Historical revisionism in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla | Forums

[VestigialLlama4]

If a catholic didn't think their faith brought about a greater good why would they even be Catholic in the first place?

Pope John Paul II said in an encyclical once, "Christians have often denied the Gospel; yielding to a mentality of power, they have violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions: be patient and merciful towards us, and grant us your forgiveness!" So one of your own Popes is on record admitting that Christians haven't brought a greater good.

Religion (alongside philosophy, art, democracy, laws and so on) is there to help you become a better person, to make you warmer, more compassionate and empathetic...it's not there to give you an innate sense of superiority or a vicarious sense of past glory. The appeal of a religion has nothing to do with its historical resume or overall connections, for good and ill. Just because the Catholic Church did something bad in the past doesn't mean that the genuine sense of faith people have towards it today is invalid. There's no connection between them. If you find value in your faith that's fine and great. It stops being so if you go about telling people that your religion "made the West strong" or brought civilization and so on.

The other is the more intellectual and complex view of the defining moments throughout European history that allowed a large number of diverse European nations previously heavily imbued with savagery to become great centers of reason, art and theology.

This is not in fact "the other" view. This "other" view you put out is actually just as simplistic as the other one. The medieval era not actually being the "dark ages" or so on, doesn't validate everything else about it. And certainly doesn't validate the Church's role and actions in that time. The Crusades for instance are rightly seen today as a disaster.

The actual view in history since the mid-50s is heavily dominated by Post-Modernism, which severs the idea of history being linear, progressive, or heading somewhere. Historians see history as being random, chaotic, and driven as much by luck and contingency as any intrinsic labor. That strikes me as being far more accurate than anything else. The so-called "glory of the West" you talk about, that's not something that existed always and forever, nor was it something that was inevitable or some manifest destiny of Western Europe. It happened as a result of a series of conditions that's unrepeatable. You are attributing agency to the Catholic Church for something that is actually coincidence.

A bit of Advice but Please stop pretending that the world thinks this way, thats the reason we have a Nutter like Donald Trump in power, it's because you guys live in your own bubbles convinced everyone thinks the way you do and get surprised when the majority don't think the way you do and vote out defiance in horror.

No need to bring politics into this, but I must point out the majority of Americans did not vote for Trump in 2016. The majority of people did vote for Brexit though, so as an Irishman you can make fun of West Britain all you wish because those people really did live in a bubble over there, but keep your bubble vision out of Yankee waters.

After the fall of the Roman Empire much of Europe fell into disarray and was easy target for barbarians and murderers.

These barbarians, such as the Goths who sacked rome in the early 400s prominently spared the Church, and others were themselves Arian Christians, such as the people around Odoacer. Historians actually give more credit to the goths than they did before.

The great centers of learning and libraries on the continent were destroyed and if it wasn't for the likes of Irish monks for the most part safe from this chaos copying the pagan and Christian writers and preserving the texts of the likes of homer and Aristotle the west would never have been shaped the way it was.

The Irish monks were important but I think you are vastly overstating the case, there. After the end of the Roman Empire, the great center of learning was Baghdad and then Cordoba, where Arab and Islamic scholars unleashed the first scientific revolution since the fall of Greece. The Roman Empire froze science and mathematical innovations, hidebound as they were to Artistotle and it was innovators who were never conquered by Rome who first unchained science from those shackles. The Arabs also translated like crazy.

Justice, equality, human dignity, morality etc in the west came directly from the Christian world-view and the west therefore at it's best flourished under it,

How is it then, that the very secular French Revolution was the first to abolish slavery in the Western World, that they were the ones who gave equal rights to Protestants, Jews, and non-believers? That (the then secular) Napoleon abolished slavery on Malta which had been practised by the Knights Hospitallers, a Catholic Order, in Malta?

Convenient, is it not, that you assign credit for the achievements of other ideologies and philosophies, and claim ,that it was all Christian under the sheets? Christianity did have some positive good, but so did other religions and faith, and other philosophies and ideas that have nothing to do with religion. No one can say that one idea alone did more good than anyone.

Yes i know AC games never depicted Bohemia, my point with the comment was that KCD depicted it's historical setting in a way no AC game ever has. Assassins Creed is an arcade type adventure game with super duper moves, where characters are forgettable and the historical setting feels more like a Hollywood interpretation than reality, it's a VERY fun game but no mature adult would take it seriously nor it's setting.

No mature adult takes KCD seriously either. It's just as Hollywood. I mean a peasant rising up to become a nobleman, come on.

[VestigialLlama4]

My country was one of the first nations in the world to outlaw this slavery after we were converted to Christianity and it was because of Christianity it was outlawed,

Christian priests may have tried to outlaw it or say its bad, but Ireland had slavery in that time. It had slavery before the Vikings, during the Vikings, and after the Vikings converted to Christianity. Slavery in Ireland reached its height in the 11th Century and it was abolished because of William the Conqueror who ended slavery in England, and so shut down Ireland's biggest export market. Then the Anglo-Normans came in and shut down slavery for good and established serfdom in its place.

So again your argument is simplistic, hagiographic, distortion of evidence and truth, and easily debunked.

The movement against slavery was entirely from a Christian world-view

Then how come the biggest slave revolts and revolutions in history whether it's Spartacus in the Ancient World or the Voudou-Worshipping Haitians of the 1790s, were non-Christian? Spartacus, we don't know of, but if he had religious beliefs, it damn sure wasn't Christian. The Haitian Revolutionaries likewise practised Voudou, their own faith generated in their struggle against their slave masters (who were Catholic for the most part). It was the government of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins that was the first major European nation to abolish slavery, and they enforced it by dispatching agents in the Caribbean to enact it. Robespierre was a Deist and definitely not a Christian.

Again your Catholic Christian-Supremacist views, that Christianity somehow is responsible for everything is laughably inaccurate and intellectually disingenuous. And it's debunked easily.

I am not saying Christianity is bad or anything, if someone were to say that here, I would move against them and debunk them just as I am debunking you now. But I am against propaganda for any side and viewpoint. Especially when you credit Christianity and the Catholic Church for stuff that was far beyond their ability to do. The Catholic Church weren't the ones who led the economic and social revolutions that led Western Europe to get its advantage.

And in any case the rise of Western Europe over Eastern Europe was also driven by something that was enacted by Catholic Nations, such as the Teutonic Knights of Prussia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who introduced serfdom in countries where peasants had free movement and rights. When the Renaissance ended serfdom in the West, serfdom increased in the East, and because of the economic influence of the P-L Commonwealth and Prussia...Russia introduced serfdom there too. So what was the Church doing when peasants were pauperized in such great numbers in a country that had converted to the "true" faith, especially since it was led by the Teutonic Knights and their descendants who pauperized so many.

[Cpt_Nutsaw]

Also, take note that SixKeys is a member of the Mentors Guild, not a Ubisoft employee. The Mentors Guild members are great members of the community, and I'm sure SixKeys would be happy to have a conversation with any of you on these forums about this topic and others. Just wanted to clear up that misconception, though.

Oh I'm sorry that's my bad, I also didn't mean to single out this one person but just saw it as the official Ubisoft response.

Finally... I think the original post here took some pretty big leaps. While the trailer definitely seems to support the idea that history is more complex than the records left behind, I think that's a pretty common assumption.

Of course history isn't 100% accurate neither is science or anything else it all get's muddled by human corruption, worldviews and the like but absence of proof is not proof. It also doesn't change the fact that as I said the AC franchise is founded upon and consistently uses anti-christian revisionism of history, it isn't by any means a "big leap" to point this out and I don't see you arguing my claim but rather just try to diminish my entire post into a "big leap" to dispute everything I said. It also doesn't change the fact that as I pointed out in my anecdote the vikings where just what the English portrayed them as so in this case history is pretty much 95% right with some standard exaggeration but you as a company chose to go with the 5% chance that it isn't right because it fits into the anti-christian narrative.

At least in my experience, my history professors almost entirely taught that the record of history is written with bias and egotism.

Your history teachers where almost entirely historical revisionists then which seems to be the standard these days.

I don't think that's a condemnation or endorsement of either party. Just an observation that the "Vikings" (already a negative connotation for "Norsemen") probably have a simplified reputation due to many western depictions of them.

So you are saying that a grouchy old king who sits in a chair in a dark spooky room who then has a speech about how the godless vikings need to be massacred isn't the bad guy and then when you see the vikings they let women and children go free and they live in peace and harmony until this evil king comes and attacks them, are they not supposed to be the good guys?
Yeah the vikings have always had a negative depiction in the western world and yes they are probably simplified but guess what, so was ISIS. And here's the thing the vikings where the ISIS of the northern world. They went out on a religious mission to bring on Ragnarok and they murdered and pillaged without remorse just like ISIS wanted to bring on the apocalypse by causing chaos, we don't even know what kind of atrocities they committed during and after the invasion that we don't even know about. So I would say they have a well deserved depiction of being terrorist savages. There was nothing peaceful about them, of course they where friendly and nice to their own people, again so was ISIS (The ones who converted that is).

Again I will still buy Valhalla and am hyped for it all I'm saying is that the anti-christian revisionism is very obvious. I can handle it I'm a big boy and am steadfast in my faith as God has answered my prayers many times and I read the holy bible every day, but I feel the need to speak out for what I feel is right and for the ones who aren't as steadfast as me. You are in a position to change the world as a company, you reach millions of people around the world so what you do matters and of course there isn't anything wrong in portraying the good in "bad guys" because we need to love our enemies but I'm just saying, why is it always the case that Christians are the bad guys?

[paddy234]

Pope John Paul II said in an encyclical once, "Christians have often denied the Gospel; yielding to a mentality of power, they have violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions: be patient and merciful towards us, and grant us your forgiveness!" So one of your own Popes is on record admitting that Christians haven't brought a greater good.

Religion (alongside philosophy, art, democracy, laws and so on) is there to help you become a better person, to make you warmer, more compassionate and empathetic...it's not there to give you an innate sense of superiority or a vicarious sense of past glory. The appeal of a religion has nothing to do with its historical resume or overall connections, for good and ill. Just because the Catholic Church did something bad in the past doesn't mean that the genuine sense of faith people have towards it today is invalid. There's no connection between them. If you find value in your faith that's fine and great. It stops being so if you go about telling people that your religion "made the West strong" or brought civilization and so on.



This is not in fact "the other" view. This "other" view you put out is actually just as simplistic as the other one. The medieval era not actually being the "dark ages" or so on, doesn't validate everything else about it. And certainly doesn't validate the Church's role and actions in that time. The Crusades for instance are rightly seen today as a disaster.

The actual view in history since the mid-50s is heavily dominated by Post-Modernism, which severs the idea of history being linear, progressive, or heading somewhere. Historians see history as being random, chaotic, and driven as much by luck and contingency as any intrinsic labor. That strikes me as being far more accurate than anything else. The so-called "glory of the West" you talk about, that's not something that existed always and forever, nor was it something that was inevitable or some manifest destiny of Western Europe. It happened as a result of a series of conditions that's unrepeatable. You are attributing agency to the Catholic Church for something that is actually coincidence.



No need to bring politics into this, but I must point out the majority of Americans did not vote for Trump in 2016. The majority of people did vote for Brexit though, so as an Irishman you can make fun of West Britain all you wish because those people really did live in a bubble over there, but keep your bubble vision out of Yankee waters.



These barbarians, such as the Goths who sacked rome in the early 400s prominently spared the Church, and others were themselves Arian Christians, such as the people around Odoacer. Historians actually give more credit to the goths than they did before.



The Irish monks weren't important but I think you are vastly overstating the case, there. After the end of the Roman Empire, the great center of learning was Baghdad and then Cordoba, where Arab and Islamic scholars unleashed the first scientific revolution since the fall of Greece. The Roman Empire froze science and mathematical innovations, hidebound as they were to Artistotle and it was innovators who were never conquered by Rome who first unchained science from those shackles. The Arabs also translated like crazy.



How is it then, that the very secular French Revolution was the first to abolish slavery in the Western World, that they were the ones who gave equal rights to Protestants, Jews, and non-believers? That (the then secular) Napoleon abolished slavery on Malta which had been practised by the Knights Hospitallers, a Catholic Order, in Malta?

Convenient, is it not, that you assign credit for the achievements of other ideologies and philosophies, and claim ,that it was all Christian under the sheets? Christianity did have some positive good, but so did other religions and faith, and other philosophies and ideas that have nothing to do with religion. No one can say that one idea alone did more good than anyone.



No mature adult takes KCD seriously either. It's just as Hollywood. I mean a peasant rising up to become a nobleman, come on.

You make some excellent points here. My claim wasn't that Christians always brought a greater good, it was that as a whole Christianity was/is a good. Have Christians committed evil acts, absolutely and the worst were those who claimed they were doing such deeds in the name of God to further their own ends. Anyway Christianity is not merely an ideology among many and i would be doing it a great disservice to reduce it to that. Christianity is the belief that subscribes to the monotheistic and Abrahamic tradition of the one God who created all time, space and matter, the logos. God seeking to redeem mankind unifies himself with man by becoming man and undertaking the greatest sacrifice ultimately leading towards mans redemption. There is no room for pride and superiority therefore within Christianity.

Also i never claimed that other religions and world-views did not bring about good nor bad. My point was to show that the main driving force behind Europe after the fall of Rome and the birth of a new Europe was the Christian world-view which intermingled within itself other traditions and philosophies. Also France was not the first country in Europe to abolish slavery especially not in Europe. It was abolished even in my country 1500 years earlier. Slavery was denounced in papal bulls and encyclicals after it was re-emerging during the age of colonialism after it for the most part had been outlawed across Europe apart from penal servitude which is very different from racial slavery.

As for the French revolution or Great Terror giving equal rights to protestants Jews and non believers, it's a pity they didn't extend those same rights to Catholics in which they exterminated in the tens of thousands. The revolution was a disaster and egotistical Napoleon in his last days was very aware of this and his nations ego and where it led him and rebuked himself for his actions which led nowhere. France would later regain it's Christianity, largely due to Napoleon ironically.

As for for centres of learning. The great learning centres of Europe largely boomed within the reign of Emperor Charlemagne creating the Carolingian Renaissance which was inspired by the Christian Roman Empire before it in the 4th century. It give way to many Cathedral Schools later becoming some of the most prestigious universities in the world such as Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Vienna etc where the University system was born. Every monastery and bishopric was to have a centre for learning.

As for no mature adult take KCD seriously either. It is a much more believable world than most RPG's i have ever played never-mind Assassins Creed. While a peasant becoming a nobleman was highly unlikely it was possible even though rare in history. What i mean to say with Assassins Creed is that the world that is portrayed in the historical setting takes so many liberties in order to be relateable that it isn't in the least bit historical apart from the amazing architecture which i feel makes this game so special. The historical locations are so finely detailed. How people spoke and behaved, how they lived their lives in KCD while not 100% accurate i'm sure was much more indepth and immersive within the historical setting. The traditional roles that men and women played for example, the aristocracy, noble class in contrast to the lower classes etc. Peoples views on morality, their own mortality, the soul, art, literature etc

[VestigialLlama4]

You make some excellent points here. My claim wasn't that Christians always brought a greater good, it was that as a whole Christianity was/is a good.

That's a valid subjective view for you to hold. Just don't conflate that with actual historical observations when assessing societies and culture as a whole.

Also i never claimed that other religions and world-views did not bring about good nor bad. My point was to show that the main driving force behind Europe after the fall of Rome and the birth of a new Europe was the Christian world-view which intermingled within itself other traditions and philosophies.

Which is more defensible, yeah. Christianity and its ideas and values -- be it Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox -- certainly did influence and shape Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire, that much is true.

Also France was not the first country in Europe to abolish slavery especially not in Europe. It was abolished even in my country 1500 years earlier.

I don't know what the Irish education system tells you, but slavery existed in Ireland until William the Conqueror and the Anglo-Normans (which sounds like a great name for a rock band) abolished it. This doesn't mean that the Irish Church there didn't try to stop slavery and so on. But Saint Patrick didn't erect a theocracy, the Church didn't have the actual power to pass laws and enforce them, that fell to the Kings, and slavery was common in Ireland before the Vikings arrived. When the Vikings came, slavery heightened and for a while Ireland was the largest slave market in Europe. And it wasn't tied to religion. Well after the Norse-Gaelics converted to Christianity, slavery continued.

Fact is all monotheistic faiths -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- accomodated and made compromises with slavery, because that was a huge part of the economy of the world in the Ancient to Medieval eras. If any of these religions were abolitionist...well monotheism would not have become super popular needless to say. If Christianity truly tried to "free the slaves" then the Romans would have crushed it into dust and there would be nothing left. They had to compromise in some form to continue...and that's what all the various Christian schisms in the Roman Empire to Late Antiquity were all about. Slave revolts and rebellions always failed, with the major exception being the Haitian Revolution (and even that was arguably a Pyrrhic Victory).

Slavery was denounced in papal bulls and encyclicals after it was re-emerging during the age of colonialism

The Pope saying something doesn't make it so. As someone who is so defensive of the Catholic Church I hope you wouldn't operate on the assumption that the Catholic Church and the Pope were this all-powerful dictator that so many people assume they were. These Papal bulls and so on didn't have the weight of law. Furthermore Popes come and go. One Pope might say one thing, another would say elsewhere. There are records of Popes owning slaves, such as the personal galleys of the popes being manned by slaves and so on.

France would later regain it's Christianity, largely due to Napoleon ironically.

By which point Napoleon reintroduced slavery in the French colonies (save Haiti which fought him hard and won). So that doesn't seem to serve your narrative about the Catholic Church being their great abolitionist ideology. It runs counter to that.

As for no mature adult take KCD seriously either. It is a much more believable world than most RPG's i have ever played never-mind Assassins Creed.

Which is a valid subjective view for you to hold, but something that others here and elsewhere will contest.

While a peasant becoming a nobleman was highly unlikely it was possible even though rare in history.

Not in the way that KCD does it.

The traditional roles that men and women played for example, the aristocracy, noble class in contrast to the lower classes etc. Peoples views on morality, their own mortality, the soul, art, literature etc

What you are interested finally in a historical story is a vision of the past that appeals to you. Others however look at the past with different lenses. That's all. It's just a subjective preference on your part just as it is for the rest of us who like AC games and for their unusual approach to representing history.

The fact is that when dealing with history, the mind always creates a version of the past, and its context, that is agreeable to us while discounting everything. The world democracy and republic which we use today didn't have its modern meaning in Athens and Rome. Same with a lot of things. Actual philosophers and historians have spilled ink about this in buckets and drums.

[TORFINR]

A "viking" is a pirate.
I guess there were a big difference between a "Viking" norse and a "non-viking" norse remaining at home.

And for trying to undertand or feel what is it about, the best thing I can do is visiting the Nordic countries, smelling the air near a lake or the sea, making a campfire, eating salted or smoked fish, feeling the cold penetrating your bones in winter in an almost permanent darkness, feeling the heat of the sun during the night in summer... I'm sure I'm closer to reality with all these things than with texts of saxon foolish monks in women clothes brainwashed with their palestinian god.

Hlaðgerðr

[RHYLASS]

A "viking" is a pirate.
I guess there were a big difference between a "Viking" norse and a "non-viking" norse remaining at home.

And for trying to undertand or feel what is it about, the best thing I can do is visiting the Nordic countries, smelling the air near a lake or the sea, making a campfire, eating salted or smoked fish, feeling the cold penetrating your bones in winter in an almost permanent darkness, feeling the heat of the sun during the night in summer... I'm sure I'm closer to reality with all these things than with texts of saxon foolish monks in women clothes brainwashed with their palestinian god.

Hlaðgerðr

I see what you did there

There is nothing like freedom. Choices made.

[Megas_Doux]

Don't lump everything together!



.........................




That anti-vikings propaganda that the vikings genocided and eradicated all picts is a lie!
Deliberate pro-christian propaganda to portray vikings as bloodthirsty animals.
But very logical - only bloodthirsty maniacs could fight against good christians..


..................

Look, I don't mean to offend you, but NOTHING on that answer was anywhere close to the question I asked you. And No, I didn't say the vikings eradicated the Picts either.

[VestigialLlama4]

A "viking" is a pirate.
I guess there were a big difference between a "Viking" norse and a "non-viking" norse remaining at home.

Well yeah, but remember as far as world-historical influence goes, the ones who left home are of more interest and importance.

And for trying to undertand or feel what is it about, the best thing I can do is visiting the Nordic countries, smelling the air near a lake or the sea, making a campfire, eating salted or smoked fish, feeling the cold penetrating your bones in winter in an almost permanent darkness, feeling the heat of the sun during the night in summer... I'm sure I'm closer to reality with all these things than with texts of saxon foolish monks in women clothes brainwashed with their palestinian god.

-- The Vikings left these Scandinavian homes and invaded/immigrated/settled in sufficient numbers in Eastern Europe, England, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland. So if you want to really understand the Viking cultures, visiting these places or the towns with "thorpe" as a suffix will tell you more about it than being in Norway, Denmark, Sweden. No offense to Scandinavians here but that's a fact. There's more to Scandinavia than Vikings largely because the Vikings in general left Scandinavian shores.
-- As for Anglo-Saxons brainwashed by their texts...the Vikings and other Norse peoples were equally brainwashed by stories about Odin and Aesir. People only imbibe a religion because their parents and community tell them who to pray to and worship, so everyone is equally "Brainwashed".
-- Ultimately most of these Viking settlers converted to Christianity and adopted it.

So no need to make this some kind of pagan//Christian religious thing.

They went out on a religious mission to bring on Ragnarok...

Words fail.

Nobody with an iota of intelligence will ever entertain such a laughable claim.
-- We don't know enough about the theology of the Norse Polytheism, to know or understand how the Vikings interpreted their stories. So nobody can claim honestly, in good faith, that the Vikings were eschatologists out to bring the end times. And the evidence we do have is that the Viking raids in England and elsewhere wasn't motivated by religion.
-- What we do know about the Norse Religion based on the Eddas is that Ragnarok was the fate one tried to stave away or avoid, and that it was something Odin in particular devoted all his time to averting, delaying, staving away. And again, in those stories when Ragnarok came, it was brought about by Loki, the villain of those stories. Human actions like Viking raids and so on, would not in any way have bearing on that.
-- We also don't know enough about how the Norse peoples understood it. The big question is, "Was Ragnarok something the people understood as something that already happened in the past" or if it was something that was going to happen. Like if you were a Norse polytheist, Mjolnir-Pendant wearing guy, was Ragnarok how you understood your past, or your future?

Again quit projecting your present fears and biases on the past.

So I would say they have a well deserved depiction of being terrorist savages.

A term like "Terroristic Savages" in and of itself is a historical eyesore. The word literally makes no sense.
--Terrorism is understood to be a modern urban phenomenon developed in the 19th Century across Europe. It is if anything a product of urban, modern, developed society and civilization.
-- Literally nobody would use a word like "savage" in any honest work of anthropology or history. It's a nonsense word, racist in implication and utterly inhumane.

If you are trying to imply that the Vikings were outside of civilization or outside the norm somehow, then I must tell you that in so far as we understand civilizaton to be the successful waging of war, innovation in technology and transportation, the foundation of cities and building nations and empires, the Vikings were absolutely part of the endeavor to build European civilization.

Deal with it.

[RHYLASS]

You make it sound like an mathematical equation LV4
I am not amused.

Nobody with an iota of intelligence will ever entertain such a laughable claim.

What when they did?

Remember?

Remember you die. Die sword in your hand. Or loose all. There is no death but failing! So you do not fail.

YOU DIE WHEN YOU DIE

edit

Deal with it