Canute underwent his greatest transformation when he realized that the creator had abandoned his creation. To create a new world where everyone could live in peace and harmony, he needed to change. He could no longer be a fragile and useless prince, but he must become a cunning and cunning king.
imposing It was time to fight the final and definitive battle, but this time, against your true enemy: God. To understand how such a seemingly weak character would become someone capable of facing the one he had as his creator, we will need to know his origin. What are your values and ideals?
So that we can then know the king he has become. What are your motivations and failures? Finally, we will analyze the divine role that Canute assumed to achieve his goals.
Just a warning, all of this will be full of spoilers for the first and second seasons of the anime, so only watch it if you've already watched or read the manga. Take advantage, subscribe now if you like anime and manga, and comment which character or work you want to see on the channel. Warnings given, let's go!
Despite being an heir to King Sven, Canute never behaved or even felt like one. In fact, his older brother, Harald, had already been chosen as his father's successor. That's why Canute was raised by one of the king's servants, Ragnar.
He, in turn, had great affection for the boy, protecting and educating him like his own son. Ragnar didn't have a son, Canute didn't have a father present. That's why the two ended up adopting each other to fulfill these roles.
Unfortunately, Ragnar was extremely overprotective of Canute, never letting him make decisions or take a stand. Canute, in turn, never wanted the throne or power, for him it would be much better to have an ordinary life alongside Ragnar. This meant that he stayed out of political conflicts and disputes as much as he could.
As a prince Canute was an apparent failure, as a warrior he was a disgrace, even his masculinity was questioned by everyone, as he had extremely feminine features and a much more reserved and shy manner than was expected for a Viking. All these factors, plus political issues caused his father, King Sven, to engineer his death. He would be left with a contingent of soldiers on the battlefield against a far superior enemy in war.
But luckily he survives and is rescued by Askeladd who also wanted to use him as a political tool. To do this he needed to mature, and quickly. However, Ragnar acted as a shield that prevented this evolution of the young prince.
That's why Askeladd decided to eliminate Ragnar in an ambush. His plan worked, but it was quite traumatic for Canute. Who had a moment of epiphany when he was confronted about his relationship with Ragnar and the meaning of love.
Canute realized that no matter how hard we try, humanity cannot save itself from its nature. Since we were expelled from the divine paradise, we lost true love, and only found it again in death. From this point of view, life is just a punishment before enlightenment, a punishment that only ends when the individual meets his end.
And if that were the case, human beings are doomed to live in suffering. True love does not choose who to benefit, it has no prejudices or objections. A love that we find in all nature, everywhere.
In the rain that falls for the good and the bad. In the tree that gives shade to the just and unjust. And especially in death, which levels all beings, feeding the animals and the earth, all without complaining or questioning.
In this world, love is everywhere, except in the hearts of men. And without this love, no one was able to enter paradise. Upon reaching this conclusion, Canute decides that he will no longer seek paradise and divine salvation.
That from that moment on, he will create his own paradise. All for true love. From that moment on, Canute positions himself as a true leader, the savior who will guide his people to a promised land, a paradise created according to his will.
That's when he essentially becomes: THE KING. To achieve his new goal, Canute now had to obtain the formal title of king. That's why he sets off to meet his father, determined to enter the political game, but this time, willing to do anything for victory.
For this he has the support of Askeladd, who was a born strategist, as we saw in the video dedicated to the character, which is even here on the card, take a look too, you might be interested. Eventually the king threatens the sovereignty of Wales, which leads Askeladd to oppose the invasion plan. To which the king insists and makes him choose, between betraying the prince and killing him at the king's command, or losing his nation and his people.
Seeing himself as having no way out, Askeladd takes an extreme measure. He decides to kill King Sven in order to ensure that Canute inherits the throne and keeps Wales safe. Even if it cost his own life.
And as an excellent strategist that he was, he hits the nail on the head. Canute takes the throne and is now officially the king of Denmark. But that's not enough.
He still needs to gain the trust of the nobles and annex the territory of his older brother, Harald, who reigned in Great Britain. For this reason, Canute continues his crusade for paradise. He continues the war, dominating territories, destroying villages and murdering political enemies.
Because of this, his father begins to appear to torment him As a way for Canute himself to judge himself for his crimes. He sees himself as a necessary evil. The Nordic people are violent and savage, it is necessary for someone to tame their strength to control their savagery and manipulate their power.
That was Canute's job. To do this, he created rules that prohibited looting and other practices that were part of Viking culture. Which naturally generated fights and discontent between them.
Still Canute maintained control. It is interesting to note how Canute's speech is criticized, in the sense of seeing it as a necessary evil. Someone who, to achieve peace, creates more war and death.
He is the exact opposite of Thorfinn during the end of season two. They both want to create a paradise. But one on the basis of dialogue and selflessness, the other on the basis of force and violence.
And what is right in this story will depend a lot on your point of view. For me, extremes are never good, but this is a subject I want to talk more about in Thorfinn's video itself, so I won't go into depth here. The point is that now Canute was indeed a king, but he was still far from completing his objective.
To do this, he would need to overcome the power of an ordinary king He would need to become: A GOD After all his long career Canute, now extremely respected and feared, meets Thorfinn. He tries to convince the king to spare the farm where he served as a slave, to stop the invasion and to be merciful to those people. To do this, he asks if Canute remembers what he had said years ago, if his desire was still to create a paradise.
And at that moment Canute makes one of the most memorable speeches in anime. He explains to Thorfinn, that even if his will is strong, even if he has thousands of ships and soldiers. He will still remain a human.
A human who can't even stop the waves of the sea. How could a human create a paradise? Daring something like that would mean going against divine creation, it would be a rebellion against God.
But rebelling was the only way to save humanity. The same humanity that created wars and caused countless deaths This is the human essence, greed, violence, the desire for power. .
. And who would be better to represent human characteristics other than the Viking people? They had in their essence, what defined humanity.
Canute wanted to save the people who could not be saved. the Vikings. And for that he couldn't JUST be a king He needed to have much more power That's why he would unify the power of humans, conquering everything and everyone in the process So that he could fight against god, Canute should also become a god.
This was King Canute's ultimate goal. A child who was forced to mature, a prince who was forced to be king, a man who needed to become a god. Canute may just seem like a megalomaniac, and maybe that's right.
But you can't deny that his speech is very aware of its limitations. How would he unify humanity if not even his own people were under his rule? It was a test of his ability to subdue the north under his control.
Being the Viking emperor was more than a petty ambition, at least according to his speech. It is fully possible to discuss whether Canute really had this "noble" motivation in many quotation marks Or whether it was all a matter of greed and thirst for power In any case, his ideology offers a very interesting parallel with Thorfinn Who also aims to create a paradise on earth But through totally different strategies In the end, maybe that's not even the right question. Maybe the right thing to do is to ask if all this crusade is worth it?
I mean, Einar has an excellent argument Why are the lives of the Vikings worth more than the lives of the peasants they exterminate? Is creating paradise at the expense of thousands, if not millions of people, worth it? To achieve love that does not discriminate against anyone, do we need to discriminate first?
Well, to me this seems like a beautiful paradox lol And maybe it really is. But that's exactly what makes Vinland Saga so interesting. Just like in reality, many people with common interests fight on opposite sides of a war.
Maybe this is human nature, to fight in the name of peace, to kill in the name of life, to hate in the name of love. . .
Well, I hope you liked this video, if you liked it, leave a like to strengthen it, subscribe to the channel to give that strength too. Here's to us and I'll see you in the next video, thanks!
