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solovyov posted:First of all, I love that you're spelling it Earl and Cnute, because it summons the image of the thread getting all Derry/Londonderry angry about names. I only went with Jarl because that's what the people who seemed familiar with the era used and I went with Knute because ~ I don't remember enough linguistics to explain why it would be "K" not "C" but darnit it would be ~ and now I've checked imdb and apparently it's Earl and Knut. Not that any of that matters beyond recording my amusement. Man, any viking spelling it with a K instead of a C is just a pansy. Real men spell it with a C and rule the North Sea. Guess that's why Knut died in an Angle hovel. But really any close approximation of names in this show seems good enough for me. Jarl and Earl are essentially the same thing anyway, though I do wish they'd gone with Jarl. Old English and Old Norse seem to both be in the same mold of standardized spelling being for wusses.
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Apr 3, 2013 02:19
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I believe this the most historically correct thing ever shown on History Channel. There is some irony in the fact that fiction is the only way they can portray history accurately. There are loads of throwaway lines that can be taken for pointless conversation, but are actually quite well researched. Funnily enough most of them come from the zany comic relief character, Floki. Like when talks about trees and how he splits the logs instead of sawing them. This is how longships were made, it makes the keel flexible and less prone to break in rough seas. Also he shouts something about how the ship flies through the water when they are taking her out for a test run in the fjord. IIRC the viking way of overlapping the planks traps air bubbles against the hull, thus reducing friction and making the ship quite a lot faster. The same goes for the blackened teeth of the Swedish Viking slob king. This is what gave Harald Bluetooth his name (black and blue were the same thing back then, the Viking name for Africa was "Blueland"). Danish and Swedish vikings filed and painted or engraved their teeth black. Harald is the king that gave his name to the somewhat more recent bluetooth technology, which is why the symbol is a runic "B". Bonus Swedish cultural information: This is the director of the first three episodes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5iugfTiIk He also directed a few episodes of Breaking bad. Gyges posted:Man, any viking spelling it with a K instead of a C is just a pansy. Real men spell it with a C and rule the North Sea. Guess that's why Knut died in an Angle hovel. Real men do not have two letters for the same sound. Anyone choosing the round, weak and feminine "C", and then compounding the damage by adding an unnecessary and silent "e" at the end has clearly never hewn a runestone detailing his heroic exploits. Nor will he ever need to. The letter "C" is an abomination unto the gods and did not exist in the good old days. (Also, nitpicking here: Jarl is a title, not a name)
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Apr 3, 2013 02:57
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Gyges posted:But really any close approximation of names in this show seems good enough for me. Jarl and Earl are essentially the same thing anyway, though I do wish they'd gone with Jarl. Old English and Old Norse seem to both be in the same mold of standardized spelling being for wusses. The Old English form is 'eorl' and had a very similar pronunciation to Norse 'jarl', neither of which start with the comically emphasized y sound that modern speakers sometimes give them. I think the show's pronunciation is actually not far off, although it should maybe sound a bit more like arl. Old English, Old High German, and Old Norse were closely related and not far removed from proto-Germanic.
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Apr 3, 2013 03:02
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OK well I don't really care much about Eorl, Jarl or Earl so which one should I be using?
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Apr 3, 2013 03:31
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Kampfbereit posted:Real men do not have two letters for the same sound. Anyone choosing the round, weak and feminine "C", and then compounding the damage by adding an unnecessary and silent "e" at the end has clearly never hewn a runestone detailing his heroic exploits. Nor will he ever need to. The letter "C" is an abomination unto the gods and did not exist in the good old days. While I strongly agree with your disparagement of the letter "C," I must point out that the thread has been quite conscientious about writing "the Earl" or "the Jarl." Your quoted portion is referring to the word itself, not the person, so it makes sense to leave out the article.
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Apr 3, 2013 03:37
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Gyges posted:Man, any viking spelling it with a K instead of a C is just a pansy. Real men spell it with a C and rule the North Sea. Guess that's why Knut died in an Angle hovel. I 
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Apr 3, 2013 03:53
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Kampfbereit posted:The same goes for the blackened teeth of the Swedish Viking slob king. This is what gave Harald Bluetooth his name (black and blue were the same thing back then, the Viking name for Africa was "Blueland"). Danish and Swedish vikings filed and painted or engraved their teeth black. Harald is the king that gave his name to the somewhat more recent bluetooth technology, which is why the symbol is a runic "B". What a goddamned practical fad! 99% of people were going to end up with gross teeth anyways.. Might as well make it so cool that it's considered handsome/sexy, and disguise any actual rotten teeth! My respect for the foresight and awesomeness of the Vikings only grows and grows.
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Apr 3, 2013 04:21
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Kung Food posted:I think he's doing it for his raiding party. They might be thinking to themselves, "Why are we pillaging our own people? Oh, the boss says he is a criminal and deserves to die? Good enough for me." He needs some reason to get the lads to go along with it, even if the reason is a lie. Of course they may ask his to release them from their oaths if they really want to - and he may give them their freedom if he chooses so. Or not. A 8th century ruler did not need to be loved - there was no "public opinion" back then. Being feared was considered a valid (and common) style of ruling.
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Apr 3, 2013 08:33
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DoggPickle posted:What a goddamned practical fad! 99% of people were going to end up with gross teeth anyways.. Might as well make it so cool that it's considered handsome/sexy, and disguise any actual rotten teeth! My respect for the foresight and awesomeness of the Vikings only grows and grows. So long as you had steady and balanced meals, teeth are actually pretty durable on a medieval diet. The poorest peasants had all sorts of teeth problems but anyone of means was relatively okay. As soon as sugar became a commodity, teeth started to rot like crazy though, first in the nobility who could afford it and later in masses when it became common. I think it was only in the 18th and 19th centuries where nearly everyone had horrible, rotting teeth.
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Apr 3, 2013 08:45
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thrakkorzog posted:If the Jarl was just a side character I wouldn't care, but the show has set him up as a central antagonist without any real motivation, beyond he's just kind of crazy paranoid rear end in a top hat. The last two episodes of the show have been focused on the Jarl vs. Ragnar conflict, and it looks like the next episode will be as well. Last episode, the Jarl tried to frame Ragnar for murder, since even the Jarl has to obey political reality. Only to turn around and have the Jarl just go, "gently caress it, let's just straight up kill them." That's some horribly inconsistent writing. Actually poo poo like that happens in the icelandic sagas, so it's pretty consistent.
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Apr 3, 2013 13:07
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I've been thinking, remember back in the first episode when Ragnar and Bjorn go to the Thing? The guy that was sentenced to death for murder got to pick his own execution style, right? Then Earl Haraldson cursed him so he couldn't get into Valhalla. Remember when Ragnar told Bjorn that the Earl shouldn't have done that, but that is how things were done now? I think that's when we should have gotten the hint that Haraldson was going to do whatever he wants as long as he's in a position to do so. All of the people at the Thing were fine with the guy choosing beheading and Ragnar explained that he did so because he wanted an honorable death. I feel like it's safe to assume that not everyone would have voted to kill him if they knew that Haraldson was going to do that. edit: I feel like it's also safe to say that this is a newer behavior from the Earl, and maybe his sons were killed recent to the start of the series. Mambo No. 5 fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Apr 3, 2013 |
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Apr 3, 2013 20:39
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I'm sure this has been poured over itt already, but I'm just catching up to the show. I found it a little funny how anti-rape most characters were in that one episode. YES, I DO realize how touchy it is, and I'm not being goony, I know that if they weren't like that it would make the main characters extremely repulsive, but it seems that it was dealt with in the most ham fisted manner. There's one bad apple Viking who does the raping while others handle the pillaging, get rid of him and everything's hunky dory. Let's pretend bad things like that don't happen. (Please don't buy me a big red title, I'm just complaining about a poorly written segment in an otherwise decent show)
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Apr 3, 2013 21:06
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Tumbleweed Chingada posted:I've been thinking, remember back in the first episode when Ragnar and Bjorn go to the Thing? The guy that was sentenced to death for murder got to pick his own execution style, right? Then Earl Haraldson cursed him so he couldn't get into Valhalla. Remember when Ragnar told Bjorn that the Earl shouldn't have done that, but that is how things were done now? I think that's when we should have gotten the hint that Haraldson was going to do whatever he wants as long as he's in a position to do so. All of the people at the Thing were fine with the guy choosing beheading and Ragnar explained that he did so because he wanted an honorable death. I feel like it's safe to assume that not everyone would have voted to kill him if they knew that Haraldson was going to do that. I think the accused guy also claimed that the Jarl had always wanted the victims farm.
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Apr 3, 2013 21:28
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Cowcatcher posted:I'm sure this has been poured over itt already, but I'm just catching up to the show. I found it a little funny how anti-rape most characters were in that one episode. YES, I DO realize how touchy it is, and I'm not being goony, I know that if they weren't like that it would make the main characters extremely repulsive, but it seems that it was dealt with in the most ham fisted manner. There's one bad apple Viking who does the raping while others handle the pillaging, get rid of him and everything's hunky dory. Let's pretend bad things like that don't happen. I'm pretty sure that was because he was being accused of trying to rape a free woman, Lagertha. The laws apply to and protect her, which is why it's seen as a crime. We've also seen Rollo rape a slave girl without any repercussions at all, so it's obviously a question of them only caring when it's a free citizen who's being harmed. I think the monk brought that up in episode 5 when he talked about how slaves are treated as property in the viking society. There was probably a lot of rape going on during the attack on the English town, but I'm glad they didn't show it.
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Apr 3, 2013 22:25
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Cowcatcher posted:I'm sure this has been poured over itt already, but I'm just catching up to the show. I found it a little funny how anti-rape most characters were in that one episode. YES, I DO realize how touchy it is, and I'm not being goony, I know that if they weren't like that it would make the main characters extremely repulsive, but it seems that it was dealt with in the most ham fisted manner. There's one bad apple Viking who does the raping while others handle the pillaging, get rid of him and everything's hunky dory. Let's pretend bad things like that don't happen. No, the characters were anti him raping a free Norse woman. Lagertha was the only one who really had a problem with Knut raping the Angle woman, which might even have had more to do with Ragnar more or less telling everyone that anyone who didn't resist wasn't going to be harmed. Rollo raped one of Floki's slaves and the priest, whose name I can never remember, had a conversation with Ragnar about how captives got raped all the time.
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Apr 3, 2013 22:29
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In the pilot, Lagertha also implied that Ragnar casually rapes a lot of women on his raids. Guys, frankly I am having a hard time with the complaint that there is a lack of rape in the show or that their treatment of the rapes thus far is inaccurate enough to warrant extensive discussion. I mean, I'm not remotely a historian, but there are surely more egregious errors in the show than too few instances of rape and too few demonstrations of Viking pro-rape culture. Or I could be entirely wrong and rape really is the shows biggest historical flaw. Certainly, the high standards of the Pawn Stars Ax Men channel would never permit historical inaccuracies.
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Apr 3, 2013 22:48
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Cowcatcher posted:I'm sure this has been poured over itt already, but I'm just catching up to the show. I found it a little funny how anti-rape most characters were in that one episode. YES, I DO realize how touchy it is, and I'm not being goony, I know that if they weren't like that it would make the main characters extremely repulsive, but it seems that it was dealt with in the most ham fisted manner. There's one bad apple Viking who does the raping while others handle the pillaging, get rid of him and everything's hunky dory. Let's pretend bad things like that don't happen. I didn't think it was too unreasonable. It made sense for Lagertha, out of her own personal sense of empathy or even just a focus on the mission objective, to break up Knut's rape antics. And it seems reasonable for the rest of the community to hold that you don't rape your neighbors' and/or raid leaders' wives.
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Apr 3, 2013 23:00
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My complaint was that they were trying to whitewash the vikings raping as "just the bad ones do it", but yeah I forgot about the slave woman getting raped
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Apr 4, 2013 01:48
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Just finished up to episode 4. Floki is a hilarious character. Episode 1 he is talking to trees Episode 2/3 he is talking to gods on the boat. Episode 4 he is tasting holy wine, spitting it out and the christians freak out. And also episode 5: "Don't wiggle your maggot in her face, she doesn't like that." Shade2142 fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Apr 4, 2013 |
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Apr 4, 2013 01:48
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Shade2142 posted:Just finished up to episode 4. Episode 5 has even more Floki goodness, finding him pimpin' in the woods.
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Apr 4, 2013 01:56
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The thing I find interesting about Floki is that while he takes every opportunity to mock and antagonize every Christian he encounters, he's actually a pretty loyal dude towards his norse buddies.
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Apr 4, 2013 02:30
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Flippycunt posted:The thing I find interesting about Floki is that while he takes every opportunity to mock and antagonize every Christian he encounters, he's actually a pretty loyal dude towards his norse buddies. Also is really handy in everything from medical care to building a whole boat, plus has a love shack hut in the woods.
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Apr 4, 2013 02:31
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etalian posted:Also is really handy in everything from medical care to building a whole boat, plus has a love shack hut in the woods. A love shack hut shaped like a boat jutting out of the ground. The trees also talk to him so he knows which trees are good for making boats. Really, what's the point of the blind dude with a penchant for black lipstick anyway when Floki lives so awesomely on the edge of town?
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Apr 4, 2013 02:48
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I don't blame Floki everyone who's ever been dragged off to church knows communion wine is horrible.
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Apr 4, 2013 02:51
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etalian posted:I don't blame Floki everyone who's ever been dragged off to church knows communion wine is horrible. If anyone's curious take the cheapest red wine you can find and water it down.
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Apr 4, 2013 02:59
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I'm now considering a lot of possibly pointless questions, like would it be that uncommon to water down wine or other alcohols in that period? Since that's pretty much all anyone drank, it would make sense to avoid constant drunkenness by watering down the non-fancy, non-celebration booze. And would Vikings even be that familiar with wine to begin with? I'm sure Scandinavia produces wines and raiders at the time would not be a stranger to the drink, but I don't associate the region with a long history of vineyards like more southern climates. Re: portrayal of rape -- I'm fine with they way they've decided to go in the show thus far. It's a tricky situation, because sexual violence needs to be at least acknowledged in a show about Viking culture, but because this is fiction, the writing also needs to support a successful narrative which involves decisions about how the protagonists are portrayed and what is condoned by the writers, as well as considerations of good taste and decency. Working around that involves choosing the lesser of two evils/inaccuracies, which I think has been handed as well as could be. And, for the sake of humanity, I'd like to perhaps naively believe that not all men would indulge in rape and killing for pleasure even in a society that gives it a green light. Crisco Kid fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Apr 4, 2013 |
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Apr 4, 2013 03:06
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Crisco Kid posted:I'm now considering a lot of possibly pointless questions, like would it be that uncommon to water down wine or other alcohols in that period? Since that's pretty much all anyone drank, it would make sense to avoid constant drunkenness by watering down the non-fancy, non-celebration booze. And would Vikings even be that familiar with wine to begin with? I'm sure Scandinavia produces wines and raiders at the time would not be a stranger to the drink, but I don't associate the region with a long history of vineyards like more southern climates. The brewing process and winemaking process weren't as controlled as they are now so alcohol content could vary wildly. Safe water sources weren't easy to come by and the act of producing alcohol acts to sanitize the drinks. Wine was considered food in the south and a luxury item in the north where grapes didn't grow.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:13
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Crisco Kid posted:Re: portrayal of rape -- I'm fine with they way they've decided to go in the show thus far. It's a tricky situation, because sexual violence needs to be at least acknowledged in a show about Viking culture, but because this is fiction, the writing also needs to support a successful narrative which involves decisions about how the protagonists are portrayed and what is condoned by the writers, as well as considerations of good taste and decency. Working around that involves choosing the lesser of two evils/inaccuracies, which I think has been handed as well as could be. And, for the sake of humanity, I'd like to perhaps naively believe that not all men would indulge in rape and killing for pleasure even in a society that gives it a green light. Vikings were no more nor less prone to rape than any other army or armed raiders throughout the vast majority of human history pretty much up to the modern era. Rape was just an unfortunate fact of life for the victims of warfare. I mean, Genghis Khan is estimated to be the ancestor of 8% of the population of Asia, for instance. The Vikings mainly suffer from bad PR for being among the last Europeans to convert to Christianity and being illiterate and thus having their history written by their victims.
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Apr 4, 2013 06:32
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Yeah, I just yesterday listened a radio podcast where a Finnish historian said that in ww2 Red army soldiers raped ALL the women in some East-Prussian towns and villages. There is sadly something about war and raiding that breaks normal moral boundaries(e.g. do not kill or rape a fellow human being). Maybe I am wrong but I don't think what people as individuals consider right or wrong have changed that much during our history here on this gay earth.
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Apr 4, 2013 08:20
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Crisco Kid posted:I'm now considering a lot of possibly pointless questions, like would it be that uncommon to water down wine or other alcohols in that period? Since that's pretty much all anyone drank, it would make sense to avoid constant drunkenness by watering down the non-fancy, non-celebration booze. And would Vikings even be that familiar with wine to begin with? I'm sure Scandinavia produces wines and raiders at the time would not be a stranger to the drink, but I don't associate the region with a long history of vineyards like more southern climates. Watering down wine was common and wine was not as strong as today generally. The Vikings would be somewhat familiar with wine if they as here is suppossed to hail from Denmark. There would be some direct contact with the german kingdom to the south, where wine would be produced and could reach Denmark from. grave finds from early to late roman iron age in Denmark and early viking age finds at least show that the items used for wine drinking cups along with sieves/strainers used to filter wines are found in the richer graves. Though most likely these cups was also used for mead. Beer, at least the type used for daily consumption, had an alcohol percentage around 1-2% and the same was probably the case for mead, though its harder to judge here, since we don't have written recipes from the periode. The vikings wasn't illiterate though and they did leave some simple written records. what little record we have written in runes though, mainly concerns ownership of items, names and a few shortly written accounts regarding achivements through life.
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Apr 4, 2013 11:27
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This show is better than 90% of crap on TV and i don't pay to watch it, so it any minor faults it has i can and do overlook. Life's too short for nitpicking
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Apr 4, 2013 11:54
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I just want to say that I am thankful that the show doesn't go all-out with the gore, rape, and sexuality. Even though it obviously has to be part of the show, there's no need to go too far with the portrayal to still make the point. I really appreciate that I finally have a show of my liking that I can share with friends and family who are mature adults, but who would still not appreciate the content of Spartacus and Thrones, as great as they may be.
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Apr 4, 2013 14:31
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Pioneer42 posted:I just want to say that I am thankful that the show doesn't go all-out with the gore, rape, and sexuality. Even though it obviously has to be part of the show, there's no need to go too far with the portrayal to still make the point. I really appreciate that I finally have a show of my liking that I can share with friends and family who are mature adults, but who would still not appreciate the content of Spartacus and Thrones, as great as they may be. It's still pretty gruesome overall plus already had one brutal rape scene in the village raid episode.
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Apr 4, 2013 14:42
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But it's still not nearly as explicit as the typical premium cable channel show.
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Apr 4, 2013 14:45
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Family Values posted:Vikings were no more nor less prone to rape than any other army or armed raiders throughout the vast majority of human history pretty much up to the modern era. Rape was just an unfortunate fact of life for the victims of warfare. I mean, Genghis Khan is estimated to be the ancestor of 8% of the population of Asia, for instance. THANK YOU. It is appalling to see how many people consider it an established historical fact that Vikings were rapey rapists, when the only historical accounts of Viking rape comes from people who were actively trying to demonize them, i.e the church. I'm sure there were plenty of rapes going on, but that has to be seen in the proper historical context. The same thing applies to Ibn Fadlans famous snotbucket story. Some historians argue that he exaggerrated it slightly, what he as a muslim was really appalled by was that they bathed/washed in buckets or tubs, whereas a muslim would only wash himself in running water. So, to a muslim, the Vikings were filthy creatures. To christians, they were sparkly gods of hygiene. Some of the christian demonizing of the Vikings may stem from the fact that they washed at least once a week, and were thus super metrosexual pretty boys to christian women. If memory serves, Danish Vikings took an English queen hostage ("pantfånge", or "pawn prisoner") while the king tried to drum up the funds necessary to buy the vikings off. Once he had scraped together enough silver and paid the Danes off, the queen said "yeah thanks, but imma gonna stay here I think" and remained with the Vikings. Evidence of the vikings cleanliness can still be seen in the language. All weekdays in English are the same as in Norse, with the exception of Saturday. In Norse, that day was called "Lögardag", which means "day of washing". For some reason, the conquered Englishmen were okay with having the weekdays named after the Aesir (Tyr, Woden, Thor, Frey), but they drew the line at naming something after that horrible habit of "bathing", so it retained its Roman name. When the English decided to purge Viking settlers from their lands, they attacked on Saturdays, as the Vikings would be in their tubs then. Much like Ragnar attacked on a Sunday to catch the christians unarmed in church. Vikings were not illiterate, they just chose their words carefully. This is practical when you have to cut every letter by hand into a slab of stone. There were two things to write on, stone slabs and wooden staves. Wooden staves were probably used for simple messages or news bulletins, and has since rotted away. Runestones were commissioned to commemorate epic journeys and the like, and typically carries a message like "This stone erected in memory of Ragnar. He was a cool guy. He went east and died. This stone was paid for by his friend Rollo."
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Apr 4, 2013 15:02
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Pioneer42 posted:But it's still not nearly as explicit as the typical premium cable channel show. Yeah, I appreciate that about this show. It's not completely over-the-top fight scenes, i.e. Spartacus - where smacking a dude in the back of the neck with the shaft of a spear will send a gallon of blood flying. Kampfbereit posted:Evidence of the vikings cleanliness can still be seen in the language. All weekdays in English are the same as in Norse, with the exception of Saturday. In Norse, that day was called "Lögardag", which means "day of washing". For some reason, the conquered Englishmen were okay with having the weekdays named after the Aesir (Tyr, Woden, Thor, Frey), but they drew the line at naming something after that horrible habit of "bathing", so it retained its Roman name. Englishmen should know better than to trust a Frey 
Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Apr 4, 2013 |
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Apr 4, 2013 15:27
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Yeah, I appreciate that about this show. It's not completely over-the-top fight scenes, i.e. Spartacus - where smacking a dude in the back of the neck with the shaft of a spear will send a gallon of blood flying. It's over the top and awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_CGoGGCMaI
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Apr 4, 2013 15:31
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etalian posted:It's over the top and awesome: I never said it wasn't awesome. I just appreciate the more realistic tone of Vikings.
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Apr 4, 2013 15:32
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I do enjoy you history buffs talking about the show. You know, it does present an opportunity. Back when Rome aired on HBO, a few historians would post commentary about each episode right after they aired: what the show got right, what was wrong, and a bunch of interesting tidbits to help novices fill the gaps. I, Claudius, similarly, has been used for decades in Classics courses. I would welcome any efforts by you historians to break down the episodes as they air and use the plots as jumping-off points to give us a bit of relevant, real, Viking knowledge. It is the History channel, after all. I'm kinda surprised the channel has jack poo poo on their website to help people learn more. Wait, no I'm not surprised at all.
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Apr 4, 2013 15:33
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:I never said it wasn't awesome. I just appreciate the more realistic tone of Vikings. In the world of Spartacus the human body contains 200 gallons of blood.
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Apr 4, 2013 15:35
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