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Anybody with cable bored enough to be watching this?
They are akin to NASA astronauts or the pioneers of Silicon Valley — except they lived 1,300 years ago, and it was the high seas that demanded navigation, not outer space or the Internet.
The Vikings, who like those later explorers were driven by curiosity and armed with the latest innovations, also set out to conquer an uncharted world, the breadth and possibilities of which could not be entirely conceived.
Their struggles, both internal and external, are extravagantly brought to life in “Vikings,” the History channel’s ambitious nine-part drama series from Michael Hirst, creator of “The Tudors.” It has its premiere on March 3. Propelled by the tale of the legendary Norse adventurer Ragnar Lothbrok, his family and his band of followers, the lushly produced, effects-enhanced series dazzles with evocative scenery and dynamic displays of superherolike derring-do and physical stamina…
“They’re always the guys who break in through the door, slash up your house and rape and pillage for no good reason, except that they enjoy the violence,” he said. “I wanted to tell the story from the Vikings’ point of view, because their history was written by Christian monks, basically, whose job it was to exaggerate their violence.”
Not that brawn, brutality and blood don’t play a central role. Well-muscled bodies abound, and battles are frequent, vivid and skillfully choreographed. When the Vikings themselves aren’t being beheaded or gruesomely punished for running afoul of the local chieftain (Gabriel Byrne), Lothbrok (the Australian actor Travis Fimmel) and his men are leading savage slaughters on foreign villages and monasteries. Women in the cast (led by Katheryn Winnick as Lothbrok’s wife) can also handily wield their shields…
Comrade Mary
One incontrovertible fact I learned from visiting L’Anse aux Meadows: the Viking accent sounded a lot like the current Newfoundland accent. Really[1].
[1]Not really.
dr. bloor
Doesn’t sound any worse than 99.99% of the other offerings on the teevee.
Lee
I was planning on watching it out of curiosity.
Comrade Mary
Holy fucking shit, they’re using THAT as the soundtrack to the trailer? This tiny video will always mean THAT to me.
Also, too.
Edit: Changed link just in case YT blocks their version in the States.
bnut
God, I am so sick of that AWOLnation song. It’s used in like every single go-pro video.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Who spiked Fluffy’s hair care product, and with what, do you think?
You think Krugman can make an imperator curse?
Re-reading it now, I guess “ironclad” kinda takes the bite out of it, but considering the source, it’s still something.
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ThinkProgress did a good job debunking Boehner’s bullshit.
Yutsano
@bnut: My guess: cheap, available, and recognisable. IOW total crack for marketers.
Mornington Crescent
It’s time for some Mrs. Miller. I’m sure we all love “The Girl From Ipanema”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEPPbONFXYc
Heliopause
Spam, Spam, Spam Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam Spam, lovely Spam, wonderful Spam…
scav
Alternative Norway Photos, well worth a look although a bit lacking in narrative arc.
Suffern ACE
No. Thanks for the preview. I was going to watch, because I thought it was a documentary. I don’t need a dramatization on the history channel.
Alison
Opening weekend in MLS went well for me! And not-awful for my best friend. Yay!
Also too, got a random @ on Twitter (nothing gross or inappropriate, just a dumb joke in response to my response to a tweet from the local news station) from a dude going by @fleshgod2011 whose bio reads “Part time bodybuilder ,Full time Asshole..Love me some porn girls”. LOLOLOL ew.
Maude
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The news coverage of the sequester isn’t positive for the Republicans. It is talking about how if will effect people. That’s a good sign. Watch Reuters etc. over this next week and see what they cover as being screwed up by the cuts.
The Republicans own this one.
Edit, spell oops
techno
As someone with a great deal of Viking blood, I have been reading about the Vikings since I was a teenager. So I hear about this new series and cringe—especially since the History Channel isn’t always that interested in history.
All one must remember is that the Vikings and the denizens of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon’s Sons of Knut Lodge or the Lutheran Church are of the the same genetic stock. How the Vikings became Scandinavians is perhaps one of the more interesting cultural tales ever told.
jl
I read someplace that Vikings from what is now Denmark and the SW of Norway were the raiders who smashed up Western Europe. Vikings further east went down the Volga and played a big role, with migrating Slavic and Finnish peoples in founding first civilization in Russia. That true? Any history buffs here know?
Well, I looked at the article. I think for a solid history lesson, I will stick with Pawn Heroes or whatever it’s called. Have to make a short trip to my ancestral stomping grounds and the folks will have that on whenever it is running, unless Antique Roadshow is on.
Anne Laurie
@techno:
I have four Irish grandparents, including the one from Connemara with a Scots last name and the (closeted) Orange one. My Spousal Unit is of Norwegian descent (his mother was born there but her youngest sibling was not). We are both redheads (that’s purely Viking).
The “truth”, as we joke, is that the Vikings kidnapped enough Celtic women to Scandinavia to civilize you bastids… and left behind enough bastids to add a strong streak of berserker to the ‘Fighting Irish’ geneset.
(In conjuction, some centuries later, with the Orange invaders. Alan Coren pointed out that the Dutch only picked up their peaceful reputation after they shipped all their hotheads off to Ireland and South Africa!)
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
” SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: Oh yes there is. There’s mountains ”
Boehner didn’t say mountains of what. So, could be true.
The GOP lying BS and patent goalpost shifting is so obvious, and the history of Obama’s attempts at a (and IMHO shitty) grand bargain is so public and extensive, our failed corporate media may have to tip toe slightly out of their centrist fever swamp, for fear the audience will start laughing and turn them off.
Or, maybe not. Heard the gracious and courtly crazed old hick, apparently illiterate hick Schiefer today. Had the Bobsy Twins on yammering BS for ten minutes, then I think Levin on for five or so.
Then, as God is my witness, The Schief ended the short Dem segment with a question on Woodward, and then segued that into effing ol’ self serving fabulist liar Woodward hisself. I almost spit out my coffee laughing and turned it off. Sad and funny.
Redshirt
@techno: Tell it. I have little idea how the Scandinavians went from marauding Vikings to sophisticated, peaceful diplomats. What happened?!
TheMightyTrowel
As an archaeologist, I’m cringing on a 1000 different levels at this. I was particularly fond of this sentence:
Because writing is the only source of information about the past. Also, no one has used the term dark ages unironically since the 1950s.
Fuster. Cluck. I all but promise.
Also: next year it looks like I’ll be offering a course on archaeology on film and in fiction with a colleague. More teaching material, I guess….
jl
@Redshirt: From what I know, similar evolution as in British Isles. Seven or eight hundred years of murky little warring kingdoms and kinglets, largely lost to history, transformed society from barbaric semi civilized bunch of tribes and clans to what we would call early modern civilization.
Comrade Mary
Oh man, if you could point us to some of your source material and any associated analyses, whenever you put it together, I would LOVE to see it. I am endlessly fascinated with how much we get history, archaeology and similar disciplines so wrong in art and popular culture, even when people think they’re being faithful to the truth.
jl
@TheMightyTrowel:
From the pics, has some hot chicks in skimpy outfits. WTF else do you want, anyway?
I may change my mind and watch it.
Narcissus
The History Channel: Vikings: Aliens Did It.
Yutsano
@TheMightyTrowel: You just made Mnen haz a major jealous.
mainmati
@Anne Laurie: All my grandparents also came from Ireland in the 20th century (Cork, Tipperary. Killarney, Roscommon). I’ve visited the few remaining relatives I knew (the Killarney McCarthys) and I really can’t accept the Viking-Celt meld; it doesn’t seem right. Most likely it occurred in the eastern part of Ireland where the Vikings concentrated (Dublin-Wexford coast).
The Irish that are my complex parentage are fighters and poets and romantic union organizers and good writers and also personally self-destructive sometimes. But also loyal family people and political liberals.
Which is why I get really angry about people like Hannity, Pat Buchanon and O’Reilly.
James E. Powell
I’m watching it right now.
What’s the objection? That it isn’t history? Like the history in History Channel doesn’t always get scare quotes?
I am finding it entertaining, though not absorbing. I am open to watching the series to see if anything interesting develops with the characters.
jharp
I happened across it as I watch Pawn Stars. About the only TV I watch.
Not my cup of tea.
Jay S
@Redshirt:
There isn’t much difference.
Comrade Mary
Is this where someone makes a Chris Kluwe / lustful cockmonster reference?
reality-based
@jl:
well, yes. In fact, the ancestors of the first tsars were viking from Sweden – the “rus”. fascinating aside – the personal guard of the Byzantine emperors were made up of vikings from the 9th-11th centuries (the Varangians)
Here’s the Wiki link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians
A great book on this topic is “The Far-traveler”, about Gudrid thorbjarndottir, a viking woman from Iceland who traveled to Greenland, possibly Newfoundland, as well as the ottoman empire –
I come from a long line of Rorviks and Stoas and Amundruds – if you are of a historical bent, growing up in NoDak, you kinda imbibe this stuff.
We even have our our tinFoil Hat/Revealed truth conspiracy about our forebears’ explorations up here – Google Kensington Runestone, it’s an interesting topic.
(on which I am neutral. NEUTRAL, I say!
Yutsano
@Comrade Mary: Best part? That was his wife’s idea. NOMZ!!
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano: That woman is a goddamn saint.
cmorenc
@jl:
The Danish Natural History Museum in Copenhagen is a wonderfully interesting place to visit, with explanatory signs throughout in both Danish and English. They have some very nice exhibits of artifacts from the time of the Vikings, who for the most part lived (on average) what we’d consider rather short, miserable lives afflicted by cavity-riddled bad teeth and toothaches and damp, drafty, dingy living conditions. Something I didn’t realize, not being much of a student of Scandanavian history prior to my visit there, was how Denmark and Sweden (and to some extent Norway) were frequently embattled in wars to conquer and absorb one another. The modern city of Copenhagen is, despite having a climate and latitude that is a harsh blend of Seattle and Nova Scotia, nevertheless one of the most pleasant, beautiful, civilized places I’ve ever been to. The Danes seem to have their act together in a way most American cities don’t.
TheMightyTrowel
@jl: Honestly? I’d rather they take the Vikings as an inspiration and then set it in a world much like ours but far far away. Calling it “THE VIKINGS” and then putting it on the history channel kinda raises expectations of, i don’t know, accuracy? reliable facts?
@Comrade Mary: Still working that out – a lot of what’s been written is either media people talking about using history/archaeology as a source for media OR archaeologists bemoaning the crap on TV. There’s a book underway by Peter Hiscock – he’s also written a number of articles – about archaeology on film, but he has a couple of MAJOR blindspots (gender among them) which can be really annoying. Also, he’s only really interested in the fictional end of things.
Mnemosyne
@TheMightyTrowel:
Yes, it’s true, I does haz a jealous now, though I realize most movies are insanely stupid about archeology.
Are you going to include any of Elizabeth Peters’ books? She is a trained Egyptologist, after all, and apparently her Amelia Peabody series has a lot of fun in-jokes about the state of archeology in the late 19th-early 20th century. Plus Crocodile on the Sandbank is just a fun, fast read, which your students may appreciate.
sm*t cl*de
The modern city of Copenhagen is, despite having a climate and latitude that is a harsh blend of Seattle and Nova Scotia, nevertheless one of the most pleasant, beautiful, civilized places I’ve ever been to.
It probably helps that every few centuries someone burns it to the ground and the locals get to rebuild.
techno
@Redshirt:
How did Vikings become Scandinavians?
As nearly as I can tell, there are dozens of reasons that would fill several books. But I especially like two of them.
1) The coming of Christianity. Yes, I know Christians can be VERY bloodthirsty but it does promote a certain level of domestic tranquility. Christianity came late to the North and it wasn’t really embraced until the Lutheran variation came along. This was a version they liked.
2) Thorstein Veblen, the pure Viking political economist once postulated that the biggest class distinction was between the Leisure Classes that relied on force and fraud and the Industrial Classes that relied on their skills. In Viking societies, this manifested itself in the distinction between the kick-ass Vikings and their boatbuilders. Over the centuries, the fighters went off to sea and many never returned. The builders got the pick of the widows. Eventually, they created a peaceful society where the builders ruled.
And that’s modern Scandinavians. Peaceable people who can build damn near anything from Legos and Ikea furniture to nuclear power plants and cell phone infrastructure. And their heroes went from Erik the Red to Johan Ericsson (Monitor) and Kelly Johnson (SR-71). Builders don’t divide the world into friends and enemies but between suppliers and customers. Builders understand that the more folks you can get along with, the more interesting things you can build.
dance around in your bones
I don’t know. I’m watching Short Cuts by Robert Altman. I think maybe more interesting than Vikings?
Death and infidelity, man!
TheMightyTrowel
@Mnemosyne: we’re still sorting all this out – I think we’re going to lean more heavily on the visual rather than the literary so graphic novels are more likely to be included than whole novels. That being said, parts of a couple of novels might end up on the reading, but i don’t think we’re going to require whole novels as reading. We’ll see.
TheMightyTrowel
@techno: Jesus. Most vikings were farmers. MOST OF THEM WERE FARMERS. They were no more violent than the societies around them, they were just not record keepers so the literate monks whose shit they stole wrote all about how awful and brutal they were. Propa-fucking-ganda.
Sorry, I get upset when we hit proto-history and the only vision propagated is the historical version.
Vikings are not my specialty area – I stop before the Romans show up and fuck shit up, but I can tell you (a) any explanation which relies on some sort of continuum from Barbarian – Civilised is rubbish and should be ignored and any interpretation which derives solely from written records is incomplete and unreliable.
JGabriel
AnneLaurie @ Top:
Meh, I’ve already read the books — Vinland Saga, Laxdaela Saga, Egil’s Saga, et. al.
(If anyone’s interested, the Sagas really are pretty fun reads Highly recommended.)
.
Mnemosyne
@TheMightyTrowel:
The first one is a pretty short novel, FWIW. And I guarantee you it’s a better read than some of the crap I had to read for my Literature and Film class.
As far as films that get archeology right go, I think you’re pretty hosed.
Yutsano
@TheMightyTrowel: The bad part is the monks were the only ones who were writing during those days. The Vikings never developed their own writing system and relied on the sagas to tell their tales. And while the memories of the saga tellers were legendary, they were only human plus easily destroyed by the Church. So we only have one side of the tale to work with, especially after the Christianisation of Scandinavia. There are many many tales of history that suffer from this literacy gap.
Mnemosyne
@TheMightyTrowel:
I suppose one of the two best versions of The Mummy (the 1931 Boris Karloff and the 1959 Christopher Lee) would be fun to show as examples of getting things laughably wrong. IIRC, the 1931 version is the one that mistook Karnak as the name of a god rather than of a city/temple complex.
JGabriel
Redshirt:
I don’t know, but I’m of a Norwegian friend of mine. We were talking several years ago, and he mentioned how the Norwegians got some trait, it doesn’t matter whichm from the Vikings.
I looked at him, mildy non-plussed by this assertion. “What are talking about?” I said. Your people ARE the Vikings.”
“Well, yezh,” he admitted, “But we don’t like to talk about that or, you know, remind anyone.”
.
TheMightyTrowel
@Mnemosyne: TOTALLY hosed. there’s an ocean of crap out there and some of the worst is the (putative) non-fiction.
ETA: OH GOD MUMMIES.
Death Panel Truck
A history lesson for the History Channel
ruemara
Too much dirt. Not sure why people adore these middle ages. I want dragons and magic too, but I need a pristine bathroom and indoor plumbing.
Snorri Sturluson
Most vikings were farmers […] just not record keepers
I have a sad now.
techno
@TheMightyTrowel:
Of COURSE, most Vikings were farmers. Most of my ancestors were. This is the peaceable variant that eventually came to dominate.
But geeze–get a grip. You absolutely cannot ignore the fact that the longboat was the moon shot of the middle ages and the people who could build them could build almost anything else. To explain the prosperity of modern Scandinavia without mentioning the fact that they are world-class builders is to sort of miss the whole point.
Oh, and understand that agriculture and building / manufacturing are all applied sciences. And truthfully, my tribe is about as good at this as anyone on earth.
techno
@JGabriel:
Did you know that a translation of Laxdaela Saga was the first book Thorstein Veblen wrote and the last one published (he paid for it himself. The translation is pretty standard. The introduction is pure Veblen. I LOVED it.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
@TheMightyTrowel:
9th century Irish monk, take it away:
Is acher ingaith innocht
fufuasan fairggae findfolt
ni agor reimm mora minn
dondlaechraid lainn ua
lothlind.
The wind is rough tonight
tossing the white combed ocean.
I need not dread fierce Vikings
crossing the Irish Sea.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
I’ve had similar arguments with Celtic neopagans who’ve argued that much of what was written about the pagan Celts was biased by Xtian monks. To which I reply they better Thank Lugh for the Christian monks, because given the Druids were an oral-only tradition, without the monks we’d know even less atop out Celtic myth and religion than the fragments we have now.
SG
@TheMightyTrowel: I do hope you’ll include Elizabeth Peters’ ( real name: Barbara Mertz) wonderfully funny Amelia Peabody books. They’re a tribute to the scientific method at a time when “archeologists” we’re little more than glorified treasure hunters and strip miners.
TheMightyTrowel
@Sock Puppet of the Great Satan: ACTUALLY! the christian monks didn’t write very much about druids – they did write down the Irish myths, but that’s a whole different tradition. What we know about druids was largely recorded by Romans – many of whom (cough cough julius caesar cough cough) also exaggerated quite a lot either to demonstrate the impressiveness of the enemy they defeated/faced or to justify brutal oppression by depicting the society as uncivilised and barbaric or because they lacked any sort of criteria by which to judge cultures not their own or (really) (d) all of the above.
PurpleGirl
@ruemara: The thread may be dead but I gotta say this: As the daughter of an electrician I’ve always thought that if I were transported back to some other historical era I’d be the daughter of the candle maker. Never saw myself as being a princess or royalty, whatever. I’m working class now, I’d be working class in other eras too.
Schlemizel
@Suffern ACE:
Got that right. I sat through the first 5 minutes or so & regret that.
Somehow I think there was a “creativity” meeting to lay the ground work for this:
“Ya know, that Game of Thrones thing is doing very well and its looks sorta historical-like”
“Yeah, we could do somthin like that, maybe in Rome”
“How bout the Middle East”
“I know! VIKINGS!”
COOL!
Schlemizel
@PurpleGirl:
I am always amused when someone claims to recover a previous life and it turns out they are always royalty or someone special. Nobody ever recovres a previous life where they lived in shit and died in misery like 99.99% of all humanity did.
Egypt Steve
“Oden! Oden! Send the wind and turn the tide!”
(Drinking British ale from a cask): “I wish it was British blood!”
“We’d go a lot faster if we all rowed!”
“Put out the hand that betrayed me!”
If you want real Vikings, you’ll never beat “The Vikings” with Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Janet Leigh and Ernest Borgnine!
Slugger
I know that the popular image of ferocious Berserkers pillaging their way across the sea is certainly engaging, but the reality may be more complex. The people of Vik ( a place on Oslo fjord ) had a population explosion due to a warm spell during the 8th century which increased crop yields. At the same time, Charlemagne destroyed the Friesians who were a Germanic seafaring people from what is now the Netherlands because they were the bad-ass pirates of the time. This resulted in more Vikings at a time when their main competitors were neutralized. Naturally, they swept the northern seas.
It is fair to admit that the written historical record comes from their enemies.
Lesson: if you suppress one group of enemies, some one tougher may come along.
Galileo126
You mean, the History Channel will be airing something that remotely resembles “history”??
Oh the humanity! Where’s my UFOs, Nostradamus, and sell-your-junk programs?!?!
Attaturk
Oh sure the Vikings were great explorers for years and years, but they could never discover the big one!
And Drew Pearson also pushed off in 1975!
Sincerely,
Native Minnesotan or Norwegian ancestry.
sherparick
I wish they did not put something with as much BS as this and say “its history.” I have really noticed so much junk on the “History” channel, the should just start calling it the “BS channel.” I had written a long diatribe, but deleted it as anyone who wants to find out the real information could just “Google” it themselves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf
sbjules
Vikings landed on the Ile of Man where some of my ancesters came from. Then they went west
johnny aquitard
Wi not trei a holiday in Sweeden this yer ?