Comic Book / Seven Missionaries

Seven monks go to convert the ferocious Vikings

Seven Missionaries is a 2008 French comic written by Alain Ayroles (De Cape et de Crocs) and drawn by Luigi Critone, the fourth in a series of French one-shot comics with seven protagonists. The titular seven missionaries are Irish monks sent to convert a settlement of pagan Norse to atone for their (many) sins.

Do not confuse with 7.

This comic provides examples of:

• Afterlife of Service: Thorgild's wife Freyja intends to have the titular monks accompany her husband's corpse on his funeral ship. Due to a series of coincidences, misinterpreted gestures and clashing personalities, the funeral ends with every Viking convinced that the monks have miraculous powers and converting to Christianity. Not that it stops them from raiding monasteries, which is why the missionaries were sent in the first place.
• Answer Cut: Thorgild rhetorically asks how much a bishop's ransom might be. Cut to Curcan advising Sven on the matter.
  Three thousand pounds of silver. Under no circumstances go below twenty-five hundred. If they propose a trade, turn down any livestock, slaves, or horses. I know the abbot, he'd slip you the sick ones!
• Badass Preacher:
  • Oran tries to be one, with less than satisfying results when not backed up by a rain of gold coins.
  • Curnan's is much more effective, appealing to the Vikings' greed rather than any noble sentiments.
  Northmen, hear me! Do you know what it means to be Christian? It means belonging to an immense brotherhood of men living under the law of the same God! To go in peace from Rome to Clonmacnoise, from Dorestad to Byzantium! Byzantium, the city of golden roofs! Byzantium and its opulent shops, its sumptuous storehouses! Byzantium, paradise of merchants! Becoming Christian means traveling without fear! It means trading without risk! It means... becoming rich!
• Batman Gambit: The abbot agrees to the insane ransom demand (3,000 pounds of silver for seven monks sent on a suicide mission) because it means he can lure the Vikings into landing on a beach with most of the Irish clans waiting in ambush. It fails to completely eradicate the Vikings but it does kill Thorgild, leading to the Vikings converting.
• The Berserker: Björn the Mad judges Conan to be even more furious than any berserker he knows after he sees Conan cutting down Vikings and Irishmen alike.
• Bloodless Carnage: Despite the battle featuring plenty of men armed with swords and axes wearing not much more than leather and wool, there's no blood to be seen.
• Book Ends: The comic starts with a Norse shaman making offers to totems before they go on a raid. The last page is nearly a carbon copy of the first, replacing the shaman with a Christian monk and the totems with a cross.
• The Casanova: Lugan is first seen in the company of three half-naked young women, and proceeds to sleep with many of the young women of the Skellig Mor settlement.
• Captain Obvious: Goban points out that "no one's safe on this battlefield anymore!" once Conan breaks loose.
• Cavalry Betrayal: Thorgild asks for help when he's surrounded. Sven, the only one in earshot, lets him die.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Oran's haughtiness and vanity (keeping mirrors and fine clothes in his baggage) makes him mistaken for a bishop, leading to the Vikings asking for a big ransom. When Enan is taken as a hostage for the negotiations, he thinks Oran got himself nominated on the sly, and his bitterness leads to his making a "Not So Different" Remark to Sven, leading to his becoming The Starscream.
  • An ember from the funeral ship lands on Goban's distillery on the cliff above, causing an explosion that scatters Curnan's hoard of gold coins (stamped with a cross, since he used a Frankish coin to mint them) all over the crowd below. Since Oran was talking about performing miracles at that moment, it's accepted that he's telling the truth.
• Counterfeit Cash: Curnan spies Thorgild burying gold in the woods, digs it up, and melts them down in Goban's alchemical equipment to mint his own Frankish coins.
• The Corruptor: Curnan projects his envy so hard he manages to get Sven to commit Murder by Inaction.
• Defiled Forever: Lugan runs into a servant girl and proceeds to explain that she can't have sinned if she took no pleasure from being raped by her master. Note that she has no concept of what sin is either, so he proceeds to demonstrate.
• Distressed Woodchopping: Conan's go-to method of purging his violent thoughts is to take an axe and beat a tree with it. During the battle, Lugan manages to redirect his attention from the High King's men by yelling at him that the boats are made of wood, clearing a path towards the beach.
• Easily Forgiven: The fact that Conan attacked both Vikings and Aed's men during the battle (under Aed's eyes no less) goes unmentioned.
• Easy Evangelism: Zigzagged. The Vikings laugh off the monks' attempt to convert them, until the end where gold coins stamped with a cross rain down upon them.
• Establishing Character Moment: Oran is first seen looking at his reflection in a water barrel, wearing a richly-embroidered stole. Curcan snatches it from him to sell it, then Enan grabs it because he claims to be the real father superior. As they run around, they slam into Goban, spilling his cauldron of soup onto Conan's head. Conan grabs a cleaver and chases them, and seeking safety in the barn, find Lugan in a tryst with three peasant girls. Tristan is told to open the gate, and he moseys over to do so... revealing the abbot and his retinue.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Thorgild and Freyia clearly love each other, and once Thorgild is killed Freyia wants the monks burned alive, holding them responsible for his death. Which, indirectly, they are.
• Everyone Has Standards: Every monk has a tendency to call out the others for their behavior.
• Eye Scream: The sole survivor of a raided monastery had his eyes gouged out.
• The Eeyore: Tristan is permanently miserable, though it doesn't stop him from making beautiful music.
• Funny Background Event:
  • After Lugan seduces Svan's servant girl, he's next seen in the background with a big goofy smile on his face.
  • After escaping the battle, Conan is seen still snapping branches in half.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Very few characters wear helmets during the battle, some even fighting in only a pair of pants. The only one who visibly wears one is Thorgild, and it doesn't help much when he's fighting three-to-one.
• Hidden Depths: Tristan is able to produce sad but beautiful music, while Curnan was a fisherman before taking vows and can still handle a boat.
• Horny Vikings: The focus is much more on the Vikings' domestic life than the usual raiding and pillaging, but the protagonists are still being sent to stop the latter.
• I Can Explain: Lugan's Catchphrase when in trouble. Sven's wife locks them in the pigsty and demands that he explains exactly what "sinning" is.
• Ignored Aesop: At the end of the story, when the monks have succeeded and been rewarded with a bishopric...
  Monk: Do you think they've found redemption?
  Abbot: What do you think?
  Oran: The great and powerful of the world will come kiss this ring!
  Enan: How come I don't get a ring?
  Curnan: Tithes, prebendaries and benefits, all mine!
  Goban: How about we hold a banquet?
  Lugan: With dancing girls!
  Conan: Shaddup!
  Tristan: It's too good to last...
• I Resemble That Remark!: Snorri barges in at the funeral to demand Freyia spare Goban. She calls him a drunk, he proudly agrees.
  Freyia: Snorri Gunnarsson! You're drunk as a Thurse!
  Snorri: As any Viking should be at his jarl's funeral!
• Irony: The abbot orders the impious monk's community set to the torch, bitterly noting that they don't even need the Vikings anymore.
• Long List: The list of offenses committed by the monks takes up three feet of parchment.
• Pet the Dog: Curcan, the crotchety old miser, is the first to grab Tristan as he walks up the ramp to the longship.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Thorgild wants to sacrifice the monks by crucifying each one to a cross, but when it turns out repairing the ship is more urgent, the monks are temporarily spared and used as menial labor to repair Sven's ship.
  "If you're going to kill the papars anyway, no need to feed them. Do the math yourself: fourteen arms minus seven mouths to feed makes seven very cheap slaves!"
• Meaningful Name: Tristan (which sounds like Sadness in French) is permanently depressed, while Conan (who is not a barbarian, but certainly acts like one when angered) has anger issues and turns out to be The Berserker.
• Miser Advisor: Curnan makes no effort to hide his obsession with saving and gaining money, even chiming in during a conversation between two Vikings on how to invest their share of the plunder.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Goban's explanation of his still.
  This is not sorcery but alchemy, brother Snorri! Forgotten knowledge... A fabulous secret I discovered in the Latin version of an Arab manuscript, translated from Greek, inherited by an Asturian monk from a Jewish mage of Cordoba... the secret... of the al-ambiq!
• Not Afraid to Die:
  • Oran tells Thorgild to convert and be spared. Thorgild tells him to stuff it.
  A Viking dies sword in hand, not on a cross! Do you think, troll-mouth that I will bow before your weak and cowardly God? Do you think I will renounce mighty Odin at the moment he invites me to his feast?
  • The monks' willingness to be burned alive impresses the Vikings. In fact, only Oran and Tristan wanted to go, the first out of a desire to be canonized and the second out of sheer nihilism. The others were all trying to restrain them and got dragged up.
• Not so Dire: As Goban and Curnan are making whiskey/melting down stolen gold respectively, three Vikings run in towards the hut... and it turns out they learned Thorgild intends to ransom them back and are saying their farewells to their dearest booze-making friend.
• Please Spare Him, My Liege!: Assorted Vikings ask Freyia to spare some of the monks from being burned alive (Goban for his skill at distilling whiskey, Tristan for his skill with the harp, Curnan for his financial advice, Lugan by the women of the settlement...).
• Psychological Projection: Enan is utterly devoured by envy, which colors his perception of people and leads him to accept unlikely events (Oran being named bishop) as fact.
  Where are [Lugan and Conan]? What are they doing? I'm sure they're better treated than me!
• Realpolitik:
  • The abbot wants Aed Mac Neill to stop the Vikings from pillaging monasteries, but Aed is more concerned with putting down rebellious chieftains. The abbot then suggests rallying every clan to repel the Vikings, ensuring the rebels will be isolated and securing Aed's legitimacy as The High King.
  • The Vikings convert less out of genuine fervor and more for personal (Curnan's speech on the golden roofs of Byzantium really struck a chord with them) and political gain (becoming Christian means Freyia will lose her influence).
• Religious Bruiser: Apart from his tendency to correct improper behavior with a cleaver, Conan is possibly the most sincerely devout of the monks.
  Weak and cowardly [God], huh? Stinking idolaters! Shitty barbarians! You dare soil the face of the Most-High? Do you not know... that this god... is a god... OF LOVE?!
• Rule of Symbolism: Freyia demands that the Christian god manifest himself if he's so powerful. Every Viking decides to take an explosion followed by a rain of gold coins marked with a cross as a definite "yes".
• Seven Deadly Sins: Naturally. Oran is Pride, Curnan is Greed, Enan is Envy, Goban is Gluttony, Conan is Wrath, Lugan is Lust, and Tristan is Sloth.
• The Starscream: Enan eventually turns Sven into this by accident by pointing out that Thorgild is richer and more powerful than him despite taking less risks.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Conan breaks his bonds and grabs an axe, his fellow monks' reaction is not relief but (further) terror.
  Goban: Oh Lord, he has an axe!
  Lugan: And not a tree in sight!
• Too Proud for Lowly Work: After being captured and Made a Slave by Vikings, Oran the prideful abbot insists his hands were not made for physical labor, even when this gets him beaten by the guards. His arrogance is such that the Vikings are easily convinced they kidnapped a bishop (which Oran intends to become), leading to them demanding a ridiculous high ransom for him and inadvertently setting themselves on the path to conversion.
• Translation Convention: The Vikings speak untranslated Norse until Thorgild asks if the monks speak Scots.
• True Art Is Angsty: In-Universe: Tristan's skill at composing sad melodies is a result of his bleak outlook on life.
• Viking Funeral: Thorgild's body is brought back to the island, where his wife intends to have the seven monks join him in death.
• Villain Respect:
  • Snorri gives Goban a friendly shoulder punch when he's the only one eating at the feast, which later becomes Villainous Friendship when Goban introduced him to uisge beatha (aka whiskey).
  • Due to various character defects kicking in at the right time, the Vikings think the monks are willingly climbing onto Thorgild's funeral barge.
  These Christians sneer at death!
  Their gods make them strong!

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