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Collateral posted:You guys know that Alfred, noted king of wessex in the 9th century, dies right? Should I spoiler this? Your god is Gunthrum now.
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Nov 23, 2015 17:04
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life is killing me posted:Doesn't really matter if you think or know someone else has read the books or not, I'd prefer spoiler tags for the things in the book that happen in the show or that you hope happen in the show if you've read the books. And yeah, even if you haven't read the books, if you think you've got an accurate prediction, might as well spoiler tag it in case. The point of this, is not to spoil the show for non-readers. So I should only spoil pure speculation if it's good speculation, but bad speculation should be left naked in the site of Gunthram? Alfred will successfully begin the unification of England while his relationship with Uhtred grows stronger. But only after Alfred becomes an immortal vampire for turning his back on god and the church. No offense, but that's dumb as poo poo.
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Nov 23, 2015 17:18
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Okay, let's try this: If someone says they are not a book reader, but get a lucky guess on something that happens in the books, don't give it away that they are right, either. FFS, it's common sense. Yes, there are historical elements that stay the same and everyone knows what will happen overall, but with the characters within the fiction, anyone who hasn't read the books also doesn't have any idea what will happen in the show until someone comes in and blurts it out without any regard for those who haven't read the books. I'll retract the one on spoiler tagging speculative posts that might just happen to be accurate to the books because I concede it's dumb as poo poo, just be courteous to people who are simply watching the show.
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Nov 23, 2015 17:27
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There are some hilarious false equivalencies going on itt. I couldn't care less about people spoiling historical facts, but I'd rather not have fiction spoiled.Gyges posted:So, do we find out next week or wait until next season to find out Uhtred's son died and he/the seer view it as the payment for Edward's life? Speculation is supposed to be speculation. This post comes off as definitive rather than speculative. For someone who doesn't keep up with every post in this thread, such as myself, it reads as if you're intentionally spoiling the show.
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Nov 23, 2015 19:21
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Will you guys stop slap fighting and start posting more rad Ubbe and Guthrum gifs?
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Nov 23, 2015 21:17
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:There are some hilarious false equivalencies going on itt.
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Nov 23, 2015 21:24
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tooterfish posted:Jokes. They're called jokes. Hey. Hey, you. This is SA, where we take poo poo seriously and no jokes are allowed
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Nov 23, 2015 22:32
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Alfred is a stone cold killer.
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Nov 29, 2015 19:34
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Some real gut-punches in that finale. RIP everyone  I will say the one downside to the show's short season and quick pace is that some things seem to get glossed over rather quickly. Like they spent all this time building up Uhtred's noble credentials and his marriage, and then they just sort of get fake divorced in one scene, Uhtred apparently gets his own lands back as a reward for helping Alfred win the big fight, Ragnar/Brida are captured and alive, and now Uhtred's on his way North with that one dude and the lady he rescued for some reason. The last 3 minutes could've easily taken their own episode, but had to just kind of be squeezed in at the end instead. I guess it leaves me with a bunch of questions that I'm looking forward to being answered so that's a plus? Still pretty happy with the season overall, this show was a nice little surprise. Now to switch my brain back into Vikings mode and remember all the names in that show again.
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Nov 29, 2015 20:08
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Uhtred is basically medieval james bond, all his hot girlfriends either get killed or they dump him. Father beocca also went crazy in the final episode such as burning the vikings with a yo momma joke. etalian fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 20:45
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VDay posted:Some real gut-punches in that finale. RIP everyone Yeah, I've felt this way throughout the season, it definitely could stand to have a slower pace at times. Still enjoyed it, though.
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Nov 30, 2015 00:45
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etalian posted:Father beocca also went crazy in the final episode such as burning the vikings with a yo momma joke. I like how he trolled the vikings with talk about killing them with a spear, then just clubbed a bunch of muthafucks. What a whacky warrior-priest! Oddr geting shanked by Oddr was great. Alfred was just stone cold about it too.
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Nov 30, 2015 00:51
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 leofricGood ep. other than the last few minutes, which you've guys noted was rushed. VDay posted:Some real gut-punches in that finale. RIP everyone I thought the end showed Uthred travelling north to reclaim his lands from the now substantially weakened vikings - his reward from Alfred would have been being released from his oath. Thereby setting up Uthred to reclaim Babenberg during S2 or later
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Nov 30, 2015 00:57
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jfood posted:I like how he trolled the vikings with talk about killing them with a spear, then just clubbed a bunch of muthafucks. What a whacky warrior-priest! RIP Skorpa you crazy land pirate
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Nov 30, 2015 01:45
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Skorpa talked a big game, but he died without his axe in his hand so his season pass to Valhalla is revoked!
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Nov 30, 2015 01:56
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Beocca is decidedly more badass here than in the books. Dude rules
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Nov 30, 2015 02:12
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One thing I liked is that Aethelwold got redeemed. Uhtred needs a new best friend.
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Nov 30, 2015 02:56
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life is killing me posted:Beocca is decidedly more badass here than in the books. Dude rules He did sort of live up to his threat of killing Skorpa.
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Nov 30, 2015 03:07
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I haven't read much of this thread (pretty much just enough to give me the basis for this question) and I've only seen the first episode of the show, but I absolutely loving adore the books. How bad did they gently caress it up in the transition?
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Nov 30, 2015 06:37
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the show is good, but some things are changed for plot/tv convenience because the show covers the first two books. For example, father Pyrlig and Steapa are not on in the show, and their stuff is merged into father Beocca and Leofric instead. If you like the books the show is fun.
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Nov 30, 2015 06:44
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The big fight at the end was really cool showing the shield wall shoving match and the how the camera panned back during the short pause showing all the poor schmucks who got gutted.
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Nov 30, 2015 06:51
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I had a little trouble believing Uthred could survive soloing the entire Viking shield wall but other than that, cool ep and rad battle scene.
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Nov 30, 2015 07:59
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I thought they actually did a pretty good job of making that believable. They showed that when you're in the shield wall you're not exactly aware of your surroundings, so him jumping over wouldn't have been that crazy. By the time the shield wall realized that oh hey there's some crazy rear end in a top hat behind us chopping our shins off he had created an actual hole in the wall and Uhtred's backup rushed in to fight in a more chaotic melee.
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Nov 30, 2015 08:02
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I was glad to see Skorpa get killed, but I sort of thought, to nitpick, that Uhtred was entirely too angry while spearing him in the chest. It wasn't the battle lust in Uhtred's eyes, it was the "You've grievously affronted me and now that I've speared you to death in the chest, I'm showing that on my face." Like, what did the dude really do besides try to cheat him and then act like he was going to kill Iseult? And the books didn't describe Guthrum much other than to say he was always gloomy and unlucky, but the show, I felt, made a big leap from him raiding towns and running people through with a sword indiscriminately, to losing the battle and being baptized. The books explained it as him having had an interest in a god that seemed more powerful than his own (one that gave the Saxons victory), but the show barely glossed over it before the scene with him getting baptized.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:06
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life is killing me posted:I was glad to see Skorpa get killed, but I sort of thought, to nitpick, that Uhtred was entirely too angry while spearing him in the chest. It wasn't the battle lust in Uhtred's eyes, it was the "You've grievously affronted me and now that I've speared you to death in the chest, I'm showing that on my face." I disagree on Gunthrum, the show made it clear he at least had some curiosity about Christianity, which is why Alfred sent the suicide mission priest as a hostage. Even in the final battle scene he sort of gives up in the battle since he believes that the Christian god did give battle winning support to Alfred. Skorpa getting brutally killed is the reaction that you should expect after Skorpa killed Iseult and used her cut off head as a way to taunt Uthred for failing to protect her.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:23
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life is killing me posted:Like, what did the dude really do besides try to cheat him and then act like he was going to kill Iseult? He followed through? VDay posted:I thought they actually did a pretty good job of making that believable. They showed that when you're in the shield wall you're not exactly aware of your surroundings, so him jumping over wouldn't have been that crazy. By the time the shield wall realized that oh hey there's some crazy rear end in a top hat behind us chopping our shins off he had created an actual hole in the wall and Uhtred's backup rushed in to fight in a more chaotic melee. Nah still not convinced. What about the dudes not in the front row of the shield wall? Several shots show a whole bunch of guys milling around behind the front line of either side. It ran into the same problem as every heavily outnumbered protagonist(s) vs bad guys fight in the history of TV: it relies on a bunch of out-of-focus mooks standing around the the background pointing their weapons/glares threateningly at the good guy(s) and not actually doing something like you know, helping. Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 17:33
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Wafflecopper posted:He followed through? Ah poo poo, I'll have to go back and watch again because I could have sworn that Iseult was alive after the battle. Plus, I couldn't really remember from the books whether she died that way or not so had no frame of reference.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:33
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life is killing me posted:Ah poo poo, I'll have to go back and watch again because I could have sworn that Iseult was alive after the battle. Plus, I couldn't really remember from the books whether she died that way or not so had no frame of reference. He cuts off her head and throws is at Uthred in the middle of the battle, how do you miss that  I mean he literally rides into the middle of the battle and goes "hey uthred I cut off your missus' head lol" Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 17:40
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Wafflecopper posted:He cuts off her head and throws is at Uthred in the middle of the battle, how do you miss that Probably got up and got a drink or something and should've paused it.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:48
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Did one of Alfred's/Otto's generals betray the Saxons? Leofric was yelling about some traitor before he died and then I thought it panned to a shot of the old Saxon general, who we often saw alongside Leofric, in the Viking line. I'm liking how.. down-played? the deaths of major characters are, i.e. very little-to-no mourning over losses
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Nov 30, 2015 18:24
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Did one of Alfred's/Otto's generals betray the Saxons? Leofric was yelling about some traitor before he died and then I thought it panned to a shot of the old Saxon general, who we often saw alongside Leofric, in the Viking line. Yes, it was that guy who earlier in the episode asked Uhtred if he thought they could win, among other things.
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Nov 30, 2015 18:31
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Wafflecopper posted:Nah still not convinced. What about the dudes not in the front row of the shield wall? Several shots show a whole bunch of guys milling around behind the front line of either side. It ran into the same problem as every heavily outnumbered protagonist(s) vs bad guys fight in the history of TV: it relies on a bunch of out-of-focus mooks standing around the the background pointing their weapons/glares threateningly at the good guy(s) and not actually doing something like you know, helping. That's how shield walls actually worked though. These aren't professional armies, and people who were less enthusiastic about fighting stood in the back because they'd be hoping they wouldn't actually have to fight. They were there to make the army look larger and more menacing. You may have noticed that the equivalent in the Saxon army was priests and dudes with pitchforks. So, when a crazy guy jumps over the shield wall (admittedly ridiculous), kills your leader, starts hacking down your guys who are actually willing to fight, and opens a gap for the rest of the enemy's actual warriors in a span of a few seconds, what are you, a coward, going to do about it? Standing around in shock/running away is a more realistic result than having a bunch of redshirts run at Our Hero and get cut down one by one.
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Nov 30, 2015 18:37
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There's a difference between career warriors (which Uhtred technically is) and the dudes from the fyrd who just farm all day every day and only fight when they are ordered to by their lord, and even then with things that one wouldn't usually consider useful as weapons. The Vikings were pretty much warriors first, they were all battle-hardened and mostly accustomed to fighting in a shield wall, something Uhtred describes many times as being horrifying and terrible. You didn't even see the guy who speared you in the face half the time. If you weren't in the front or the second rank in the shield wall, you literally weren't doing much other than adding weight and muscle to push your own shield wall forward. Just like Jamwad describes, anyone who wasn't a professional warrior was less willing to fight, staying in the back hoping not to have to fight. So it's reasonable to assume that if they were trying to stay in the back to avoid fighting, these weren't going to be the guys to jump over a shield wall or run around to the side to try and flank the Danish shield wall, only to get speared or run through by a dude who was there expressly to stop that flanking from happening in the first place. The Danes would have been surprised at the prowess of the West Saxons in the shield wall, and even more surprised at a dude jumping over the shield wall to create a gap that might not have otherwise existed until one shield wall broke by other means. Not to mention they didn't want to lose men (meant fewer men to man the oars) in the first place, and they have this guy who looks pretty much like them, a Dane, killing their dudes behind them. Might take a second to process what's happening, and in that second, lots can happen, like the enemy forces rushing into the gap to break the Danish shield wall.
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Nov 30, 2015 19:09
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Another thing to remember is that even though the viking Danes were raiders and fighters, that doesn't mean they were all warriors willing to fight in a shield wall. Maybe you have newer guys standing in the back or dudes who went raiding with the rest of their village but weren't really the pugnacious types. Because of how fast the shows moves it's also easy to forget that the Danes are here for conquest and land, not raids. They might be armed like vikings still but a big chunk of their army is made up of men who have probably been farmers hanging out in other, conquered, parts of England. Uhtred himself spent like 10+ years growing up on Ragnar's farm, so you probably have plenty of relatively inexperienced warriors on the Danish side, even if they look scarier.
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Nov 30, 2015 19:42
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True, though even settling disputes, if Cornwell's research is accurate, had to do with challenging one to single combat. Earls were chosen and stayed in power by their combat prowess, challenging the previous earl and killing him, and then stayed in power through raiding and providing riches for their men. Their lives seem to be moreso filled with fighting than West Saxons who largely knew nothing of fighting outside the household warriors and professional armies kept by the king and his ealdormen, which were admittedly small compared to a group of raiders who only got the land and resources they occupied by fighting. By the time they got to Wessex, many of those men were far more experienced in combat than your average Saxon serf farmer, who probably had rarely even seen a sword or spear, much less been able to afford one. They had to provide their own weapons and armor, whereas the Danes had armor and weapons they plundered or bought with plunder. The Danes, individually, largely had grown up learning to fight, and the West Saxon farmers had not really seen or considered that they would ever have to fight until the Danes came to England. That said, I agree that there would have been numerous relatively inexperienced men among the Danes. The children especially, plus those who were brought over from Ireland or Denmark itself, who had never raided or fought in shield walls or war parties to take any land. Maybe kids (adults in the Danish way of life by then) who could fight well, but had never experienced war or even killed a man before. ne: I guess also worth noting is the fact that by the time the Danes made it to Wessex, though they had plenty of experience, they had killed many of the inexperienced people, and most of whom were leftover for the Danes to fight were the career warriors among the West Saxons. They had killed just about everyone else on the island who couldn't really put up much of a fight, and were now facing people who were ready and willing to fight them. life is killing me fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 19:51
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Finale definitely felt rushed and the CGI was a bit corny at times but I liked it. Aethelcard's redemption was really well done - in the end he just couldn't bring himself to do it and I like that they didn't do a cop out with him seeing the army and then being cowed into not doing it. It was a conscious choice on his behalf and that makes all the difference. I also loved how they handled Guthrum being lulled into inaction by his religious views. Very unexpected and although probably not the most historical, it was a great story choice. The reveal of Iseult's head was really dramatic despite being telegraphed pretty heavily. All in all a really solid finale to a very good season of TV.
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Nov 30, 2015 20:10
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Aw man, I was hoping that since they seemed to have combined Leofric and Steapa that Leofric would survive 
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Nov 30, 2015 22:01
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life is killing me posted:True, though even settling disputes, if Cornwell's research is accurate, had to do with challenging one to single combat. Earls were chosen and stayed in power by their combat prowess, challenging the previous earl and killing him, and then stayed in power through raiding and providing riches for their men. Their lives seem to be moreso filled with fighting than West Saxons who largely knew nothing of fighting outside the household warriors and professional armies kept by the king and his ealdormen, which were admittedly small compared to a group of raiders who only got the land and resources they occupied by fighting. By the time they got to Wessex, many of those men were far more experienced in combat than your average Saxon serf farmer, who probably had rarely even seen a sword or spear, much less been able to afford one. They had to provide their own weapons and armor, whereas the Danes had armor and weapons they plundered or bought with plunder. The Danes, individually, largely had grown up learning to fight, and the West Saxon farmers had not really seen or considered that they would ever have to fight until the Danes came to England. For settling disputes most were settled in the local Thing with Weregild, Hokmgång wasn't the normal way of settling disputes. The power of the Jarls mostly derived from them being nobles with land, it's true that the farmers were freer in Scandinavia than in most of Europe but it wasn't really a meritocratic society where the strongest get to rule. Going Viking was mostly seasonal and usually happened in the summer when some local landowners would get together some ships and gather recruits among the free men before going raiding during the summer and then coming to harvest, there were quite few Vikings who were professional warriors. Most of them were also armed with leather and spears,it was mostly Jarls, Kings and their retinues that were armed in chainmail and with swords.
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Nov 30, 2015 22:56
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Lord Tywin posted:Most of them were also armed with leather and spears,it was mostly Jarls, Kings and their retinues that were armed in chainmail and with swords. Yeah swords were some expensive hardware and not that many could afford it. It's somewhat of an involved affair to make one and you need a fairly skilled blacksmith to get a decent one. Spears were the most common and of course axes - not to forget the venerable Dane Axe, inelegant but pragmatic.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:32
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Did one of Alfred's/Otto's generals betray the Saxons? Leofric was yelling about some traitor before he died and then I thought it panned to a shot of the old Saxon general, who we often saw alongside Leofric, in the Viking line. Yeah one of the alderman Wulfgar went over to the viking side.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:35
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