Well, I gotta give it to that arc, it definitely had two great things come out of it in my humble opinion : Einar and good boy!Thorfinn. Einar is a really good man. I like him. Thorfinn needed a guy like him in his life. About Thorfinn however...Can I just say? The Thorfinn we have now is waaay more likable than the...Vengeful one? I thought that he was a little piece of shit. I know that it was the point, but still. Also, is it just me, or it is rather disturbing how so many people wish for this angry bloodthirsty Thorfinn to come back?
I can understand that people prefer the action of the first 50 or so chapters and want their hack-and-slash-heroics back, but I am very fond of the character development. Especially since Thorfinn vowing to never kill again is much more than just lip-service to what his father told him about fighting in the beginning.
Einar is a great addition and his friendship with Thorfinn works great.
That being said, I just found that part of the manga really dragging out and slow. I was not feeling the entire thing. I really did not care about Ketil and co. Things finally started to shake up when Knud...I mean Canute came around, but otherwise it was a slugfest compared to what we used to have before. I know we cannot always have fighting and some parts of the manga HAS to be tamer, but it was just lame for me. I think the lack of a really powerful, charismatic figure made me think that way. Like I said, Einar is likeable, but he is nowhere near on the levels of coolness of cunning fox Askeladd or Thorkell-senpai. Those two make everything infinitely better. rip Askeladd
Yeah, it was a lot slower, I have to admit, but I liked the change of pace and seeing aspects of the regular life of some people on a farm. I'm into history, so I enjoyed it for that depiction alone. I also liked how it introduced a few characters, the story with that slave woman and Einar and how the Farm gets caught up in political shenanigans. It seemed like it did well to establish how people are affected in general.
btw you never said your favourite character can i know
Oh, that's a hard question. I think I don't really dislike any character, so choosing is really hard.
I guess Bjorn and Askeladd and their friendship is something that I enjoyed a lot. Askeladd in particular. Thorkell is also always just too much fun when he's doing his shtick.
So I guess Askeladd, Bjorn, Thorkell and Thorfinn would be my absolute favorites. But they are closely followed by all the other characters.
Einar is a bro, I enjoy Gudrid being a bit shy and awkward, Hild is a pretty badass character (though I think it's a bit sad the author gave her some sort of super-crossbow), or that other, cowardly Thorfinn, even though he's more of a comic relief. Overall the connections and interactions between the characters really sells the story.
Come to think about it, I also enjoy Canute a lot, who goes from timid push-over to machiavelian schemer.
