A theory on the identity of the traitor who tried to kill Ragnar.
Analysis and theoriesBy Leif Andersen (Leichtfuss) with valuable contributions by Jofroi De Troyes and Wolfram von EschenbachAfter many discussions, we came to the conclusion that there can only be one traitor. It makes no sense, otherwise, for Ragnar to trust both Gerhild and Lork equally. Only one of them has betrayed him.
The starting point is an assumption: As we know from Assassin’s Creed, memory blocks can be broken by reliving the memories of your ancestors (see Desmond in AC1 and Ezio in AC2). For whatever reason, it has to be the case that Ragnar must relive the memories of his two known ancestors: Gerhild and Lork.
The next question is: After who does Ragnar have to relive his memories? Is it just after Galdra or is there more to it?
The quest text in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla suggests, when you ask Gerhild to go with you on your journey to the North, that Ragnar has to relive his memories after her. If she is the traitor, then he either must fail in breaking the memory block or relives them after her death (and therefore knows that it was Gerhild).
During your conversation with Lork (after freeing him from the cave), Ragnar asks his friend to join you on this journey. If he is telling the truth and has nothing to hide, then it would make no sense to ask his friend to come along if he already knows that he is the traitor.
Who are Lork and Gerhild?
Lork is a man who was born in the year of our Lord, 1284 (he mentions this in his dialogue). This makes Lork at least 43 years old.
Gerhild is around the same age as Ragnar (she says that they were together for a long time; you can agree with her or not). If she told Ragnar about their child and he left shortly after that, then she was already pregnant. Without knowing the date of the conception, it is impossible to determine the month of birth. It could have been any time between 1284 and 1300.
This raises two questions: Is Lork the father? Was he even born before 1284?
We can answer both questions with a “no”. There are three reasons for this.
Lork mentions that his father was a powerful man, who left his mother to move into the forest. If Lork is the child of this woman, then he would have been at least 43 years old in 1284. The reason I used the year 1284 is because it would be impossible for him to know about Galdra’s death before Ragnar did.
The brother of Gerhild is Lork’s father. This means that he is not the child of Gerhild and Ragnar, but her younger sibling. He would have been a lot older than 43 years in 1284. Evidence for this is his statement that he has been around for a long time (which matches the age of the
So, gerhild or lork – who is the traitor?
gerhild was the traitor. She has two reasons for doing this: revenge and anger because ragnar left her pregnant with their child.
Lork is innocent, because he could not have known about the death of Galdra before receiving Ragnar’s memories.
Gerhild’s brother is also innocent, as long as he has not told Lork about the death of Galdra.
So this leaves Gerhild as the only possible traitor, which is my working theory right now. There are some unanswered questions, though: Where is Ragnar’s son? Is he even born yet? Where does Gerhild come from and why would she help you to free Lork and then not tell Ragnar that she was the one who killed Galdra? Another question: If Lork is her brother, why doesn’t he recognise her as his sister? Maybe we will discover answers to some of those questions soon.
One source says that Lork died at age 59 while Gerhild died at age 60. But since both are very old at the time of Ragnar’s quest, it is possible that they might have died much earlier.
UPDATE : It seems that Lork was not actually Gerhild’s brother, but her husband. This makes it even more likely that he could not tell about Galdra’s death before Ragnar did.
According to this source , Lork was not the father of Gerhild’s child, but her brother. This makes it even more likely that Ragnar would have found out about Gerhild being the traitor before he received his memories back from Lork.
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