Canute begins as the timid, sheltered second son of Denmark’s King Sweyn Forkbeard, his long blond hair and delicate, feminine features often leading others to mistake him for a girl or celestial being. Raised under the protective wing of his devout Christian retainer Ragnar, he shuns warfare and political intrigue, favoring gentle pursuits like cooking—a practice his father derides as “slave work,” branding him weak. Dispatched to lead forces in London as part of Sweyn’s covert plan to dispose of him, Canute is captured by Thorkell the Tall before Askeladd’s mercenaries secure his rescue. Forced into harsh survival, he endures mockery from the battle-hardened Thorfinn and psychological prodding from Askeladd, who engineers Ragnar’s death to shatter his dependence. Grief-stricken yet galvanized, Canute sheds his fragility, cutting his hair, cultivating a beard, and embracing a steely resolve to build a “worldly paradise” through calculated ruthlessness. Crowning himself after Sweyn’s assassination, Canute poisons his brother Harald to seize the Danish throne, leveraging alliances and slaughtering dissenters to advance his utopian vision. Hallucinations of Sweyn taunt his methods, mirroring his inner conflict between noble aims and brutal execution. Years later, a pacifist Thorfinn confronts him, challenging his belief that peace demands violence. Temporarily relenting during a land dispute to avert bloodshed, Canute adopts sporadic restraint while expanding his dominion across Denmark, England, and Norway. Guided—and scarred—by relationships with Ragnar’s piety, Askeladd’s cunning, and Thorfinn’s idealism, Canute evolves from a cloistered prince into a ruler convinced that love requires conquest. His reign straddles reformation and tyranny, etching a legacy where moral compromise fuels grand ambition, forever torn between the paradise he envisions and the carnage he deems necessary to achieve it.