Vinland Saga - Ch. 215 - Thousand Year Voyage Part 24

[MangaDex]

 

[Alsavarolltime]

everyone is going to die

 

[DigitalCielo]

I feel like a Einar's gonna change from this

 

[somaxor]

I had no choice

 

[saveme]

Nothing is going well

 

[K1NGST0N33]

Well, that's a lot of killing right here. I really like how this manga has always depicted violence in a gore yet pretty clean-ish way...

I hope Einar will now understand why Thorfinn is so adamant about his no violence and no killing policy.
He has seen wars and killed people since a very young age, and has been dealing with the consequences of taking lives during his slavery years, and he wanted to avoid someone like his friend to ever have to go through this trauma.

Well, this idiot Einar didn't listen, and now he has to face the consequences of his choice. I wish this shock will get him back on a peaceful mindset, but I'm probably being too optimistic...

 

[Kurosui]

Finally vikingr W

 

[rudezki]

Fucking hell..

 

[SuperOniichan]

For a manga promoting near-Christian pacifism, Vinland Saga impressively consistently features fairly brutal and naturalistic guro battles. But I don't mind

 

[Hootanic]

I feel like a Einar's gonna change from this

See, up until now, the violence was very abstract and distant - it was always something other people were engaged with. Now, it's something that has personally affected him. Something that where he did have a choice: to act and take someone's life, or not act and likely die. He wants there to not have been any choice, but now he knows what Thorfinn has been saying all along, and when you are at that point when it's too late for a third choice then you have to chose who dies.

 

[Kaiofficialone]

Sadness

 

[brainman]

Well, this idiot Einar didn't listen, and now he has to face the consequences of his choice

That's a bit reductive, isn't it? Einar didn't pick this fight. You lose your home to violence not just once, but twice, sail halfway around the world to find a home free from violence, try to befriend the locals, you don't ask for much but a little land to farm, you compromise and trade, and then violence finds you again. What's there to do for someone like Einar? Lose your home to violence again, run and travel to the other side of the world, maybe? Where do you draw the line?

Thorfinn has the benefit of arguing from a position of strength. Sure, he has been on the other side of the knife in the past, but beyond that, he's mostly had the luxury of being powerful enough to make the choice. Even his bout of slavery was by "choice". Had he wanted to flee, he probably could've done so at any point. If he's threatened, he has the power to defeat the majority of people doing so. It's a lot easier to argue for piece and turning the other cheek when you're free to make that choice, or rather when it even is a choice in the first place.
But Einar? Einar is weak. Einar has been weak his entire life. He never had the power to make that choice. For him it was never "I could nonlethally subdue them whenever I want", it was flee or die, get enslaved or die, be a slave or die. He was never on the inflicting side of violence, on the side of power, or on the side of making the choice. Always the other one. You live a life constantly at the mercy of someone else, then grasp your own fate for the first time, and this shit happens, when do you decide to take a stand?

Einar's decision was nothing if not human and perfectly understandable. When the farm was taken, and with it his second home, he at least had Thorfinn's dream of Vinland. Now that he's here, he has nowhere else to go. It's this or nothing.

 

[SuperOniichan]

Nothing is going well

I like the inner voice on page 12, as if the child has finally realized that he has messed up and is wondering if there is still time before his parents arrive.

 

[1kken]

"You're Okay.
He's dead."

It was a way to reassure him him. But, it also reads like the only conclusion some characters will draw from this is:

"I'll only be okay when they're all dead".

 

[Ebyandsmartie]

Ooooooh Imma kill myself...

Yukimura you cannot do this to me

 

[animan095]

Einar might not be literally dead, but the Einar we knew is gone now. Never to return.

 

[SuperOniichan]

That's a bit reductive, isn't it? Einar didn't pick this fight. You lose your home to violence not just once, but twice, sail halfway around the world to find a home free from violence, try to befriend the locals, you don't ask for much but a little land to farm, you compromise and trade, and then violence finds you again. What's there to do for someone like Einar? Lose your home to violence again, run and travel to the other side of the world, maybe? Where do you draw the line?

Thorfinn has the benefit of arguing from a position of strength. Sure, he has been on the other side of the knife in the past, but beyond that, he's mostly had the luxury of being powerful enough to make the choice. Even his bout of slavery was by "choice". Had he wanted to flee, he probably could've done so at any point. If he's threatened, he has the power to defeat the majority of people doing so. It's a lot easier to argue for piece and turning the other cheek when you're free to make that choice, or rather when it even is a choice in the first place.
But Einar? Einar is weak. Einar has been weak his entire life. He never had the power to make that choice. For him it was never "I could nonlethally subdue them whenever I want", it was flee or die, get enslaved or die, be a slave or die. He was never on the inflicting side of violence, on the side of power, or on the side of making the choice. Always the other one. You live a life constantly at the mercy of someone else, then grasp your own fate for the first time, and this shit happens, when do you decide to take a stand?

Einar's decision was nothing if not human and perfectly understandable. When the farm was taken, and with it his second home, he at least had Thorfinn's dream of Vinland. Now that he's here, he has nowhere else to go. It's this or nothing.

Everything has its own nuances, yes, but “I was forced” in such things is always very manipulative and reeks of shifting the blame to others. In the style of “I didn’t want to kill you during the theft, but you forced me by trying to resist me.” Einar's logic can be understood, but the fact that he is the protagonist does not make his ambitions more valuable and important than the interests of other people.

 

[Alicitzen]

Things are not going well huh

 

[EarlofMillenium]

They saved the wall after all. Even if it was mostly because the enemy stopped to fight over the loot from their dead bodies.

 

[talathar]

Everything has its own nuances, yes, but “I was forced” in such things is always very manipulative and reeks of shifting the blame to others. In the style of “I didn’t want to kill you during the theft, but you forced me by trying to resist me.” Einar's logic can be understood, but the fact that he is the protagonist does not make his ambitions more valuable and important than the interests of other people.

But Einar was forced. OK, so he did make a decision to fight. But the Linu hes fighting made the decision to all out attack out of hate and a desire for metal. The Linu he killed personally tried to kill him to get his metal spear. Even if Einar had chosen pacifism, they still would have attacked the fortified village. Einar would still have to fight then like everyone else is.

How is he gonna Thorfinn his way out of this? He can't disarm the guy or super dodge because hes just Einar. Einar could have tried to be peaceful, but either he would have been forced to fight or he would be dead.

This is a tragedy. And its not a tragedy of a few people like Einar just not being cool enough pacifists. Its a tragedy of inevitability between these social forces.