Michael Hirst's Vikings gave Ragnar Lothbrok a motivation that most television warriors lack: curiosity. Ragnar does not sail west for plunder, at least not primarily. He sails west because the sagas say there is land across the ocean and no one in his village believes it. He builds a better navigation tool. He convinces a crew to follow him into the unknown. And when he reaches England, he is as interested in understanding the people he finds as he is in taking their silver.

The historical Ragnar is semi-legendary, a figure whose existence is debated by scholars but whose legend is not. Dr. Anders Winroth of Yale University, in his study of the Viking Age, has noted that the sagas attributed to Ragnar were almost certainly the deeds of multiple chieftains, compressed into a single heroic figure over centuries of oral tradition. Hirst took this composite and gave it a psychology: a farmer who becomes a raider who becomes a king who discovers that none of those identities satisfy his need to know what exists beyond the next horizon.

The Farmer Who Outthought Earls

Ragnar begins the series as a farmer with a family and an unconventional relationship with ambition. He does not want power for its own sake. He wants the freedom that power provides, specifically the freedom to pursue his curiosity without being overruled by an earl who has stopped exploring. His conflict with Earl Haraldson is not a contest between warriors. It is a contest between a mind that has stopped growing and a mind that refuses to.

Ragnar's intelligence is practical rather than scholarly. He observes. He adapts. He learns the language and customs of the people he raids, which horrifies his companions and gives him an advantage that pure violence cannot match. He sees Christianity and wonders about its utility. He sees English farming techniques and considers their application. He is a Viking who raids with one hand and takes notes with the other.

The Death That Launched a Thousand Ships

Ragnar's death in the snake pit is the most famous scene in Vikings, and Hirst staged it as a philosophical statement rather than a defeat. Ragnar goes to his death willingly, having arranged for the manner of his execution to enrage his sons into the largest invasion England has ever seen. He dies smiling, knowing that his curiosity about what lies beyond death is about to be satisfied, and that the legacy he leaves behind will be measured in fleets.