Vikings is a very grim and realistic portrayal of the Crapsack World that was Northern Europe during The Viking Age, with all the gore that entails.
Warning: Spoilers will be unmarked.
- The raid on Lindisfarne in S1E2. The show does not pull any punches and shows the vikings murdering the defenseless monks in one bloody sequence. Only Ragnar, Erik and Leif abstain, with the later even looking ashamed.
- Horik, Erlendur and Floki torturing the bishop by using him for target practice, something appearently Ivar's and Ubbe's real life counterparts did to king Edmund the martyr.
- There is a moment in season 2 when we see two sheildmaidens laughing and drinking, while in the background one of their male comrades drags away a captive Saxon nun to be raped. The sheildmaidens completely ignores the woman's cries for help.
- The Blood Eagle, a horrific form of execution reserved for those who commit the most heinous crimes. When Ragnar is administering this punishment to jarl Borg, many of the battle-hardened Viking warriors, including Rollo and Thorstein, in attendance are clearly disturbed by it.
- Torstein's arm being amputated with a red-hot axe.
- What makes it even worse is that it does not work. The infection from his initial arrow wound has already spread and the blood loss arguably made it worse by weakening Torstein.
- Helga, Siggy and Aslaug's shared dreams become increasingly creepy throughout S3E2.
- Rollo eating shrooms and going berserk in the Viking camp. He walks over to a sleeping Mercian prisoner and hacks his leg to bits, then stumbles around the camp in a stupor.
- Rollo coming home from war to find that while he was gone Siggy drowned in an icy lake.
- Judith suffering the Biblical punishment for adultery: having her nose and ears cut off. In front of a jeering crowd. Though King Ecbert stops the mutilation after she loses an ear when she names Athelstan as the father. Her actress really carries the scene, positively howling in fear, pain, and anguish throughout the whole ordeal, and without turning it into Narm.
- Throughout "Breaking Point", Ragnar is suffering from internal bleeding after falling off the ramparts of Paris in the previous episode, and several times he vomits and urinates blood. His horrific fever dream of Odin, Jesus, and Athelstan doesn't make things any better.
- When Judith stabs an heavily pregnant Kwenthrith, she turns to Ecbert and accusingly tells him to look at what he'd made her become. The way it is filmed, the music in the background, and the actress' delivery make it pretty damn creepy at best.
- Ivar's sack of York has him pour molten lead in the mouth of the poor bishop and then has horses drag him through the streets of York. Then after the slaughter of the civilians is over, we see a baby sitting among the dead crying for his mother who we can assume has been killed.
- Kjetill and Frodi's murder and implied cannibalism of Eyvind's family is really horrific. Especially since we have been lead to believe they were the good guys.
