Hordaland

Hordaland is gentle, weary, compassionate, and deeply pessimistic about the possibility of escaping violence. Despite Gorm's abuse, she tells Thorfinn that she cannot imagine killing him or anyone else.

Her resignation comes from experience rather than passivity. Hordaland has already watched status, family, wealth, and freedom disappear after a military defeat, leaving her with little reason to believe that running somewhere else in Europe would produce a safer life.

She recognizes similarities between herself and Thorfinn before he is prepared to acknowledge them. Both are trapped by violent social systems, although Thorfinn insists that choosing to live among warriors makes him fundamentally different from a slave.

Hordaland has no established combat training or unusual physical abilities.

Her background as a member of a noble family suggests an upbringing very different from the enslaved domestic labor she performs for Gorm, but the manga gives little detail about her earlier education.

Her role is primarily thematic and interpersonal rather than martial.

Hordaland appears while Askeladd's band spends time at Gorm's settlement in Jutland. Gorm explains that her family once held noble status in the Norwegian region of Hordaland before losing a conflict and falling into ruin.

She later brings food to Thorfinn, who is brooding after another defeat by Askeladd.

Their conversation turns to slavery. Thorfinn insists that he would kill his master and escape if placed in her position; Hordaland replies that the world beyond Gorm's property is still filled with war and slavery.

Thorfinn then remembers Leif Ericson's stories and describes Vinland, a distant fertile land where he says there is no war or slavery.

Years later, Thorfinn remembers Hordaland while reconsidering his own participation in violence and slavery, giving their brief encounter greater significance in retrospect.

Gorm owns Hordaland and treats her harshly as household property.

Thorfinn speaks with Hordaland about slavery and tells her about Vinland, even though he is not yet willing to recognize how closely his own life is bound to violence.

Askeladd encounters Hordaland in Gorm's household and learns the origin of the regional name by which she is known.

Leif Ericson indirectly shapes Hordaland's conversation with Thorfinn because his stories provide Thorfinn with the idea of a distant place free from war and slavery.