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Equester posted:They are based near Kattegat, which put them either in north eastern Jylland, Sjælland or Skåne (part of southern sweden that used to be danish). Sjælland or skåne seems more likely, but regardles neither place has mountains. Southern Norway could be their base too, but seems unlikely, since the main characters are danes Lagertha was supposedly from Norway, and Ragnar is supposed to have fallen for her after being sent to Norway to defend it from a Swedish invasion. So my bet is southeast Norway. If its Danish territory and their allegiance is to the Danish king, it's not weird that they consider themselves Danes.
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Apr 23, 2013 09:10
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You would have to worry about Christian authors projecting their own ideas about sex, and specifically about how pagans have sex, onto anything like that from contemporary sources unfortunately. I assumed that the slave woman who chose to die with Earl Haraldson was his bed slave. I know there's nothing in the show to tell us that but what other kind of slave would love him enough to want to follow him to the afterlife? Æthelstan is the worst priest, he got down with a Viking lady and renounced Jesus three times at the high temple of Norse religion no less. I want to know how to type Æ so I can stop copy/pasting it. Rocksicles posted:repeatedly? Ragnar and Lagertha invite Æthelstan into bed, and then it turns out Floki's wife (Helga?) does like Rollo shaking his dong in her face because they invite him into bed that night. I think there was another one, I dunno the orgy was pretty blurry. Lots of people aren't into threesomes, but then again lots of people aren't Vikings.   
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Apr 23, 2013 09:15
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Family Values posted:Lagertha was supposedly from Norway, and Ragnar is supposed to have fallen for her after being sent to Norway to defend it from a Swedish invasion. So my bet is southeast Norway. If its Danish territory and their allegiance is to the Danish king, it's not weird that they consider themselves Danes. That is a good point and was why I included Norway, though it still seems a bit far fetched, since the only nod to the myth about legertha is Ragnar telling a very short version of it to Bjørn in the first episode and if they where following the myth/saga he wouldn't be known as Lodbrok yet. But it would atleast somewhat explain the mountains.
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Apr 23, 2013 09:19
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Family Values posted:Lagertha was supposedly from Norway, and Ragnar is supposed to have fallen for her after being sent to Norway to defend it from a Swedish invasion. So my bet is southeast Norway. If its Danish territory and their allegiance is to the Danish king, it's not weird that they consider themselves Danes. it's all rather vague, Danish territory in the 12 century was almost connected with Norways, whos to say who held what near 800AD that south east area of Norway must have been a hotspot for disputes, not much of Norway is inhabitable along the coast.
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Apr 23, 2013 09:30
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Equester posted:Bjørn I just remembered (from reading Wikipedia earlier in the week)  that the historical Ragnar was actually supposed to have a son named Bjørn so I looked him up and holy crap he's the future King of Sweden?!
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Apr 23, 2013 09:34
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nvm
colonp fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Apr 24, 2013 |
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Apr 23, 2013 11:21
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Arglebargle III posted:I just remembered (from reading Wikipedia earlier in the week) I'm just waiting for Ivar to be born, so that we are ensured hot blood eagle action when he kills Ælla.
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Apr 23, 2013 14:14
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Arglebargle III posted:I just remembered (from reading Wikipedia earlier in the week) Its hard to say, they are not following the saga at all in terms of children, but Ragnar only have one son called Bjørn, so I guess you will be right provided the series last that long. According to Saxo, Ragnar gets two daughters and a son called Fridlev with Legertha. With his second wife Thora, whom he has to kill two giant snakes to marry and it is fighting these snakes that he wears his woollen suit and gains the name Lodbrok, he gets two sons Rådbard and Dunvat. Saxo then says that ragnar later adds the Sons Sigvard, Bjørn, Agner and Ivar to these, though it is unclear if Thora or another is mother to these. It might be worth mentioning here, the children gotten with slaves was not considered slaves themself, so there is the possibility that the later sons could come from other women. Also I have wondered why they don't use the word Træl og the english thrall for the slaves. Since english actually have a modern version of the norse word, along with the more popular late roman word.
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Apr 23, 2013 15:43
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Rocksicles posted:it's all rather vague, Danish territory in the 12 century was almost connected with Norways, whos to say who held what near 800AD that south east area of Norway must have been a hotspot for disputes, not much of Norway is inhabitable along the coast. Actually, due to the gulf stream, more or less all of Norway is inhabitable along the coast, good farmland is sparse but people lived off the sea. Coastal areas around Tromsø (latitude corresponding to northern Alaska) has been inhabited since the end of the ice age.
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Apr 23, 2013 16:21
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I was attempting to watch the new Les Miserables yesterday, (it did not end well. in fact it never ended) but I swear I saw Athelstan as a high-baritone singing french revolutionary and it was the high point of the experience, just for the WTF?
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Apr 23, 2013 16:43
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Next time on Vikings: Athelstan you are a sacrifice! Now the thrilling conclusion of Athelstan getting sacrificed! Coming up: "You are a sacrifice" brrrrrrrrrrttttt You are not a sacrifice 
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Apr 23, 2013 16:53
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It's Æthelstan you barbarians.
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Apr 23, 2013 16:56
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Toadsniff posted:Next time on Vikings: Athelstan you are a sacrifice! Yea I didn't enjoy the "Athelstan as sacrifice" bit, especially with how coy they were about it to him - all the other people are dressed up and ready to get thrown in the pin but Athelstan doesn't even know he's been picked? Early in the episode they pointed out that his faith was still in doubt, if that's so important why did they pick him to begin with? Not to mention he has proven himself to be incredibly valuable thanks to his knowledge of England, I would think that alone would make them try to keep him around. Still an awesome episode, the atmosphere of the festival was incredible and the portrayal of Athelstan's spiritual experience with the mushrooms and all was incredibly well done. I also enjoyed Siggi humbling Rollo.
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Apr 23, 2013 17:05
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Sorry, my keyboard has no "any" key.
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Apr 23, 2013 17:06
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Hammy posted:Still an awesome episode, the atmosphere of the festival was incredible and the portrayal of Athelstan's spiritual experience with the mushrooms and all was incredibly well done. I also enjoyed Siggi humbling Rollo. Siggy trying to get Rollo to acknowledge that their relationship is at all emotionally meaningful to him kind of grated on me. If Ragnar actually leaves Lagertha (instead of having some modernized "baby I'm so sorry I slept with the weirdly angular lady with the very fluffy dog" reconciliation) I imagine Rollo's next move will be dropping Siggy on her rear end.
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Apr 23, 2013 17:23
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I was expecting them to sacrifice Siggy after the priest rejected ÆÞelstan.
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Apr 23, 2013 19:05
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Pinky Artichoke posted:Siggy trying to get Rollo to acknowledge that their relationship is at all emotionally meaningful to him kind of grated on me. If Ragnar actually leaves Lagertha (instead of having some modernized "baby I'm so sorry I slept with the weirdly angular lady with the very fluffy dog" reconciliation) I imagine Rollo's next move will be dropping Siggy on her rear end. I think Ragnar actually asks the Odin statue who will bear him a son, rather than asking when he'll have another, so the split is sort of telegraphed here. Unless it's a multiple wives situation.
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Apr 23, 2013 19:14
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Luigi Thirty posted:I was expecting them to sacrifice Siggy after the priest rejected ÆÞelstan. I think it's meant to be an all-male sacrifice. If this sort of thing actually happened, it seems like a pretty handy mechanism (along with raiding) to keep the numbers of rambunctious young men down.
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Apr 23, 2013 20:05
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DS at Night posted:I think Ragnar actually asks the Odin statue who will bear him a son, rather than asking when he'll have another, so the split is sort of telegraphed here. Unless it's a multiple wives situation. Gonna have a few women travelers come through and stay with them, then when those women get pregnant Lagertha is going to have to eat her Heimdall tale.
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Apr 24, 2013 00:22
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Pinky Artichoke posted:If this sort of thing actually happened, it seems like a pretty handy mechanism (along with raiding) to keep the numbers of rambunctious young men down. I hope the concept can be applied to college towns.
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Apr 24, 2013 00:29
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This may be an obvious question in retrospect, but is it really all that important for Ragnar to have more sons? Doesn't he already have one?
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Apr 24, 2013 01:27
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BrianWilly posted:This may be an obvious question in retrospect, but is it really all that important for Ragnar to have more sons? Doesn't he already have one? Always good to have a backup son. Never know when a bear man will come out of the fog and eat your son.
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Apr 24, 2013 01:49
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True; as I said, obvious in retrospect.
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Apr 24, 2013 01:51
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The way they have been making Ragnar fairly awesome and sympathetic, I'm kinda shocked he would ditch his totally gorgeous and bad-rear end wife for one single miscarriage. I'm sure that happened a lot more back then, and was less of a big deal. There was one quiet line, if irrc, that they had been trying or something for awhile. I guess their youngest is pretty old, when wives were probably pregnant most of their lives. I like Lagertha!! I hope he gets a second baby-making wife and they all just kinda hang out  Is that gonna happen?
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Apr 24, 2013 01:56
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BrianWilly posted:This may be an obvious question in retrospect, but is it really all that important for Ragnar to have more sons? Doesn't he already have one? Which do you want: one son to avenge the eventual death of his father or a pissed off hoard of sons to avenge his death, then collapse in on themselves fighting over the wealth he left behind?
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Apr 24, 2013 02:04
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Only in a Viking show could the reasonable solution be to just kidnap a girl when they raid France next season, or this upstart Earl next episode, and just have her be the baby mama/maid while Lagertha stays in power.
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Apr 24, 2013 02:26
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DoggPickle posted:The way they have been making Ragnar fairly awesome and sympathetic, I'm kinda shocked he would ditch his totally gorgeous and bad-rear end wife for one single miscarriage. I'm sure that happened a lot more back then, and was less of a big deal. Miscarriages have a ton of potential causes and many of them can permanently ruin the baby-maker. (That's a technical term.) With modern medicine they could go in and check out the damage and even make repairs, but in the 8th century they just have to wait and see. The longer they go on screwing without Lagertha conceiving again the more likely it is that she's permanently barren. I think they have definitely foreshadowed that Ragnar has less sympathetic qualities that will come out as he gets more power. Ragnar was sympathetic when he was a farmer full of ambition taking on the dickbag Earl. Now Ragnar is Earl and he's still ambitious and driven, and people who the audience likes (like Lagertha) might start getting in the way. Remember the seer said that Bjorn is just like his father, driven to be better than everyone else, and that Ragnar will hate him for it one day. That's not a particularly healthy attitude nor is it one likely to make him treat the other characters nicely.
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Apr 24, 2013 02:32
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DoggPickle posted:The way they have been making Ragnar fairly awesome and sympathetic, I'm kinda shocked he would ditch his totally gorgeous and bad-rear end wife for one single miscarriage. I'm sure that happened a lot more back then, and was less of a big deal. I like her too, and I would be pretty bummed if she ends up written out of season 2. Particularly since I'm not overly impressed with Aslaug's casting from the preview for next week (but maybe she'll grow on us). The thing is, though, she's in her late 30s and apparently hasn't had a child in over 10 years, and Ragnar seems to be pretty obsessed with this prophecy that he'll have many sons. While there are women who have kids on into their 40s even without reproductive technology, it doesn't look like she's one of them.
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Apr 24, 2013 03:24
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Ragnar actually does bring up "but we've been trying" in this latest episode as a bit of foreshadowing. But Lagertha is so awesome and their love is so beautiful drat IT, SAGAS.
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Apr 24, 2013 06:18
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Gyges posted:Gonna have a few women travelers come through and stay with them, then when those women get pregnant Lagertha is going to have to eat her Heimdall tale. Ohhh poo poo that was totally foreshadowing wasn't it.
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Apr 24, 2013 07:37
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I'm kind of surprised they've gone so full kilter on human scarifies. Most scholars don't think it was very widely or regularly practised, though certain limited cases are plausible and likely. The scarcity of verifiable proof makes it seem like more of a niche thing. Even the Fadlan-accurate ship burial we saw earlier isn't regarded as the norm for ship burials. I can't get too upset though because it's not like they pulled this poo poo out of a hat, accounts of human sacrifice are there if you want to read about them. Horse sacrifice was way more important though. Arglebargle III posted:Oh I also want to know if the Vikings were as into threesomes as the show indicates. It's just something they've been weirdly specific about showing repeatedly. On top of what others said, another Arabic account indicated that there was supposedly 'no sexual jealousy' between Vikings and both the men and women slept around pretty hard. It's a touch disputed though because from the Viking's own laws and records we can see numerous and severe penalties for infidelity, and there were tons of divorce proceedings and the like resulting out of some pretty tame instances of infidelity. By and by it seems infidelity was taken really seriously. It's certainly possible they walked a fine line between both parties consenting to some strange sometimes, then getting pretty mad over petty kissing crimes if it was done in secret other times. Pinky Artichoke posted:Is there some historical precedent for the creepy maimed priests? It also surprised me that it looked like one of them was wearing a slave collar. A lot of them looked like they had birth defects, or at least the main guy definitely does, and that probably wouldn't happen. Most vikings practised infant exposure if a child was born with a gross abnormality, it was practically duty.
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Apr 24, 2013 09:21
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HenessyHero posted:On top of what others said, another Arabic account indicated that there was supposedly 'no sexual jealousy' between Vikings and both the men and women slept around pretty hard. Again, we should take outsider accounts of Viking sexuality with a huge grain of salt, since they could very well be projecting their own ideas of how "barbarians" do it. I think the Vikings' own sources would be much more trustworthy. There's a Han Chinese account of the Roman Emperors having a servant walk behind them at all times with a bag, into which anyone could throw papers with suggestions and complaints. Then the Emperors would read the papers every day. From Roman sources we know that this is a complete fabrication and probably was some Chinese guy writing about how he thought a good emperor would behave, and who in 3rd century China would call him on it? Just an example of why we should be skeptical of outside accounts.
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Apr 24, 2013 09:36
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Arglebargle III posted:Again, we should take outsider accounts of Viking sexuality with a huge grain of salt, since they could very well be projecting their own ideas of how "barbarians" do it. I think the Vikings' own sources would be much more trustworthy. Agreed, thats why it makes me a bit annoyed that they so far have done two episodes where they more or less recreated an outsiders recount of events that are somewhat doubtfull. The earls burial was just straight up Ibn Fadlans story retold using the cast, personally I think, while the episode was good, it would have been more fun if they showed a viking tumulus or a ship burial on land, as this was probably far more commen. And as mentioned, the latest episode was Adam of Bremens story of the Uppsala blot, which is veryt doubtfull considering the lack of archaeological evidence from the area.
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Apr 24, 2013 11:25
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In terms of sexuality, IIRC William Ian Miller presents the view that infidelity was treated a lot like killing. Being secret with it was an enormous problem, but being open (well, privately, with the spouse) was not unheard of.) was a slightly different case. Not to say that open killing was perfectly accepted either, but rather that they both reflect a different 'degree' of breach, or perhaps even a public/private divide that needed to be respected.
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Apr 24, 2013 13:16
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Equester posted:And as mentioned, the latest episode was Adam of Bremens story of the Uppsala blot, which is veryt doubtfull considering the lack of archaeological evidence from the area. Really? I thought there was a site of multiple large wooden structures built in the same spot over the centuries at Gamla Uppsala that was a good candidate for a great temple.
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Apr 24, 2013 13:47
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Arglebargle III posted:Really? I thought there was a site of multiple large wooden structures built in the same spot over the centuries at Gamla Uppsala that was a good candidate for a great temple. He probably means that there isn't any archaeological evidence of mass human sacrifice, from what I have read it was extremely rare and only happened when the situation was really lovely like if the harvest had failed two years in a row and people were really desperate to please the gods.
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Apr 24, 2013 14:57
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Arglebargle III posted:Really? I thought there was a site of multiple large wooden structures built in the same spot over the centuries at Gamla Uppsala that was a good candidate for a great temple. yea Uppsala is attested as an old holy ground with something that could be a temple, though the building(s) to judge from the postholes are to small to fit Adams description. I ment, that the story Adam gives, of a large structur decorated with gold, where large amounts of animals and humans was sacrificed every 9th year, that there is no proof of. The wooden statues might be true, it fits with what we know of viking art. So it annoyed me a bit, that the episode basically just took Adams description and went with it. Just like they did with Ibn fadlans, instead of taking things from Archaeology. I mean, they apply no critical thought to their historic sources and I can understand it from a pure showpoint view, the stories are better than reality. I just find it contradicting when they otherwise try to be historically as correct as possible.
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Apr 24, 2013 15:35
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Equester posted:yea Uppsala is attested as an old holy ground with something that could be a temple, though the building(s) to judge from the postholes are to small to fit Adams description. Meh, I think the show is doing a pretty good job. The written sources to me just edge out the archaeological evidence as being more useful. The problem with archaeology is that things shift, the earth itself for example. Wood rots, buildings are destroyed and modified in various ways and rebuilt many times over. It really is hard to reconstruct accurate portrayals of ancient wooden structures from what little rot might be left in the ground 1000 years later.
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Apr 24, 2013 16:34
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Equester posted:I just find it contradicting when they otherwise try to be historically as correct as possible. They aren't really trying that hard. This is fiction before documentary. They have taken a lot of liberties with places and times and people in order to tell a more coherent story. It's a tough balance between the validity of sagas and foreign accounts and native accounts. The show's main credit to education is that it portrays interesting things that people then want to learn look up and learn more about.
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Apr 24, 2013 16:47
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Equester posted:Agreed, thats why it makes me a bit annoyed that they so far have done two episodes where they more or less recreated an outsiders recount of events that are somewhat doubtfull. It's television, though. The ship burial they did had better visuals than a bunch of dudes creating an earth mound. Probably cheaper to do as well.
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Apr 24, 2013 17:23
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