't worry about that anyways thanks for watching and I'll see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Feeble King

Views: 970,935

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Id: PPtBQwOYL3A

Length: 28min 52sec (1732 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2023