The Northman Ending Explained: Can You Escape Fate? The Northman Ending and Its Deep Meaning
The Northman tells the story of a revenge: that of Prince Hamlet (Alexander Skarsgård) against his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang), guilty of having usurped the throne of his half-brother King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke). Witness to the murder of his father, educated in the logic of honor and blood, as a boy Hamlet escapes from his father’s house promising to kill his uncle and save his mother, who is forced to become his wife.
In the film’s finale, Hamlet is faced with an unexpected choice: to flee his fate, founding a new lineage elsewhere with his beloved woman, or to obtain justice for the paternal ghost. You can also read The Northman’s review without spoilers.
The Northman Ending Explained: Hamlet Chooses To Avenge His Father
When he kisses Olga on the wound she has on her neck, Hamlet meets her blood and has a vision: her lineage will continue thanks to twins, a boy and a girl The woman is pregnant. Hamlet chooses to avenge his father rather than following her to Orkney to family relatives and living a quiet life but, in his view, without honor. After giving the barcarolo his medallion and ensuring safe passage for the beloved and future mother of his children, Hamlet throws himself into the water and swims ashore. He is ready to unleash Dragr and avenge his father.
Abandoned and in tears, Olga begs the gods to send the wind to blow up the sails and promises in exchange to plant a birch forest in the land where she settles. First, Hamlet goes to Fjölnir’s house, but here he finds only his mother Gudrún, who tries to kill him by stabbing him in the shoulder. The woman is terrified of the fate of her children with her husband’s half-brother. Hamlet kills her, but is also attacked by her stepbrother, her baby whom she saved from her death. As the boy attacks him by surprise, Hamlet smears him with his sword, by reflex, killing him. He says nothing, but appears repentant of his action
Fjölnir returns home and finds his family dead. He takes the corpse of his wife and son with him and goes away to honor their deaths with a funeral, making an appointment with Hamlet at the gates of Hel.
The Duel Between Fjölnir And Hamlet At The Gates Of Hel
It’s still daytime, but Dragr can be drawn in this hellmouth. The two duelists, surrounded by the lava coming out of the volcano, fight each other. Hamlet is strong, but the injuries caused to him by his mother and stepbrother have caused him to lose a lot of blood.
After a hard fight in which he is wounded in the arm, Hamlet manages to behead Fjölnir, who however mortally wounds him in the side. Shortly before dying, the protagonist has a vision of his beloved Olga in safety, surrounded by two babies, his children.
Predestination: The Meaning Of The Northman Ending
Why doesn’t Hamlet run away with Olga and set out for certain death? The choice of him has to do with predestination, a central theme in the main ancient mythologies. The doubt around which these stories centered on oracles and prophecies move is this: are human beings free to make their own choices or cannot they escape their destiny? Does being aware of one’s future influence the choices of the protagonists of the myth?
In the case of The Northman, it is repeatedly suggested to us that Hamlet is trapped in the logic of honor his father raised him to. Even when he is offered a different life based on love, he is unable to follow her because he has been educated to put honor in front of everything. In short, revenge has priority. To reassure Hamlet there is the awareness that the tree of kings, the stipe to which it belongs, will not be broken. He will continue to live through his children. Thus the fate predicted to Hamlet, that of a queen girl, comes true. Olga, who will take over the reins of the kingdom of the Orcans, watching over the safety of her children.
Norse Mythology In The Northman
When Robert Eggers approached this project he wanted to capture the essence and epicness of the old Norse sagas, and when he got going I appreciated that the source material he was dealing with was fierce and direct, a departure from his previous films. Because of this, he decided to create an intense and wild Viking epic that would not only bring together several of the key figures in Icelandic folklore but could also be understood by the general public.
The man from the north tells his story from a classic saga of revenge devised by the figure of Saxo Gramatticus, a historian of the twelfth century, and adds to this a rich universe in which sorcery and mysticism are present to make the even more attractive proposition.
The Revenge
Revenge is a dish that is served very cold: after an arid road, Amleth, after being forced to abandon his beloved (recently pregnant while waiting for two descendants of the prince) to kill his cruel uncle. So, he arrives at the gates of Hel to face him in a duel to the death in the jaws of a flaming volcano. After a tense fight, they both kill each other at the same time, Amleth lopping off his uncle’s head and he plunges his sword into his nephew’s chest. This will bring Amleth’s life to an end, not without ushering in a spectacular ascent of his consciousness to Valhalla.
The film leaves it up to the viewer to decide if the world of fantasy and mysticism that arises belongs to reality or is mere fiction that is born from the imagination and beliefs of its protagonists; what is clear is that Amleth dies without sadness, full of pride, because his destiny is fulfilled in the way he wanted and his life ends to give way to what comes after… if there is something.
