Historical revisionism in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla | Forums

[RHYLASS]

Or raiding muslim cities...I mean, it's not like they did anything to the Vikings up North.

They didn't! Its nothing personal

[VestigialLlama4]

The Norse the Germans the Franks the Goths, knew I guess its save to say, that they were targetted by Christianity later on and Rome in the first place.

Here's the thing, if the Scandinavians heard about or cared about Verden or the burning of Irminsul, then
a) they would have to know where that is on the map.
b) they would know that it's not in England.

So why attack England? If revenge raids was their desire, then why not attack Churches in Saxony and other parts nearer to them than Lindisfarne. Likewise there was some 11 years of distance between the massacre of Verden in 782 CE and the attack on Lindisfarne in 793 CE. So it doesn't make sense in terms of timing and distance.

And again, you are presuming that people back then had knowledge of the Catholic Church's organization and its network of churches that we now have today. Even lay Christians didn't know that. The ordinary Christian peasant followed his local priest and bishop and in many parts of Europe where conversion and the faith was still new, like in Ireland, certain Pre-Christian practises and so on continued in day-to-day as a kind of compromise made by the local diocese to a gradualist conversion. It's less concievable that Vikings would have knowledge of that.

And likewise, the Vikings just raided and robbed monasteries. They didn't burn the buildings down or anything. They did repeat raids on monasteries in some cases. They attacked, smashed and grabbed, and got out. Compared in scale to what Charlemagne did to the Saxons (more people died at Verden than all Viking raids combined, at least before the arrival of the Great Heathen Army), that's not revenge in terms of scale. It's basically like someone commits an act of ethnic cleansing, and your response is doing the medieval version of a fratboy prank.

[LDS_Darth_Revan]

People, people, calm down. There's no need to argue. Both sides had lots of terrible monsters who murdered lots of innocent people.

[RHYLASS]

Here's the thing, if the Scandinavians heard about or cared about Verden or the burning of Irminsul, then
a) they would have to know where that is on the map.
b) they would know that it's not in England.

So why attack England? If revenge raids was their desire, then why not attack Churches in Saxony and other parts nearer to them than Lindisfarne. Likewise there was some 11 years of distance between the massacre of Verden in 782 CE and the attack on Lindisfarne in 793 CE. So it doesn't make sense in terms of timing and distance.

And again, you are presuming that people back then had knowledge of the Catholic Church's organization and its network of churches that we now have today. Even lay Christians didn't know that. The ordinary Christian peasant followed his local priest and bishop and in many parts of Europe where conversion and the faith was still new, like in Ireland, certain Pre-Christian practises and so on continued in day-to-day as a kind of compromise made by the local diocese to a gradualist conversion. It's less concievable that Vikings would have knowledge of that.

And likewise, the Vikings just raided and robbed monasteries. They didn't burn the buildings down or anything. They did repeat raids on monasteries in some cases. They attacked, smashed and grabbed, and got out. Compared in scale to what Charlemagne did to them (more people died at Verden than all Viking raids combined, at least before the arrival of the Great Heathen Army), that's not revenge in terms of scale. It's basically like someone commits an act of ethnic cleansing, and your response is doing the medieval version of a fratboy prank.

Dear VestigiaLLlama4 ( that name's some sort of a test?)

I presume nothing. You make me reiterate myself and I hate that.

Valhalla, 873 nach Christi Geburt.

24 August 410 AD The Germans sack Rome.
Along the conquest came the Christianisierung christianizare.
Subsequently PAGANS were targeted.


Who ever entered a ship 500 years later to gain, knew!

[RHYLASS]

PS.

IF thats still a miracle to you, if you came across a monastery with their little chicken-bones held sacred and a little gold a little silver a little tapestry a maiden corn horses linen You took them.

Made them pay for your little miserable live ... Go figure the tune is old ....

Regards

[Megas_Doux]

LOL at the turn of this thread haha.


I mean, we went from apologetic #1 on one side to apologetics #2 and #3 on the opposite one.

[RHYLASS]

People, people, calm down. There's no need to argue. Both sides had lots of terrible monsters who murdered lots of innocent people.

Good advise! I am not threatened.

LOL at the turn of this thread haha.


I mean, we went from apologetic #1 on one side to apologetics #2 and #3 on the opposite one.

LOL
Don't make a fuzz! Call me if you need an axe.

[VestigialLlama4]

Dear VestigiaLLlama4 ( that name's some sort of a test?)

Xbox 360 Online made that via random name generator, I decided to keep it because a) It wasn't something I would come across, b) it was unique. Put it on Google and all searches will lead to me and me alone. Whether here or in reddit

That's what happens when you see patterns in places where they are none.

24 August 410 AD The Germans sack Rome.

The 410 Sack was extremely mild by the standards of the time. And again that sack was motivated by issues of payment and disputes with administration. Not religion. And it was done by Visigoths (a group that included Germans, Frenchmen, and others). Fun fact, during the sack, the Goths spared the major Christian basilicas.


Again your argument is basically fantasy and fan-fiction, and not history. You are assuming that people of the early modern era, a time before a modern education system, a developed informed society, without any sense of civic society, would actually have the same level of nationalism, and continuous social identity, that people of the last 200 years espouse. Nobody in the Dark Ages gave a s--t about grudges like this. To be an American today is to have an identity that goes back to the American Revolution and the legacy of the Civil War and World War II that happened in-between. But to be a Vikinger or Scandinavian back then, you really only needed to follow your local village, town, council and elders and so on.

You also presume that all Germanic peoples were unified or have some common identity which they didn't. Within Scandinavia Vikings fought among one another. Viking raids were also conducted in Frisia (parts of Netherlands, and Germany), so they attacked their own people so to speak.

This is basically history for 3 year olds at this point.

[pesto.]

Why would you want it to be fair? History isn't fair, it's written by the winners.

It's complex. Wanting to see good in everyone is a great christian trait. But merely being human, being complex, having dreams, desires, even loving does not make you good. Massive atrocities have been and continue to be committed by people just like that.

The Vikings, my people, took advantage of a situation and technological advances to try to survive better. They very probably were every bit as bad as was written, and at the same time they were every bit as human and every bit as moral as those they fought. There was no "Geneva convention" then. This is about surviving and thriving, there would have been bloodlust, and there would have been fear and concern, jingoism and propaganda, animal behavior and civilized thought. But throughout history people are held accountable regardless - someone has to pay.

People are not ideal, they are not things, you don't measure a society by one member. People don't measure up when you look at them that way. So what does it matter if a character in a video game is a revisionist version of a character from the era really? It's as unfair as the real people and times. You wouldn't be able to stomach the reality in all likelihood, so we focus on the human aspects that we all share instead. Just remember, AC is a document of our times, not theirs.

[VestigialLlama4]

Just remember, AC is a document of our times, not theirs.

This sentence communicates what I and others here have been trying to express in many posts on this thread. Bravo. I agree with this totally.

The politics of the present always determine and shape the stories, or the histories, that can be told in the mainstream. Quite obviously, we don't live in an era where Vikingers are going to raid our coastline. We also don't live in an era where Kings and noblemen lord over peasants and issue harsh punishments for any act of rebellion and resistance. Where Christianity is the supreme belief system in charge. Assassin's Creed would not exist as a series if either of those things were true.

So that means Ubisoft can take that context and setting from a detached view and give you a sense of what's there, warts and all. So you can take the Viking POV and explore that from within.

At the same time, I think that dealing with religious issues like Origins did (where Bayek has issues with Greek and Roman paganism) and presumably Valhalla, by taking the perspective of a "dead" faith is an interesting way to deal with religion which is obviously something that has inspired and played a big part in history, for better and for worse. You can have freedom to deal with a faith through that point of view because there isn't a real chance and possibility of an Egyptian Polytheist raising hell about the portrayal of their belief system, or for that matter a Norse Polytheist. A positive portrayal of Vikings isn't threatening to Christians either because there's not a real danger of people turning en masse to Norse Paganism and worshipping Odin again.

I also think that's why Ubisoft has chosen to go back to the Ancient World with ORIGINS, ODYSSEY, VALHALLA because you have a lot more freedom from a historical perspective. Like in the case of AC3 and UNITY, they ran into problems because the American and French Revolution are still tied to politics today, so Ubisoft got nervous and made a mess of it in tackling that. Reaching a limit in how far they are willing to go.