Vinland Saga vol. 14

Vol. 13 of this series ended on a triumphant moment of forgiveness, capping off an installment where it looked like Thorfinn’s vision of a land without war was genuinely possible.  So if you wanted “Vinland Saga” to have a Mega Happy Ending then you should’ve stopped reading there.  While I enjoyed that volume, it was good in a way that made me feel that things were only going to get much worse from here on out.  A feeling which was borne out through most of what this volume has to offer.

Things start off on a bad omen when it’s revealed that the Markland Island encampment is now deserted, but also filled with lots of arrows from the local tribe.  This sparks a demand for more security around the Vinland settlement even as Thorfinn warns that doing so would show that they don’t trust the local Mi’kmaq and inflame tensions between them.  The problem is that Miskwekepu’j, the Mi’kmaq shaman, has been trying to convince his tribe that these Nords are no good and need to be forced to leave.  Unfortunately for both sides, they’re about to find out just how far he’s willing to go in order to do that.

“Vinland Saga” is settling into being a story about how the best of intentions towards peace can be undone by general mistrust, and bad actors on both sides of the equation.  It may be set a thousand years before our time, but it feels frighteningly relevant to our present moment.  While this makes it less of an escapist read than it has been in the past, it’s been shown that you can still tell stories about today without having them turn into a depressive slog – which is why you should go watch Season Two of “Andor” if you haven’t already.

What I was really afraid of happening with this volume of “Vinland Saga” is that we were going to settle in for a long run of stories where Thorfinn and his allies keep losing.  That despite their intelligence and best intentions, they wouldn’t be able to control the narrative and  the story winds up spiraling towards an open conflict with the Mi’kmaq and other native tribes.  Then you get a tragic ending where no one wins, but lots of named characters wind up dead and Thorfinn and everyone from the Vinland settlement having to retreat as his dream turns to ash.

Sounds like a fun read, right?  Well, I’d be lying if I said that a lot of vol. 14 didn’t involve this.  In addition to Miskwekepu’j on the Mi’kmaq side, you’ve got Ivar and his right-hand man (or actual puppet master) Styrk calling on the need for security on the Vinland side.  Thorfinn’s plan to call an emergency meeting is also painted as a bad thing, while Hild’s plan to take matters into her own hands is equally ill-advised.  It’s all going badly for our protagonist even before he finds out just how greatly his side is outnumbered here.

What keeps this volume from being a depressing slog are the moments when it does manage to play against your expectations.  They can be small bits, such as when Ivar finds out that while his mistrust of the Mi’kmaq is just your run-of-the-mill xenophobia, Styrk doesn’t think they’re a threat at all and is only playing into this to set up his friend as the settlement’s new leader.  Then you’ve got the revelation as to what really happened on the Markland Island encampment, which has greater repercussions on the overall narrative when you find out what else made the trip from Europe along with Thorfin and the settlers.

Then you’ve got the big moment where Thorinn has to plead his case to an assemblage of tribes, and Miskwekepu’j, and winds up flipping the script.  His decision is very true to his character, which reveals an unexpected side to the shaman, and threatens to drive a wedge between himself and Einar.  It’s good storytelling because I’m able to understand both sides’ issues in the moment.  Thorfinn may have made a decision for the greater good, but it’s also one that runs counter to what his friend, and everyone else, have been looking for up to this point.

I also won’t deny feeling a little schadenfreude from seeing Ivar and Styrk’s states at the end of the volume, but even that is balanced out by the direness of the situation for the entire settlement.  It’s clear that things are going to continue to be bad for the people we like in this series for a while yet, but a good portion of this volume indicates that we’re not going to spend it simply stewing in our fear that things are going to progress in the most obvious and depressing way.  That was what I was hoping to get out of this volume and it delivered that.