Vinland Saga - Ch. 209 - Thousand Year Voyage Part 18

[CharleZ1]

Well... (••) Looks like Ivar got... ( ••)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) DISARMED.
I mean, I know Ulfberht swords are supposed to be legendary, but that's too OP. Critical hit on a single strike? Damn. Now they know about the riddle of steel.

wind blowing …..I get it!

 

[crimsondenmite]

Ivar must have been on raids against people that didn't put up effective resistance in the past... it's like he never considered that he "might not win this one" when he started down this path. Now same for the Lnu war-party. They have no idea what's going to hit them if Hilde and Thorfin decide to go all out.

Thorfinn will not kill, Hild might but not Thorfinn, it goes against his entire character arc.. he’ll die without killing anyone..

 

[crimsondenmite]

Thorfinn should come back with a massive army and wipe out all these tribal savages.

That cheapens the story and destroys Thorfinn’s character arc.. terrible idea for the plot..

 

[Blabladodo]

Sure, agree to disagree, but I've been actually citing textual evidence from the narrative, so I'd say my position is better supported than yours, though I will acknowledge this is not something that can ever be 100% for sure proven one way or another.

Better supported how? There's literally no one but the author that can answer that point and evidences doesn't mean much when the author is able and willing to do 180 on the tone of the story.

I have never tried to claim that crossbows are harmless (and I would argue it would take far more than just a few minutes for someone to pose a threat with it, especially one has never seen a crossbow before). And as I stated later, this is tangential to the main point.

You still downplayed their dangerousness compared to a sword when a sword is strictly less potent than a crossbow.

Something having symbolic power isn't exclusive to narrative and/or makes something less realistic.

It does when the narrative is built around it. And here, the entire narrative is build around the message that owning a tool of war is enough to bring war, which I partially disagree with.

Things having symbolic power happens in real life too, like part of the reason the atom bombs were dropped on Japanese cities in WWII was for the USA to display the symbolic power of the bomb. And again, Thorfinn wasn't banning weapons based on their capacity to do harm, he banned them based on the social message(s) it sends to posses a tool whose sole/primary utility is dedicated to harming other people, it wasn't based on how well something could harm another person, and thus there isn't anything to be hypocritical about.

Almost every government in the world is doing banning/heavily regulating things based on both their harmfulness and the eventual symbolism something may carry.
It's hypocrisy because a crossbow is ultimately a tool made for killing and it can be used to kill animals far thougher than humans.

Well that's not really relevant to the hypotheticals being discussed since the Gitpi Lnu was the only avenue through which the Vinland settlers interacted with the Lnu people, and what happened to the Gitpi Lnu is what caused things to snowball into their current mess.

The warrior tribe is far less friendly than the Gitpi tribe and since they are warriors, they probably know other, not so friendly warriors tribes as well.

Of course the plague was a major motivating factor (and is arguably the largest one), but as I stated before the existence of the plague (or any disease) by itself isn't what ensured that Thorfinn's attempts at diplomacy (to avoid having the Vinland settlement attacked) would end in failure, Ivar and his sword souring the relations with the Gitpi Lnu (which ended all pre-existing trading) is what made Ivar's sword desired by many and caused iron tools to turn into things that could only be obtained by stealing/pillaging (since they could no longer be traded for).

All trade would end the moment the plague happens, unless you actually want all Lnu to catch it, and it would sour the relation with the Lnu in any case.

Just because it was easy for Ivar to smuggled his sword doesn't mean he wasn't determined to smuggle it. And chapter 175 already depicted how Ivar was able to avoid having his sword detected, Gudrid unfortunately did a weak and rushed search check and trusted that Ivar wasn't deceiving them. Also this isn't really pertinent to original the point being discussed.

It show that an accumulation of small mistakes and misunderstandings is the cause of the current situation but it is far easier to blame everything on Ivar and the shaman.

It's literally stated in the manga that he already has one. That doesn't mean he or the Lnu crafted one, it's probably meant to indicate that the Gitpi Lnu had traded some of the tools they obtained from the Vinland settlers through trade with other Lnu tribes on Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island.

You actually made me reread the chapter even though I wasn't planning to.
He doesn't say that he has a metal knife, he says that he already a knife but doesn't say of what kind and the warrior asking if he can keep the metal knife is clearly seeing one for the first time so no, he probably doesn't own a metal knife either, he's just not interessed in a lesser prize.
The possibility of a trade is also very unlikely, what can he offer to a fellow Lnu that has the value of an iron knife?

Ga'aoqi's primary motivation for going on the raid in the first place can't be just swapped for any another weapon because the reason why Ivar's sword is desired is because of the show of power Ivar displayed with it by cutting off the shaman's hand.

I still disagree because a iron axe would still cause far more damage than the stone axes the Lnu are using and even if it can't cut clean an hand, it would still display a lot of gore (more than with a sword actually) which would still impress the Lnu.
You also need to consider the other warriors, in the same chapter, you can see that they were happily stealing anything made of metal and were clearly not caring about the sword. Hell, they were even calling this raid "treasure hunting" despite not finding the sword because they still found very valuable things.

 

[Theozilla]

Better supported how? There's literally no one but the author that can answer that point and evidences doesn't mean much when the author is able and willing to do 180 on the tone of the story.

Better supported by the textual evidence I’ve cited showing how the souring of relationship between the Vinland Settlers and the Gitpi tribe affected things in ways the plague didn’t. And Yukimura hasn’t done a 180 on the tone of the story, that is a ridiculous notion.

You still downplayed their dangerousness compared to a sword when a sword is strictly less potent than a crossbow.

Well, I apologize if that’s how it came off, but if it’s still not clear that was not my intention or argument.

It does when the narrative is built around it. And here, the entire narrative is build around the message that owning a tool of war is enough to bring war, which I partially disagree with.

The narrative being partially built around it doesn’t make it less realistic though. Symbolic power and its effects exist in real life too. Thus the symbolic power the sword has in the narrative is part how the series is realistic while also being part of its themes. Also the narrative isn’t arguing that simply owning a tool created solely for warfare is enough by itself to bring war, it is arguing though that it can be a meaningful contributing factor, which is a well documented-phenomenon in history with how much has been written and about analyzed about arms races.

Almost every government in the world is doing banning/heavily regulating things based on both their harmfulness and the eventual symbolism something may carry.
It's hypocrisy because a crossbow is ultimately a tool made for killing and it can be used to kill animals far thougher than humans.

A crossbow still isn't a tool designed solely for harming humans, and that's a meaningful difference. Thofinn's ban on swords wasn't based on the capacity and degree for harm a tool had, it was based on the fact that certain tools, like swords, are things created solely to give utility to harming other people, and the meaning that represents and conveys is what warranted its banning, which is not hypocritical.

The warrior tribe is far less friendly than the Gitpi tribe and since they are warriors, they probably know other, not so friendly warriors tribes as well.

There isn't a single "warrior tribe", the Lnu warriors present in the most recent chapters are warriors from numerous different Lnu tribes, like even the Gitpi Lnu had warriors as well. And the opinions and views of the various Lnu warriors that gathered are certainly not a monolith, we literally saw them come to blows with each other over their differing views in how best to respond to Thorfinn's proposal/requests. While certain individuals could hold more fearful/paranoid views than others, there's hasn't been anything established that the entirety of the other Lnu tribes would have been more or less firendly (than the Gitpi Lnu) if they had encountered the Vinland settler first instead of the Gitpi Lnu tribe.

All trade would end the moment the plague happens, unless you actually want all Lnu to catch it, and it would sour the relation with the Lnu in any case.

I'll ignore the argument that no/minimal-contact trading is something that could be possible (both in-story and real life) since it's not really relevant to my argument. But the point is that if the epidemic had been the only thing to occur, and the shaman Miskwekepu'j hadn't able to cause a casus belli, there would be a pretty decent chance that how the other Lnu tribes responded wouldn't have been as bad as they actually ended up being. The enmity that's Ivar played a part in causing defnitely became an exacerbating factor.

It show that an accumulation of small mistakes and misunderstandings is the cause of the current situation but it is far easier to blame everything on Ivar and the shaman.

Yeah, an accumulation of small mistakes and misunderstandings are definitely part of how the current situation came to be, but Ivar and the shaman Miskwekepu'j still also hold some responsibility in how things led to the current circumstance (which is different from "blaming everything" on them, which I never did in the first place).

You actually made me reread the chapter even though I wasn't planning to.
He doesn't say that he has a metal knife, he says that he already a knife but doesn't say of what kind and the warrior asking if he can keep the metal knife is clearly seeing one for the first time so no, he probably doesn't own a metal knife either, he's just not interested in a lesser prize.
The possibility of a trade is also very unlikely, what can he offer to a fellow Lnu that has the value of an iron knife?

If someone says that they found a specific thing and then asks their leader if they can keep it because the leader already has one, the implication is that what the leader already has same thing that was just found. And there isn't anything indicating that the excited has never seen small metal knives before (at the very least he already aware that they were a thing that existed since he was able to recognize it immediately). And while a metal knife would warrant a highly costly trade, that still doesn't make it impossible to occur.

I still disagree because a iron axe would still cause far more damage than the stone axes the Lnu are using and even if it can't cut clean an hand, it would still display a lot of gore (more than with a sword actually) which would still impress the Lnu.
You also need to consider the other warriors, in the same chapter, you can see that they were happily stealing anything made of metal and were clearly not caring about the sword. Hell, they were even calling this raid "treasure hunting" despite not finding the sword because they still found very valuable things.

Yes but Ivar didn't use an axe to cut off the shaman's hand, hence why the existence of metal axe can't just be swapped to be Ga'aoqi's primary motivation if Ivar and his sword didn't exist (not to mention the superior efficacy of metal axes over stone axes was already known before then through trade and/or interactions between the Gitpi Lnu and Vinland settlers).
And yes Ga'aoqi's fellow raiders are certainly enjoying and valuing what they've found, but that doesn't change the fact that if Ivar and his sword hadn't existed, and thus Ga'aoqi's primary motivation not existing, means that it would have been less likely for the raid to have occured in the first place (which is different from saying there is no chance it would still occur, which I am not arguing).

 

[Blabladodo]

Better supported by the textual evidence I’ve cited showing how the souring of relationship between the Vinland Settlers and the Gitpi tribe affected things in ways the plague didn’t. And Yukimura hasn’t done a 180 on the tone of the story, that is a ridiculous notion.

You would honestly be hard-pressed to find someone who could have predicted that the story would go from getting a young boy seeking revenge to the same boy becoming a slave and learrning that violence is bad.

Well, I apologize if that’s how it came off, but if it’s still not clear that was not my intention or argument.

Don't worry about that.

The narrative being partially built around it doesn’t make it less realistic though. Symbolic power and its effects exist in real life too. Thus the symbolic power the sword has in the narrative is part how the series is realistic while also being part of its themes. Also the narrative isn’t arguing that simply owning a tool created solely for warfare is enough by itself to bring war, it is arguing though that it can be a meaningful contributing factor, which is a well documented-phenomenon in history with how much has been written and about analyzed about arms races.

A crossbow still isn't a tool designed solely for harming humans, and that's a meaningful difference. Thofinn's ban on swords wasn't based on the capacity and degree for harm a tool had, it was based on the fact that certain tools, like swords, are things created solely to give utility to harming other people, and the meaning that represents and conveys is what warranted its banning, which is not hypocritical.

Historically, the nobility did try to ban crossbow because of how they were unfair against the sword and melee fighter in general (see the Second Lateran council crossbow ban) but said ban failed because of how undeniably powerful and potent crossbow were.
I get the point the author is trying to make but history doesn't corroborate that and thus allowing Hild to take a crossbow was just a bad decision (or maybe an oversight?).

There isn't a single "warrior tribe", the Lnu warriors present in the most recent chapters are warriors from numerous different Lnu tribes, like even the Gitpi Lnu had warriors as well. And the opinions and views of the various Lnu warriors that gathered are certainly not a monolith, we literally saw them come to blows with each other over their differing views in how best to respond to Thorfinn's proposal/requests. While certain individuals could hold more fearful/paranoid views than others, there's hasn't been anything established that the entirety of the other Lnu tribes would have been more or less firendly (than the Gitpi Lnu) if they had encountered the Vinland settler first instead of the Gitpi Lnu tribe.

But we don't know that, just like that there's no proof that a less-than-friendly Lnu tribe exist, there's no proof that all Lnu tribes are friendly like the Gitpi are.

I'll ignore the argument that no/minimal-contact trading is something that could be possible (both in-story and real life) since it's not really relevant to my argument.

You still leave germs on an object and just because the germ theory of disease hasn't been discovered yet doesn't mean it can't be applied in a story.
Both the shaman and Canute understand something similar to it, which is why Canute burn a village and kill people who did nothing wrong and why the shaman would rather burn all Nords belonging.

But the point is that if the epidemic had been the only thing to occur, and the shaman Miskwekepu'j hadn't able to cause a casus belli, there would be a pretty decent chance that how the other Lnu tribes responded wouldn't have been as bad as they actually ended up being. The enmity that's Ivar played a part in causing defnitely became an exacerbating factor.

I disagree, the Gitpi tribe could very well be wiped out by the plague and everything point the Nords as being the one responsible of it. You underestimate how much fear can be a factor in vilifying and eventually attacking someone since they can't fight the plague with their weapons but they can very much fight the cause of it (the Nords).

Yeah, an accumulation of small mistakes and misunderstandings are definitely part of how the current situation came to be, but Ivar and the shaman Miskwekepu'j still also hold some responsibility in how things led to the current circumstance (which is different from "blaming everything" on them, which I never did in the first place).

You didn't but most people in the comments are either blaming one or the other (possibly out of convenience though?).

If someone says that they found a specific thing and then asks their leader if they can keep it because the leader already has one, the implication is that what the leader already has same thing that was just found. And there isn't anything indicating that the excited has never seen small metal knives before (at the very least he already aware that they were a thing that existed since he was able to recognize it immediately). And while a metal knife would warrant a highly costly trade, that still doesn't make it impossible to occur.

I disagree on how you interpret that scene and already made my points in previous posts. Let's just see how things unfold in the following chapters.

Yes but Ivar didn't use an axe to cut off the shaman's hand, hence why the existence of metal axe can't just be swapped to be Ga'aoqi's primary motivation if Ivar and his sword didn't exist (not to mention the superior efficacy of metal axes over stone axes was already known before then through trade and/or interactions between the Gitpi Lnu and Vinland settlers).
And yes Ga'aoqi's fellow raiders are certainly enjoying and valuing what they've found, but that doesn't change the fact that if Ivar and his sword hadn't existed, and thus Ga'aoqi's primary motivation not existing, means that it would have been less likely for the raid to have occured in the first place (which is different from saying there is no chance it would still occur, which I am not arguing).

I guess this is a good enough compromise between our opinions.

 

[Theozilla]

You would honestly be hard-pressed to find someone who could have predicted that the story would go from getting a young boy seeking revenge to the same boy becoming a slave and learning that violence is bad.

First of all not being able to predict the plot isn't the same thing as the tone of a story changing. Secondly, the themes in the latter arcs were present in the story since the very first/Prologue arc, the statement "I/you have no enemies" is literally stressed by Thors from the very beginning, and the first/Prologue arc is chalk full of depicting how fucked up war is and the futility of Thorfinn's revenge, and the hardships victims of war and enslavement experience. The idea that the first/Prologue arc is tonally/thematically/narratively incongruous with the rest of the manga says more about issues with a reader than the author or work itself.

Historically, the nobility did try to ban crossbow because of how they were unfair against the sword and melee fighter in general (see the Second Lateran council crossbow ban) but said ban failed because of how undeniably powerful and potent crossbow were.
I get the point the author is trying to make but history doesn't corroborate that and thus allowing Hild to take a crossbow was just a bad decision (or maybe an oversight?).

Except we aren't talking about nobility or other historical bans, we're discussing the standards and reasoning behind why Thorfinn specifically banned swords. And the central reason why Thorfinn banned swords didn't have to do with the potential potency of a sword compared to other tools that could also be used to harm people. Like one doesn't even need to compare a sword to a crossbow, many historians have noted and argued how spears and bow & arrows were more effective/potent and essential tools for warfare than swords were, but Thorfinn didn't ban them either because just like a crossbow, they were tools that weren't solely designed for harming other people and had other utilities (unlike swords), this is the key element for why Thorfinn's sword-ban wasn't based on a hypocritcal standard.

But we don't know that, just like that there's no proof that a less-than-friendly Lnu tribe exist, there's no proof that all Lnu tribes are friendly like the Gitpi are.

I know that, I literally said, and I quote, "there's hasn't been anything established that the entirety of the other Lnu tribes would have been more or less firendly (than the Gitpi Lnu) if they had encountered the Vinland settlers first (instead of the Gitpi Lnu tribe).

You still leave germs on an object and just because the germ theory of disease hasn't been discovered yet doesn't mean it can't be applied in a story.
Both the shaman and Canute understand something similar to it, which is why Canute burn a village and kill people who did nothing wrong and why the shaman would rather burn all Nords belonging.

Oh I know it wouldn't completely neutralize risk of exposure, but it would still dramatically decrease risk, and is a potential option if groups were that desperate to maintain trade relations (and is certainly less risky than the exposure that would come from directly raiding someone for plunder).
And the shaman Miskwekepu'j wanted to burn all the Vinlands settlers belongings when he was under the impression the Vinland settlers wouldn't agree to leave the island, but once he heard Thorfinn's proposal he greatly preferred the option that would not lead to direct conflict.

I disagree, the Gitpi tribe could very well be wiped out by the plague and everything point the Nords as being the one responsible of it. You underestimate how much fear can be a factor in vilifying and eventually attacking someone since they can't fight the plague with their weapons but they can very much fight the cause of it (the Nords).

And it's still far easier to villify and become willing to attack another group when relations had already been soured due to Ivar and Miskwekepu'j actions. But as I stated previously even Miskwekepu'j (and other Lnu at the gathering) preferred to have the Vinland settlers to leave on their own than having to directly force them to leave by directly attacking them. And since the dissenting opinions (against letting the settlers have until spring to leave) like chief Mui'n were shown be significantly motivated by the threat and desires that resulted from the actions and existence of Ivar and his sword (and Miskwekepu'j causing a casus belli), that's undeniable evidence that they acted as exacerbating factors ontop of the primary motivating factor of the epidemic. Like I am not saying things still wouldn't have gone to shit if Ivar and his sword hadn't been a factor, they absolutely would thanks to the epidemic, but Ivar and his sword defnitely made things even worse and was a major reason behind Thorfinn's diplomacy failing.

You didn't but most people in the comments are either blaming one or the other (possibly out of convenience though?).

Okay, but I am not, so that really shouldn't be relevant to this discussion. If other people can't understand that there were multiple compounding factors for how things went to shit, and that the blame can't be assigned in its entirety to a single source (and that Ivar and his sword, while defnitiely a significant factor, wasn't the primary one) that's their problem.
Also considering the content of this most recent chapter, people in general are going to be focusing on how the consequences of Ivar's have come back to bite him in the ass, since that's what the chapter was about.

I disagree on how you interpret that scene and already made my points in previous posts. Let's just see how things unfold in the following chapters.

Fine, but again, my argument wasn't concerned with what Ga'aoqi and his peers would/will continue to do, but how if Ga'aoqi's primary motivation hadn't existed, the likelyhood of him initiating a raid would have been far less.

 

[sixtem]

(and even then none of them had swords a tool that is only used for killing other people, and which was the only weapon/tool Thorfinn said would be banned from the Vinland settlement venture)

This is a goofy point to make. The Lnu have weapons made solely for war. You can see it during the warrior gathering: They have maces. Focus is put on the sword since it's a great symbol for the arc and the message, but realistically Thorfinn would've refused maces, battleaxes, pole-arms, and shields as well for the same reasons. The reason they don't come up is because it'd muddy the message, but part of the point is that the Lnu are also not strangers to armed conflict. There is nowhere on this earth Thorfinn can go to escape conflict.

You should read what you responded to more closely. The reason the Norse killed fewer people was because there were fewer Norse, not because they were less bloodthirsty than, say, the Aztecs. If a group of 1,000,000 kills 1,000 people, and a group of 1,000 kills 1, those two groups are exactly as proportionately violent as eachother; and the latter group would have committed the exact same atrocity had it been large enough to do so in the first place.

Not to add too much to an entirely irrelevant argument, but that doesn't follow. The nuances of religious human sacrifice in Nordic culture and, say, Mayan or Aztec culture are completely different. There's nothing to say they're at all proportional. The fact that some cultures did not practice religious human sacrifice at all should show that it's largely cultural and not just a matter of population size.

Fine, but again, my argument wasn't concerned with what Ga'aoqi and his peers would/will continue to do, but how if Ga'aoqi's primary motivation hadn't existed, the likelyhood of him initiating a raid would have been far less.

I'm not actually sure about this. Ga'aoqi is essentially the (much more competent) Lnu counterpart of Ivar. Ivar has a sword because he's a bellicose dumbass, not the other way around. Similarly, Ga'aoqi's interest in raiding precedes the sword because he is a warrior and a raider. The sword just gives him an explicit narrative goal beyond "kill them and steal their shit." Either way, it's pretty explicit that the gathered warriors were going to raid one way or another because, well, they're already here and they're fighters. We've already seen this with how the Jomsvikings dissolved - even after being disbanded the warriors fought because they were there, fighting is what they do, and they had nothing else to do.

Anyway, I've been looking at comments on here and other sites and I think people are too harsh on Ivar and others are too harsh on Thorfinn. Thorfinn is trying to do something that, in his era and from his perspective, has never been attempted before. Ivar's an idiot, but he's well intentioned (in regards to his own people, anyway) and some of his points are good ones: Trade and relations alone cannot stave off conflict. He and the other settlers are from a culture where blood feuds and wars between intermarried families are well-known and not that uncommon, so it's not like Thorfinn's idea is a silver bullet.

My take on the sword is that it's entirely a symbol in this arc so every argument about "Well, if the literal item wasn't here then things would be a bit different!" is missing the point. If Ivar had hacked Miskwekepu'j's hand off with an axe then the same tensions would've popped up. The sword had no chance of not showing up because it's not really a sword, it's a representation of the desire for battle itself. That's why with the Norse on the back foot, the sword is now in Ga'aoqi's hands.

 

[Blabladodo]

First of all not being able to predict the plot isn't the same thing as the tone of a story changing. Secondly, the themes in the latter arcs were present in the story since the very first/Prologue arc, the statement "I/you have no enemies" is literally stressed by Thors from the very beginning, and the first/Prologue arc is chalk full of depicting how fucked up war is and the futility of Thorfinn's revenge, and the hardships victims of war and enslavement experience. The idea that the first/Prologue arc is tonally/thematically/narratively incongruous with the rest of the manga says more about issues with a reader than the author or work itself.

Most people started Vinland Saga because they've heard it was a cool revenge story, even if some themes were indeed present at the start, they weren't exactly the focus and most people were probably not watching/reading this work for those.
The anime also reflect that, the first season received unanimous praise while the second was divisive and an eventual third season will probably be even more so.
My take on that point would be an issue of marketing and what expectations a reader may have.

Except we aren't talking about nobility or other historical bans, we're discussing the standards and reasoning behind why Thorfinn specifically banned swords. And the central reason why Thorfinn banned swords didn't have to do with the potential potency of a sword compared to other tools that could also be used to harm people. Like one doesn't even need to compare a sword to a crossbow, many historians have noted and argued how spears and bow & arrows were more effective/potent and essential tools for warfare than swords were, but Thorfinn didn't ban them either because just like a crossbow, they were tools that weren't solely designed for harming other people and had other utilities (unlike swords), this is the key element for why Thorfinn's sword-ban wasn't based on a hypocritcal standard.

That's the issue I have, it IS hypocritical because you ultimately don't kill with symbolism but with whatever is safest and/or deadliest and a crossbow is both safer and deadlier than a sword hence why it should also have been banned. If Hild wants to hunt, she canuse a bow instead.

I know that, I literally said, and I quote, "there's hasn't been anything established that the entirety of the other Lnu tribes would have been more or less firendly (than the Gitpi Lnu) if they had encountered the Vinland settlers first (instead of the Gitpi Lnu tribe).

Ok, my bad then.

Oh I know it wouldn't completely neutralize risk of exposure, but it would still dramatically decrease risk, and is a potential option if groups were that desperate to maintain trade relations (and is certainly less risky than the exposure that would come from directly raiding someone for plunder).

But they don't know that because the germ theory hasn't been discovered yet, they knew that being near someone ill or touching an object that was used by someone ill can transmit a disease but they didn't know why.

And the shaman Miskwekepu'j wanted to burn all the Vinlands settlers belongings when he was under the impression the Vinland settlers wouldn't agree to leave the island, but once he heard Thorfinn's proposal he greatly preferred the option that would not lead to direct conflict.


And it's still far easier to villify and become willing to attack another group when relations had already been soured due to Ivar and Miskwekepu'j actions. But as I stated previously even Miskwekepu'j (and other Lnu at the gathering) preferred to have the Vinland settlers to leave on their own than having to directly force them to leave by directly attacking them. And since the dissenting opinions (against letting the settlers have until spring to leave) like chief Mui'n were shown be significantly motivated by the threat and desires that resulted from the actions and existence of Ivar and his sword (and Miskwekepu'j causing a casus belli), that's undeniable evidence that they acted as exacerbating factors ontop of the primary motivating factor of the epidemic. Like I am not saying things still wouldn't have gone to shit if Ivar and his sword hadn't been a factor, they absolutely would thanks to the epidemic, but Ivar and his sword defnitely made things even worse and was a major reason behind Thorfinn's diplomacy failing.

But I did agree that the shaman and Ivar accelerated the process of conflict... Why are we arguing on that point again?

Okay, but I am not, so that really shouldn't be relevant to this discussion. If other people can't understand that there were multiple compounding factors for how things went to shit, and that the blame can't be assigned in its entirety to a single source (and that Ivar and his sword, while defnitiely a significant factor, wasn't the primary one) that's their problem.

I wouldn't discard the most popular opinions because it ultimately show how something is perceived by most and/or how good the author is at conveying something to a large audience.

Also considering the content of this most recent chapter, people in general are going to be focusing on how the consequences of Ivar's have come back to bite him in the ass, since that's what the chapter was about.


Fine, but again, my argument wasn't concerned with what Ga'aoqi and his peers would/will continue to do, but how if Ga'aoqi's primary motivation hadn't existed, the likelyhood of him initiating a raid would have been far less.

Ok.

 

[Theozilla]

This is a goofy point to make. The Lnu have weapons made solely for war. You can see it during the warrior gathering: They have maces. Focus is put on the sword since it's a great symbol for the arc and the message, but realistically Thorfinn would've refused maces, battleaxes, pole-arms, and shields as well for the same reasons. The reason they don't come up is because it'd muddy the message, but part of the point is that the Lnu are also not strangers to armed conflict. There is nowhere on this earth Thorfinn can go to escape conflict.

Yes, you are correct that at the gathering of warriors from the various Lnu tribes tools that are weapons solely designed for warfare, I had been thinking primarily in the context of the Gitpi Lnu and their interactions with the Vinland settlers, so I will concede on that specific fact.

But as I also said in my post, what the Lnu own isn't really relevant to the main issue I was discussing, since as I noted the Lnu are the ones who's land is being encroached upon by foreign settlers, and in such a situation, said latter party holds the greater burden and responsibility of establishing and maintaining peaceful relations.

Also yeah, Thorfinn would (and almost certainly did) ban tools likes maces, and any axe and spear whose only utlity was for human warefare and couldn't be repurposed for use for things like chopping wood, hunting, fishing, etc (I doubt shields would be banned since its a tool who's primarily utility is for defense first and foremost). Though I doubt any of the settlers from Iceland and Greenland owned any maces and/or axes and spears designed only for warfare since as Sigured noted to his father Halfdan, Icleand had never been in any full blown war (and I am guessing that likely extended to Greenland too, since that was even less populated than Iceland). But if someone had tried to say bring a knife like the one that Thorfinn used to own (one that had no utility outside of warfare) Thorfinn would have defnitely prohibited that from being brought as well.

And yes, I know there is nowhere on earth Thorfinn can go to escape conflict, the author and narrative itself is intensely aware of that, but the other main point of the narrative is that despite that tragic fact, people should still try and escape from and minimize conflict regardless. That the very pursuit of the impossible ideal is the right and ethical thing to do.

I'm not actually sure about this. Ga'aoqi is essentially the (much more competent) Lnu counterpart of Ivar. Ivar has a sword because he's a bellicose dumbass, not the other way around. Similarly, Ga'aoqi's interest in raiding precedes the sword because he is a warrior and a raider. The sword just gives him an explicit narrative goal beyond "kill them and steal their shit." Either way, it's pretty explicit that the gathered warriors were going to raid one way or another because, well, they're already here and they're fighters. We've already seen this with how the Jomsvikings dissolved - even after being disbanded the warriors fought because they were there, fighting is what they do, and they had nothing else to do.

Anyway, I've been looking at comments on here and other sites and I think people are too harsh on Ivar and others are too harsh on Thorfinn. Thorfinn is trying to do something that, in his era and from his perspective, has never been attempted before. Ivar's an idiot, but he's well intentioned (in regards to his own people, anyway) and some of his points are good ones: Trade and relations alone cannot stave off conflict. He and the other settlers are from a culture where blood feuds and wars between intermarried families are well-known and not that uncommon, so it's not like Thorfinn's idea is a silver bullet.

My take on the sword is that it's entirely a symbol in this arc so every argument about "Well, if the literal item wasn't here then things would be a bit different!" is missing the point. If Ivar had hacked Miskwekepu'j's hand off with an axe then the same tensions would've popped up. The sword had no chance of not showing up because it's not really a sword, it's a representation of the desire for battle itself. That's why with the Norse on the back foot, the sword is now in Ga'aoqi's hands.

First off, we don't know whether Ga'aoqi regularly participated in raids on other Lnu tribes before, him being a warrior brute with a lust for power and violence doesn't guarantee that he actually was able act on said impulses regularly. And considering that the other Lnu tribes we've are all ones who live on the island, and there was no indication that the island tribes were in regular and frequent deadly conflicts with each other, that's evidence to suggest that raiding wasn't something super common among the Lnu of the island.
Furthermore, the Jomsvikings weren't risking the threat of exposure to an epidemic when they fought among themselves after they dissolved. Ga'aoqi's peers even noted that they were taking a risk by going on a raid, so I'd say that's even further evidence that if Ga'aoqi's primary motivation hadn't existed the likelhood of him and his peers iniating a raid would have indeed been smaller. Again that's not a gaurantee a raid wouldn't have happened, but I think it is foolish to try and claim that the chances wouldn't have been reduced if Ivar and his sword hadn't been an issue.
Also, as I have previously stated, I am not saying the sword by itself is sole difference maker, I have repeatedly argued that it was the sword AND Ivar together that made a meaningful difference. Also if Ivar had used a tool other than a sword to hack off the shaman's hand, the meaning and impact while still significant ,wouldn't have necessarily been quite as striking since a sword is an entirely new tool the Lnu (the best way they can describe it is as a "big knife"), while a steel axe wouldn't just have been viewed as a superior version of a tool the Lnu already own and use, and wasn't something the Vinland settlers would have brought with them for the sole purpose of harming other humans.

Most people started Vinland Saga because they've heard it was a cool revenge story, even if some themes were indeed present at the start, they weren't exactly the focus and most people were probably not watching/reading this work for those.
The anime also reflect that, the first season received unanimous praise while the second was divisive and an eventual third season will probably be even more so.
My take on that point would be an issue of marketing and what expectations a reader may have.

Those themes were most certainly the focus in the first arc, they were just presented in a different manner. And said first arc never really presented itself as some "cool revenge" story, it was always explicilty portraying it as a harrowing narrative for Thorfinn and the other characters. If readers/watchers couldn't tell from the first season that the narrative was always fundamentally built on the tragedy and condemnation of violent human conflict, that's their issue with their ability as a reader/viewer, not with however the series marketed itself (like the later arc of Vinland Saga only work in part because the first arc focused on how Thorfinn was originally living a life of violence in pursuit of revenge).

That's the issue I have, it IS hypocritical because you ultimately don't kill with symbolism but with whatever is safest and/or deadliest and a crossbow is both safer and deadlier than a sword hence why it should also have been banned. If Hild wants to hunt, she canuse a bow instead.

But Thorfinn's ban wasn't based on what and/or how someone can kill another person (and/or how safe and/or deadly that method may be), Thorfinn's ban was based on the message it sends to bring a tool solely/primarily designed for harming other people under the context of them as foreign settlers who are traveling to another land, inhabited by native peoples already living there, with the intention of settling and developing said inhabited land (and are well aware of how things like a language barrier will pose a challenge to relations). And Hild herself has stated that the primary function of her crossbow is for hunting, the fact that it has the capacity to be easier and more effectively deadly than other tools solely designed for warefare (like swords) is not what Thorfinn was not the factor Thorfinn formulated the reasoning behind his ban, and thus that's why it is not hypocritical.

It's like how if someone built a house next door to you and when they move in you see them bringing with them a collection of nasty looking daggers whose only use is for harming other people and they are regularly carrying them around on their person (and you know that they aren't an antique seller), the vast majority of people will react more viscerally to that than if you simply saw someone moving with a hunting rifle (and you knew that they were a hunter), despite the latter tool having a greater capacity for being deadly.

But they don't know that because the germ theory hasn't been discovered yet, they knew that being near someone ill or touching an object that was used by someone ill can transmit a disease but they didn't know why.

They don't need to know about germ theory to come to the assumption and limited understanding that directly interacting with a person is a greater risk for exposure than if they just interacted with objects a sick and/or potentially infectious person had come into contact with, like even some animals will intuit that. But again, this is largely off topic from the main point being discussed, so there really isn't much point in discussing it further.

But I did agree that the shaman and Ivar accelerated the process of conflict... Why are we arguing on that point again?

I don't know, all I know is that my argument has always been that Ivar and his sword contributed meaningfully to how things went to shit and thus hold some degree of responsibility, even if they weren't the primary main factors. I think if Ivar and his sword hadn't existed the degree of how bad things turned could have been potentially lessened, but I have never tried to claim that nothing would have gone to shit (if Ivar and his sword hadn't existed). I think the narrative is pretty clear on that as well.

I wouldn't discard the most popular opinions because it ultimately show how something is perceived by most and/or how good the author is at conveying something to a large audience.

I don't think it can be said that the opinion that "Ivar and his sword hold the entirety/majority of blame for everything going to shit" is the most popular opinion. And even in cases where a a work has mass misconceptions about it, that doesn't automatically speak to and/or indicate the quality and effectiveness of the storytelling. For example, the novel Lolita has tons of inaccurate opinions about it, that doesn't mean Vladimir Nabokov poorly wrote his novel or was trying make people sympathetic to pedophilia and pedophiles.
So again, I will say it is not really relevant to the issues I am trying to discuss.

 

[Swagner]

Coming from you mate, you're out here sucking off the manga by defending every criticism or hate comment this manga gets every month. "N-noooo I disagree with you!!"

Jesus, your reading comprehension is such trash that you can't even remember what "defending" means. No wonder you have such shit taste. Go read one of your brain-dead isekai revenge porn manga, it's obviously more your speed.

But I didn't ask. If you love it then good on you but I don't give a shit.

"I don't give a shit, that's why I constantly keep replying and bitching and moaning! Because I don't care! Because that's what people who don't care do, is keep up a months-long whine campaign and then lash out at anyone with pattern recognition!"

Yet you have the gall to say I'm desperate for attention?

"Sure, I'm the one complaining every month completely unprompted because unfollowing a manga I have nothing to do but complain about is completely beyond my mental faculties, but it's you who needs attention!"

The lack of self awareness is worrying.

"I know you are but what am I?" Again? There is not a single original thought in your brain, is there? Here's a challenge for you: try to go one comment without projecting your own personality failings on everyone else.

 

[Swagner]

The fact that some cultures did not practice religious human sacrifice at all should show that it's largely cultural and not just a matter of population size.

Again, the point is simply that you can't just say "obviously the Norse are better because they sacrificed fewer people", because the Norse were incapable of performing human sacrifice on the same scale as the Aztecs. Like you said, there were plenty of cultures that did not practice human sacrifice, but the Norse were not one of them. All we know is that:

1. Both the Norse and the Aztecs were willing to (and did) perform human sacrifice, and
2. There were many more Aztecs at the height of their power than there were Norse.

There is not enough information to make the claim that one was more moral than the other (in either direction), because we have no way of knowing what the Norse would have done if they'd had the same opportunities as the Aztecs. All we know is what they did with what they had.

 

[owen3939]

Jesus, your reading comprehension is such trash that you can't even remember what "defending" means. No wonder you have such shit taste. Go read one of your brain-dead isekai revenge porn manga, it's obviously more your speed.

"I don't give a shit, that's why I constantly keep replying and bitching and moaning! Because I don't care! Because that's what people who don't care do, is keep up a months-long whine campaign and then lash out at anyone with pattern recognition!"

"Sure, I'm the one complaining every month completely unprompted because unfollowing a manga I have nothing to do but complain about is completely beyond my mental faculties, but it's you who needs attention!"

"I know you are but what am I?" Again? There is not a single original thought in your brain, is there? Here's a challenge for you: try to go one comment without projecting your own personality failings on everyone else.

Your tears could flood a country brother, strive to be more like your idol thorfinn. No enemies, right?

 

[VoidWanderer]

Some of the takes on this chapter and the current arc as a whole are really asinine
Everything has been built up to this, and it has been shown before and foreshadowed.
Everyone has a fault for the current situation and everyone is also right in their own way.
Would it all have went to shit regardless? Well, yes.

No matter if Ivar brought the sword or not, it would have all went to crap.
People need to remember that Thorfinn said in the Slave Arc that he wants to create a village free of Swords, War, and Slavery, and violence as a whole, and now the current arc is for that.
Also, Thors- A True Warrior Needs no Sword. That alone explains it.
The "allure ang magic" of the sword has been there since the Prologue, hell the Vinland Saga logo has a sword in it.

Thorfinn is essentially right in that if they bring swords, the swords will be used, and when they get used, then everything will go to shit, and it did, the plague just made it worse and it escalated it more.
Ivar, on the other hand is a stubborn fool who believes that hes that guy, meanwhile the dude probably never went to war, and just wanted to show off when he protected Thorfinn- it was a double edged sword. His character from here can get even more interesting though, so props to Yukimura.
If Ivar, Styrk, Ganglati, and the Sword were removed from the final arc, it would have felt cheap, and quite frankly Ivar, the Sword and co were needed for story and theme purposes.

The point is, the whole situation is pretty nuanced and all of them are really responsible for it.
Remember the rats? When Einar wanted to remove them from the boat? And Vargar said- that they bring good luck? Well, they sure did bring some luck and it ain't good.
The sword is also a symbolic thing as others have said here.
The writing for the Final Arc is not bad at all, it is just continuing with the themes that the series has set up beforehand. Are there some questionable stuff? Yeah. But it will all make sense once the manga is over, and people have the chance to re-read the whole manga and especially the final arc.

 

[Blabladodo]

Those themes were most certainly the focus in the first arc, they were just presented in a different manner. And said first arc never really presented itself as some "cool revenge" story, it was always explicilty portraying it as a harrowing narrative for Thorfinn and the other characters. If readers/watchers couldn't tell from the first season that the narrative was always fundamentally built on the tragedy and condemnation of violent human conflict, that's their issue with their ability as a reader/viewer, not with however the series marketed itself (like the later arc of Vinland Saga only work in part because the first arc focused on how Thorfinn was originally living a life of violence in pursuit of revenge).

But those themes get the backseat once Thors dies and while they are still present in a way or another, the story becomes largely action-focused until Askeladd dies if that part of the story is largely the most popular/least diviside for a reason.
Marketing create expectations within the mainstream audience and said mainstream audience doesn't want to think too hard.

But Thorfinn's ban wasn't based on what and/or how someone can kill another person (and/or how safe and/or deadly that method may be), Thorfinn's ban was based on the message it sends to bring a tool solely/primarily designed for harming other people under the context of them as foreign settlers who are traveling to another land, inhabited by native peoples already living there, with the intention of settling and developing said inhabited land (and are well aware of how things like a language barrier will pose a challenge to relations). And Hild herself has stated that the primary function of her crossbow is for hunting, the fact that it has the capacity to be easier and more effectively deadly than other tools solely designed for warefare (like swords) is not what Thorfinn was not the factor Thorfinn formulated the reasoning behind his ban, and thus that's why it is not hypocritical.

Look, I understand your argument, you've repeated it many times, what I'm saying is that IRL governments are not doing that and are banning/regulating weapons on wider criteria than Thorfinn did and that historically, the crossbow was considered more efficient than a sword in actual warfare, hence the hypocrisy.
Feel free to disagree but I'm not budging on those points. And yes, I do understand why Thorfinn only banned the sword, you don't need to tell me again the reasoning behind that.

It's like how if someone built a house next door to you and when they move in you see them bringing with them a collection of nasty looking daggers whose only use is for harming other people and they are regularly carrying them around on their person (and you know that they aren't an antique seller), the vast majority of people will react more viscerally to that than if you simply saw someone moving with a hunting rifle (and you knew that they were a hunter), despite the latter tool having a greater capacity for being deadly.

Can't say about yours but both weapons are considered hunting tools in my country and are heavily regulated so a situation where someone is going around showing off a single knife can't realitically happen here, he would quickly get reported and arrested.
And assuming a situation where someone would own a knife or hunting rifle illegally, the guy who own the the illegal hunting rifle who provoke a much greater response from the cops than the guy with an illegal knife.
Also there's a greater stigma against hunters and firearms here than against bladed weapons.

They don't need to know about germ theory to come to the assumption and limited understanding that directly interacting with a person is a greater risk for exposure than if they just interacted with objects a sick and/or potentially infectious person had come into contact with, like even some animals will intuit that.

Diseases can still be transmitted through trade and exchanged items and the risk is not that much lower than direct interaction with someone ill. Germs can survive days on various surfaces, which is more than enough to infect someone.

But again, this is largely off topic from the main point being discussed, so there really isn't much point in discussing it further.

Point is that trade would have stopped in all cases because it is still a vector of contamination.

I don't know, all I know is that my argument has always been that Ivar and his sword contributed meaningfully to how things went to shit and thus hold some degree of responsibility, even if they weren't the primary main factors. I think if Ivar and his sword hadn't existed the degree of how bad things turned could have been potentially lessened, but I have never tried to claim that nothing would have gone to shit (if Ivar and his sword hadn't existed). I think the narrative is pretty clear on that as well.

Ok.

I don't think it can be said that the opinion that "Ivar and his sword hold the entirety/majority of blame for everything going to shit" is the most popular opinion.

Even though the author is trying hard to show us that the sword (and Ivar) is the main cause of conflict? (which I disagree as said previously, it's an accumulation of small mistakes from everyone that led to this situation)

And even in cases where a a work has mass misconceptions about it, that doesn't automatically speak to and/or indicate the quality and effectiveness of the storytelling. For example, the novel Lolita has tons of inaccurate opinions about it, that doesn't mean Vladimir Nabokov poorly wrote his novel or was trying make people sympathetic to pedophilia and pedophiles.

But Lolita has an unreliable narrator and was written that way on purpose, which is not the case here.

So again, I will say it is not really relevant to the issues I am trying to discuss.

Oh, I agree, I'm just saying that discarding an opinion, even if inaccurate, is not something I agree with.

 

[Blabladodo]

Again, the point is simply that you can't just say "obviously the Norse are better because they sacrificed fewer people", because the Norse were incapable of performing human sacrifice on the same scale as the Aztecs. Like you said, there were plenty of cultures that did not practice human sacrifice, but the Norse were not one of them. All we know is that:

1. Both the Norse and the Aztecs were willing to (and did) perform human sacrifice, and
2. There were many more Aztecs at the height of their power than there were Norse.

There is not enough information to make the claim that one was more moral than the other (in either direction),

But the Aztec did sacrifice more people than the Norse, regardless of scaling.

because we have no way of knowing what the Norse would have done if they'd had the same opportunities as the Aztecs. All we know is what they did with what they had.

And I'm not talking about hypothetical scenario but rather facts.
Would the Norse practice human sacrifice on a greater scale than the Aztec if given the possibility? Maybe but they ultimately didn't.

Also I'm still waiting for you to tell me where I said that war is good.
It should be easy for you, right? You left a reaction on all of my posts in this thread, I assume that you've read them all and should able to pinpoint the exact moment where I commited the deed.

 

[Theozilla]

But those themes get the backseat once Thors dies and while they are still present in a way or another, the story becomes largely action-focused until Askeladd dies if that part of the story is largely the most popular/least diviside for a reason.
Marketing create expectations within the mainstream audience and said mainstream audience doesn't want to think too hard.

Those themes certinaly do not take a backseat after Thors dies whatsoever, they are ever present throughout the first arc. If you cannot recognize them, that's on you. Like if I tried to post all the examples of how said themes are interwoved throughout the first arc, this comment would be ful of oodles of pages from the first 8 tankōbons. And while the first arc certainly contained more action than the other arcs, it was still hardly an action-driven story, the human drama and philosophizing still made up the majority of the narrative and character focus. Vinland Saga has never been a series where the primary audience was not expected to think hard about the themes of the story.

Look, I understand your argument, you've repeated it many times, what I'm saying is that IRL governments are not doing that and are banning/regulating weapons on wider criteria than Thorfinn did and that historically, the crossbow was considered more efficient than a sword in actual warfare, hence the hypocrisy.
Feel free to disagree but I'm not budging on those points. And yes, I do understand why Thorfinn only banned the sword, you don't need to tell me again the reasoning behind that.

I know what IRL governments are doing, but judging Thorfinn's ban by the standards of those IRL government bans is irrevelent since Thorfinn's reasoning and criteria for his ban was not and is not meant to be the same as those IRL bans, thus it is unjustisfied to label it as hypocritical.
It's like if there was a cooking contest and it had the rule that red-colored fruits were not allowed to be used as ingredients in it, trying to accuse the people who made the rule of being hyprocritcal because they allowed green granny smith apples to be used (since most apples are red) would be illogical and unjustified (since the criteria and reasoning behind said rule wasn't based on not using using apples in the contest).

Can't say about yours but both weapons are considered hunting tools in my country and are heavily regulated so a situation where someone is going around showing off a single knife can't realitically happen here, he would quickly get reported and arrested.
And assuming a situation where someone would own a knife or hunting rifle illegally, the guy who own the the illegal hunting rifle who provoke a much greater response from the cops than the guy with an illegal knife.
Also there's a greater stigma against hunters and firearms here than against bladed weapons.

I live in the USA where unfortunately there is little regulation to things like firearms. And my hypothetical is only reliant on the presumption that the legal status of owning knives (which in my hypothetical I said wouldn't be considered hunting knives and would be primarilly designed for human-on-human combat) and owning a hunting firerarm are the same in this situation. Them having different statuses isn't what my hypothetical was trying to comment on, which was that most (not all of course) people will react more viscerally to someone owning something dedicated primarily for human-on-human violence than someone owning something that was designed primarily for the function of hunting, even if the latter tool has a potentially greater capacity for violence and deadliness for humans because of the symbolic meaning and messages the former will likely convey about a person.

Diseases can still be transmitted through trade and exchanged items and the risk is not that much lower than direct interaction with someone ill. Germs can survive days on various surfaces, which is more than enough to infect someone.

We can quibble till the cows go home over whether the difference in risk is meaningfully lower or not, but it is still undeniable that the risk is lower than direct-contact.

Point is that trade would have stopped in all cases because it is still a vector of contamination.

Yes, I know that. But my point was that obtaining items through raiding (which also has its own risks independent of the presence of disease) is also still a form of direct contact and thus carries a greater risk of direct exposure to disease than no-contact trading. Thus, logic would follow if the goods and items of the settlers are that significant of a motivating factor for people to be willing to subject themselves to the risks a raid brings them, then the risk that no-contact trading would still entail would be even easier to accept and undergo for those still that interested in still getting access to the goods and items of the settlers.

Even though the author is trying hard to show us that the sword (and Ivar) is the main cause of conflict? (which I disagree as said previously, it's an accumulation of small mistakes from everyone that led to this situation)

Yukimura the author isn't trying to do that though. He's certainly depicting that the sword and Ivar are a significant cause of the conflict, but I wholly disagree with the assertion that Yukimura has written the narrative overall to frame the sword and Ivar as being the primary cause and/or holding the blame for everything going to shit.

But Lolita has an unreliable narrator and was written that way on purpose, which is not the case here.

The unreliable narrator aspect is beside the point, as even if works that have unreliable narrators tend to attract even more misconceptions about them than works that don't, the overall point remains that the presence of misconceptions about a work doesn't automatically speak to the quality of its storytelling.

Oh, I agree, I'm just saying that discarding an opinion, even if inaccurate, is not something I agree with.

Okay, you do you (and agree to disagree) then, the prevalence of inaccurate opinions about a work just isn't something I am going to dedicate much of my attention to and/or let significantly shape my own estimations of a work.

 

[Blabladodo]

Those themes certinaly do not take a backseat after Thors dies whatsoever, they are ever present throughout the first arc. If you cannot recognize them, that's on you. Like if I tried to post all the examples of how said themes are interwoved throughout the first arc, this comment would be ful of oodles of pages from the first 8 tankōbons. And while the first arc certainly contained more action than the other arcs, it was still hardly an action-driven story, the human drama and philosophizing still made up the majority of the narrative and character focus. Vinland Saga has never been a series where the primary audience was not expected to think hard about the themes of the story.

I'll have to apologize then, the manga is almost 20 y.o. and I'll admit that I forgot many things since then.

I know what IRL governments are doing, but judging Thorfinn's ban by the standards of those IRL government bans is irrevelent since Thorfinn's reasoning and criteria for his ban was not and is not meant to be the same as those IRL bans, thus it is unjustisfied to label it as hypocritical.

Fine, I'll just call Thorfinn's ban on weapon half-assed instead.

It's like if there was a cooking contest and it had the rule that red-colored fruits were not allowed to be used as ingredients in it, trying to accuse the people who made the rule of being hyprocritcal because they allowed green granny smith apples to be used (since most apples are red) would be illogical and unjustified (since the criteria and reasoning behind said rule wasn't based on not using using apples in the contest).

But green apples don't taste the same as red ones, using them would surely result in a different taste from using red ones.

I live in the USA where unfortunately there is little regulation to things like firearms. And my hypothetical is only reliant on the presumption that the legal status of owning knives (which in my hypothetical I said wouldn't be considered hunting knives and would be primarilly designed for human-on-human combat) and owning a hunting firerarm are the same in this situation. Them having different statuses isn't what my hypothetical was trying to comment on, which was that most (not all of course) people will react more viscerally to someone owning something dedicated primarily for human-on-human violence than someone owning something that was designed primarily for the function of hunting, even if the latter tool has a potentially greater capacity for violence and deadliness for humans because of the symbolic meaning and messages the former will likely convey about a person.

I guess you could call it a cultural difference ? People here would tolerate much more easily someone owning a knife than a gun.

We can quibble till the cows go home over whether the difference in risk is meaningfully lower or not, but it is still undeniable that the risk is lower than direct-contact.

Sure, I even admited so.

Yes, I know that. But my point was that obtaining items through raiding (which also has its own risks independent of the presence of disease) is also still a form of direct contact and thus carries a greater risk of direct exposure to disease than no-contact trading. Thus, logic would follow if the goods and items of the settlers are that significant of a motivating factor for people to be willing to subject themselves to the risks a raid brings them, then the risk that no-contact trading would still entail would be even easier to accept and undergo for those still that interested in still getting access to the goods and items of the settlers.

The issue here is that the people willing to attack the Nords are not "logical" but a rather emotional bunch with the most impatient of them already raiding the Nords.

Yukimura the author isn't trying to do that though.

He didn't but it still resulted in Ivar being the most polarizing character of the entire story.

He's certainly depicting that the sword and Ivar are a significant cause of the conflict, but I wholly disagree with the assertion that Yukimura has written the narrative overall to frame the sword and Ivar as being the primary cause and/or holding the blame for everything going to shit.

Oh I know that, my very first post in this thread is even a rather clumsy attempt at defending Ivar from shouldering all the blame, which led some people into believing that I loved war.

The unreliable narrator aspect is beside the point, as even if works that have unreliable narrators tend to attract even more misconceptions about them than works that don't, the overall point remains that the presence of misconceptions about a work doesn't automatically speak to the quality of its storytelling.

Ok.

Okay, you do you (and agree to disagree) then, the prevalence of inaccurate opinions of a work just isn't something I am going to dedicate much of my attention to and/or let significantly shape my own estimations of a work.

Well, my conception of diversity of opinion also happen to include the inaccurate and uninformed ones and you may never know how a random opinion may give you some insight on a particular topic.
And I wouldn't have taken Ivar's defense if I was worried about what people would think of me.
Guess I should also thank you for dedicating much of your time to me.

 

[Theozilla]

Fine, I'll just call Thorfinn's ban on weapon half-assed instead.

Sure that's fine, I mean I personally would still disagree with that assessment, but I don't object to someone holding that kind of subjective opinion. It was the labeling it hypocritical that I took issue with.

But green apples don't taste the same as red ones, using them would surely result in a different taste from using red ones.

Sure they often do taste different, but even if there were somehow red apples that tasted basically like granny smith green apples, those red apples would still not be allowed included because the criteria of the rule wasn't based on allowing/disallowing a certain taste, but simply a certain color, which is why it would be unjustified to call the rule hypocritical.

I guess you could call it a cultural difference ? People here would tolerate much more easily someone owning a knife than a gun.

Well if there are legal differences regarding the legality of owning one item versus another, that will generally create cultural differences in perception since knowing that someone owns something illegal also conveys its own meaning as well. Hence why in my hypothetical the comparison presumed equal legality for the ownership of said items.

Another hypothetical comparison could be someone owning a explosive, if someone owned a bunch of (easy to use) explosives for mining purposes they likely wouldn't receive the same reaction from the majority of people than if they owned explosives specifically used for warfare, the latter would prompt much more visceral reactions, even if the latter explosives were weaker and has less capacity for damage than the mining explosives. The difference in purpose conveys meaning.

The issue here is that the people willing to attack the Nords are not "logical" but a rather emotional bunch with the most impatient of them already raiding the Nords.

Sure, that's very true (though not all of them are illogical but that's tangent to my point), but part of why so many of them are being illogical and emotional is because relations got soured before the epidemic even started. So if said souring hadn't occured it isn't unlikely that there would be more logical heads (as well as there being at least a marginally less fervent desire for steel tools in the first place) among the gathered Lnu tribe warriors, thus at least a slightly higher chance that Thorfinn's negotiations didn't end up failing.

He didn't but it still resulted in Ivar being the most polarizing character of the entire story.

I mean that's kinda inevitble when he's one of the few causes with a face.
One could say it's similar to role Omar had in the narrative of the second arc. Like Ivar, it wouldn't be fair to asign the primary blame to Omar for getting Ketil's farm into the shit it ended up in (like his own brother said, Canute would have eventually found and created some justification for appropriating Ketil's farm) but at the same time Omar still held some significant responsiblity for the way things turned out (which he himself acknowledges at the end of the arc). With this most recent chapter Ivar is being confronted with the consequences of the situation he had a part in ultimately creating.

Guess I should also thank you for dedicating much of your time to me.

Well it's certinaly been a more interesting forum back-and-forth than I would have expected.

 

[Blabladodo]

Sure that's fine, I mean I personally would still disagree with that assessment, but I don't object to someone holding that kind of subjective opinion. It was the labeling it hypocritical that took issue with.


Sure they often do taste different, but even if there were somehow red apples that tasted basically like granny smith green apples, those red apples would still not be allowed included because the criteria of the rule wasn't based on allowing/disallowing a certain taste, but simply a certain color, which is why it would be unjustified to call the rule hypocritical.


Well if there are legal differences regarding the legality owning one item versus another, that will generally create cultural differences in perception since knowing that someone owns something illegal also conveys its own meaning as well. Hence why in my hypothetical the comparison presumed equal legality for the ownership of said items.

Another hypothetical comparison could be someone owning a explosive, if someone owned a bunch of (easy to use) explosives for mining purposes they likely wouldn't receive the same reaction from the majority of people than if they owned explosives specifically used for warfare, the latter would prompt much more visceral reactions, even if the latter explosives were weaker and has less capacity for damage than the mining explosives. The difference in purpose conveys meaning.


Sure, that's very true (though not all of them are illogical but that's tangent to my point), but part of why so many of them are being illogical and emotional is because relations got soured before the epidemic even started. So if said souring hadn't occured it isn't unlikely that there would be more logical heads (as well as there being at least a marginally less fervent desire for steel tools in the first place) among the gathered Lnu tribe warriors, thus at least a slightly higher chance that Thorfinn's negotiations didn't end up failing.


I mean that's kinda inevitble when he's one of the few causes with a face.
One could say it's similar to role Omar had in the narrative of the second arc. Like Ivar, it wouldn't be fair to asign the primary blame to Omar for getting Ketil's farm into the shit it ended up in (like his own brother said, Canute would have eventually found and created some justification for appropriating Ketil's farm) but at the same time Omar still held some significant responsiblity for the way things turned out (which he himself acknowledges at the end of the arc). With this most recent chapter Ivar is being confronted with the consequences of the situation he had a part in ultimately creating.


Well it's certinaly been a more interesting forum back-and-forth than I would have expected.

I feel like this is a good place to stop so I'll conclude by saying that I also enjoyed this exchange.
And thank you again for your patience