3.3. Warrior’s Fate But as I re-watched Warrior’s Fate, I was reminded of the old truism that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We see this throughout the episode in moments that mirror some of the realities of our own time. Some will always believe that mutual religious tolerance is impossible. The tension between the Christian Saxons and the Norse Vikings has begun to create problems on both sides as we are shown early on in parallel scenes in the episode. Two of Ecbert’s court (somewhat) hesitantly call their king out for his willingness to ally himself with the Northmen, even to the point of evicting his own people from their lands and giving it to the new arrivals. The fact that they feel strongly enough about this to admit the content of their muttering to him speaks a great deal to how serious a problem his people believe this to be. While any king rules, on one level or another, by the consent of the people, an English court of the time did not have the democratic tone that tended to be more true of a Viking one where anyone could, in theory, speak his mind. The faith of some extends to martyrdom. It’s a feature of many religions, even today, that those who die in their defense or according to their rules will reap rewards in the next life. While we see none of the zealotry that tends to be a feature of the former in this episode, the title definitely references the latter. Torstein meets his fate head-on when he all but begs (or as close as a Viking gets to begging) Rollo to drag him to the battlefield so he can die fighting, thus earning his way into Valhalla. His faith (and the content of that faith) is highlighted because his death in the beginning of the battle is in counterpoint to Burgred’s surrender at its end. Of course, while we are intended to see that surrender as cowardly, it also marks out an important difference between the two belief systems: the attitudes of each towards fate and free will. While Christianity embraces the idea that God already knows the day on which we will die as well as that about humans enjoying free will even to the point of rejecting God, few adherents live as the Vikings do. They instead believe the gods more actively select a day on which they will die, and since that day is set, they are free to act as they wish because nothing they do or fail to do will alter the time of their death–this is what Ragnar reminds Floki of after the battle when he points out that their mutual friend’s death was on his own terms, not those of his king. And if you were looking for a formula more likely to produce brave warriors, it’s hard to imagine one that would so thoroughly remove fear from the equation: if it’s not your day to die, nothing can kill you. Combined with the promise of Valhalla, it’s hardly surprising that the battlefield ferocity of the Vikings still fascinates us a thousand years after the last one died. However, in doing so, we ignore that, today, the second largest religion in the world—Catholicism–actually enacts something that might seem far more horrific to some: the Eucharist and the miracle of transubstantiation. It’s important to remember that this ritual is not, according to the dogma of the Church, symbolic. They literally believe that the wafer becomes the flesh and the wine the blood of Jesus Christ, making the act cannibalistic. And Protestant and Catholic alike believe their salvation to hinge on the sacrificing of both human and divine Jesus. Only our familiarity with these concepts makes them palatable—in some cases, literally. Luckily, it is also true that there are those who believe that, where zealotry and pragmatism come up against each other, the latter must prevail. In the end, what most of these scenes (and others in the episode) do is highlight exactly why Ragnar and Ecbert are in the positions they are. There is no doubt that Ragnar does believe in the same gods as Floki, nor that Ecbert practices some form of Christianity. But whatever their difference in religious beliefs, they agree on the principle that those beliefs take a backseat to the larger welfare of their people. Ecbert faces an England that is still a patchwork of kingdoms constantly in conflict. Expanding and defending his borders is, as he points out to his nobles, vital to the security of his land. Ragnar (or at least his character in the series), in turn, understands that the Viking culture is headed for oblivion without a more sustainable lifestyle based on agriculture. Neither can afford the luxury of being theological purists if they are to succeed in saving their people. While everyone around them may see religious differences as a recipe for disaster, Hirst does an excellent job in Warrior’s Fate of showing us just how alike Ragnar and Ecbert–and their motivations–really are. The irony being, of course, that whatever the similarity in their attitudes toward religion, it is their more pragmatic rationales (and their shared attraction to Lagertha) that will lead to conflict between them and the cultures they represent. And that’s going to be fun to watch. Read Laura’s review of the previous episode, Wanderer, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
