For four seasons on the History series Vikings, Travis Fimmel starred as Ragnar Lothbrok — father,
fearless warrior-king of Denmark, and the bane of England and France.
In exploits drawn from the Dark Age historical record, Lothbrok sacked and burned his way
across the North Sea until the end of Vikings season 4, when he was captured by Kings Ecbert
and Aelle, who were intent on punishing him at last for the death of Aelle's brother Aethelwulf
in the first season — and punish him they did.
It was a pretty metal way to go out, too: Lothbrok was thrown into a cage, permitted
to give a long, full-throated speech about his inevitable ascent to Valhalla, and then,
in an astonishingly cruel move, he was chucked into a pit of venomous snakes for all present
to witness.
It's not often that a television series will kill off its very popular central character,
so the departure from the norm — and the sheer brutality of Ragnar's death — came
as a shock to most fans of the show.
Why did it happen?
And was Fimmel as blindsided by the development as Vikings' audience was?
Unorthodox as it may have been for Vikings to do away with Lothbrok, history — actual
history, not the History network — has to muscle in and take the credit for this one.
Vikings is specifically a historical drama, with emphasis on the latter half of that equation.
The series draws its plotlines from the 13th century medieval sagas of Lothbrok, a myth
of a man who was purported to have lived and died several centuries before.
According to those traditional legends, around 866 CE, Lothbrok did indeed meet his end at
the hands of King Aelle and his cruel and creative snake pit.
As for Aelle, he died the following year in battle with the loathed Viking armies — although
probably not by the extremely brutal, also quite mythical method of the "blood eagle"
depicted in the show.
Lothbrok's exit, then, wasn't so much scripted as it was written into the historical record.
Fimmel's departure had always been intended, because the program wanted to reflect the
generational changes of Dark Ages royalty, so his character's demise came as no shock
to the actor.
In fact, he actually got to remain on the series for much longer than originally intended;
initially, the idea was to have him die in the first season as a more direct consequence
of killing Aethelwulf.
It's fortunate for us that the show's creatives decided to give Lothbrok a stay of execution.
If he had died in season one of Vikings, we wouldn't have seen him fake his death as a
Trojan Horse plot in France and pop out of a coffin, or been treated to the sight of
the mighty warrior using an unlucky priest for archery practice.
Really, it's a win for everybody that Ragnar got to stick around for so long before his
glorious death; the only loser here is historical accuracy, and it's not like History — the
network, we mean — ever much cared about that.
All this is to say, don't feel too bad for Fimmel; he may have lost a pretty sweet gig,
but he saw it coming, and has kept plenty busy since his exit from Vikings.
And it looks like he's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
In 2019 alone, he appeared in three feature films: the crime drama Finding Steve McQueen
opposite Forest Whitaker, the bounty hunting drama Dreamland opposite Margot Robbie, and
the Australian military actioner Danger Close.
The star has no fewer than three more features in various stages of production, as well.
He'll appear in the comedy El Tonto, which has wrapped shooting; he's currently hard
at work filming the amazingly-titled Die in a Gunfight for director Collin Schiffli, and
he's slated to star in the movie Tau Ceti Four for action veteran John McTiernan, the
director of Predator and Die Hard.
On top of that, he has starring gigs lined up in two TV series: producer Ridley Scott's
sci-fi drama Raised by Wolves, which will premiere on the upcoming HBO Max streaming
service, and a scripted anthology focusing on legendary lawman Wyatt Earp, whom he will
portray for a familiar network - the History channel.
All in all, not a bad slate of projects for a guy who was plucked from the obscurity of
an Australian pool hall to become one of the hottest models Calvin Klein has ever employed.
As for Vikings, the show has gone on without Fimmel - but that, too, will soon come to
an end.
History has announced that the series' sixth season, which begins airing in December 2019,
will be its last.
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