By Dave VitaglianoĪll throughout the series the Vikings’ thirst for war and conquest is cloaked in the language of fate, destiny, glory, and the Gods. Vikings Season 6 Episode 19 Review: The Lord Giveth. But still the dreamers and visionaries struggle, against themselves, against the furious roar of tradition, again and again. Season upon season, each promise of peace is swiftly pounded into the blood-soaked earth by the vengeance, skulduggery or megalomaniacal ambitions of a chaotic individual, faction or rival the old ways refusing to cede ground to the new. It’s a dichotomy that burns down through the wick of the show, and often rages within its characters, most notably Ragnar, Lagertha, Floki, Bjorn, and Ubbe. One of the central themes of the show is the cycle of violence and bloodshed in which Viking society finds itself mired, and the battle between those who seek to perpetuate it, and those who seek to break free from it. So how does it achieve this greatness? And what does it all mean? Let’s break it down.
The closing run of episodes is at turns thrilling, stirring, chilling, harrowing, heart-breaking, savage, sensual and ethereal, and is capped off with a mesmerizing, mytho-philosophical finale that retroactively elevates everything that came before it, all the way back to the moment when Ragnar first asked Floki to help him sail west. How will it be remembered now that it is gone? In a word: fondly.Ĭreator Michael Hirst has left us a show for the ages, one that transcends the war, blood, and murder that first drew audiences to its story. Bound up in this spider’s web of myth and mayhem, too, is the fate and legacy of the show itself. It’s clear from the show’s coda – Ubbe and Floki side by side on a distant beach, contemplating existence as the sun glows down upon the endless stretch of ocean before them – that the two ultimately are inseparable. Vikings has always been concerned with legacy: that of the Vikings themselves, and of Ragnar and his sons. The following contains spoilers for Vikings season 6 part two.
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