What happens at the end of Vikings? Ragnar's sons meet wildly different fates
Vikings spent six seasons turning the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok into the story of his sons — and the final run gave each of them an ending you'd never guess from the others.
Some sail into legend, one dies on a battlefield, another kneels for a baptism. If you want to know how it all lands for Bjorn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, Ivar and Sigurd, here's the full picture.
Spoilers from here on.
How Vikings ends
By the series finale, the throne of Kattegat doesn't go to a son of Ragnar at all — it passes to Bjorn's widow, Ingrid, who declares herself queen after King Harald is killed. Ragnar never wanted to be tied to Kattegat, and neither, in the end, do his boys. The story instead splits across two continents: Ubbe chasing Ragnar's dream of new land in the west, while Ivar and Hvitserk are dragged back to England for one last war with King Alfred of Wessex.
Ragnar's five sons, five fates
Each son carried a different piece of their father, and it shows in how they go out:
- Sigurd — Killed years earlier, in the season 4 finale. Ivar hurled an axe at him mid-argument and killed him on the spot — the first son to fall, and by his own brother's hand.
- Bjorn Ironside — Stabbed by Ivar and left for dead, Ragnar's firstborn rises one last time, pale and dying, to rally Norway against the invading Rus — then falls under a hail of arrows, a legend.
- Ivar the Boneless — In the final battle against Wessex, his brittle bones failing, Ivar accepts he was only ever human. He nods to a young Saxon soldier and lets the blade land, dying in Hvitserk's arms, a proud pagan bound for Valhalla.
- Hvitserk — Captured after Ivar's death, he converts to Christianity to save his life and is renamed Athelstan by King Alfred — ending his days as a Christian Saxon prince.
- Ubbe — The explorer. He crosses the Atlantic to the "Golden Land" (clearly North America), makes peace with a Native tribe, and finds the quiet life Ragnar always chased but never took.
The moment that ties it together
Hvitserk's new name is the show's quietest gut-punch. Athelstan was the Christian monk Ragnar loved above almost anyone, killed back in season 3 — so naming Hvitserk after him closes a loop drawn across the whole series. As Alfred tells him at his baptism, he'll:
"leave here as a Christian Saxon prince." — King Alfred, Vikings, 2020
Where does it all end?
On a far shore in the New World. Ubbe's search leads him to Floki — the boatbuilder long thought lost — sitting quietly by the sea. Floki looks at Ubbe and sees Ragnar in him. The theme swells, the waves roll in, and the show closes on Ragnar's son and Ragnar's best friend, two men of war who finally found peace.
For the record: Ivar's bloodline may outlive them all. Before leaving Kiev, he fathered a child with the Rus princess Katia — a Lothbrok heir the show never shows us.