One of the best manga has ever had a perfect end (and the anime should follow the plunge)

In “Vinland Saga” Chapter 181, the expedition of Thorfinn and Einar reached Vinland and established a village there, named their deceased friend Arnheid. A slave murdered by his kidnapper, Arnheid is the type of person that Thorfinn and Einar have sworn to build a new nation. But we know in history that the true colony of Vinland de Thorfinn Karlsefni failed, and that knowledge throw a shadow on the last arc.

The land they call Vinland of course already houses indigenous tribes. The attempt at peaceful trade and cooperation fails when the natives fall sick with the germs that the Norsemen have brought through the sea.

The last 29 chapters of “Vinland Saga” are collectively called “The Thousand Year Voyage”, which follows the collapse of the colony of Vinland and the brief war between the natives and the colonists. He also leads to a gap between Thorfinn, who accepts the marked people who must leave, and einar, who does not. Thorfinn is motivated by guilt and the need to compensate for the life he has taken. If Vinland will become another nation guarded by violence, it has no reason to exist. Einar, however, came to Vinland to compensate not to save Arnheid, and he refuses to let go so easily the village they have built for his memory. By directing the other settlers in combat, he finally takes a life and understands the burden of Thorfinn.

The fighting ends with a truce negotiated by Thorfinn, but Einar dies by stopping another colonist, Styrk, to resume war. Thorfinn and Einar made a promise together on the tomb of Arnheid, and their promise ends with Thorfinn buried Einar in Vinland.

But while Thorfinn’s goal failed, manga is not a tragedy, and that does not suggest that his pacifism was stupid. “Vinland Saga” chooses an open end because the trip that Thorfinn has taken, even a thousand years later, is not over.

We did not know that in advance that the true colony of Vinland de Thorfinn would fail, we also knew that he would not release the world of war or slavery. We still haven’t done it in the 21st century. Throughout the manga, whenever a character is asked where he could be paradise, the answer is always “somewhere not here”. We have mapped the whole planet on several occasions, but we still have not discovered that the earth that Thorfinn really was looking for. Not physical wine, but a land where people choose to coexist in peace. Chapter 220 is even entitled “SomeWhere not here” to show that the search for this place continues.

Much earlier in “Vinland Saga”, a priest named Willibald suggests that perhaps true love only exists in death, when we cannot hurt others or “discriminate” in who we choose to love. Remember, what has William Shakespeare called death? The unknown country.