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Let me tell you something, this
show is so freaking cool and interesting to watch. I thought it was going to be
a historical voice over type of documentaries about Vikings, but it blew me
away because it wasn’t like that at all! It’s a Canadian-Irish historical drama
TV series, written and created by Michael Hirst for the History Channel, which premiered
on March 3, 2013. It is a show about a particular Viking hero Ragnar Lothbrok,
(played by Travis Fimmel) who legend has it is a direct descendent from the
Norse God Odin and his exploration to the West to find the rumored treasures of
England.
Depicted in
the beginning of the Viking Age let me just put it out there now that this show
is not 100% historically accurate but still can be used as an educational tool
to show the way Vikings lived and how they rose to be these warriors and
conquerors of land we have heard since we were kids in school. Even the show
runner Michael Hirst said that it was hard to try and recreate a society that
wasn’t written down and was only orally told until the 13th century,
a few hundred years after these events took place. (Historical inaccuracies are
on display on Wikipedia.com).
However, I
love how the History Channel went about describing the Viking Age to the
audience, especially through the eyes of the Lothbrok family and Ragnar’s
‘Viking Brothers’/crew, and the Viking tribes that surround the area they live
in. By centering the show on Ragnar we see how he is with his family and as he
teaches the son about the Viking ways he is incidentally filling the audience’s
brain with knowledge about their Norse Gods, their ways of governing in the
tribes and about the new inventions and technologies of the time. For instance
the sun board acted like a compass so they can travel by boat to new places. It
was a very smart way to introduce knowledge into the show so by the child
asking about the ways of the Vikings, we the audience were understanding their
ways as well.
What was
also enticing was the beautiful cinematography, if you are not getting the
close up shots on the characters faces to really get a good look of what a
Viking should look like then we are
often set in some beautiful wide master shots that show the Scandinavian
forests and beauty that is truly breathtaking. These types of shots really
allow the audience to submerge themselves into the area that the Vikings once
ruled and how they worshiped nature and all that it gave them to survive and
thrive back in the day. It’s truly
masterful, thank you Series Cinematographer John S. Bartley. Once we get out of
the Scandinavian lands and onto the shores of the monasteries in the
surrounding areas (episode two) is only when we see the clash of religious
beliefs and how they differ society wise. With these subtle yet vital
differences we can experience these cultures and how they were forced to learn
from one another, even if they didn’t want to. Of course these types of subtle
storylines can also parallel with our own present day ideals in the United
States as well as around the world, whether its religious intolerance or any
other matter this show puts it all into perspective and it is really quiet a
fun, enjoyable (and sometimes gory) depiction of life from a long, long time
ago. I give this show an eight out of ten, even if people are saying its not
that historically accurate, I don’t mind submerging myself into a different
time and place in history to just marvel at for an hour.
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