We are all trying to defend Ragnar’s dream but perhaps some of us choose to do it differently.

— Björn

I can’t remember the last time Björn was so insightful. We find here all of Ragnar’s sons treading very different paths, each living his own incarnation of Ragnar’s dream.

Björn himself has been a caged bear for too long now. Pacing up and down the villa at Wessex, brooding in the corner, fucking royalty and (likely) bitching about his feather down pillows. He has no interest in winning Alfred’s trust or integrating into the English court. Ubbe has hardly been hob-knobbing with the bishops but at least the man is making an effort.

One thing Björn can be relied upon to do though is attract women. He finds himself with Gunnhild, a beautiful and fierce shieldmaiden in a scenario which echoes his first (and I would venture only) love, Thorunn. Both women openly acknowledge their lack of agency (Thorunn, a slave and Gunnhild, an imprisoned free woman), yet both genuinely desire Björn. For all his unearned fame as Ragnar’s son, he does have a powerful, charismatic presence and a natural inclination to lead. His departure from East Anglia comes as no surprise but his final farewell to Torvi is unexpectedly touching. Just as Ragnar paid final tribute to Auslaug, who was the mother of his sons but who he failed to truly love, Björn expresses his own thanks to his former lover who bore his children as well as the brunt of his temper. This apology hints at a self-awareness I have sorely missed from Björn while the similarities with Ragnar’s farewell prompts the question – is the beginning of the end for Björn?

So far, Hvitserk’s story has failed to inspire. He abandoned Ubbe, a brother he loved, to join Ivar, who can now only be described as a classic psychopath. When probed by Ubbe to explain this train wreck of a decision, he offered little more than ‘fate’. Despite Ivar’s win over Björn and Ubbe and acquisition of Kattegat, Hvitserk seems to wield little actual power and suffers under increasingly serious threats from his brother. Yet, here is a glimpse of something more in store for the most forgotten of Ragnar’s sons. Like his father, he has a curiosity for the world around him, transmuted into the Buddha totem he discovers at the market. Hvitserk is soon swimming in the mysteries and dichotomies of the doctrine and turning over the concept of oneness. It is this interest in the other which further claws at the rift between him and Ivar, who calls his attempt at mysticism ‘crazy’ and threatens him with the same brutal treatment that befell Margrethe.

Ragnar described himself as ‘a very curious man’ to Ecgbert, which often manifested itself as spiritual curiosity – he was continually eager to learn what new cities, what new Gods lay in wait over the horizon. It was this curiosity that fuelled his conversations with Athelstan and allowed him to learn, for instance, to attack on Sunday as the people would be unarmed and at church. This episode seems to draw a line of comparison between Hvitserk and his father – if he is sufficiently curious, perhaps he will also go on to achieve great things.

On the other hand, Ivar is proving himself more and more of a disappointment to Ragnar’s legacy. He no longer asks questions, preferring to bark orders. While his insistence at divine adulation is bizarre, it is also a fundamental block to increasing his reputation and status. If he is a God, he can do no wrong and he has nothing to learn. Any man who thinks he has nothing to learn is damned to a parochial existence at the least and death at worst, remember how Earl Haraldson’s refusal to raid West in Season 1 ended?

Finally, Ubbe. He has achieved what his father could not – farm land in England. After all, Ragnar was a farmer before a warrior and the greatest treasure he saw in this new land was not its rich (and undefended) churches but its fertile soil. But Ubbe has also assimilated far more than Ragnar ever did, exemplified by him and Torvi taking communion alongside the king. Of course, Alfred is also a different, far more trustworthy man than Ecgbert – as too, it seems, is Ubbe. Where Ragnar and Ecgbert both did unspeakable things to cling to power, Alfred and Ubbe have, so far, held onto their clean conscience. Therefore, it is not just outward assimilation of culture that makes this transaction possible, though of course the fact that Ubbe is a now Christian makes the whole enterprise a much easier sell for Alfred to his nobles. It is also about trust – pointing us to a reliable lesson that while getting what you want is certainly about greed, cunning and skill, the foundation must always be trust. That might be trust in a former enemy (Laegartha puts her trust in Ubbe, whose mother she murdered), trust in family (even Ecgbert trusted Aethelwulf) or trust in new friends (as Ubbe places his trust in Alfred). It is with this faith in another that even the most cynical enterprises can be built (circa Ecgbert’s tight grip on Wessex) and it is how Ubbe begins the building of an English settlement that will finally secure a prosperous future for the Vikings. In doing so, he becomes the embodiment of Ragnar’s best self, signalled by his long, braided hair. The same hair that Ragnar had at his peak and that Björn shaved off as his behaviour became ever more erratic. If Ragnar has one heir – Ubbe, at this moment, looks to be it.