Vikings (Season 5 Trailer)

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

He does seem a weak king who relies on plots and scheming to divide and rule. Given the feudal nature of the Vikings he can be displaced at any time and I guess he's doing any thing he can to secure the throne for his sons. I don't think kings were absolute rulers in any sense we think of kings of the later medieval age.

The contemporary Merovigian and Carolingian rulers were not absolute kings either. They need to convince their vassals at the annual marchfelds to join a campaign or ratify a policy and if they failed to build up consensus their plans would go down the drainer. Nonetheless, they did have wealth and large retinues and influence that put the a league above everybody else and the ablest of them could use the promise of rewarding their followers with office, land or loot to sway the opinion of the vassals much more often than not. Horik has none of these. He is no king at all.

[DisgruntledGoat]

What or who exactly is Horik king of?

1)He can not enforce his claim on a piece of land over that of a disputing yarl
2)He can not summon the combined might of his vassals to bring upon a single dissident
3)He needs to team up militarily with a vassal of his to become the equal of another vassal on the battlefield
4)He needs to cooperate with his former enemy and a vassal of his as an equal in order to muster a formidable raiding party (formidable meaning something like 3x400 = 1200 men)
5)He can not sway any yarls of Scandinavia (I assume there were more than Ragnar, Borg and Lagertha's late husband) into joining his raids, either through coercion, enticement, persuasion or/and the promise of reward and gaining his favour (which matters to none other than Ragnar apparently).

Which leaves me wondering, who are the people that recognise his authority, how does the power he is said to wield manifest itself, and how does the influence he is supposed to exert as king work? He's more like a second-tier earl, really.


Had he been privy to Ragnar's plans, like everybody else, he wouldn't have been clumsily making advances at Toro while Floki was searching for him.

Jarl Borg wasn't a lower noble, he was more a king like horik than a jarl like Ragnar. He is described as the Jarl of Gotaland in the show which would mean he was essentially king of a vary large portion of modern sweden.

[Halie Satanus]

The contemporary Merovigian and Carolingian rulers were not absolute kings either. They need to convince their vassals at the annual marchfelds to join a campaign or ratify a policy and if they failed to build up consensus their plans would go down the drainer. Nonetheless, they did have wealth and large retinues and influence that put the a league above everybody else and the ablest of them could use the promise of rewarding their followers with office, land or loot to sway the opinion of the vassals much more often than not. Horik has none of these. He is no king at all.

If Horik has no power why does Ragnar want to be king?

[Mhaedros]

If Horik has no power why does Ragnar want to be king?

Cos Ragnar would make a good king who could take and keep power, unlike Horik who seems to be useless at both.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

He does not want to be king. He does not care about Scandinavia. He is content with being Horik's wingman, as long as a major raid can be staged against England, which will present him with the opportunity, as one of the leaders of the invading party, to grab some land or negotiate some sort of settlement there. That has been his goal all along.

He is described as the Jarl of Gotaland in the show which would mean he was essentially king of a vary large portion of modern sweden.

And a rather worthless one in terms of resources, judging from the fact that he was all too happy to move the seat of his domain to Kattegat and rule personally in Ragnar's lands.

[Påsan]

Not necessarily. I think there was more about gaining that vital +5 oppression bonus to quell unrest in newly conquered territories.


You've all played Med2. You now how it goes

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

He had nowhere near enough chivalry...wait, what was the symbol for chivalry again? A ring? Or was that for piety. Anyway, let's go with laurel wreaths from Rome. No exotic slaves, no wrestlers, no pet tigers, no garum chefs, no captured standards, no priests of whatever, plus an unhealthy relationship with a skull, there's no way he would have scored five or more of those.

[Knight of Heaven]

Knight helmets for chivalry, and black Skulls for dread, rings for piety, and stars for comand.

[DarthShizNit]

's gonna be going down next episode.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm thinking pretty much everyone but Rollo and Bjorn might end up dying on this little adventure in England, paving the way for next season to be about Rollo and Bjorn rapping France and the character building of Rollo's sons.

[RubiconDecision]

Spoiler

Who is this child with a deformity? Is it supposed to be Ivar the Boneless? Bjorn becomes Bjorn Ironside. One of his young sons on the show is Ubbe Ragnasson. The one recently born is Sigurd SnakeintheEye.That leaves Halfdan Ragnarsson who I don't know anything about. Either this son dies and another is born to be Ivar the Boneless, or the one just born will become him. EDIT: Scratch that. I played it back frame by frame several times. What I thought was a deformity seems to be merely the umblical cord placed in a strange way. Apparently he's only small. EDIT 2: Yep, Sigi mentions his name 21 minutes in as Ivar. See Ivar the Boneless 866 AD: http://books.google.com/books?id=gbU...neless&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=eIB...neless&f=false And Chapter 5: Under the Danelaw http://books.google.com/books?id=C8O...neless&f=false

[Halie Satanus]

The dead give away is when Aslang says his name will be Ivar and Ragnar says 'the Boneless.' Siggy also states, clearly 'Ragnar is right, this child will never walk.' Which would infer that he has a deformity or genetic imperfection.. I'm pretty sure that's what the show was aiming at.

[Maximinus Thrax]

Siggy also states, clearly 'Ragnar is right, this child will never walk.' Which would infer that he has a deformity or genetic imperfection.

Indeed, it was clearly shown that Ivar has deformed legs.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Surely that small impediment will not stop him from leading the greatest invading Viking force ever, or becoming king of much of Scandinavia.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

The episodes are too short

edit:

I was hoping they'd go with the Osteogenesis Imperfecta theory for IVar

[RubiconDecision]

The dead give away is when Aslang says his name will be Ivar and Ragnar says 'the Boneless.' Siggy also states, clearly 'Ragnar is right, this child will never walk.' Which would infer that he has a deformity or genetic imperfection.. I'm pretty sure that's what the show was aiming at.

Spoiler

Yeah, I was writing as I was watching the show. Silly I know, acting like a fanboy. Ivar the Boneless is kind of a big deal. See this quote from The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson as to impotence being one rationale for the name. http://books.google.com/books?id=HY_...otence&f=false I doubt Ivar had a problem with his legs as that would make his exploits to be rather impossible. You know no one has proposed it, but when someone has acromegaly, the disease which causes giantism, while they are huge and strong when young, as they age they get very crippled and weak. Since the bones of the Vikings have been very tall that were found in the UK, it might be that as he aged he simply had that form of weakness. Someone could look at a geneology of Ivar and see if he had children or if he only had one late in life, as if he was unable to spawn an heir. Typically the wife is blamed, not the husband for infertility. In history, most of those with giantism (acromegaly) ended up progressively weakened by a host of issues besides bone overgrowth as their hearts weakened and made them die prematurely. An exception is the rather amazing story of Angus MacAskill, a giant who was extremely strong and didn't suffer the typical fate of acromegaly.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Damn, the script quality has been steadily declining for the past couple of episodes:

Ashlaug has been demeaned to a tedious middle-class housewife.
Jarl Borg developed an aburd emotional attachment to a skull out of the blue.
Lagertha raised an army from earl Sigurt's men against his wishes and without him getting any wiser until they left; cheap deus ex machina is cheap.
Thoro went from "you can have my body but not my heart, master" to "I love you, Bjorn" in the course of exactly two scenes.
Floki woke up one morning and inexplicably decided that he's discontent with his childhood companion and comrade, whom he was serving cheerfully up to the night before.
Always going in all guns blazing Rollo does not mind his wife cheating on him.
We are still being bombarded with Athelstan's boring, repetitive and pointless hallucinations. Ok, the man has inner conflicts, we get it.

I regret to say this but this season has run out of steam since at least episode 6. I hope the producers make amends with some epic battle-scenes in the final episode, because character development has been crap.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

Spoiler

Yeah, I was writing as I was watching the show. Silly I know, acting like a fanboy. Ivar the Boneless is kind of a big deal. See this quote from The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson as to impotence being one rationale for the name. http://books.google.com/books?id=HY_...otence&f=false I doubt Ivar had a problem with his legs as that would make his exploits to be rather impossible. You know no one has proposed it, but when someone has acromegaly, the disease which causes giantism, while they are huge and strong when young, as they age they get very crippled and weak. Since the bones of the Vikings have been very tall that were found in the UK, it might be that as he aged he simply had that form of weakness. Someone could look at a geneology of Ivar and see if he had children or if he only had one late in life, as if he was unable to spawn an heir. Typically the wife is blamed, not the husband for infertility. In history, most of those with giantism (acromegaly) ended up progressively weakened by a host of issues besides bone overgrowth as their hearts weakened and made them die prematurely. An exception is the rather amazing story of Angus MacAskill, a giant who was extremely strong and didn't suffer the typical fate of acromegaly.

I don't know, I understood that he was carried arround on a shield in battle, and was an adept archer.

from wiki:

Still another interpretation of the nickname involves Scandinavian sources as describing a condition that is sometimes understood as similar to a form of osteogenesis imperfecta. The disease is more commonly known as "brittle bone disease." In 1949, the Dane Knud Seedorf wrote:
“ Of historical personages the author knows of only one of whom we have a vague suspicion that he suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta, namely Ivar Benløs, eldest son of the Danish legendary king Regnar Lodbrog. He is reported to have had legs as soft as cartilage ('he lacked bones'), so that he was unable to walk and had to be carried about on a shield.[10] ”

There are less extreme forms of this disease where the person affected lack the use of their legs but are otherwise unaffected, as may have been the case for Ivar the Boneless. In 2003 Nabil Shaban, a disability rights advocate with osteogenesis imperfecta, made the documentary The Strangest Viking for Channel 4's Secret History, in which he explored the possibility that Ivar the Boneless may have had the same condition as himself. It also demonstrated that someone with the condition was quite capable of using a longbow, such that Ivar could have taken part in battle, as Viking society would have expected a leader to do.

I have Osteogenesis, it's very possible that he had this, I mean, heck my legs are very weak, I've never walked without crutches in my entire life, and wasn't even able to walk at all from when I was 8 untill I was 19, but my arms, of the 70+ fractures I've had in my life, only 9 times of those where my arms (not counting my car accident that doesn't count, it's a bone breaking cheat in a manner of speech). With practice, I'd be able to shoot a bow from atop a shield. Heck, I occasionally get involved in a fight, and I've climbed the fence at my favourite football team's stade plenty times back when they still had fences.

My upper torso was always very well developed when I was younger (I'm old and lazy now). Ivar would be quite capable of functioning and fighting even with OI if he found a way to use someone to be his legs.

I've known about the "viking chief with Osteogenesis" for a long time. He was an inspiration for me not to hide myself in bed all day every day for fear of fractures. I really looked forward to his character on this show, and I still hope they'll go with the OI explanation, but I fear they won't since you can't tell if a baby has it unless it's born with fractures or if you know to check the eyes

[terrapod]

I have to admit one of my favorite thing about this show is the intro song

[Påsan]

Well the whole mustering/department sequence with that haunting music in the background was a thoroughly enjoyable sequence.

[Visna]

Spoiler

Yeah, I was writing as I was watching the show. Silly I know, acting like a fanboy. Ivar the Boneless is kind of a big deal. See this quote from The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson as to impotence being one rationale for the name. http://books.google.com/books?id=HY_...otence&f=false I doubt Ivar had a problem with his legs as that would make his exploits to be rather impossible. You know no one has proposed it, but when someone has acromegaly, the disease which causes giantism, while they are huge and strong when young, as they age they get very crippled and weak. Since the bones of the Vikings have been very tall that were found in the UK, it might be that as he aged he simply had that form of weakness. Someone could look at a geneology of Ivar and see if he had children or if he only had one late in life, as if he was unable to spawn an heir. Typically the wife is blamed, not the husband for infertility. In history, most of those with giantism (acromegaly) ended up progressively weakened by a host of issues besides bone overgrowth as their hearts weakened and made them die prematurely. An exception is the rather amazing story of Angus MacAskill, a giant who was extremely strong and didn't suffer the typical fate of acromegaly.

We don't know much about his family, but he must have had at least 3 sons who reached maturity. Sigtryg, Olaf and Bard. And due to naming rules there must have been a Rolf too, but he seems to have died young. Ivar died in 873, and is actually given a decent review in the Irish annals. After a shaky start, his sons founded an Irish dynasty, that lasted some 250 years. Especially in the first 200 years the names are (old)Danish sounding, names like Harald, Ivar, Regnar and Godfred.

As for his nickname, Boneless can refer many things. In the sagas it says that he had only cartilage, which is obviously either a vast exaggeration or a metaphor for something else. Some of the most obvious ones are that he could wiggle his way out of any situation like a snake or that he travelled (read: murdered, burned, tortured, pillaged and raped) a lot in a lot of places. Or he could simply have had Osteogenesis.

[Mhaedros]

I found some concept art on Ivar