A friend requested a rant about the hit TV-show Vikings.
To be honest, it was a difficult rant to write for many reasons.
The Canadian TV-channel History has done a good job with the show. No horns on their helmets. Or wings.
Oh, Hollywood, how you have mislead generations!
Which makes me willing to forgive them almost everything else at this point. I should know. I am Norwegian.
However, the request was a rant so; here is two things that irritate me about the show.
Why are they so dirty all the time?
Vikings were very fond of cleanliness. Supposedly, they were the clean freaks at the time. Washing their face every morning and bathing once a week, when the rest of Europe thought it okay to wash once a year. Combs and different grooming tools for men and for women are very common findings.
So yeah, a battle can be messy and bloody, but they did not wallow in the gore longer than necessary.
Why the nuclear family?
My biggest problem with the show is the portrayal of family, its structure and morals. It is very similar to the nuclear family, but the nuclear family is a modern concept. Vikings lived their life in big family groups consisting of multiple families often with some blood ties to each other, and their servants.
Does Lagertha react so violently to Lothbrok’s suggestion that Princess Aslaug pregnant with his child, could join them out of love or power? Her place seem secure. She has given him a son. And, she has Lothbrok by the balls. But then again, Aslaug is a Princess.
Lothbrok explains to Lagertha that it is his child and that he have to take care of it. Why?
In addition, what is this talk about ex-wives and boyfriends?
Why, oh why?
Princess Aslaug now “married” to Lothbrok (we did not see it, did we?) is full of jealousy when telling him off for flirting with a thrall/slave girl in the longhouse. “Oh, you think it strange for a pregnant woman to want her husband to be supportive and kind?” she demands.
Poor Lothbrok!
He seem surrounded by women with ideas and concepts of a modern kind.
How very astute of them.
Christine
christines rant 