Vikings (2013-21) is a historical drama TV series, broadly based on the life of legendary leader Ragnar Lothbrok. While I’m no expert on this particular period, the series plays pretty loose with history. E.g. the series began in season 1 with a story based on the Lindisfarne raid of 793, but one major plot arc of season 3 is based on the Viking siege of Paris in 845, and characters have only aged a few years.
For this blog’s purposes, we are concerned with a subplot of the siege of Paris arc. The leader of Paris’ defense against the Vikings is Count Odo (played by Owen Roe, loosely based on Odo of France), who chafes under the rule of Emperor Charles. Odo’s lieutenant Roland (Huw Parmenter) sends his sister, Therese (Karen Hassan), to seduce the count. So far, so typical for this kind of show.
What’s not typical is that Odo is a sadist, and even less typical, he is a consensual sadist. In his first private moment with Therese (Season 3, Episode 10), he takes her to his dungeon.
Odo: If you would submit.
Therese: To what?
Odo: To being chained up and whipped. Of course, I will allow you to choose the whip. Some are more severe than others. You will always be able to call a halt, though I would prefer to decide myself. It would keep my interest.
Therese: Undoubtedly.
Odo puts her in the metal manacles. In the closeup, it’s clear the cuffs are padded. It’s not clear if these are supposed to be padded in the diegesis of the scene, or if this is an error. It does look like Therese could easily slip her slender wrists out of them if they weren’t padded.
Odo: Tell me when to strike. Say strike.
Therese: Strike.
Odo does strike her. Therese’s response is hard to gauge. Is she play-acting reluctance to seduce Odo, or is she genuine repelled by this, but resolved to carry on out of loyalty to her brother?
In Season 4, Episode 2, Therese gets even more intimate with Odo. After nudging him towards usurping the Emperor, she picks out a crop or quirt for him to use on her, and even teases him with it. He hesitates:
Odo: This is more of a brute than we have used before, and it will hurt you more.
Therese doesn’t flinch; if she’s not into it, she’s playing her part well.
Later in the episode, Therese’s wounds are tended by her brother, and they have an incestuous affair.
By Season 4, Episode 6, Odo is drunk and openly talks of deposing Charles to Therese, who now only half-heartedly plays the game of seduction. She offers to undress, but instead Odo chains her and pulls her dress up to her waist, before whipping her. He still asks her for her permission, and only starts when she says, “Strike.”
In Season 4, Episode 8, Therese turns the tables on Odo, and says she wants to switch, using the same language as he did with her. He agrees to this. In Odo’s dungeon, she has him chained standing and stripped to the waist. He gives her the word to “Strike!” and she does, then hands it over to her brother Roland, who gags Odo and beats him to death. Therese watches this, looking pleased with herself.
After killing Odo, and painting him as a traitor to his emperor (which Therese goaded him into), Roland and Therese attempt to ingratiate themselves with Charles. He has them garotted to death anyway.
It’s a cliche to associate sexual deviance with moral and/or political deviance, but this plotline breaks from the usual tropes. Odo commands brutal violence in defense of Paris, and plots against his lord, but he’s not depicted as any worse (or better) than other figures in this milieu. He’s played as an older, heavier man (with a prosthetic arm), contrasted against the rugged Vikings, but also against the foppish Emperor. He is no more politically deviant than anybody else.
I don’t know why the writers and producers of this series decided to have this dynamic between Odo and Therese. It would be plausible to have a non-consensual sadist character, who doesn’t care in the slightest about his victims, but not as interesting. It makes Odo a more interesting character, instead of just another ruthless, treacherous noble.
There’s also the question of whether this kind of relationship could have existed at all in this time period. This was long before the creation of modern, liberal concepts of personal rights, especially for women. Why does Odo insist on getting Therese’s consent, when he doesn’t need her consent for ordinary sex? His insistence that Therese choose the whip to be used on her, and that she can call halt, makes him oddly vulnerable. It may be that no other women will put up with his desires, and Therese’s willingness to submit to him paradoxically gives her power over him.
I wouldn’t say a relationship like this, in this time and place, is impossible, but it strains credibility.
See this blog post for more discussion of this Vikings plotline
