Vinland Saga Quote Explained: “No one is your enemy. You have no enemies at all.”
One of the things often stressed in Vinland Saga‘s storyline is that the Vikings of the 11th century were war-mongering people that loved getting into fights and waging war against different tribes, countries, and kingdoms. But one of the most incredible parts of the storyline is that Thors, the strongest Viking of his generation, preached to his son the importance of pacifism and peace and often told him the saying, “No one is your enemy you. You have no enemies at all.” So, what did Thors mean by this quote?
When Thors told Thorfinn that no one is his enemy and that he had no enemy at all, he was talking about the fact that Thors was born into the world without any enemies and that making enemies was a personal choice that he had to make throughout his life if he didn’t want to live a life of peace.
In a way, Vinland Saga stresses the importance of living a peaceful life instead of one full of battles and wars that must be fought and won. Thorfinn, of course, chose to live a peaceful life of pacifism instead of the usual Viking way of warfare and bloodshed. Now, let’s look at what we know about this quote from Vinland Saga.
You Are Born Without Enemies
During the early part of the Vinland Saga, we learned that Thors, the strongest Viking of his generation, refused to continue to live a life full of bloodshed. As such, he eventually decided to fake his death to leave his life as a Viking and start a peaceful life with his family. And when he had his own family and started raising Thorfinn to be a kind young man, he told him that no one was his enemy and that he had no enemies at all. But what exactly does this quite mean?
On top of Thors telling Thorfinn that he had no enemies, he also told his son that he was born into the world without enemies. Even though humans are known to be aggressive people who were able to rise to the top of the food chain as the world’s apex predators, we were always born into the world without any enemies. It may be natural for humans to hunt and kill animals, but we were never meant to wage war amongst ourselves because we were never born to be enemies with one another.
As such, the quote that was often said by Thors and carried on by Thorfinn suggests that we are naturally peaceful because humans are born without enemies. Your parents and ancestors may have had enemies throughout their lifetime, but that doesn’t mean the offspring should also carry the same burden of having enemies or making enemies out of the same people. And that’s because we are born peaceful and innocent and were never meant to have enemies at the very start.
Making Enemies Is a Personal Choice
Another thing that Thors stressed when he preached the importance of not having enemies: making enemies is a personal choice a person makes throughout their lifetime. As mentioned, we have no enemies when we are born. This suggests that every enemy we have in our lifetime is a personal choice and that we are consciously choosing to make enemies.
This highlights Thors’ insistence on living a peaceful life without war. He made a conscious effort to be a pacifist after spending his entire life as the strongest warrior of his generation. Thors killed countless people throughout his lifetime but regretted his actions when he realized he needed to break the chain of hatred by becoming a better person.
Thors made it a point to continue his life without enemies, as this was stressed when he ran to Iceland to hide from the Jomsvikings and live a peaceful life with his family. And he did so because it was his choice to live a life of peace instead of living a life of countless battles and wars.
Meanwhile, in Thorfinn’s case, he eventually embraced this quote when he realized that he caused immeasurable pain to other people when he took a lot of lives for the sake of his quest for revenge. Even though he never needed to take revenge for his father’s death, Thorfinn lived for over a decade as an angry young man who only wanted to kill for his thirst for vengeance. And that was why he made a lot of enemies when he was working for Askeladd.
But when he saw the effects of his actions and was endlessly haunted by his conscience in the form of the ghosts of the people he killed, Thorfinn realized that he needed to live a life of peace instead of one that required him to kill for the sake of killing. He understood that there was no more need for him to kill people or wage war on others. And that was why he became a pacifist who always focused on resolving an issue peacefully instead of taking up arms as a first option.
This also highlights the difference in the paths that Thorfinn and Canute took. Thorfinn decided to live without enemies because he understood that anyone could live peacefully and prosperously without making enemies out of different people. Meanwhile, Canute bore the Curse of the Kings, which is the endless need for him to continue to try to further his power by killing, betraying, and hurting other people. And both these characters consciously made their own choices in life as they decided they wanted to live a life that way.