Snake

In his mid-thirties and of average build, Snake presents a plain, unremarkable exterior that conceals a veteran's edge. His face is oval, set with dark eyes and a straight nose, and his dark hair falls to a medium length that drapes over part of his brow. No scar or mark singles him out at a glance. For clothing he favors a long, belted tunic in muted mauve, pale grey trousers, and brown boots laced up the front.

At his core Snake is level-headed and humane, a man who reasons before he strikes. Through the troubles at the farm he shows sincere concern for the people around him, free laborers and slaves alike, and he repeatedly shields Thorfinn and others from cruelty using both argument and the threat of his blade. Yet he remains a creature of his era. He still regards the enslaved as lesser beings whose owners may do with them as they wish, and he shrugs at the sight of children thrashed for stealing food, even when hunger drove the theft.

He normally guards his emotions closely, but they break loose when Gardar butchers his men. Enraged at seeing his soldiers spent like disposable pieces, he waves off pleas from Sverkel and Thorfinn and refuses to view Gardar as anything more than a runaway slave, cutting him down to answer for the deaths. Snake hints at a deep bond with Ketil and Ketil's father yet deflects questions about it, dismissing the two as mere acquaintances. Above all he holds to a code of honor: knowing the tale Ketil clings to is a fabrication, he stands with the family anyway out of gratitude for the shelter they once gave him, and he rides out against Canute even understanding that no one can overcome the Jomsvikings.

Snake ranks among the deadliest fighters Thorfinn crosses on the farm. On meeting him, Thorfinn judges him the equal of Askeladd and better in certain respects, and when the two finally trade blows Thorfinn cannot even close the distance, rattled by an opponent faster than anyone he has faced. Snake fuses speed, raw power, and tactical sense into a seamless style: he rights himself mid-fall to counter in an instant, lands strikes with startling quickness, and hits hard enough to take a head off in a single stroke on the battlefield. He reads a fight as well as he wages one, handling reconnaissance for the farm's defense alongside Fox.

That polish traces back to his past. Though the manga stays quiet on it, the anime reveals he once served as a warrior of Miklagard, the Norse name for Constantinople, marking him as a former member of the Byzantine Varangian Guard, the emperor's elite corps of Norse and Rus bodyguards. His curved eastern saber is a relic of that service. Behind the alias Snake lies his real name, Roald, son of a man called Grim.