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Lucius Artorius Castus, better known as Askeladd, is the central antagonist of Vinland Saga, serving as the main antagonist of the War arc. He is the captain of a Viking mercenary band and killed Thorfinn's father Thors, with underhanded tactics after losing to him in a duel. However, he ends up becoming Thorfinn's boss when he joins the group in order to train, hoping to one day be capable of fighting and defeating Askeladd in a duel to avenge his father.

He was voiced by Naoya Uchida in Japanese, who also voiced Obito Uchiha when he was posing as Madara Uchiha in Naruto.

His Evil Ranking[]

What Makes Him Heinous?[]

• He killed his own father, Olaf (although he deserved it for how he treated Lydia), and one of his concubines in his sleep. He used his half-brother’s sword to frame him for the murders, which resulted in him being hanged, making him responsible for his death as well.
• He was the leader of a band of Mercenary Vikings who he allowed to slaughter, steal, and rape as much as they liked, raiding many villages and making him responsible for thousands of deaths during his 19 years as a Viking.
• He took a job from Floki to kill Thors. When he lost their duel, he acted dishonorably and had Bjorn take Thorfinn hostage and forces Thors to surrender. Then he has him killed by his archers. This event left Thorfinn consumed by revenge and made Askeladd responsible for the rest of the story.
• When he found out that Thorfinn, who is a child at the time, was still on one of Thors' ships his group had captured, he apathetically leaves Thorfinn to starve hoping for him to die.
• He uses Thorfinn's desire to duel him by making him work for him with the promise of the duel by giving him dangerous tasks with little concern over his well-being.
• He taunts Thorfinn about the death of his father to make him lower his guard so he could win the duel.
• He works for the Dannish King Sweyn and raids many villages across England which makes him responsible for the deaths of many peasants and the rape of many women.
• He kills a messenger he was going to assist simply because he wanted the glory of saving Canute.
• He starts a wildfire to save Prince Canute from the English, knowing full well that it would also kill many Dannish soldiers trying to save the Prince who were his allies at the time with many of them burning to death because he wanted all the glory of saving the Prince for himself.
• He slaughtered 62 innocent villagers so that he could take their food and keep the enemy from finding out they were there. What makes this worse is that several of them were children and infants, and Willibald and Anna watched the whole thing and were left traumatized by it.
• He tortures a man by first having him brutally beaten, then cutting off his fingers and even lets an owl pluck out one of his eyes while he is still alive. He also sadistically mocks the man during the torture.
• He has his men kill Ragnar so that Canute would grow from his death and coldly rejected his last request to say goodbye to Canute. He then lies to Canute that Ragnar had been killed by the English, so that he could take Ragnar's place and manipulate Canute to do as he says.
• When Canute wants to bury Ragnar or at least take his remains, Askeladd refuses because the English are closing in and slaps Canute.
• When his men start a riot and demand from him to hand over Canute to them or else they would attack, he reveals that he always hated all of them during his time as a Viking and kills many of them.
• He disguises a female slave as Prince Canute and hires an assassin to kill her with a crossbow. Because of this, the woman is killed by the assassin who thinks she is Canute and she dies with Askeladd being uncaring about it. He also has the assassin himself killed by Thorfinn and uses the supposed attempt on Prince Canute's life to start a rumor around the camp that it was ordered by Canute's father King Sweyn.
• He kills King Sweyn and several guards (although the king deserved it).

What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]

• He is tragic as his mother Lydia was kidnapped by a warlord called Olaf who raped her and Askeladd himself was born out of these rapes. He was forced to work extensively at a young age to care for his mother who became sick and was cast aside by his father Olaf and his father didn't even acknowledge him for most of his childhood which resulted in him and his mother being forced to live in horrible conditions. After hearing the story of Artorius, he was waiting for a hero to come back and save them all. When his mother completely lost her mind and mistook Olaf for the hero, Askeladd had to protect her from Olaf. Askeladd realized that anyone could be Artorious and after killing his father and fulfilling his mother’s wish to see her homeland, he became the captain of the Dane Vikings waiting for a hero to arrive. He, unfortunately, had to become what he hated most, a Dane which left him with a lot of self-hatred for becoming one of them.
• He genuinely loved his mother, Lydia as he fought to protect her as a child, took revenge against his father for causing her suffering, and brought her back to her homeland. He is also greatly upset by insults to his mother even after her death.
• He cared greatly for the people of Wales as he is affable to them, and all his schemes revolve around protecting his homeland from invasion, which is why he seeks to make Canute king.
• He greatly respects Thors and even considered letting him lead their crew (until he realized that wasn’t possible) he also spared the rest of Thor’s crew due to it being Thor’s request.
• While he did use Thorfinn he has some moments where he seems pleasantly surprised at his success and even takes on a bit of a mentor role and gives him advice on how to improve as a Warrior and control his emotions. Thorfinn is also one of the few people Askeladd seems to trust and respect the skills of. There is even time he is affable to him, such as when he gives Thorfinn the history of the Roman ruins around them. One his last acts was telling Thorfinn not to get involved which resulted in Askeladd being distracted and being fatally stabbed. His last words to Thorfinn was also genuine wisdom as he told Thorfinn to move on from his hate and becomes true Warrior.
• Despite hating all the Danes he had a genuine friendship with his right-hand man Bjorn as they are often seen laughing to together and is the one, he gets along the most with. He, along with Thorfinn were also the only people he trusted on his crew not to betray him. He also was willing to duel a dying Bjorn so that he could go to Vallahla and showed genuine concern when he didn’t finish him off immediately. When Bjorn said that all he wanted was to be Askeladd’s friend Askeladd told Bjorn that he was his only friend. Askeladd is also shown to be uncharacteristically angry after the death of Bjorn, showing that he did indeed care for him.
• After Canute grew as a person Askeladd became genuinely loyal to Canute and vowed to serve him even if it cost him his life (which is a vow he kept) and admitted he was more worthy of being a king than himself or King Sweyn. And was proud of him for being able to kill him to secure his title as King.
• He has a pet-the-dog moment where he gives Atli and his brother gold and allows them to leave his crew despite them betraying him.
• He ultimately sacrifices himself to protect both Canute and the Country of Wales by faking insanity and killing the King so that Canute is free of involvement in the King’s death so that he can become king by putting Askeladd down.

External Links[]

• Askeladd on the Villains Wiki.
• Askeladd on the Vinland Saga Wiki.