S3E19.5: The Northman

Out of all the misuses of the word "saga" by the anglos, the sheer refusal to use it about what's for all intents and purposes a hetjusaga is...I can't tell if it's a bit or not. Also, I feel like DEARLY missing context is that hetjusögur were written down in the final years of a civil war, as Christian-made propaganda for this hot new concept of forgiveness. If you'll just forgive your neighbour, if you'll lay down your weapons, if you'll stop being a vengeful dickhead, if you'll stop listening to this honour system bullshit, you'll live a happier life. UNLIKE this guy in the story I'm telling. Also also, Odin is not the everything god UNLESS you're upper class. Odin is king, he's on a constant quest for knowledge, but it's Thor who presides over lightning, war (let's not think about Tyr), and fertility (let's not think about Freyr or Freyja). His icon is a dick and balls, half his lore is boner jokes, of course he's the common man's bet hedging swiss army god.

On the whole Valhalla thing I think it works as part of this movie’s deconstruction of the Viking ideal amleth is a terrible violent person who abandons all hope of a happy life for the pursuit of honour and a reward that is continued violence given the Valkyrie’s war cry this is a belief system whose rewards are just as bad as the earthly consequences

Me, making a sacrifice of a priceless Stradivarius to Bragi, knowing I've got Devon's approval for not having a weak-piss all-god

I disliked this movie.

Imagine calling your son "Gooner". Kind of like you're setting him up for it.

The thing about gender initiation rituals not working for trans people highlights the limited ideas of what gender means in these societies. What Abby said about Female Initiation Rituals being centered around menstruation signifies that the cultures which have these rituals only view women through lens of ones usefulness to that culture, that being your ability to reproduce and perpetuate that system. This obviously excludes Trans Women from that definition of femaleness, but as it is clear that Trans Women are women, it just proves that this definition of femaleness is too limited and not useful in actual understanding oneself as a woman. We can see this social reproduction happening in the movie with Amleth's initiation ritual, where he has the idea that being a Man in this culture is being honorable to the point or dying and being completely willing and duty bound to commit violence to that end. Amleth is being shaped into the idea of what a Man is in this society, thus reproducing it through him and his actions. It doesn't even allow him to have any value for himself if he doesn't preform these actions of manliness, he's a wasteman if he doesn't. But of course it's also a limited idea of what being Male is, and thus not a completely true understanding of it.

Working my way through the bonus episodes and I'm fuming mad that my favorite movie The Lighthouse got brushed past as "ehh whatever that other movie was" at the start lmao

There's nothing about valkyries being fat in mythology, they were described as warriors, pretty and also often depicted as birds. I assume Brynhilde in the opera was fat becasue the actress was?

I thought the Amleth choosing both at the end was right? He realizes that his own children are in danger of getting caught up in the cycle of revenge so he goes off to finish it and dying?

They got Helheim wrong. There are no fiery gates, Helheim is cold and dark and surrounded by a river, you get there by crossing a bridge. It's not fiery like Christian Hell! So much for accuracy!

"He who makes a beast of himself removes the pain of being a man" kinda just described how I became a furry...

Vinland saga season 2 does the themes of this movie quite a bit better. Watched it just as I was figuring out I was a women the whole time, that season really did a number on me

I know it's a TV show, so it will never be an episode, but I'd love to see KJB's take on Vinland Saga. A very similar opening premise, but a lot more interesting in its conclusions.

It would be like if they showed the islamic terrorist at the end of a movie sees he gets 72 virgins inspite of how good the poorly sourced that Hadith is

Ah yes, KJB reviews Bjørn Supremacist

y'all should do a mad max mini season and watch all 5 now that furiosa is out! i think the older movies would be especially interesting to hear you talk about.

Kinda racist, kinda racist. Guess I had it coming for choosing my name though!

I feel like a good follow up would be 13th warrior, underrated movie, contains a lot of the hosts fixations

Been mulling over this one more. I think this is one of those occassions where I probably appreciate the film more than the hosts because 'if you believe it it' s real' somewhat chimes with my own religious-spiritual beliefs. I don't personally believe in Valhalla but since I DO believe in a life after death it feels intellectually dishonest of me not to mention dickish to say 'nah you're' wrong' to someone with a different conception of the afterlife.

I really liked this one but I think I'll be noping out of 'The Wonder' with it's worship of the rational Victorian Englishwoman stranded among us backwards superstitious Paddies.

The most historically accurate film is ERIK THE VIKING.

Be gay, do seidr.

Hell, if you wanted to not have it get appropriated, you could have made him gay! When it's established that they understand homosexuality but treat Bottom as a slur worthy of dueling to the death, make him gay! Have him die pointlessly trying to be manly and violent, no Valhalla, while his boyfriend who IS a bottom keeps asking Amleth "is that what you think of ME?" And eventually leaves Amleth and is happier for it.

I *would* like an extended cut with Odin and the Valkyrie trying to help Anya Taylor-Joy lift him onto the horse

Three ducks, Huey, Dewey and Louis, descend upon Stellan Skarsgard, righteous avatar of Donald's wrath, to peck him free

entirely possible to read the ending as "he's going to valhalla…which is *bad* because that's him just entirely subsuming himself into an endless cycle of violence, even more, forever" but that requires the same sort of christianizing turn that, ironically, beowulf the poem takes

I also expected a lot more Hamlet comparisons, the things it and the Amleth adaptation say about masculinity are very different. My the Klingon version was closer to this.

I had a Certified Abigail Moment with this one where for like half the runtime I thought we were going to go in a completely different direction where Amleth would kill Fjölnir, or fail to kill him and escape, only to be killed at the end by Olga as her revenge upon him for her town. Since the moment she recognised Amleth as a northman on the boat I assumed she was working with him for now and planning to kill him later, and he would die dishonourably at the end as a result of the violence that he perpetrated. And then realised oh it looks like instead she's uh. actually falling in love with the man who slaughtered her town with his boys and presumably killed her family? Ok I guess?

By the way if you want to read about an interesting Norse woman, check out Aud the Deep-Minded

If you would like some fiction of a Norse flavor with interesting female characters, check out Joe Abercrombie's Half A King trilogy. Wonderful stuff. Even all of the combat has narrative weight and character development.

I get isekaid into the past and my Norse father keeps trying to get me to avenge his death with me just looking him dead in the eyes “If you’re so sure you’re gonna be murdered this might be a good time to ask yourself why. Like I’m not avenging a guy who probably deserved it.”

Valkyries evoking Freya, ie the love against the revenge, bloodshed & deceit if Odin. As for a factotum god: Thor As to masculinity in the movie: it shows something of the limits of imagination? Like how flatly we conceptualize the past. Like someone so odin-y like... he needed to be more gay

It is with great sadness that I report today the Final Dinkster daily was uploaded. The channel owner traveled to the actual spot in the real world and did the bit. Much like 9/11 we now live in a post-Dinkster world.

I'm going to be honest, whilst I support Eggers delving deep into, and inhabiting, historical practice, raiding the North East of England has led to Whitley Bay and Cullercoats Metro stations being destroyed by raiders

I love a lot of aspects of this film. I just with the level of funding, historical knowledge, and just talent went to projects doing interesting this with race in Medieval settings. There's a no budget 2007 Beowulf adaptation that race bent the protagonist, which allowed the film to think about European-African interactions during this era. Most of the crew and cast weren't professionally trained. I'm still not sure how filming Beowulf worked as a fundraiser for cancer research. But it is such an interesting idea for an adaption that would have benefited so much if it had any funding

I watched this for the first time yesterday, and I just wanted Amleth to die with visible regret. Instead, he realized his family line was safe, his daughter was going to be a leader, and then he fucked off to warrior heaven, a place that sounds terrible. I also really want more of an exploration of "What if Hamlet's dad was actually a tyrant and his uncle was doing a good thing by getting rid of the bastard and taking his throne?"

I'm dropping this here in case anyone is curious about the costumes in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBkLsbDrlNI&t=782s

As an antidote to the ascension to Valhalla ending, I think the manga Vinland Saga had a great way to engage with and deconstruct the idea. The protagonist has a nightmare about Valhalla where he sees a blasted wasteland ankle-deep in blood where mutilated corpses fight endlessly over nothing. Very to the point about the oxymoron "warrior's heaven". Vinland Saga is kind of what the hosts wanted out of this movie, with an extremely similar premise that radically diverges when its protagonist starts to question his culture. (I also read it as a roman a clef critique of bushido and Imperial Japan.)

Norse by Norsewest

First, Alexander Skarsgaard was Iceman, now he's back as the Northman Film is 1000% fash. Which isn't to say it's poorly made, bad or even all that problematic. But it does mean if Eggers was trying to reclaim vikings from the ultra right wing then I feel like he couldn't have missed any harder. I dunno what actual fascists think of this film but im guessing they're on board with the film where an incredibly jacked white guy exerts his will, strength, cunning and ruthlessness for 2 hours straight and dies in a cool, meaningful way. And I'd argue he shouldn't worry about it. White nationalists are gonna appropriate anything with the aesthetics they enjoy and find the meaning they want. You can't stop them from doing this, they're just gonna do it. You can make a film where the vikings are soy, gay and poc losers who all eventually convert to Christianity and they'll just not watch it while still holding true to whichever part of the viking age they like. You can't convince them otherwise through the medium of film. Don't worry about it bro, just keep making good movies.

I would like to point out Beowulf means Bee Wolf, which is a way to describe a Bear if you've only seen Wolves before. So now imagine Ray Winstone as Winnie-the-Pooh.

I really love this movie. Thank you for watching it.

This film was co-written between Eggars and an Icelandic writer/poet named Sjón. I *highly* recommend three novellas of Sjón’s, THE BLUE FOX, FROM THE MOUTH OF THE WHALE, and THE WHISPERING MUSE. Great Left on Read fodder, and just plum weird books.

I thought that girl got sacrificed because she was wife of the killed Viking. And she was that enthusiastic because she was reuniting her husband.

My big take away from this movie was that Fjölnir's goons are absolutely Ride or Die. Their boi gets kicked out of his kingdom and rather than finding a new king to hench for they move to Iceland to become a sheepfarmer's guards.

"The two crows of Odin, Statler and Waldorf..."

Awesome to hear another installment of Dr November Kelly, Norse expert! And therefore Palestine must be free from the river to the sea.

Interested in your opinions of the movie Agora, and its two cents on masculinity

Absolutely loved this episode! We do need a movie from the Come and See type perspective of the Slavic village.

don't come to Orkney. or if you do, stick to Mainland, please. don't bother us out here on the isles, cheers xxx

Speaking as a tablet-weaving head, I punched the air when you even mentioned it, so I agree: "Whoaaa!"

Would really love to hear the other Eggers movies discussed on here

RE Trans magic- This needs loads more research than I can do while at work, but there is apparently a tradition of trans/nonbinary medicine among at least the Cheyenne and Lakota. One was a minor character in "Little Big Man" starring Dustin Hoffman (played for comic relief, ofc). If this is of interest, I will link a couple of random articles I found with a Google search to prime the research pump. Hope you find a rabbit hole worth exploring!

Skol on, go vike

Y’all need to see Green Knight!!! On the note of gender roles, honor, and magic, that movie confronts those concepts in such a compelling way

Y'all gotta see Monkey Man!

This talk about initiation reminds me. I'm a wizard (tarot, Qabalah, semi- secret lodge, all that) and I'm fully convinced that transitioning is a magical act. My trans friends have levels of awareness that I just don't see in cis people outside of dedicated spiritual seekers. Sorry if that comes off weird

LOL it's me, the excited-about-weaving person. Not just tablet weaving, but bottom weighted spindles and warp weighted looms too! Get hype! Insert lecture here about how big a part of daily life cloth production was in pre-industrial times. I'm still not sure if I like the movie though - the violence was memorably upsetting and the story gives you no katharsis. Which maybe makes it better? But I'm not sure it lands.

As someone who did see it in cinema, yeah, it was fucking amazing on full screen

I think the Harald who kicked Fjölnir out of Norway is Harald Fairhair, the first King of Norway. By the time Harald Hardrada was kicking about, the Norse world was pretty Christianised

I watched this once, in theaters, and from pretty much the second they put a bunch of little kids into a hut and burned it, at no point was I on the protagonist's side in any way. I love roaring rampage of revenge movies, and I thought it was pretty clear this was not one. That the message of this was Puppyboy was a psychotic moron doing futile shit for no reason. Pointless cycle of violence. TO BE FAIR I didn't read it as him literally going to Valhalla; I interpreted that as his brain going on the fritz. It was in his eyes because it wasn't literally happening, and it wasn't worth it. Dude left a wife and life to die in a hole

Yesssss excited to hear your thoughts on this one

Don Delillo mentioned

Oh hell yeah. Nicole Kidman fucking rocks in this

Yaaaas, Daddy Skarsgard