Anyone who was seen the shows can let me know what they are about generally (no spoilers obviously).

I’m rewatching Vikings and I cannot get over Torvi’s relationship with her children compared with her relationship with Lagertha 😭

Her child dies and Torvi is basically like, “He’s on his way to Valhalla.” Girl??? THAT’S IT?? 😭 Okay, we get it, you’re extremely Viking, congratulations, but can we have like… 30 seconds of being his mother first?
Meanwhile if Lagertha breathes slightly differently Torvi is READY. Concerned. Loyal. Emotionally present. Prepared to follow this woman into war, exile, another continent, probably the afterlife.

At some point I genuinely started thinking Lagertha was Torvi’s actual soulmate. Men came and went. Children came and apparently went to Valhalla. But Lagertha?
That was her person.

I swear the hierarchy was:
Lagertha
Lagertha’s wellbeing
Lagertha’s political interests
Being a Viking
Maybe Ubbe
Her kids somewhere down there 😭

I like Torvi, but her emotional response to some of her children is WILD. Please tell me I’m not the only one who noticed this.

I might make edits after this is posted.

Gyda’s potential was untapped; she was kind, dutiful, curious, capable; caring, her character would’ve done well as a great warrior and diplomatic, and politic actor who’d makes hard decisions. Someone like her could’ve felt divided loyalties between worlds such as the Saxons and Norse. For example, maybe playing a role in Danelaw and/or supporting the idea that a fictional Gunthrum should be baptised after Alfred’s victory. That would not be a stretch of a storyline.

She did not have the opportunities her brothers’ and mother had to grow, flesh out and have legendary storylines of her own on or more of the three arenas - significant moments in the politics, battle, fame.

Whereas other females are allowed to move beyond certain gendered restrictions in the show, for example Judith having kill her son Athelred to secure England’s better leader, her other son Alfred, and grooming Alfred to ensure he succeeded when Ecbert had died. Alfred Great was made Athelstan’s son, a fictional character, in the programe meaning their was a father-son relativism or framework when it came in the three areas, and visionary material that was not given a rich extension to Gyda at least whilst keeping the sons the focus.
I understand that the writers wanted to focus on the sons of the main protagonist, but I think the focus became ‘too’ much to a degree, that it led to Gyda being left behind.

The deaths and even the writings of these daughters when they were alive compared to that of aforementioned sons of the male protagonists confirms my suspicions that, when it came to Gyda compared to her mother and brothers, her being daughter along with the other daughters of the main protagonists, meant she was unfortunately regulated and limited to functioning as and being the loss of a parent’s emotional and domestic haven through their death, an emotional refuge and sensitive spot emotionally anchoring a patriarch.

Whilst it is they are not examples of it, I for sure think the adolescent deaths of male protagonists’ daughters do have some link to the women in the refrigerator trope; the disproportionate deaths of adolescent sons of the male protagonists. Hali is the only son of a male protagonist who died in childhood; Sigurd died as a young adult but his character had died having suggested multiple alliance for the Great Heathen Army, participated in the battle of York thus helping avenging Ragnar’s death.
It was not an issue of how all females were written, but the issue of how the daughters of the male protagonists were; most of all Gyda.

Nor was she afforded the rich artistic license alike the other characters meaning diversion from the sagas and historical records and use of creative fiction, for examples: Ubbe leading the expedition into the Americas; Lagertha leading large scale shieldmaidens; Rollo and Ragnar being made brothers. It showed the writers were grounded but did have creative freedom from in relation to the sagas and historical records.

The grief they explored in the aftermath of her death was done well; but it was not sufficient. Lagertha and Ragnar never speak of her, Bjorn mentions her once, Aslaug gave no condolences. The writers had her parents enter a threesome with Alsaug and have Ragnar happy about it; he had a cheeky grin in the same episode after he mourned Gyda; that grin was too soon. Now I look back that felt weird; a bit jarring. If the writers wanted to relay the aftermath of Gyda's death; they could have transitioned the grin into a solemn face where he remembers Gyda.

To continue, I feel that characters were too adjusted for after recently lost a daughter whom was loved and raised for 12 years; for Bjorn his sister; the moments of grief they had was brief. I understand that childhood mortality was dealt with differently in that age and place; but presumption tells that it did not mean that the grieving was not a strong like we have it today. The appropriate amount of grieving could’ve been better written to move along with the story. The scenes where Ragnar reminisced on Gyda still could’ve happened with Gyda alive.

Whilst some may argued her legacy was honoured in the shieldmaiden named after her; she’d never be thee Gyda, a reminder of Gyda’s lost opportunities and lacked realisation nor a character grown to be cared for by the audience like Gyda herself. In addition; counterpointed that unlike Athelstan and Bjorn, her story was not finished; is it when Gyda died; it was too early.

Summarised and renewed ideas for her arc:

My ideas with an insecure Gyda due to the Ragnar indirectly and unintentionally suggesting she was not enough as her being last born through his disappointment with Lagertha’s miscarriage in seen and his procurements of sons, thus hurt in Upssala. Then anger with the infidelity and depressed Gyda having lost her friends to the plague thus the context for Ragnar's speech is changed.

This following is an except from episode 1 season 2
“Gyda,
I have come to say goodbye to you properly. I have been thinking about you, about when you were small.
You were so lively. You could run as swiftly as the wind. You were like quicksilver. But then, before I knew it, you stopped running here and there and everywhere and you became still.
At 12 years old, you had the stillness and the calm of a fine woman.
What children you would have produced. What joy that would have brought to all of us. Dear child, Gyda, you are not gone because you are always in my heart.
They say that a man must love his sons more, but a man can be jealous of his sons, and his daughter can always be the light in his life.
I know very well that you are with the gods, but I will wait here awhile, and if you want to come and talk to me, then come and talk, and I will gently stroke your long and beautiful hair once again with my peasant hands.
Instead I’d have it’d be Ragnar saying the things he wished he could say to a live Gyda and still be tearful; Gyda is refusing to talk to him or Ragnar is too sensitive to talk to her.
So when it comes to him saying “goodbye”, it’d be about the her leaving with Lagertha and Bjorn to Hedeby.
“You were like quicksilver. But then, before I knew it, you stopped running here and there and everywhere and you became still.
At 12 years old, you have the stillness and the calm of a fine woman”
This would be him reminiscing on the happy child Gyda was before her falling into depression; it is actually painful when parents see their children go through depression: withdrawn, cannot eat, crying, silent, not smiling and more and not seeing value in a compliment e.g. “At 12 years old, you have the stillness and the calm of a fine woman”. I’d change the tense of “would had” to “will” and “brought” to “bring” for a live Gyda. And when it came the issues of “a man being jealous of his sons” and her being the “light” in Ragnar’s life; it’d be him wishing that Gyda did not have her insecurities and could value the unique beauty being his daughter is. Changing the word “gods” to her “your mother and brother”. And in the case when Gyda is open to receiving his affections “but I will wait here awhile,and if you want to come andtalk to me, then come and talk,and I will gently stroke your long and beautiful hair once again with my peasant hands”. The beach scene has remained.

And further ideas for I would've been to have written:

A fractured relationship between Gyda and Ragnar; not forgiving him for his infidelity, for being too cordial with Kalf when her mother’s Earlship was taken, overruling her mother Earl Ingstad in England, for not sorting out Floki's zealotry, jealousy and contempt for Athelstan thus having Gyda partially blame Ragnar for his death contributing to his addiction with Yidu's medicine. And being so angry, as Lagertha has done before in season 1, she attempted to fight Ragnar when he returned from his wandering after Paris when Ragnar said “who wants to be king?”. And maybe this would've indicated to Bjorn she stopped loving Ragnar; or potentially hated him just giving him credence to have her not join him and the brothers in vengence for Ragnar's death.

Ragnar eventually thinking before the death that Gyda stopped loving him; Ragnar dies thinking this; that she’s began hating him but the memory of young Gyda still representing the innocence, the farm life, and mourning her in person; bought him comfort and he held onto hope; Ragnar dies having never had that reconciliation. Although, Gyda never stopped loving Ragnar; Bjorn did not believe it, despite it being genuine, thinking she wanted to join the Great Heathen Army against King Aella to make a name for herself. Thus she is not allowed to go eventhough Gyda wanted to go to be part of the vengeance, thus the vengeance belongs to the sons of Ragnar.

Or another way would have Gyda having reconciled in after the four year time jump, with Ragnar after Athelstan’s death or before much earlier before his death, in season 2 when returning from Hedeby. When Athelstan died, Gyda went into a period of heavy drinking, not alcoholism, due to grief whilst she pretends to be happy; as Ragnar is addicted; they were tender and/or hard towards one another other even when both were spiraling; emotionally enabling one another; whilst trying to help one another stop. I can imagine scene where Ragnar is high, in a non-sexual way, an inebriated Gyda sat on his lap for comforted each other as if she were a child all over again. Gyda does not judge the fact that Ragnar is not all there, Ragnar does not the fact that Gyda is inebriated and smells of ale. They just softly smile at one another.
Eventually, Lagertha and Bjorn intervened; which is where the storyline ends.
Bjorn would see this as a sign, the spiraling, later, that Gyda could not go because he’d fear Gyda would be too emotional and not be able to think straight when avenging Ragnar’s death with them; thus she is forced to stay behind. Again the vengeance stays with sons.

Either way; young happier Gyda continues to have represented what Ragnar mourned; whilst older Gyda did not have too.

Either way, the relationship between Rollo and Gyda happened, where he helped find her own identity in season 4, I would have had her develop a better relationship with Rollo; where Rollo shows her she does not have to be feel restricted to being Lagertha’s protege, underwing and being someone’s shadow; nor go along as being the supportive sister, younger for Bjorn and older for her little brothers. Rollo and his betrayal in Paris might’ve taught Gyda that if she wants to get her due, achieving what you think is needed and not end up embittered, she’d have to do things might be perceived to be unaligned with her community, sympathic to others and at times traitorous and not do want is expected of her. She’d follow this advise for examples: respecting cultural customs, e.g. in Andalusia by refraining the eating of pork in the company of the Andalusians, even though it is severed to the Norse, because Islam considers pork Haram; then supporting Alfred’s decision to have Gunthrum baptised.

As the story developed with her, to reiterate she’d have diplomatic voice with sway in her community and for others, having loyalties being split representing one of the rarities in Kattegat as she felt for other communities as well as her own to beef it both e.g: Andalusians, Franks, Saxons, making hard decisions.
She’d be the character to answer to Alfred’s questions about Athelstan, and feel a certain tenderness for him as he is Athelstan’s son.

Thank you for reading ✌️

My favorites shows are The Last Kingdom and Vikings.

I was thinking about watching Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon and was wondering if they are similar to TLK and Vikngs. I'm not expecting GOT to be better than those 2 I was just wondering if they're similar.

So I technically started w TLK, can’t believe it took me this many years to learn about all these awesome series as someone who went as a Viking princess on Halloween like 3 times and listens to viking metal 🤦🏼‍♀️. Anyway, I only started w TLK cuz I have a thing for Alexander Dreymon but I ended up loving the show so much I had to finish it. After that I watched the movie and kinda hated it.

Anyway, I tried watching an episode of Vikings and (pls don’t come at me) but I found it kinda…boring, idk just a little too slow paced. I recognize that 1 episode isn’t enough to judge a whole show on so I’m def going back to it later but I read online that Valhalla has a faster pace. However, when I looked it up on here i’m seeing all these mixed reviews and ppl saying it’s “woke” or that the ending wasn’t good.

If you have seen Valhalla what did you think of it?

Can I start with that?

Are either of these 2 shows historically accurate?

Rollo shows up in season 5 episode 11 and instantly starts aura farming.

He says things like, I own way too many lands, why would I want the burden of ruling Kattegat.

Or

I envy you ivar. I wish I could fight but I’m way too, important.

Maaaaaaaan F U ROLLO YOU PIECE OF 💩. You sold out your brother after he saved your life countless times and turned your back on your own people and your own alleged son. F U Rollo!!! F U!

I just finished watching a Bjorn ironside edit on youtube after my 3rd rewatch of vikings and while I do personally prefer ivarr much better as a characters given that I feel like bjorn is a fraud who lost a majority of his battles and only got so far simply by being ragnar's first born in addition to him being a shitty father and husband, i cant help but feel bad whenever i see bjorn as a child in an edit side by side it with him as an adult. It always ends up making me feel bad because at the end of the day, child bjorn was literally the OG and he was also that little boy I absolutely loved and was rooting for long before ivar and the rest of his siblings grew up which makes me even more guilty for disliking him. Its like one of those characters where you hate what they became but at the same time, you still remember who they once were and it just makes it alot more difficult.

After everything they went through, seeing Ubbe and Floki sitting together at the end just felt right. No war, no revenge, no more fighting. Just two Vikings who had lost almost everything, finally finding a place where they could live in peace.

Quarter of the way through season 6, and on top of trying to make Ivar sympathetic (after what he's done???) we now have the ultimate soap opera trope of a new character looking exactly like someone that died. And I thought the visions coming true were unbelievable...

I’m new to this show but what is the logic here? In “A King’s Ransom” episode, we see Artherwulf saying “we need to outthink the barbarians.” This seemingly translates to falling asleep and waiting for the barbarians to attack you.

I’m not a military commander, so I may be off on this but I thought that maybe he could create a fake camp, lure them in, and then attack them from behind, given that he has cavalry advantage. Or even just straight up charge them while they’re offloading the supplies and tired from the journey.

writing is peak,acting is peak. what makes this scene so horrifing is context: mother,murdering her own child

I watched this scene and I felthowt was so great and horrifing it was. how writers meant it. it shows,tells us what a terrible thing and a grave sin it is to murder one's own child. this scene was just a perfect. it reminds me of moment,when kosem kills her son in magnificent century and after this scene,I was so dissapointed alicent and her writing from house of the dragons

In seasons 2 and 3, it became readily apparent that Mercia was a divided shit show of a place. The monarch is regularly deposed and later was merged into Wessex in what became England.

Give how divided and unpredictable it was, why wouldn’t it be the primary target of the Vikings rather than Wessex, East Anglia, or North Umbria? Ragnar could’ve carved out a territory and captured the monarch to give him legal right. He then could’ve negotiated the division of the remainder with Wessex and North Umbria.

What kind of a mother would leave his two children in a perilous village to live with her third husband.

Nobody needed her in Kattegat, but her children needed their mother. That is why she was responsible for the death of her child.

Her saying to Ubbe, “Wherever you go, I go,” at Season 6 drove me up the fucking wall. How about staying with your toddler children instead of abandoning them to follow him around, you nasty B?

What a disgusting character man, I can't stand her.

Version française :
Salut à tous,
Je regarde actuellement Vikings: Valhalla en VOSTFR sur Netflix, mais je trouve les sous-titres français vraiment mauvais. Comprenant l’anglais parlé, je remarque constamment des contresens ou des tournures qui changent totalement l’intention des dialogues.
Pour les francophones ici, auriez-vous des alternatives ou des sites à conseiller pour trouver de meilleurs sous-titres français pour cette série ?
Merci d’avance !

English version:
Hi everyone,
I'm currently watching Vikings: Valhalla on Netflix with French subtitles, but the translation is really poor. I understand spoken English fairly well, and the French subs often completely mistranslate or alter the original meaning of the lines.
For fellow French speakers, do you know of any better subtitle sources or alternatives to watch the show with accurate French subs?
Thanks in advance!

If someone ever asks you for the definition of aura, just send them a picture of Ragnar Lothbrok.

I just can't wrap my head around the attention this girl gets from every legendary person on the show. I am at S5, and now Ubbe is going for this girl who is old, objectively unattractive and had three children over the young and beautiful Margarethe.

Maybe it is the Nordic culture but I really don't know how these sons of Ragnar that can get ANY girl they want, end up with clearly unattractive woman with three children.

Aren't virginity and youthfulness desired qualities for a woman in that part of the world at that time especially?

This is the woman we're talking about btw.

Right now I’m on S4 E8 right now and it’s just felt… slow. Ragnar is a drug addict and I don’t know where that’s gonna go and honestly I’m starting to not care as much about his arc seeing as it’s been dragged out forever. Also they just sidelined Bjorn after his excursion in the woods which would’ve been much more interesting to see. Floki seems interesting and I heard that he becomes really important later on but I don’t know how… I’m kind of only watching the show for him now. Rollo isn’t interesting anymore it seems his character arc is done and all of the Wessex/Mercia stuff is so unbelievably boring. I don’t care about power struggles because I don’t care about the characters.

I was also looking at IMDB episode ratings and it doesn’t look like the show gets much better. Let me know what you guys think who’ve finished the show.

I could stand season 5 until the third episode where Ivar was caught alone by the saxon army and somehow managed to stop the enemy just by raising his voice. The saxon army is portrayed so poorly that I couldn't stand it anymore.

And what about in Season 4 where they invade Spain and Floki, the religious fundamentalist, tried to stop the massacre of Muslim prayers by putting his life on the line.

The animosity between Legartha and Aslaug also came as a surprise, there were no buildups to that either, it didn't feel natural.

Finally I thought the most annoying character in the show, Torvi, died the joy I felt was beyond words. I really thought I can probably finish the show now despite all inconsistencies. Yet she literally came back the next episode with no explanations.

He colluded with the pagans and killed Christians.

He had sex with a married woman while her husband was away trying to save the country.

He was a heretic who embraced idiotic pagan gods over Christianity. He might be the only person who converted from Christianity, an Abrahamic religion, to a mythology. He was basically a retard at that point.

He was mentally ill and a crackhead. I was sick of his hallucinations toward the end of his life, tbh.

He betrayed every side he was on. No one else in the show managed to do that, not even Rollo, who only betrayed his own people.

Aethelwulf, on the other hand, was a true Christian and genuinely a good human being. He was holier than Athelstan in every respect.

Aethelwulf looked after another man's son as if he were his own.

Aethelwulf was cucked by a priest and his own father. His wife was truly a hoe, and yet he still took her under his wing no matter what. He was truly a merciful person.

Aethelwulf was devoted to his king and to God.

I guess I couldn't finish Season 5 because I just wanted Aethelwulf to win for ONCE.