Vinland Saga vol. 12
No points for guessing what took a long time to come back into stock for me to order over at The Right Stuf. The upside here is that now I should only have to wait 21 months until vol. 13…? Regardless of how long the wait is, I’m sure it’ll be worth it because “Vinland Saga” always delivers. There may be the occasional storytelling hiccup or two, but that’s as true with this volume as it has for all the previous ones.
The volume starts off not with Thorfinn or one of his friends this time, but with his frenemy, Sigurd. Sulking after realizing that bringing Gudrid back with him to Iceland would be the wrong thing to do, he sets off for home to face the wrath of his father for failing in his mission. It’s also something he needs to do in order to move on to the next stage of his life. That’s because Sigurd knows what he wants and now he just has to take the necessary steps in order to realize it. He’s not going to be able to do it alone, however. He’s going to need the help of his friends and his… wife?
That’s right, it turns out that Siggy has been “married” all this time. As to what kind of woman would marry a man like him, well, she’s exactly the kind of woman you’d expect. Though a lot of the story here feels predictable, mangaka Makoto Yukimura invests it with enough character to carry it through. I even think he manages to make Sigurd’s perpetual underdog/born under a bad star status work for him here. It feels kind of weird to say that his constant failure has finally led him to success, but that’s exactly what happens here and it’s actually fun to see happen.
Then the story jumps ahead two years and we get back to Thorfinn and his friends. They’ve finally… well, what comes next might count as a spoiler. However, it’s spoiled on the back of the volume, and in the title of the series as well. It’s not called “Baltic Saga” after all.
What I mean by this is that Yukimura has skipped over the journey to Byzantium and now we’re back with Thorfinn, Gudrid, Einar, Lief, Hild, and Bug-Eye in Iceland. Their trip was a major success in more ways than one and now they’re looking to mount an expedition to colonize Vinland. They’re looking for support and volunteers to come with them, but no swords. Thorfinn wants a new start for everyone without weapons.
That last part might strike some as idealistic, but it’s keeping with the character’s views on violence and his ongoing struggle for redemption. It also causes friction with some of his potential recruits as they make some valid points about why swords would be necessary. While it’s clear that we’re meant to see them as being in the wrong, even Thorfinn admits that it’s going to be a struggle to do it and to even articulate his views properly. That’s important when he’s constantly being watched by someone, Hild, who is keeping a constant vigil to make sure his redemption holds, and is trying to negotiate with someone else, Sigurd’s father Halfdann, for additional supplies.
It’s a tricky balance to manage the interests of multiple parties, but Thorfinn is determined to do just that. This is where the majority of the volume’s drama comes from and it’s quite solid with Yukimura balancing a lot of different perspectives well. They’re all filtered mainly through Thorfinn’s perspective, because this is really his story after all. I do wish that Einar would get to do more than offer a reassuring word or for Hild to maybe relax a little while she’s keeping a close eye on Thorfinn. We do get a little bit of that here, and it’s nice enough that I’d like to see more. Ivar and his brother also make a striking first impression as the former is the chief proponent of bringing swords to Vinland. These characters are introduced with the idea that they’re going to have a long term impact on the story, so we’ll see how that goes.
Then there’s the matter of Cordelia. She’s a new character who has a very surprising tie to one of “Vinland Saga’s” most memorable characters. While that in itself would be enough to make her a noteworthy addition to the cast, that’s not her defining characteristic. This would be the fact that she was born a man, but was raised as and currently identifies as a woman. It makes sense that she of all people would want to go to Vinland for a fresh start, but that’s complicated by the fact that she’s currently a slave on Halfdann’s farm.
I can’t say that I’m qualified to say whether or not Cordelia’s portrayal in this volume represents an accurate portrayal of gender identity. What I can say is that her situation isn’t treated as a joke and she’s not ridiculed for her status (outside of who she’s descended from, who is represented by an appropriately exaggerated demonic caricature). That in itself feels somewhat rare in mainstream manga, and I believe that Yukimura should get some credit for that. As I mentioned above, the fact that her story dovetails nicely with the promise offered by Vinland is just the gravy.
What we have here is the start of the next (final?) arc of “Vinland Saga” as the cast moves toward the titular setting. This volume offered up a lot of setup, but a lot of it was of the ideological kind which offered its own drama to take in as the setting prepared to shift once again. It made for good reading and left me eager to see what happens when everyone makes it to Vinland. Something which, for them, will be a matter of weeks as opposed to the… year(s) it’ll take for me to find out in real life.