If it’s hard to make sense of Vikings’ brand of loyalty, it’s because the series carefully shows that loyalty is much more complicated than it appears to be on the surface. Floki, acting out of loyalty to Ragnar and to the pagan gods when killing Athelstan, finds himself a captive in his own village. The Viking group that is stationed outside of Paris is murdered, despite one member’s firm display of loyalty to Rollo. And Earl Kalf, singling out perceived disloyalty in Hedeby, has another group of villagers killed in cold blood (a group which, of course, is acting of
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