Vikings: 10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know
7. Athelstan's Death Scene Was Michael Hirst's Hardest To Write
In season three we saw the Christian-priest-slash-confused-monk-slash-one-of-the-best-looking-on-set Athelstan (played by George Blagden) struggle to come to terms with his faith - torn between his fascination with the Pagans and his Christianity, Michael Hirst said that the character had to be freed from his spiritual crisis and when you think about it logically, would Athelstan have been able to live peacefully in a community of brutal Vikings who believe in Odin as their true god if he were a Christian? Of course not.
Athelstan ultimately recovers his faith, which obviously doesn't bode well with the Pagan society and Floki kills him after witnessing him throw a trinket that Ragnar gave him into a river.
Michael Hirst, the screenwriter of The Tudors and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, said that it was the hardest scene he had ever written, because Athelstan, Ragnar and Lagertha are "real people" to him and that being responsible for one of the characters' deaths was a terrible thing. "I miss him to pieces," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Not to say that we won't get glimpses of him in the future, I can't say, but I do miss him."