Vikings: The Ice Maiden

January 18, 2020 7:00 PM - Season 6, Episode 7

Bjorn returns to Kattegat; Harald gains a measure of revenge on Olaf; in Kiev, interesting news reaches Ivar and Igor about Prince Dir.
posted by porpoise (2 comments total)

The knife to the gut seems unnecessarily painful and slow, for a voluntary death. Is this how they did it historically? I recall a similar self-sacrifice from S1 that was a much more bearable throat slit.
posted by migurski at 11:06 PM on January 28, 2020

My read is that it's all stylistic reasons. A while back they also appropriated some Japanese imagery (the pavilion of flags), so maybe there's a little bit of seppuku in there.

Animal sacrifice was mostly throat slitting, but probably for practical reasons. I've also heard of piercing the aorta by thrusting a blade down through the clavicle space.

Can't tell for sure here, but if the knife pierced the diaphragm that probably ends up causing blacking out before blood loss was critical, but an unpleasant way to get there.
posted by porpoise at 6:16 PM on January 30, 2020