Sigurd is rescued and he is not the same. The mythology has entered him and he is having difficulty distinguishing it from himself. Eivor watches her brother become something she cannot follow and has to decide whether to hold on or let go.

The Valhalla simulation arrives as a test of exactly this. Endless battle, endless glory, the Viking afterlife as a machine for producing meaning that no longer requires anything real. Eivor sees it for what it is. She has endured enough of the actual thing to recognize the copy.