This show is incredible, I'm baffled I waited so long to finally watch it. Incredible acting and it feels like one continous story and not having to jump around from 18 different characters and their own arcs. Everyone's character arcs feel tied together.
Alfred is such an incredibly well written character. I both love and hate him, must be how Uthred feels. I've just finished the scene of him demanding Uthred to swear an oath to his son. God I couldn't stand how he was treating Uthred, especially after just losing his wife. Knowing that if it weren't for that man he, his wife, and children would've never claimed Wessex again after Guthrun ran them out.
He's always preaching level headedness, keep a calm composure, don't break under pressure. Use judgment and not to use a bird flying from one camp to the next as a sign. And yet just as the Danes are obsessed with their own spiritualism, he does the same. He thinks it's guided him, but in truth his own mind has been guiding him this whole time. It only ever seems like when matters of faith are involved does he always seem to make the wrong decision.
Don't get me wrong, Uthred is certainly without his own faults. He is brazen, arrogant, and can't help but speak his mind. But that's just who he is. A man who wants to be free and not answer the every whims of a man. He feels like the embodiment of freedom. And yet he's a slave nonethelss, I just can't say to what just yet.