Vikings: 9 Most Shocking Moments So Far

4. The Blood Eagle

Jarl Borg's betrayal to Ragnar finally comes full circle.

In season 2, Ragnar eventually captures Jarl Borg and knows that he cannot be kept alive or he’ll have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. So, Ragnar sentences Borg to be executed via blood eagle - a chance for Jarl Borg to enter Valhalla should he not cry out in pain and yet one so brutal that it still turns the stomach.

For those of you that don’t know, a blood eagle is the ritual killing of someone by cutting open their back, breaking their rib cages one by one with an axe, spreading said rib cage open and draping the victim’s lungs over their shoulders to simulate wings. Yeah, imagine how we felt when we all saw it for the first time.

The shock of this moment didn’t just come from the way Jarl Borg was killed but also the fact that the Viking did not cry out in pain once. He might have betrayed Ragnar, but he proved that he was still worthy of entering Valhalla.