Just learn things as you do. Being empty means anything can fit inside you. If you want to be reborn, Being empty is the best way to be
– Vinland Saga season 2, 2023
When you’re a child, you don’t really care about complicated things. all that matters is what you do on that particular day. finishing your homework, going out to Play, and making sure your mum doesn’t find you eating chocolates. At least that’s how i was. but as i grew older, i started to learn a lot about new emotional spaces a person goes through, and anxiety was the crowned gold of all. and i was constantly told that anxiety is such a “first-world problem,” and i quietly believed it. even when people were talking about their problems with anxiety, i would brush it off and tell them that it’s not a big deal.
i think that’s when life decided to show it to me, the hard way.
i had my first encounter with anxiety at the beginning of this year. It was difficult in ways I wasn’t prepared for. you start telling yourself you’re not “good enough,” you start expecting only the worst things that can happen to you, and i was not prepared to deal with any of it.
and that was when i discovered vinland saga.
Vinland Saga begins with Thorfinn as an eight-year-old, the son of a retired Viking legend. After watching his father die in front of him, Thorfinn grows into a vengeful warrior, living only to kill the man who took everything from him. The first season is cinematic, violent, and constantly in motion, and I loved it.
But what truly stayed with me was its second season.
We meet Thorfinn again at twenty-one. a slave now, who’s working on a farm. Day after day, he wakes up anxious after a dream that fills him with guilt. His eyes look hollow, as if all the life has been sucked out of him. He works on the farm without any sense of fulfillment, sleeps at night, and wakes up only to repeat the same day. Month after month, he exists inside this cycle, what psychoanalysis calls Repetition Compulsion, where existence continues even after meaning has quietly slipped away.
I found myself in the same state Thorfinn is in at the start of season two. Day after day, I would wake up anxious, unsure of what would happen if I continued living like this.
It’s a strange feeling to have, because just like Thorfinn, who was working on a farm as a slave, I was working on several films, and yet I was unable to find any sense of purpose. Film school was a dream come true for me, and still, I stopped enjoying it.
Coupled with everything that was happening back home, the loneliness, and living away from home for the first time, it became a deeply challenging period of my life.
When you’re someone like Thorfinn and me, who dwells too much in the past, it becomes difficult to move forward. Every time you try to make a decision, the past creeps in, the guilt, the mistakes, the things you wish you could undo. Slowly, they begin to control how you act in the present. And because of that, it becomes impossible to feel satisfied with where you are right now.
There’s a beautiful scene in episode nine where Thorfinn is trapped in yet another dream. He’s being pulled into hell by the ghosts of everyone he’s killed. And it’s there that Askeladd appears, the man who killed his father, strangely, the closest thing thorfinn ever had to a mentor. he tells him, “come on, you don’t have time to cry, even if they’re hanging onto you, keep climbing, you can’t keep yourself in the past, fight your true battle, thorfinn!”
I love the metaphor of climbing while carrying the weight of those he has wronged. Thorfinn isn’t asked to forget what he’s done, nor is he allowed to erase it. He’s asked to live while remembering, to move forward with awareness, not denial.
At first, he tries to kick them away, just as he once tried to forget and move on as an empty man. Askeladd calls out the cruelty in that act and tells him to do the opposite: to bring them with him. To accept his past, to acknowledge his sins, and to keep climbing with their weight on his back
To me, that’s the pivotal changing point in thorfinn’s life. when he finally understands that the past is something that cannot change. and it’s out of his control. all he can do is find purpose in the present, and live for the present. from there on, he slowly starts building meaningful relationships, finds a purpose again, and begins to finally let go.
letting go of guilt, of anger, of pain, of the idea that we didn’t deserve the hardships we went through is by far the hardest thing to do, and You can’t outrun what’s behind you, and you can’t pretend it never happened. All you can do is gather the strength to carry it with you and keep walking. The past only weighs you down if you choose to stay where it left you.
I think Vinland Saga is one of the most important piece of art I’ve ever come across, and it’s something I know I’ll carry with me for a long time. I return to it often for inspiration, for reassurance, and sometimes just to remind myself that it’s okay to feel the way I do.
If any part of this resonated with you, I’d recommend giving the show a chance. It might not give you answers, but it has a quiet way of sitting with you when you need it most.