YMMV / The Northman

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Fjölnir arrange the duel with Amleth because he recognized that Amleth was distraught over the death of Gudrun and Gunnar and wanted to allow him the grieve for them or did Fjölnir want to arrange what burial he could for his family before avenging them like he did with Thorir?
  • Did Gudrun really engineer the murder of her husband and the attempted murder of her son or is this something she told herself after the fact? Her words to Amleth imply she doesn't really love Fjolnir or his sons as she states she's willing to become Amleth's bride if he kills them, and later on when she is finally killed she thanks Amleth. Is she really the evil hag the film presents her as, or just a woman suffering from trauma and mental problems? The fact she claims she was laughing when she was seemingly shrieking upon being carried away also casts doubt into her words and implies she might have Stockholm Syndrome; you could have it both ways by interpreting it as hysterical laughter, seeing as some people don't just laugh when they're happy. It's also possible her apparent attempt to seduce Amleth is due to this being the only way she knows how to distract and deal with dangerous men.
  • Does Olga really love Amleth (at least in the modern understanding of words like "love" and "romance") despite his unrepentant butchery and enslavement of her village, or is their relationship more her being practical and taking a high-risk, high-reward approach to improving her miserable situation? She is shown caring for the other slaves from her village, so it seems unlikely she could simply disregard/forgive the slaughter, and he never shows any regret for this or any substantial Character Development away from the single-minded brute he was when he participated in it. Her helping him at first could be because he's her best chance of getting away from her captors, and then attaching herself to him more intimately could be the Enlightened Self-Interest of someone who recognised that, even when free, a beautiful young girl far from home and with no community would still benefit from a fearsome protector, especially once she becomes pregnant with his children. It is notable that after Amleth leaves her for good, while she is clearly upset by it, she immediately channels it into invoking the spirits to take her and her children towards their best possible future, rather than asking them to protect Amleth or bring him back to her.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Sure, The Viking Age sells... but perhaps not when it's a slow burn story, with only one (and short) actual battle where Vikings get to business (and some trailers primarily featured that latter aspect only) and lots of old Norse mysticism and bizarre rituals audiences are not necessarily familiar with. Also not helping is that the marketing only shows Amleth as his shirtless berseker self, while he actually doesn't spend much time onscreen as a berserker, quickly shaving his Barbarian Long Hair and spending much of the rest of the film in slave garb.
• Award Snub: While it was always a long shot considering it came out early in the year and it didn't make as big a splash as the studio hoped for, the film's complete shutout at the Oscars was noticed, to the point of it trending briefly in a couple of social media sites. The biggest complain was Eggers's snub in the Best Director category.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The prophecy of Amleth and Olga's daughter, the "Maiden King", combined with the time period of the story (early 10th century) and Olga's name, strongly suggest that the daughter will grow up to be St. Olga of Kiev, a leader of the Rurikid dynasty known to have been of Viking descent as well as ruthless in her revenge.
  • The mention of King Harald of Norway taking Fjolnir’s petty kingdom refers to the campaigns of Harald Fairhair to unite the many minor kings and jarls of Norway under his rule between the 870s and 930s AD.
  • There are many moments throughout the movie that serve as extremely subtle shoutouts to the Sagas notably Amleth sticking the Mound Dweller's head up its buttocks is straight from Grettir's Saga.
  • The film even goes as far as making sure that the pronunciation of Norse gods is period accurate. For example, the more familiar Odin is substituted for Óðinn, with the d sound becoming an 'eth', which is the th sound in weather or that.
• Hype Backlash: The movie suffered from this - after receiving raving reviews and very good word of mouth upon its premiere, the film brought wide audiences toward itself... and people started to instantly ask what's all the buzz about, up to the point it started to affect the box office in the opposite direction. Particularly based on the marketing, a lot of people went into the movie expecting it to be a more traditional action-based revenge movie with badass Vikings, only to find the actual film to be a much slower, grimmer story that doesn't shy away depicting the more brutal or bizarre parts of ancient Norse culture. While some audiences are interested in this kind of thing, it's admittedly not as widely appealing.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people came to see this movie after the success of The Lighthouse to see what Robert Eggers can make with a big budget, some people came to see an epic Viking revenge tale, and some came to see Anya Taylor-Joy's nude debut.
• Magnificent Bastard: Prince Amleth, son of Aurvandil, makes a vow to avenge his father, save his mother and kill his uncle Fjolnir. Becoming a deadly raider, Amleth participates in a series of Viking attacks and learns Fjolnir is a dispossessed chieftain in Iceland. Selling himself into slavery to infiltrate the farm and winning Fjolnir's trust, Amleth begins killing his men to sow psychological terror among his opponents. When he learns his own mother wanted him dead, Amleth later returns to protect his lover and unborn children, facing Fjolnir in a duel in a volcano and earning his way to Valhalla.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "The real live-action Lion King"^note People have taken to calling the movie this due to the similarities in plot, as The Lion King takes inspiration from Hamlet, itself inspired by the Amleth legend that The Northman loosely adapts; it also pokes fun at the attempt to present the Lion King remake as a 'live-action' film when it's actually still mostly animated save for some scenery, only using CGI instead of traditional animation like the original.
  • Many fans have jokingly compared Amleth's fight with the Mound Dweller to a Dark Souls or Elden Ring boss fight.
• Older Than They Think: Some people assume that the main character being named "Amleth" is a reference to Hamlet. Actually, Hamlet is itself based on an older Danish folk tale, and Amleth was the original name of the character.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Björk only shows up for one major scene as the Seeress, but she makes a seriously haunting impression on the audience.
  • Ralph Ineson as the kindly captain of the ship taking Amleth and Olga to safety. At least until the former jumps ship.
  • Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson as the He-Witch, the Crazy Is Cool transvestite sorcerer invoking Odin.
  • Technically two scenes but The Valkyrie leaves one hell of an impression.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • As mentioned under Memetic Mutation, Amleth's fight with the Mound Dweller has been described as the most accurate depiction of a FromSoftware boss fight ever - a descent into a dark tomb to steal a weapon from the decaying specter of a giant, once-mighty warrior who attacks with slow but brutal strikes. He even uses clear wind-up tells for his attacks that Amleth dodges.
  • Many people have compared the movie to Conan the Barbarian, especially the 1982 film, with some even calling The Northman 'the best Conan movie in years'. There are many similarities between the two films (the protagonist is a stoic badass from a Proud Warrior Race and the son of a ruler who seeks revenge for a parent's murder and the slaughter of his village, he obtains a Cool Sword from a burial mound and receives guidance from sorcerers, he has to stealthily infiltrate the enemy camp because brute force won't cut it, he receives help from his love interest who urges him to give up revenge, with their romance ending in tragedy and more). Even the opening scene is highly similar to Conan's, with a gravelly-voiced narrator introducing us to the protagonist and his epic journey. Heck, if you ramped up the fantasy elements The Northman could make a decent Sword and Sorcery movie. The Conan references are by design too, with Robert Eggers stating in an interview: "There's a lot of Conan referencing, I have to admit. Many tips of the hat. I've been told by my PR team to keep it light, but this is in some respects me trying to do Conan the Barbarian by way of Andrei Rublev."
• Viewer Species Confusion: The vixen that aids Amleth has been confused by some viewers as a dog. It's not helped that the creature is referred to as a "blue fox" (a fictional term) by a character. It's supposed to be an arctic fox, which does have dark fur during the summer months.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Due to how white nationalist groups have appropriated The Viking Age imagery to promote their ideology, some people speculate as to whether the movie's content indicated that Robert Eggers was a white supremacist or at least espousing their views implicitly^note an example is the this article which includes claims of how accuracy is merely a red herring or if white supremacists don't hate your work, you might be doing something wrong regardless. These claims are being heavily disputed as cases of either wholly misinformed speculation or deliberate guilt by association, as the movie's depiction of Viking culture eschews Nostalgia Filter and presents it as nightmarish and brutal, and Eggers explicitly noted his distaste for far-right appropriation of Norse history. This wasn't helped by some prominent white nationalists praising the movie's "messages" as "admirable".

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