Thorgil

About Thorgil

Thorgil is Ketil's elder son, a genuine warrior serving in King Canute's personal guard. Where his father performs strength, Thorgil embodies it, calm, ruthless and eager for the battlefield, even attempting a daring strike at the king himself during the farm's fall. He represents the old Viking ideal at its purest: magnificent in war, and completely unable to imagine a world without it.

Appearance

Thorgil is tall, hard-faced and heavily built, with the scars and relaxed readiness of a professional soldier. He dresses for war even at home and moves with an economy his younger brother's swagger only imitates. There is a stillness to him that reads as menace: he smiles rarely, speaks plainly, and looks at battle, including a battle against his own king, the way other men look at sport.

Personality

Thorgil is the old Viking ideal without apology: brave, disciplined, loyal to his family and completely alive only in violence. He despises his father's cowardice and says so, but when the farm is threatened he defends it without hesitation, even attempting the boldest stroke of the war himself. Thorgil is not stupid or needlessly cruel, he is simply a man perfectly fitted to a world Thorfinn is trying to leave behind, and the story lets him be magnificent and obsolete at once.

Background & Story

Thorgil left the farm young to serve in King Canute's guard, building a real reputation his father only borrows. He returns home on leave to find the household sliding, his father besotted and frightened, his brother a liability, and royal attention settling on the farm like a shadow. When Canute moves to seize the land, Thorgil organises the defence with the farm's fighting men and personally leads the war's most daring attack, refusing to accept that the age of men like him is ending.

Powers & Abilities

• Elite Warrior: A veteran of the king's guard, Thorgil is the farm's most capable fighter, strong, experienced and tactically bold, trusted to lead its defence.

Key Relationships

• Ketil: His father, whose borrowed legend and cowardice Thorgil openly scorns, though he still fights to defend the man's farm.
• Olmar: His younger brother, whose weakness Thorgil sees clearly and tries, too late and too harshly, to beat out of him.
• Canute: The king he serves in the guard, and, when the crown comes for his home, the king he dares to strike at directly.
• Snake: The farm's head retainer and a fellow professional; the two soldiers understand each other without needing to agree.

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