Vikings creator talks killing Ragnar, why he ended the show with season 6

Vikings creator Michael Hirst traces his show from its humble beginnings to its momentous end, remembering the risks taken along the way.

The sixth and final season of Vikings is now available in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video, with episodes also dropping one at a time on History. The series has gained a huge following over the years, and now that it’s over, Collider talked to creator Michael Hirst about where it’s been and how it got here, starting right at the beginning.

“Most shows are canceled after the first season,” Hirst said of the series’ early days. “I was thrilled that MGM and then History had picked it up for starters. I had a sort of big menu in my own mind about what I want to do. A lot of that was to do with overturning a lot of cliches about Viking life and about the Vikings generally…I was aware that audience figures were growing exponentially and that it was working. But I was still kind… I was pretty superstitious about how far I could go.”

"I loved season one. I loved the introduction of the characters and the world. I did a lot of stuff that I wanted to do about putting in the Viking society, and Viking values, and trying not to be preachy about that, or educational. But to show that, to dramatize their way of thinking. And getting the first season, like the pilot episode, they’re really difficult to write, because you’re setting things up. You didn’t want it to go too far, but on the other hand you want to establish the characters."

The show grew in popularity year over year, which made when Hirst did next especially surprising: he killed the main character, Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel), in its fourth season. It was a bold move, but something Hirst had always planned. “[W]hen I finally announced to everyone that this was the season I was going to kill Ragnar I got a lot of warning, certainly from the Americans, that was a dangerous thing to do,” he remembered. “And that most shows, who lose their lead character, don’t continue successfully.”

I can think of at least one show — Game of Thrones — that seemed to only get more popular whenever it killed a major character, but Hirst wasn’t tapped in to any of that. “I have tried deliberately to avoid watching too much drama on TV, because I don’t want to be affected by it,” he said. “I never watched Game of Thrones for example, because I never wanted anyone to say, ‘You borrowed that from Game of Thrones. or ‘That’s like Game of Thrones.’ So I didn’t want to be effected by it. Not that it was similar, because it was a fantasy show. But still, you know what I mean? These things can come into your head when you don’t expect them to come into your head.”

That brings us up to the final season, which is Hirst’s favorite. “[I]t’s the closest one to me and I went through so many powerful, emotional experiences while we were making it,” he said. “So it indelibly printed on my mind.” And it sounds like he got to make the ending he always intended, and none too soon:

"I knew that the ending would be the discovery of America, and Newfoundland. And that was what I always planned. I have to say realistically that having spent every day, and sometimes some of the night, for seven years writing, and thinking, and living this show that I needed to conclude it. I needed to end the saga. But more importantly, I needed to wrap it up. I needed to conclude these last storylines in ways that would be satisfactory and satisfying to an audience. I didn’t want to cheat anyone. I didn’t want to cheat the actors, the characters, or the audience. The big challenge to conclude all the various storyline with justice, satisfactorily and emotionally satisfactorily, which involved me having to kill off some of my most beloved characters. So it was a very, very emotional experience writing these last 10 episodes."

Unlike a lot of shows, Vikings didn’t have a writers’ room — every single episode was written by Hirst. It’s impressive, but it also took a toll, particular after the series went from running 10 episodes a season to 20. Hirst’s wife noticed that it was wearing on him.

"She said, “It’s kind of killing you. I can see that. I know it gives you enormous joy. But it’s your full time life. This show is your life.” Which it was. And my wife was pointing out that it was very selfish of me to do that. So I knew that the sixth season would be the last, but I still had to end it properly. I still had to dig in, I suppose at whatever cost, and finish it as I wanted it finished. As I say, I had huge support from MGM and History."

We think it worked out pretty well.

So Hirst is out of the Vikings game, but there is a sequel series — Vikings: Valhalla — coming to Netflix later this year. Skol!

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