I have been reading Vinland Saga for years and absolutely loved it.
The Askeladd section is pure kino and everyone agrees, this is what made it popular.
The Farm arc is also excellent. Watching Thorfinn try to fight an internal battle and try to abandon violence as a solution to all his problems is unique and the author goes though a lot of effort in putting his new perspective to the test.
Chapter 100 on the dot is where it starts to go downhill.
I put up with it when Hild got introduced, even though she's an insufferable girlboss character with improbable intelligence, who never does anything wrong, and who is of course morally superior to Thorfinn in every way.
I put up with the Baltic Sea War which dragged on for YEARS. This arc alone is 36 chapters, a third of the length of the entire Askeladd+Farm arcs (where Thorfinn undergoes multiple character transformations.)
I put up with it when the introduced Cordelia for tranny brownie points.
(Cordelia was born male but his mother lied to his father about his sex so the father wouldn't raise him to be a warrior. Cordelia was raised as female which is why his gender identity is fucked up. And yes I'm using male pronouns for him.)
I put up with it when Thorfinn's ideals of pacifism went from 'violence should only be used as an absolute last resort' to 'violence should never ever be used in ANY circumstance because violence bad'.
Chapter 208 is where it completely jumped the shark for me.
Scenario: The Lnu (Native Americans) have started a war and have already killed several of the norsemen. They come across a house being guarded by Cordelia. Inside the house is Thorfinn's wife Gudrid who is in the process of childbirth, and his 2-3 year old son. Cordelia is a very large man but also quite cowardly, being raised as female and being a believer in Thorfinn's pacifist ideas. The Lnu are out for blood but Cordelia can't run away because three completely helpless people are inside the house.
Uh oh, the author seems to have written himself into a pickle! How will this situation be resolved?
A. Cordelia resolves to fight, because the life of a woman and 2 children are on the line. He realizes that while he respects Thorfinn, sometimes you really do have no choice but to fight, and there are situations where violence is righteous and warranted (such as
defending women and children from being slaughtered)
B. Cordelia does nothing and can't fight, and the Lnu murder Thorfinn's family. Even if some unexpected event come sup that happens to deter them from their murderous designs, it will be really obvious that the author came up with an ass-pull in order to try and avoid the logical consequences of the situation.
C. Cordelia gains magical powers that turn his human skin into armor, allowing him to survive multiple stab wounds that don't even draw blood. This allows him to protect Gudrid while also not hurting any of the Lnu because they leave when they realize that they can't hurt him.
Both A & B are logical, but cast doubt on the correctness of Thorfinn's beliefs, either showing them to be insufficient or downright dangerous.
Of course he would never go with C because that's just ridiculous right?
If you've read this far you already know - the author went with resolution C.
At this point I'm just reading for fun to see what further stupidity the author is going to pull out of his ass to avoid dealing with the very real and unfortunate consequences of reality.
