Why didn't Ragnar say anything about king ecberts betrayal?
And why did he kill that farmer?
Bjorn explains it by saying that Ragnar's people would have killed him for his mistake.
Which I'm not sure is necessarily true. As his people rose up, invading England, and killing the kings responsible for his death.
They didn't form a mob to kill him when he returned either
"He was not just their king, he was the most famous man in their world"
I mean The mistake was pretty grievous, he led warriors to their deaths paying the price of obtaining land for farming, which was destroyed as soon as they left. Which means that this war they waged for king ecbert was for nothing.
I mean, if a politician did this, he'd be fucked. Because he's failed the people he's meant to represent. And we can easily get rid of them. Kings can be killed, usurped but can't really be forced to abdicate
And in any case Kings lead armies into wars, and lose wars all the time. It wouldn't make them popular, they'd lose support but unless things were dire already, There wouldn't be some kind of mutiny. Especially as we've seen how Ragnar has dealt with powerful enemies.
What it would have done is exasperated hatred towards the saxons, and above all Christianity, resulting in the death of both Athelstan, and the progress and change for his people, which Ragnar had always believed in.
People would doubt his leadership, but they would be more likely, as Floki did, to blame it on an "evil adviser".
Ragnar kills the farmer to prevent the information from getting out. But that information only would have obligated him to seek revenge, that would be it.
So why does he kill him. After floki blames Athelstan for what had happend, Ragnar looks at floki with rising horror "what about Athelstan" and emotionally defends him
To me this signals that he knew what would happen to him if it got out. And straight away kills the farmer. i doubt he was planning to do so before.
So now he is also responsible for covering up this atrocity, and murdering the surviving witness. Which is part of the reason why his people reject him when he returns.
So ultimately I think he killed the farmer because of Athelstan, and once hed done what hed done to protect him, he was in too deep and couldn't tell anybody.
