The Ending of The Northman Explained

What did you think of the ending to "The Northman"?

You should have mentioned that after finding out about his mother's betrayal, Amleth escapes the farm with Olga. At that point Amleth intends to forsake his revenge on Fjolnir, but when he realises Olga is pregnant with their twins, he knew that none of them would be safe from Fjolnir as long as he lives. So he leaves Olga and their unborn children to complete his revenge so that they will be safe and won't have to go through the same cycle of revenge as he did.

Could have also pointed out that by the time Amleth and Fjolnir finally clash, both of them have been stripped down to nothing but their hatred for each other. Fjolnir set Amleth on a quest for revenge by taking everything from him at the beginning of the film; over the course of the second and third acts, Amleth does the same to Fjolnir. When they meet at the volcano, their beef with each other is as personal as it can get. They are both literally men with nothing left to lose. This is represented through the fact that both of them are naked in the final fight. They have taken everything from each other. They can’t fathom or comprehend anything else except that one of them must kill the other. Also, the way the fight starts is perfect. They don’t stare each other down for a few minutes or go into some cliched verbal sparring before the fight; they just start hacking away the moment they meet, roaring in primal, animalistic fury.

I never really cared much for about the history of Vikings but this movie was just amazing. Robert Eggers keeps proving why he’s one of the best young directors working in Hollywood today. I’m surprised there are many people who don’t like this movie.

So fucking good. Violent, trippy, triumphant, realistic mixed with mystic, every shot was awesome. This is what happens when smart business folk put big money behind smart artists. Even if they don’t recoup, everyone involved should be proud.

The "larger man" in the hurling sport was none other than Hafthor Julius Bjornsson! Glad to see the strongman got a cameo, it thrilled me when I saw him!

I’m gonna pray eggers gives us the epic of Gilgamesh on the big screen in the future!

I didn’t realize it at first but in Amleth’s father’s hall Willem Dafoe’s character was trying to warn the king about the traitorish nature of Fjornir. I didn’t even realize that was Dafoe until later. Who’s the fool?😂

Read that the story of Amleth was well known in history as a real or near real tale, and that Shakespeare used the story to create his play on Hamlet.

The ending doesn’t need an explanation, it was pretty self explanatory that he died and saw himself being ridden to the gates of Valhalla

Actually, the plot twist still justifies Amleth's quest for vengeance. His mother was a demonically evil, power hungry traitor to his father, and his father was indeed guilty of taking his mother originally as a slave and forcing himself upon her, but he tried to right his wrong by taking care of her, marrying her and making her a queen. Fjolnir's vanity, envy, covetousness, self-righteousness, unbridled lust, greed and spite made both him and gundur rotten and unnatural people who richly deserved death at the hand of Amleth, who in the process of avenging the foul murder of his father also secured a good future for his woman (Anna the slave) and his two unborn children. Amleth walked a path of doom and pain, but saw it thru.

The silver lining was that although through out the movie was questioned if hed live a live of hate for his enemies or love for his kin he chose hate then when he met the girl and got her pregnant he chose both, but in the end as he is dying he realizes he risked his life for the love and safety of his kin

The Northman is probably my favorite film of 2022 so far. The plot went exactly where I thought it would but that just made it even more satisfying in my opinion. Didn’t want amleth to die but I knew he would. Especially after finding out Olga was pregnant.

As a fan God of war, Vikings, The Last Kingdom this was also a blast to watch: Amazing cinematography, lore, mythical elements, action, pacing, suspense 10/10 masterpiece

Pretty badass to see an accurate depiction of Odin as well as an old man with a hooded cloak and accompanied by ravens.

Yes, he achieved his ultimate goal to kill his uncle who killed his father. This was above all else due to witnessing the decapitation of his own loving, caring, proud father and that alone justifies the means to the end (to enter into Valhalla). SKOL!

dude... this movie was intense af. i think more than any other movie i've ever watched, this made me viscerally feel how brutal, savage, alien and fatalistic the dark ages norse world was. i thought it was a really good choice to constantly weave in trippy semi-supernatural elements because the audience can't help but get immersed in the sort of superstitious mindset people of that time had. i mean, if you really think about it, you could explain away pretty much everything (except maybe Olga's wind-calling spell on the ship) as a combination of mind-altering substances and the mind seeing what it wants/expects to see. but you're not sure it wasn't really supernatural, just like the people of the time tended to explain everything through supernatural terms.

this is a visual master piece but The Witch is a better film.

This is basically the revenant on acid it’s literally the best movie I’ve ever saw.

That short Valkyrie scene is so powerful. There will probably be a pretty good directors cut since he seems to admit he had to change the movie somewhat significantly.