Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Vikings: Valhalla.
Netflix's Vikings: Valhalla has several things in common with Game of Thrones, including have a Red Wedding-style massacre in episode 1. A spinoff to History's Vikings, Valhalla takes plenty from its predecessor in terms of storytelling and action, while still ensuring it offers something unique for both that show's established fanbase and newcomers to this world alike. Vikings: Valhalla isn't just inspired by Vikings, though, but also is clearly influenced by Game of Thrones.
In a way, such comparisons are perhaps inevitable - as is true of any TV show that aims to offer up some epic historical action, true story or otherwise - but they're also intentional. Even after its controversial ending, Game of Thrones' huge success is something all networks and streaming services want to emulate, and Vikings: Valhalla is another attempt by Netflix to capture at least some of that audience.
To that end, Vikings: Valhalla begins with a sequence that feels very much indebted to Game of Thrones, at least in execution and intent if not a direct parallel. The moment in question is the St. Brice's Day Massacre, ordered by King Aethelred II, which sees the Vikings living in England betrayed by the ruler and mercilessly slaughtered. It may not be a wedding, and it may not be characters viewers have grown to love, but it's Vikings: Valhalla setting its stall out nonetheless: the betrayal in this form, and the way it's shot and how it plays out - men invited to feast in a hall, with the twist slowly revealed, the enclosed spaceoffering a palpable sense of tension and a feeling that something's not right, and the arrows flying down from on high, and a last stand hero whose body is punctured with multiple arrows - very much evoke Game of Thrones' Red Wedding.
The St. Brice's Day Massacre in Vikings: Valhalla is a shocking moment for those unfamiliar with the true story; even if not quite on the same scale as Game of Thrones' Red Wedding in terms of providing a surprise that will reverberate around the internet, it's a sequence that displays the Vikings spinoff will indeed be ruthless, shocking, and not afraid of a bloody murder or two (or dozens). In terms of the aim of Valhalla episode 1 to sell the show as a big, violent series that taps into the market left open by Game of Thrones' ending, then that is the scene in that first installment to really capture that tone and storytelling.
The comparisons to Game of Thrones are evident throughout Vikings: Valhalla season 1. Beyond the massacre, there's mention of a "trial by combat," something that, while not exclusive to Game of Thrones, inevitably conjures it up; later in the season, there's some timeline confusion that, again, feels like what happened with Game of Thrones' later seasons, albeit that's a less deliberate homage. Vikings: Valhalla isn't just a Game of Thrones copycat, nor does it simply rest on the laurels of its parent show - it does strike out on its own and tells its own compelling story with new characters - but the similarities nonetheless help establish its aims as yet another show looking to claim its crown.