Vikings: Valhalla takeaway: Fictionalizing a true story

Vikings: Valhalla is Netflix's latest sword-swinging action-adventure series that takes on the saga about a century after the History Channel's popular show Vikings. Created by Jeb Stuart, the series has a promising ensemble cast, including Sam Corlett, Frida Gustavsson, Leo Suter, and several others.

The historic series chronicles the story of two intrepid siblings, Freydis Eriksdotter and Leif Eriksson, from Greenland, on a voyage to Kattegat, London, and beyond for glory, honor and most importantly revenge.

On this warpath, they are joined by other significant Viking members, including Harald Hardrada and Canute the Great. It is undoubtedly an arresting adventure show consisting of berserker warriors, courageous women, and scheming princes. Although essentially an intriguing piece of fiction, it is loosely gleaned from a real-life story.

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The major takeaways of Vikings: Valhalla season 1

Loosely inspired by a true story

Reportedly, almost all the lead characters in Vikings: Valhalla are inspired by real-life individuals. For instance, Leif Eriksson really had an ambitious and bold sister named Freydis while Emma of Normandy, played by Laura Berlin, was a true power player of the medieval age.

Several Vikings really married Egyptians and folded the culture of Africa into their own. Earl Godwin, portrayed by David Oakes, was truly a shifty court player.

Created by Jeb Stuart, Vikings: Valhalla begins with the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, where the English King Aethelred, portrayed by Bosco Hogan, asked for the murder of all the Vikings residing in England at the time.

In the fictional world of the series, Leif Eriksson finds himself ending up in Harald and King Canute’s vengeful invasion of England. However, in real life, Leif was much more concerned with exploration whereas Harald and Canute were not really allies.

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A refreshingly captivating take on a true story

The thing that this historic adventure-action series changes the most though is probably the dates. Freydis and Leif were not contemporaries of Harald and the invasion of England by King Canute took place ten years after the massacre on St. Brice’s Day. The invasion took several years, not several days, to carry out as well.

Vikings: Valhalla creator Jeb Stuart exclaimed in an interview,

“This particular period of time is such a transformative time for the Vikings. The Vikings go to England but they stay,...And there’s also a nice end of the Viking era out there that looms over the horizon.” (Via Decider)

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When asked in that interview whether Vikings: Valhalla will take the audience to Vinland, creator Jeb Stuart further said,

“I don’t think it’s any surprise that I’m not going to not take them there, but I do think that the question that I wanted to play with was, why did they go there? And so, to start that journey, especially with Freydis, to give her sort of a reason for why she would end up in the New World, why would she be doing this,...She’s such a strong pagan Viking, and paganism as we see in the first season is really under siege by this wave of Christianity.” (Via Decider)

Stuart continued,

“And as far as Leif is concerned, it’s like, ‘Yeah, Leif Eriksson, great explorer.’ How did he become a great explorer? So that’s sort of where I’m going with those two characters on their journey,”

So it is quite understandable that the historic series is loosely based on a true story which only adds positively to the excitement of the fans.

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Vikings: Valhalla is streaming exclusively on Netflix since February 25, 2022.