‘Vikings’: Fans Weigh in on Lagertha: ‘Not a Fan Anymore’
In the hit series Vikings, Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) is a main character from season 1 to season 6. Fans have a lot of opinions about the controversial character, and we have all the details.
Who is Lagertha in ‘Vikings’?
Lagertha is a fierce shield-maiden and the first wife of the main character, Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel). She’s already well respected and admired when the series starts, but her fame grows, and not just because of Ragnar and his completion of the first journey west. Lagertha and Ragnar have two children together, although their daughter, Gyda (Ruby O’Leary) dies from a plague.
Lagertha becomes the Earl of Hedeby after Ragnar gets another woman named Princess Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland) pregnant, and he tells Lagertha that she must “accept” her. Lagertha divorces Ragnar, and their son, Bjorn (Nathan O’Toole) goes with her. She makes a life in Hedeby with her abusive husband, Earl Sigvard (Morten Suurballe). But when he is about to expose her chest, Lagertha stabs him in the eye, and a man named Einar (Steve Wall) kills him. Lagertha is proclaimed the Earl, and she raids and colonizes with her ex-husband.
When her Earldom is usurped by a man she trusted named Kalf (Ben Robson), who helped her run things smoothly in Hedeby, Lagertha can’t forgive him. She tells him that one day she’ll kill him, becoming his lover and getting pregnant by him. On the day of her wedding to him, she kills him, taking back her Earldom as the sole ruler.
Lagertha even kills Aslaug years later after Ragnar returns from abandoning his people to go to Wessex. She attacks Kattegat with her warriors, acting like she’s going to let Aslaug leave after she renounces everything. But she kills Aslaug with an arrow in the back. Lagertha becomes the Queen of Kattegat for a time, although Ivar (Alex Høgh Andersen), Ragnar and Aslaug’s son, takes Kattegat for himself with the help of King Harald (Peter Franzén) and Rollo (Clive Standen) eventually.
Lagertha is killed by another of Ragnar and Aslaug’s sons, Hvitserk (Marco Ilsø) when he hallucinates that she is Ivar and a giant snake. He stabs her multiple times, and she dies in his arms, telling him that it’s what the Seer (John Kavanagh) “foretold,” as he said a son of Ragnar would kill her.
Fans weigh in on Lagertha in ‘Vikings’
Lagertha is a very controversial character that’s done a lot of good and bad during her lifetime. Fans have talked about the character before, and three years ago, a fan asked on Reddit, “[Spoilers] What do you think about Lagertha?” They continue, “She went from fan favorite in the first few seasons to a rather divisive character. What are your thoughts on her?” Fans didn’t hold back, and they weighed in on Lagertha, who was alive in the series at the time of the post.
One fan used to like the character, but not anymore. “Not a fan anymore,” they said. “I liked her in the first several seasons. But now find her character repetitive and unneeded in the context of the story.”
1 fan says the way Lagertha killed Aslaug ‘was just pathetic’
A fan brings up the way Lagertha killed Aslaug when she shot her with an arrow in the back as Aslaug was turning to walk away after renouncing Kattegat. The fan calls it “just pathetic” the way Lagertha murdered Aslaug, her enemy.
“I can’t get over how people were cheering for Lagertha shooting Aslaug in the back,” a fan added. “I get it that people didn’t like her, but she was a good mother and a good Queen, and she willingly gave up the throne. I expected Lagertha to stab her, which I honestly would have been OK with. Shooting her in the back was just pathetic.”
Another fan calls Lagertha’s murder of Aslaug “ridiculous,” and some fans would agree with that. “Her killing Aslaug in cowardice was ridiculous and out of character and apparently forgotten by her children already,” a fan added.
A fan thinks it’s ‘cheap’ how Lagertha ‘doesn’t seem to age/change’
Lagertha can be seen as a “powerful” woman in the early seasons, according to one fan. But they bring up how they feel Lagertha rarely ages in the show. Time goes by pretty quickly in the series, but the way Lagertha looks doesn’t change as some fans might expect it to.
“I’m all for powerful women in shows and media in general (and in earlier seasons Lagertha was a great example of that),” they pointed out. “I really think it’s cheap how she doesn’t seem to age/change at all, she is supposed to be early 50s~ yet she still looks like mid-30s at most and can still be a bad*** fighter. That’s just unrealistic in those times.”
A fan believes Lagertha has “changed” over time, and they think it’s in an attempt to “fill” a “void” left behind from her ex-husband and a life with Ragnar.
“She’s definitely changed, I think she’s trying to fill the void of Ragnar (and her old happy life) with power and lands,” they said.
Fans have different opinions about the character Lagertha in Vikings, although fans seem to not
