in depth breakdown of canute's character developpement

hamza121419 said:
i know this topic has already been discusted before, @Esquirtit and @Elucid have already shown that canute's 180 ° change wasnt forced by any means, but it seems like this is still causing problems for a lot of people, and there are even manga readers that havent yet accepted what Yukimura did in developping canute's character. so here is my breakdown to this character developement and why i think it's one of the best in the history of anime/manga. The breakdown concerns only the first season, aka the prologue, as canute has even more developement in the manga later.

i'm gonna do this analysis in 3 parts: the forshadowing (before ep 18), the main act (ep 18) and the extra indications (after ep 18)

the forshadowing:

the first thing that forshadows canute's change in the future is what Askellad said about him, askellad is some one who can see what a person can be just by looking at his face, he said to Bjorn in ep 12 that canute doesnt have the face of a king but his future still awaits.





canute being from a royal bloodline is already a sign that he can have inhirited some traits of kings, still canute doesnt look like a king, and this has a reason.









this is so important to understand the change of canute, what Ragnar said in ep 13 showed that Canute knew what was going on in the royal palace, he knew the atrocity and the confilcts between the members of the royal family ,but he chose to make himself unoticed and unremarkable, which prooves he is intelligent and forshadows the fact that he is not intrested in what's happening in the court.







this goes with the previous idea, canute is only acting that way in order to prevent any problem, he made it clear that he understands what doesnt it mean to be a prince but he doesnt act like one, and i'll talk about this later.





in ep 15, we see canute shouting and reprimanding the priest which shows that he is not coward as he seems, he said that every father loves his child, but in reality he was only persuading him self that it's true. him acting like that toward the priest shows that he doesnt really think his words, as if he was preventing himself from thinking about the reality.

in the same episode we saw canute having a normal talk with ragnar and thorfin, wich shows his true nature,and that he was just acting shy in front of others.



before talking about the main act, let's remember that Ragnar's death was the turning point in canute's developpement, and we will see later how important ragnar was in this process.

ragnar's death was the shock that started canute's change:



the main act: ep 18:

this is where the change happened, but before we talk about that, it is important to know that the change in this kind of situations can be resumed in the following steps: shock- denial- anger and blame - acceptance - solution. Canute has gone through all these steps, it may seem quick but i'll explain why it is possible to be this way.

canute's change was done by yukimura in two stages; subconsiously and consciuosly:

the subconsious stage is the dream part, where canute remembers the shock element, and goes through denial, anger and blame, and acceptance, the solution only comes when he was aware.

denial





canute is still denying that he can make it through without ragnar.

anger and blame



canute is blaming his situation on the fate that made him born in the royal family, he has never wanted to be born a prince, he liked the life with Ragnar, and this is the other reason he never acted like a prince: although he grew up in the royal court, he never was intrested in what was happening, he only acted the way he did to avoid problems. and this is important, cause now that he lost that life he was content with, he has to accept the reality and adapt.

acceptance



canute accepted that he has lost Ragnar and the life he used to live, and this is obvious when he said to priest just a moment when he awaken from the dream, that ragnar came to say godbye,but in fact, it was canute who said godbye to ragnar as the dream is canute's creation, it was the image of his deep feelings and thoughts, he was actualy the one the one who said that "there are things you realize only when you experience loss" because he is the one responsible of the dream. so what did canute realize? we'll see that in the next part.

the stage of consiousness in canute's change is his discussion with the priest: the dream part made canute accept the loss of ragnar and changed his view about his situation:



he now realized that no one loves him anymore, but the priest will push him to change his view not only about his situation but about the whole world: the priest said that what ragnar felt toward the prince wasnt love, but rather discrimination

denial

cante is once more shocked and denies what the priest said by asking him some questions



"if ragnar didnt love me, then what incarnate the true love"
and the priest expalined his idea of love, we all know the story.

after the priest theological and philosophical speech, canute reach the step of anger and blame:

canute realizes that humains were expelled from paradise, left without being able to love, and he then reached the highest point of anger and despair.



he blamed the situation on God (the Father), he accused him of leaving people suffering in their lives, and of depriving them of love.

acceptance



canute finnaly accepts the cruel reality of the world.

solution

now that he accepted the reality, and changed his view about the world, now that he lost what made him act the way he did, he no longer have to be the shy guy who doesnt want problems because he wasnt intrested in the royal conflicts. he now have a clear objectif and he found the reason and the meaning of his life, so he has to act in a way that goes with that objectif.





his objectif is now to create a paradise in earth for those who are suffering in life, defying then the rules of God. canute literly began his rebellion against god, and the scene with bjorn was the symbol of his resolve to change the world, people shouldnt look at this scene in the surface level, cause it doesnt show that canute gained any power or stuff like that, but rather symbolizes that the prince is now ready to defy the Father, and can do whatever it takes to acheive his goal.





Canute has changed his perspective about the world and is ready to seek his objectif, and to do that he has to act like a king, and he already knows how to do it as i explained before, people who thought that the prince powered up and started acting like a king from nowhere are mistaken and didnt pay attention to forshadowing and the important info i showed in the first part.

canute's developement was done quickly, but it was possible because it was a change of perspective in the both subconsious and consious level. it was possible because of the backgroud of canute, his life with ragnar, what he learned in the royal court, what he learned while being a christian. if it was thorfin for example, this change would never happen. this change was possible because he has gone through all the steps, and nothing can prevent that from happening as the change is psychological.

with that being said, i have covered canute's character developpement from start to finish, the next part is an extra explaination from episodes after ep 18, where the writer showed more indications about the prince's change and how was it possible, so for those how havent seen all the episodes, just stop here cause there will be heavy spoilers of the rest of the season.

in ep 19, thorkel made the comaparaison between thors and canute about their eyes:



the comparison concerns only the eyes, it doesnt say anything about being stong as some people thought, it shows that canute changed his view about the world, that he is now looking to something thorkel cant understand, the same way he didnt understand how thors changed his view about the fighting and being a true warrior.



in ep 20 the writer made it clear that canute knew how a king should act, as he grew up watching his father the king. King sweyn also said in the same episode that now; Canute looks like him when he was young.

even after changing, canute still has some reflexes of his old self: he lived years acting shy and childish, and he still act like that in some situations, which shows how much meticulous yukimura is when developing his character:


ep 22


ep 24





i think these last images talk for themselves, i dont need to coment on them.

so that was my complete in depth breakdown of canute character developement in the prologue of vinland saga, i'm sorry i couldnt make it shorter, but this really needed a long analysis, i hope you enjoyed it, and i want to know what do you guys think about canute's character developpement, if you have other opinions, other analysis or interpretations it would enrich the topic.