Hot take, I wish the Siege of Paris dlc for Valhalla was longer, and I wish it had more scenes with Odo and Eivor on screen together. That conversation they had in the church right before fighting was fascinating to me, they could've done so much with the fact that they're technically foils of each other (both have a sense of honor that can be unrelenting and sometimes unreasonable).
Whenever they talked, I was sat, and I wish this dynamic of "enemies who respect each other" that turned into an unusual, even if somewhat fragile, alliance got more screentime and attention.
"This heathen knows more about honor than my king."
Was such a fire line, and it actually stuck with me. I wish they explored this weird little relationship more.
But then again, I also wish Sigurd could have been included in this dlc as well, even if just to have the Sigurd & Eivor vs Sigfred & Sinric reflection showed more clearly. Eivor could've easily turned into Sigfred after her parents died if not for the fact that she had some sort of support network in her brother and her clan, or if Fulke actually killed Sigurd instead of just maiming him, since we see how she acts when she knows Fulke took Sigurd's arm and is actively torturing him. It's fairly easy to deduce what she would do if he was killed instead, and it would likely be a wrath similar to Sigfred's.
But since she had that support, and assuming the good ending with Sigurd is the canonical one, she can instead speak from that experience. She knows that killing Kjotve didn't really do anything. It ended a war and reclaimed her family's honor, but for her personally, it had to be a lesson in letting go before she could heal, which is why her leaving Norway behind was a good thing, even if being homesick would probably always be a part of it.
Eivor has that line while talking to Basim where she says "Without Sigurd I would've..." and doesn't finish. Well, I believe this would've been the result; lost, angry and never done with the bloodshed until it finally broke her.
But that's a whole another topic I might have something more to say about some other time.
Anyway, that is all I had for this particular word salad, carry on 🫡
