Vikings (Page 1 of 6)

Sounds interesting, gonna check it out.

When Spartacus is soon gone, i need a replacement show anyway.

A little offtopic, but I hope you don't mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8GiEfRO6pU

I've watched both. As an archaeologists it's hard to be impressed. The Thing and the procedurals was like taken out of the textbook, with all the references to the laws, but it sounded stiff and forced.

..but the worst of all? They dumbed the vikings down to not knowing of England (the west) or the means of navigation. I mean, come on! That's just plain stupid.

Not just the Spanish maine my love. The entire ocean. The entire world!

It is set up in 793 something wich does match with the beginning of the Viking Age on the England side (if you take into account how history is teached and not necessarily the real one).

So while the little gimmick of the sun and all is obviously far-fetched, the general idea is not that far in the periodic.

At least, as a non-archeologist, that's the way I see it in a 5 minutes read. Having your experience, I suppose I would have a very different point of view.

They never do it right anyway so... It's like saying that Colombus discovered the american continent. Vikings were coming here way way before him. But since nobody cared...

The gimmick of the sun-stone is found in the sagas, but we haven't found any hard evidence of it yet.  As to that, the whole show is mostly based on sagas, and because of this it is more fiction than real history. I'm not sure that I like the fact that most of the viewers might not know this, and take a lot of the show as actual history. The fact that it is aired on History Channel might substantiate this even further.

I'll just leave it at that. A show based on close-to-fairytales, rather than close-to-history. I'll leave my archaeologist-eyes behind, and try to enjoy it. But I might just wait for the whole season to air before I do.

Not just the Spanish maine my love. The entire ocean. The entire world!

Well, so far, the only thing remotely historically accurate is the attack on Lindisfarne in 793 AD.

The use of sagas as (pure) historical sources is of the past. Remember that they were written down several hundred years after the supposed events. Harald Fairhair was according to the sagas the first king of Norway, and the one who united the whole country in the late 9th century - this is history class curriculum at childrens school. Although in fact, there is no evidence of his existence (yet). There are also several aspects of his saga pointing to it being made up.

The sagas is mainly thought to reflect the life and lifestyle of those who wrote it and their period - which is the 12th century.

Not just the Spanish maine my love. The entire ocean. The entire world!

Was there anything from the sagas in the first episode?

Only thing i could see was that he had a connection with Odin.

Very good pilot... I enjoyed it and I didn't mind they went easier on blood & sex than in Spartacus series. The main characters are likeable (btw, Ragnar looks like Jax from SoA ), it doesn't look cheap and has beautiful scenery, the Norse mythology is always something new... definately stays on my watchlist.

PS. The opening theme is fantastic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8UZrJFIlpU

yes. altho the ending of episode 3 has a great promise for episode 4 :d

you do know that history has been written by the winners and rewritten several times by the monks, so what is "proper history"?
For all that matters Ancient Aliens people have it correct. So far what i have seen in that show do not point into something unbelivable.

well to be honest Spartacus is cool in it's own way. In my opinion.
And since Vikings is according to Vana more of a saga than "real history" and is not running on nationwide tv channel, i would not expect grammy worth acting there. Just enjoy Norse mythology, some history and beautiful scenery.

you obviously watch a different Ancient Aliens.
this is the best part of this show.
They always say. This might be aliens. Maybe there were aliens. they never say things like yes those were 100% aliens.