Video; Where's The Laughter in Slaughter?

[ragnarsson]

[When the camera gets turned on, the first thing to note is that Ivar's face is streaked in blood that has only just started to dry in places. Someone's been out worshiping with the natives in a fashion very familiar to a Viking. If y'all hadn't gotten the impression Ivar was a bloodthirsty barbarian from a bygone era, the imagery is definitely reinforced with the dripping red streaks on his face. Also is that some around his lips as well? Has he been drinking the stuff too? Honestly, though, he seems quite pleased by what's been going on even if everyone else might be disturbed by the casual slaughter of the cows. His tone starts off very serious, since worship is important where he's from.]

About time this place started getting some proper worship going. I know most of you all are from soft places-- [The scorn in his tone is obvious.] --but blood sacrifices are always the best when giving due diligence to these gods where I am from. Blood demands blood, especially if you want them to be on your side in battle, or to favor you at all. It's really not all that different then slaughtering animals for food, just with more rituals and rites to it.

[Then he switches back to his usual tone that ranges somewhere between insanity and half-truths end tends to indulge in.]

It's a good thing we finally got the right sort of animals around here. Otherwise, I might have had to resort to sacrificing one of you. [He muses for a moment before laughing.] I'm joking of course! [Beat.] Human sacrifices only work if they're willing participants.

[OOC: This post is for a general discussion, so feel free to have threads amongst all the characters and thread-jacking rather then just talking with Ivar. Do let me know if you do want a specific thread with him! He has rather...strong opinions about this.]

Comments

[pietistic]

I understand why it is important to you but you are being quite inconsiderate and careless.

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar scowls. Most everyone he dismisses, but if it is Athelstan who is saying such things...well maybe, just maybe, he has a point.]

So you feel the need to scold me like an old woman who finds a dog that has stolen a bone?

[He's very huffy and defensive now.]

What these people are afraid of is not sacrifice but what it represents: the lack of order in Asgard.

[pietistic]

[ Athelstan doesn't seem bothered by the other's accusation. He might be amused actually. ]

That is very narrow minded and a very large assumption to make, Ivar.

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar gives a sigh, grumbling to himself about meddling Saxons.]

Alright. Explain it to me in such a way that I understand, and don't feel like throwing something at you by the end of it, the way I have with some of these buffoons.

[pietistic]

Is that even possible for you, Ivar?

[ Athelstan's not mocking, though. It's a gentle tease. ]

You always start from a place of believing you are superior and having no respect for other cultures or points of views. It's a shame your father did not teach you to be curious if not respectful.

[ragnarsson]

[For once, Ivar listens. He respects Athelstan as a fellow Norseman, so there is a chance he might heed his counsel.]

Maybe if he had actually been around, he might have. [Bitter much? But Ivar's daddy issues are neither here nor there.]

I have no respect for others because they always judge me right off, whether it's me personally or the Norse as a whole. If they would be willing to learn, I might do the same in turn.

[pietistic]

It is a shame on Ragnar, not you.

[ Athelstan says in case his implication before was unclear in any way to Ivar. ]

You do not make it easy when you present yourself so self-righteously. You cannot expect from them what you have never given anyone.

[ragnarsson]

What do you think he would say if he was here and saw what was going on?

[Athelstan knew Ragnar far longer then Ivar had and he trusted the family friend to give him an honest answer.

Ivar very nearly switches off the feed but he stops himself, knowing that would make him seem immature and proving Athelstan's point right off the bat. He grows quiet, and when he speaks again, his voice is more subdued. The priest knows right how to get to him, past all the usual walls and bullshit he puts up to keep people out.]

It's what I was taught, you know. That our gods are better then any others, which in turn makes our people better.

[No prizes for guessing who had put those ideas into his head.]

[pietistic]

Ragnar would be trying to find out as much as he could about things, about people. He might support sacrifices, Ivar, but he had an ability to explore and try to understand other cultures. He was fascinated by them.

[ Athelstan: The Viking Whisperer. Except for Floki.

He rolls his eyes at the comment because it's very easy to hear Floki even in such a small comment. ]

Ragnar didn't believe that, Ivar. He never acted like your gods were better than mine or that mine was less real.

[ragnarsson]

I.....never knew that about him.

[The idea of Ragnar being that open-minded is an eye-opener to Ivar. They'd never really gotten to talk much about what they believed about other cultures, and in some ways, Ragnar had deliberately made sure he'd seen the absolute worst in the presence of Prince Aethelwulf and his soldiers.]

I didn't know you still believed in the Christian god.

[He's not nearly surprised or judgmental as he would have been when he'd first met Athelstan. He can see now why the man would be that open-minded.]

[pietistic]

I think there is a lot you do not know about Ragnar.

[ Athelstan is quiet a moment. ]

I never stopped believing in him. My agony has come from that I believe in Ragnar's gods as well.

[ragnarsson]

Tell me more about him. I knew him for so short a time.

[If there's one way to mellow Ivar out, it's telling him about his father or mother.]

You are a strange man. I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like you.

[Someone with kindness and strength, open-mindedness and tolerance, a balance between two very different cultures.]

[pietistic]

There is much to tell. Where would you like me to start, Ivar?

[ There is a lifetime between Athelstan and Ragnar to share after all. ]

You would usually kill someone like me too quickly to actually meet me.

[ragnarsson]

Tell me of what he was like before he gained his fame as Earl and King. What was he like when he was still a simple farmer.

[Ivar liked that his father had started from humble origins. Look at what great heights he had soared to. If it had been true for Ragnar, Ivar had come to believe it could be true for himself as well. He'd been proven right.

That actually gets a snicker out of the Viking.]

This is true. But somehow you slipped through the cracks.

[pietistic]

[ There was a soft laugh and when Athelstan spoke there is certainly a smile in his voice. He was certain that both he and Ragnar both have longed to go back to those simple days. That really had been the truest home. ]

I have a way of slipping through the cracks of many.

[ athelstan sighs. ]

Your father worked hard but he was always a bit ambitious but the ambition wasn’t a lust for power but knowledge. We would talk for hours about my travels, the places, the people — not just the treasure. He’d wanted to know about my faith.

[ in those early days so much of that had been used then against other Christians but the curiosity had been real. ]

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar listens. It's different hearing about him from Athelstan then from anyone else. He'd been built up to the status of a legendary hero by the time he died, though Ivar always knew he was more then just his fame. It reminds him that his father, for all his exploits, was still a mortal man who was fallible.]

I never knew that about him. His curiosity, his thirst for knowledge.

[In a way, it made him very similar to his son. Ivar, despite being more closed-minded, did have a thirst for finding out more about the world around him. His desire was always to be smart enough to be one step ahead of everyone else.]

[pietistic]

It’s strange that you wouldn’t have seen any of that from him when it was very much at the heart of the man I know.

[ Athelstan sighs. He really can’t imagine what had happened to make Ragnar stray so badly from who he had been. He had been a good father. A good man but the stories Ivar told him were disheartening at best. ]

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar sighs, and there's something sad in his too-blue eyes, the fierce light that haunts them dimming slightly.]

Something had broken him long before he returned to Kattegat. I don't know when it happened, maybe it was in the second raid to Paris, or even before that. But he had lost his taste for life by the time he wanted to return to England with me.

[pietistic]

[ There's a long stretch of silence. Athelstan knew that Ragnar had lost so much. Gyda, Lagertha. Whether he would admit it or not Rollo had always hurt him too. He sighs. ]

I just can't imagine it. We went through many hardships together and he never seemed like someone who could break.

[ragnarsson]

Many thought the same thing. He always seemed so invincible, but at the heart of it all, he was always just a man, fallible as any other.

[He doesn't say this disparagingly for Ivar was thankful to see his father on the same level as everyone else. It gave him hope that he too would be able to rise up from what he had been initially fated to be.]

[pietistic]

I always knew he was fallible.

[ Athelstan laughs softly but there's still a sadness to it. ]

[ragnarsson]

Bjorn always told me people expected too much of him. You seem to be one of the few who saw him as he was.

[He cocks his head.]

You seem to do that with me too.