Ragnar was playing not only Paris but also the people around him who he listened to while in his coffin. DD
I need to rewatch the finale again while sober.. I do remember Ragnar letting her go instead of keeping her captive, why did he do that??
He probably feels its better to release her alive to prevent an all out retaliatory war. If she dies, the French will want revenge. The French were mildly pillaged and they're okay with that because they're French.
The 4th season has started and I was wondering if the first episode disappointed others here as much as it disappointed me. Hopefully, the rest of the series will improve.
I re-watched chunks of episode 1 and (for me) it was much better the 2nd time around. Don't know why.
It's not surprising. I agree that parts of it were good. After all, the acting is truly excellent. The scripts are generally excellent, as well. I just think they did some things in the first episode simply to save money while moving the storyline along. Spoiler Using those crossbows twice for the slaughtering their enemies saved them money. They didn't have to spend what would be needed to have a real fight scene, which would have been realistic. Crossbows aren't rapidly fired like the dart guns many of us played with as children. They are a pain in the ass to crank in order to load the dart and fire it. That makes them far slower to load and fire. The way the things were used in both instances was absurd and entirely unrealistic.
Never mind that handheld crossbows weren't really common in Europe until the 10th century. And those would have had stirrups at the front to assist with cranking. The kind they showed in the episode would have basically been impossible to operate with any force. And, of course, a "shield wall" (wrong term for what they did in the show) wouldn't have been formed only to immediately be broken up in a charge. Pretty dumb. Medieval warfare was brutal and boring, though, so nothing ever shows it properly. The BBC production of The Last Kingdom had sections that were decently accurate but then they would move away from it. Appreciate the gesture, though, so I prefer something like that than what Vikings does. But it also has magic so that helps in letting historic butchery go. I can enjoy it without nitpicking (unless it is brought up as in this thread!).
I like Northern mythology, it rocks. Travis Fimmel aka R. Lothbrok is going to be on bigger screens in the future. That blood eagle execution was horrific!
