Digital Lascaux

One day you’re going to write the best thing you’ve ever written, and you won’t even know it until maybe years later. You’ll just go on, blissfully producing a steady stream of increasingly mediocre drivel. 

And what’s worse, no one will read it, this masterpiece of yours, and it will disappear forever into some dusty hard drive in some server farm cavern. Never to be seen again, unless data archeologists stumble across it in a thousand years, like some digital Lascaux. 

Van Gogh died a pauper, and you are no van Gogh.

No Word for Yes

The Tatemae were a quiet, peace-loving race, descended from avian omnivore stock, migrating along the Perseus arm in flocks of swept-wing spacecraft. 

They were involved in more and bloodier wars than any other race in the galaxy.

The trouble was this: The race had no word for “Yes,” and thus by extension, no way to give an unambiguous “No.” Regardless of their individual feelings, culture custom and language forced any individual Tatemae to hem and haw and reply to any request with “Well, it might be difficult…” 

Did they come in peace? Well, they might, they might not. Too early to tell.

Would they be willing to exchange technologies? Ah, now, that was a good question.

Could they change their migration route? Hm. Might be tricky.

How about a peace agreement between their race and ours? Perhaps. Hard to say. 

Would they withdraw before we open fire? They’d give it some thought.

And cue another bloodbath.

Animate Entropy

As quantum scientists know, the world is shaped by observation and belief, and so it will end when enough of us want it to. We’ve approached that point asymptotically, a steady erosion of our will to live through famine, war, pestilence, and even just the common, petty, daily drudgery of not being dead.

That loss has weakened the foundations of the world, and allowed the demons in.

A demon is just animate entropy, with no more malice than an acid or alkaline, only driven by the need to liberate all the stuff that makes you you from its molecular bonds and the tyranny of being you.

This is why demons are banished by belief. Only the certainty that life in all its imperfections is still worth living will ensure that there will be any life left in the universe.

Klondike Again

The wagon master eased his horse to a halt at the crest, and turned to the train behind him. 

After centuries the Klondike River was once again a destination, though its visitors were running from something, not to. It was hot even in winter, and gritty asphalt got into everything, including the food. 

“Welcome,” he called to the refugees. “Welcome to the promised land. Welcome to the last indrawn breath before the mortal exhalation of a dying world. Welcome to the penultimate paragraph in Earth’s final chapter. 

“Enjoy the scenery, dinner is at seven. Hope you like grubs and algae, cos that’s what you’re getting.”

One

There is only one soul, and it lives the life of every person, one at a time, forgetting itself at the end of each, so to return and do it all over again, only through different eyes. You will be the richest of us, and the poorest, you will be the happiest and the saddest, you will love yourself, torture and kill yourself, but never ever remember.

Transjovian Airsphere

Welcome to the Transjovian Airsphere, your soap bubble among the stars, your exotic exile, your home away from home, friends, family, pets, the whole shebang really. 

Head forward please while we insert the subdermal MTE chip. 

We’re five billion clicks from Earth so there’s not a lot to see or do, but not to worry, the chip gives you immediate retinal access to centuries of shows and movies. 

There we are.

Here’s your Motivator. Yes, it looks like a knife. The Airsphere orbits slowly but the walls are too thin to keep you in, so you’ve got to keep in constant motion or you float off into nothingness. Just give yourself a jab from time to time, stop yourself from getting too comfortable.

Right? All set then. Away you go.

The Point of It

The Grave Digger dug by the moon’s bony light, and the Bounty Hunter kept watch from his shadowy seat atop the next grave stone, thumbs hooked around his six-shooter belt. 

The Grave Digger’s spade bit deeper and deeper into the endless black earth, and the Bounty Hunter’s fingers drummed a brittle and skeletal tune on his thighs. 

“Just a little bit more,” said the Digger, leaning against the handle of his shovel and wiping cold sweat from his brow. 

“Ain’ goin’ nowhere,” the Hunter replied with the ghost of a shrug.

“No,” the Digger squinted at the Hunter. “I reckon you ain’t.”

The graveyard was silent but for the bell toll of the metal spade on unforgiving earth.

“Such a waste, dyin’ so young,” the Digger muttered. “Makes you wonder, what’s the point?”

“Too late to worry about that now. Either there’s no point, or the whole thing is the point. The length of the livin’ don’ enner into it.” 

When he was done, the Digger threw aside the shovel, and hauled himself out, back out of the hungering hole, dusted the dirt from his palms and took off his hat. Held it nervously in both hands. “Anything to say before we do the necessaries?”

“Naw, no sense in gettin’ all loquacious now. Best say what you need to say when you’re still among the quick. Why waste words on the dead?”

The Digger shrugged. “Like what you said: Either words are their own point, or there ain’t none.”

The Hunter chuckled, and took off his own hat. Giving the Digger a good view of the shot that had killed the Hunter, a neat, round and brown hole just above the right eye. “Maybe put that on my tombstone,” he said, and stuck out his hand. “My thanks.”

“Safe travels,” said the Digger as they shook, and then watched as the Hunter lay down in the hole he’d prepared for him. Sighing, the Digger began to fill it again.

Outlaw King

Title: Outlaw King
Directed by: David Mackenzie
Written by: David Mackenzie, Bathsheba Doran, James MacInnes, Mark Bomback, David Harrower

In this latest straight-to-Netflix installment in Hollywood’s love affair with Scottish rebels against the one people Hollywood hates more than Republicans or Nazis—the English—we follow the future “King of Scots” Robert the Bruce (Star Trek and Wonder Woman leading man Chris Pine) as he fights for independence.

Overall, it has a lot going for it, including a great cast and suitably gritty visuals, but the whole thing is kind of let down by the rushed and unengaging story. 

Chris Pine plays against type here as the dour and melancholy Brucey, in a role that largely requires him to look mournful and stare just slightly past the camera with those blue, blue eyes of his. I like that he reigned in his charisma and challenged himself with a more brooding, thoughtful role, but I think he was let down a bit by the script that never shows a hint that there’s anything deeper going on inside his head—he just looks Eeyore glum most of the time, and that’s it. 

On the other hand, the supporting cast is generally excellent. This is the movie for anyone suffering from Game of Thrones withdrawal. Not only is the tone similar—including everything from the evisceration of supposed good guys to a mud-soaked Battle of the Bastards-esque finale—but it also has a lot of familiar faces.

There’s James Cosmo (Jeor Mormont in GoT) as Robert’s father, Clive Russell (Brynden Tully) as Scottish Lord MacKinnon, and best of all, Stephen Dillane (Stannis) finally claiming his mantle as our true and rightful king, Edward I. However, his son, the Prince of Wales and future Edward II (Billy Howle) is a right turnip, so he’s still not winning any awards in the parenting department.

The camera is restless and dynamic, swooping and twirling around, into and through the scenes, most notably an opening one-take whirlwind as Edward I brings the Scottish lords to heel with a demonstration of his power before the last pocket of resistance, Stirling Castle. 

The action is suitably frenetic, particularly in the smaller-scale scenes like an ambush on Robert’s small band of followers or a sneak raid on a castle. Battles don’t stint on the mud and gore, though they do fall into the common pitfall of having the main characters act like board game Hero Units, dispatching hordes of faceless adversaries with one stroke. I don’t claim to be an expert on medieval warfare, but I rather think the point of wearing all that chainmail would be to make it ever so slightly difficult for the other fella to gut you with their sword—just once I’d like to see a medieval movie that tried to show how hard it would actually be to kill an armored opponent with nothing but a big fancy knife. 

Still, that’s a minor quibble.

The main trouble with the movie is that the whole spectacle is far too sterile.

Action movies have to be more about yelling and screaming and blood and gore and bashing each other with bits of metal. All that has to mean something, otherwise it’s all just empty spectacle. 

Interesting, gripping, edge-of-your-seat drama and action depends on engaging the viewer. And being engaged depends on—excuse me if I get technical here for a second—understanding what the hell is happening on the screen, both physically and emotionally. What are these people trying to do? Why? Does that make sense? Is there a chance of failure? Do I—as the viewer—hope they will succeed or fail (and why)? 

Outlaw King is brilliant at showing me What is going on, but completely duff at showing me Why. It charges through plot points like a knight in chainmail, without bothering to slow down and show you the motivations or reasons for any of the action.

We open, as mentioned above, with Robert the Bruce and the other Scottish lords surrendering to Edward I after a failed rebellion, led in part by William Wallace of “Braveheart” fame. Soon after the English execute Mel Gibson and hang up bits of his body around the kingdom, driving the Bruciest of all Roberts to rebel once more.

And I have no idea why.

He informs his family of his decision to fight, and they all agree, including his new wife, the product of an arranged marriage to a powerful English nobleman’s daughter. His wife, Elizabeth de Burgh (Florence Pugh) defiantly declares “I choose you!”

And I have no idea why.

These aren’t minor details, these are the pillars on which the whole movie rests—the A story about Robert’s rebellion, and the B love story between Robbie and his English queen—and the key players’ motivations in both are a complete blank. 

With a movie so tightly focused on one man, the titular Outlaw King, especially one so withdrawn and thoughtful, his reasons for fighting and going through all the shit he does are not incidental to the movie, THEY ARE THE BLOODY MOVIE. Without that you’ve just got a bunch of Billy Connolly impersonators going Arrgrrrghgyrrhghwharrr and smashing each over the head with maces. 

The problem I think is that the scriptwriters were too focused on hitting all the necessary plot points charting Robert’s fall and rise, not enough on ensuring we actually care about them. It’s just kind of assumed that you’re on board with Rob and the gang and know the English are baddies worth fighting against. 

That’s why we blast through the opening, including the decision to go to war, without bothering much with motivations, and why later plot points, like the guerilla war against the English, are done in a scene or two before we move on. 

It’s also strangely lacking in tension, as the action tends to be all one thing or all the other—either Robert and Co are getting mercilessly clobbered and slaughtered, or they’re downing the English like pints at the pub. There’s never any hint the former will be less than an utter disaster, nor any challenge to their success in the latter, so again you’re left just kind of watching numbly. Huh. Well, I guess that happened. 

And that’s almost painful, because in almost every other respect, this is solid, first-class filmmaking. It’s well shot, well-acted, well-designed, all the other thousand elements that go into making a movie are all fine and good and nice, but it’s just so hard to give a damn about it when the characters are automatons going through the motions and the outcome of any scene is never in any doubt.

The Doors Stood Open

They sailed west, beyond the failing light of a faded world, and so came at last to the shores of Asgard. The doors to Valhalla stood open, and they threw themselves inside, eyes bright and wet with hope, love and relief.

The hearth was as black as Odin’s missing eye, the benches as empty as their orphaned hearts. Only cold and dead frost claimed Odin’s throne.

They clustered in the center of the echoing nothing, and looked at one another with eyes that said: How do we live now?

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The barbarians were in the valley, burning as they went.

“How could this happen?” moaned the patrician, as he loaded another trunk upon his donkey’s back. “Where are the legions?”

The ungrateful slaves had all fled, leaving the villa echoing and empty, and with only the mule for company. It flicked an ear and the look it gave him was unsympathetic. The trunk unbalanced, fell to the ground and broke open in an artery of gold and rubies. 

The patrician wept, but it was too late to save his wealth. Already fires were dotting the horizon. He mounted the donkey and dug in his heels. “This is all the plebs’ fault.”

The Heroism of Ordinary Men at a Pinch

Volundr was the village blacksmith, when the Jotünn came. Volundr hoped the earl would send someone to deal with it, or he’d never get any rest.

The first week, the Jotünn carried off a goat. The earl sent a thane, with eyes as splendid as his mail coat. “Smith, make me a pike,” he commanded. “I’ll spit it like a pig.” 

“More work,” Volundr sighed, and hammered a pike, long and keen.

The thane rode out and never came back, crushed like a bug by the Jotünn’s club.

The second week, the Jotunn carried off two sheep. The earl sent a skald, with knees as white as his cloak. “Smith, make me a horn,” he commanded. “I’ll scare it like a crow.”

“More work,” Volundr sighed, and hammered a horn, heavy and iron-banded.

The skald rode out and never came back, crushed like a bug by the Jotünn’s club.

The third week, the Jotünn carried off three cows. The earl sent a seithmathr, with a feet as twisted as his staff. “Smith, make me cage,” he commanded. “I’ll catch it like a fish.”

“More work,” Volundr sighed, and hammered a cage, tall and unforgiving. 

The seithmathr rode out and never came back, crushed like a bug by the Jotünn’s club.

The fourth week, the Jotünn carried off a child. The earl sent no one. All his men were too afraid. 

“More work,” Volundr sighed, and shouldered his hammer. 

He did not ride out of the village but walked, with slow and determined steps. When he found the Jotünn he said nothing, merely strode up to it and smote it three times with his hammer. Once in the foot, once in the knee, once right between the eyes.

Volundr nodded once, satisfied. His work was done. At last, he could get some rest.

Always the Same Question

The sails of Yaroslav’s boat were as yellow as his hair, and he sailed it to every land beneath the yellow sun. From the sheltered ports of the great cities to rocky shores by peasant villages, he spoke with fisherwives and merchant princes in signs, in gestures, in half a hundred different tongues. 

Through the years he learned that though the words were different, everyone, from peasant to priest, pauper to prince, always asked him the same question: What can you do for me?

Yaroslav’s ship held amber and silver, ivory and gold, but he knew what they really wanted. With a sunny smile he always said: I will remember you.

Life is a Subscription Service

Mark made sure to eat his Del Bunte banana and drink his Snow Brand milk in front of the camera, to earn enough to pay for the subway ride to work. Mentioned his Sungsam Universe phone by name twice, between mouthfuls. 

On the way, he set his smartphone on his knee to stream himself reading a TORE book and listening to the latest Imaginary Dragons. Otherwise, he’d go hungry for lunch. The videos of the entrance to the IP and Patent Consultancy and of himself smiling at his desk just about paid for his subscription to his job there, with enough left over for rent. 

At night he positioned the sheet and pillow tags before he fell asleep. Had to. It was part of the bedding lease agreement.

Round and Round

There were seven survivors in a lifeboat built for 10, but Captain Kanemochi had ordered them to leave the others and so they had. “Our survival is all that matters,” he’d said.

They drifted for weeks without food until hunger drove them to the horrible yet commonplace conclusion. 

“Draw lots and leave it to God,” said Father Damasare. Captain Kanemochi prepared six long straws, one short, and Father Damasare drew the short one. First Mate Kuroshio got his knife. 

Passengers Shimin and Tetsuo were next, before the rest noticed Captain Kanemochi had secretly marked the short straw so that he never drew it. 

They would have killed him then, but the Captain promised First Mate Kuroshio his money, a medal, his daughter in marriage, if he’d kill the other two. Kuroshio used his knife. 

When even that food was gone, the two men sat facing each other in the bobbing boat. The knife was on Kuroshio’s lap. “No hard feelings,” he said to the Captain. “But I need the strength to sail home. Can’t be far now.”

Captain Kanemochi just smiled. “You should have studied navigation,” he replied. “Haven’t you noticed? We’re trapped in the ocean gyre, the current’s been pulling us round and round in circles. We’re a thousand miles from anywhere. There’s no getting off or sailing home.”

In despair Kuroshio used his knife one last time, and when he lay dead Captain Kanemochi drifted on. Round and round. Round and round and round.

Your Off-Hand

If you have two hands, chances are one is smarter than anything alive, one dumber than a pile of bricks. Your off-hand, you see, belongs to Dark Matter You, whose life is entangled and coterminous with your own, save that all is reversed: time and place, causation and effect. 

The difference is your tomorrow is their yesterday, your next breath their last. You both have free will, but since you’re the same person in two worlds, each choice you make is inevitably the same. It’s a paradox that is its own answer: Like competing ideas in a well-trained civilized mind, you and other-you are mutually exclusive opposites that exist together simultaneously.

So wave to your reflection, in a mirror or still water, with your off-hand or theirs. Look into their eyes and wonder what they’ve seen. They’ll be doing the same, thinking the same, fearing your past as you fear their future. 

Be kind. Smile and reassure them. 

The past and future aren’t so bad. Either going or coming, you’ve made it this far haven’t you?

It Is the Mynd That Maketh Good or Ill

The fey folk fled as men felled their forests, damned and drained their rivers, made midden heaps of their mountains. Infinities traced upon snowflake edges melted in their hands. Gossamer twilit worlds suspended in the dew on spider-web threads were torn apart and cast to the wind. 

Their queen retreated into the bowels of the earth, bowed and shrunken by the weight of rage and sorrow. Crushed and compacted as each ancient and irreplaceable realm came crashing down, until her soul imploded inwards, a black hole that sucked all mystery and magic into it.

And there beneath the bleached bones of the world, she called down a curse, one so terrible and complete it drained the world and left it forever cold and dry. 

“If they hate beauty so, let their lives be filled with it,” she said. “Let other fields be greener, other mountains more graceful, other lives happier, other faces more beautiful. And let the knowledge of it devour them. Let them feast on it and never be full.”

Not Like Other Men

Edrigu led two score of men into the jungle, in search of the City of Gold. The native guides marveled at these men from the sea, their great height and narrow eyes, their steel armor and iron pride.

“We are not like other men,” Edrigu told them. “We are different, unique. And should be treated so.” 

Did the rain god not fashion them from mud, asked the guides. 

“Certainly not.”

Did their spirits not fly to join the sun god after death? 

“What a ludicrous idea.” 

That night the guides took counsel among themselves, and cut the throats of those they could with their obsidian knives. Edrigu they left to wander, starve and die.

By their own admission, the conquerors were not like other men. They were different, and should be treated so.

Losses on the Road to Moscow

The three French cuirassiers kicked in the peasant hovel door. The road from Smolensk was long, and they were hungry, tired, hot in their breastplates. The village had been empty, burned, only this one lone hut still stood. A bony-legged babushka cowered in the corner. 

“Food,” the first cuirassier bellowed. “Understand, old cow? Food!”

The crone’s eyes watched them, unblinking and uncomprehending. 

The second cuirassier mimed eating. “Eat. You know?”

Understanding dawned, and the old woman nodded eagerly. 

The door to her hut slammed shut, and in the darkness Baba Yaga towered to her full height. Her head scraped the roof and her taloned arms stretched from one corner to the other. She smiled an iron smile, filled with iron teeth, and said: “Yes, food. We shall eat.”

Ship of Theseus

“Suppose the Ship of Theseus were on display in a museum,” said Professor Fawkes.

She’d had LASIK done when she was young, her teeth were mostly ceramic.

“As the years go by and the wood begins to rot, each part is replaced, one by one.”

One knee, the other hip, were plastic and titanium. Hearing aids sat in each canal.

“The question is: When all the parts have been replaced, is it still the Ship of Theseus?”

A younger woman’s heart beat in her breast, as she waited for their answer.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, there was a small man who lived a small life, filled with resentment and failure. Each day he woke up, rode the subway to his office, sat unspeaking in front of a computer for eight hours without even pretending to work, went home and went to bed. 

He’d always assumed that screwing up your life this badly took effort, a perverse desire to do the wrong thing out of malice or spite, so it was a shock to find you could just sleep-walk into it, that you could fall and land at the bottom of the well just by being your plain and lumpy, unexceptional self.

What happened next? Nothing. That was it. It was a long climb to get out of the well and he didn’t know how, and suspected life out of it would be as dark as the one inside. So there he stayed, and there you'll find him now.

The end.

More Than Enough

In a snow-bound farmer’s field, two bands of men were going to kill each other. There were a lot of them, just how many nobody knew, but enough to make it hard to count with all the big white flakes blowing about. It was more than enough. They were going to kill each other, regardless of how many of them there were, and at the end of the killing one of them would get to be king. 

The fact that it wouldn’t be them personally who got to be king didn’t dampen their spirits as much as the snow did. Indeed, everyone seemed to agree that killing each other was the right and proper way to decide if someone else should receive the crown while they received six feet of frozen ground. 

The archers loosed their arrows, and in their excitement and the blizzard, never noticed their shafts falling short, and so enthusiastically feathered the ground. With a shout to drown out their fears, the two sides strode through drifts and slipped on ice, for the chance to hack and stab and poke and slash at one another until they staggered apart again, steaming and swearing and cursing and bleeding, for five minutes of blessed respite.

They kept at it until the wan grey sun began to sink, the dim field grew darker, and one of the ones who were supposed to become king got himself killed. 

The cry went up, “The king is dead!” In the blinding storm they couldn’t see who it was, so they just stopped, just put down their poleaxes, hammers and swords, and waited to find out if they’d won. Not much point in killing each other if their guy didn’t get to be king at the end of it. Who wants to die for nothing?

As they awaited judgement, the wind died and a cold and heavy silence fell.

The dead did not wait to hear the result. There were a lot of them, how many nobody knew. It was a lot, it was enough. It was more than enough.

Valhalla

Valhalla is full but the Vikings and berserkers have fallen silent. Odin shifts his patch to the other eye, the better not to see. The halls are packed now with baffled American investment bankers and Ugandan children, Russian opera-goers and Yemeni wedding guests, the glorious dead from our most glorious wars.

Second Cambrai

October 1918, the Second Battle of Cambrai: The assault was a great success, sustaining only light casualties. One light casualty lay in his trench, my name upon his breast. A life of 22 short years. One month not long enough.

None Loved Them More

The hidden ones, the huldufolk, were here before the sun and moon, when the world knew only endless night beneath the stars. They loved the slow and graceful arch that danced in spirals above their heads, and lit fires not for light or warmth, but in worship. 

None loved them more than Erebus, who would lie upon the ground, entranced, one hand held up as though to catch and claim the light. Other times he gathered moss to make greater and greater fires, or dug for metals which burned yet brighter still.

The other huldar laughed at him, and ran into the meadows to dance beneath the wheel of heaven. And in Erebus another fire grew, one that burned more darkly.

Deeper and deeper he dug into the world, until he reached its secret heart, and there found a fire great enough to fill even his desire. He might have been content, then, were it not for the memory of the laughter.

Erebus broke apart the light, though it burned and blackened him, carried its ember back and threw it into the sky. There it burned so beautiful, so bright. 

It blotted out the stars.

To Sail with the Stranger

Adam agreed to sail with the stranger, to cross the oceans and explore the hidden shore, although they’d only just met. The stranger’s teeth were straight, and they’d read the Iliad, so they seemed the trustworthy sort.

They bought a boat, and sailed out of sight of shore. As days and weeks lengthened to years, the horizon changed from fair green hills to monotonous, breaking waves. The transformation in the stranger took a little longer: Their white teeth grew yellow and crooked, their hair fell out and turned to scales. 

Adam lay awake each night in fear of the beast, wondering if he could still swim back to land or if he would drown, wondering which he would prefer. One night he crept on deck, and made to leap over the side. 

In the waters below Adam saw his reflection: it too was hideous, scaled and snarl-toothed. 

Adam sat back down again, ashamed. Knowing the stranger must have seen his face, had the same fears and made their own midnight journey, but never made the jump. And when the stranger awoke and came on deck there was, if not love, then understanding in their eyes, and they sailed on, to find the hidden shore.

The Empire a Fortress

The Son of Heaven summoned his councilors, and shared with them his troubling visions, of his realm crumbling into ruin. He ordered them to build a wall, to make of the empire a fortress.

“Who will build the wall?” asked the Vizier. 

None volunteered, so they hired laborers from the western desert. 

Ten thousand men labored for ten thousand days, and the shadow of the wall lengthened and grew, shutting out the lands outside. Behind its foreshortening walls, the people cast their gaze inwards, and grew fat on wealth and certainty.

“Who will man the wall?” asked the General.

None volunteered, so they recruited mercenaries from the northern steppe. 

Ten thousand men marched upon the ramparts, and the forest of their spears blotted out the sun, made a cloudy cataract of the moon. Beneath their watchful gaze, the people dazzled one another with displays of gold, and cast their sights on comfort and ease.

“Who will pay for the wall?” asked the Treasurer.

None volunteered, so they borrowed gold from the eastern islands.

Ten thousand tons of gold were sent in ten thousand boats, and the glow of it was as blinding as the sun. Secure in their own private, hoarded wealth, the people closed their eyes, and slept.

And when the invaders came from the southern kingdoms, the northern mercenaries, western laborers and eastern bankers looked the other way. It was neither their land nor worth protecting, for the realm inside the walls was already ruined.

A Shower of Applause

The splendid city was made of marble and music; its foundations of mud and marshland. And so month by month, millimeter by millimeter, it slumped back into the murk and mire, and minnows splashed in the maze of its streets.

People waded through the waist-high water. Ministers in mold-damp miters prayed for a miracle, but pattering rains were merciless. Damp seeped into their minds and bubbled up in misery. The merchants squelched into the plaza that spread before the mayor’s palace, then merely ankle-deep, and spoke their misgivings. “Our city is stricken with a malady for which there is no medicine,” said one. “We must move, or else submit to a monstrous fate.”

The mayor mulled over their words, and in the morning replied: “My friends, you are mistaken. Malingerers who sputter about disaster speak from malice. They must be muzzled, made outlaw, yes, even murdered. We must show no mercy for such madness! Instead, make merry, for our city is a marvel, our millennium just begun.”

Raindrops cascaded from the brim of his hat, like a shower of applause.

Vikings

Title: Vikings

Written/Created by: Michael Hirst

Network: History (via Amazon Prime)

Forget everything you think you know about the historical Vikings. In fact, stop thinking altogether. Do no thinking. Think zero things. This show will improve immeasurably if you do.

I’m on season four (out of five, soon to be six seasons) of this Canadian-Irish co-production, and I’m now deep, deep into guilty pleasure territory. I’m enjoying watching it, though it probably couldn’t be classified as a terribly well-made show. It’s off-brain entertainment, an off-brand version of Game of Thrones, filled with sex but without any tits or bums, filled with battles but without any blood (slow-motion action scenes in particular make it painfully obvious the actors are hitting each other with blunted prop swords), filled with intrigue but none of it any more clever or inventive than “hit the other fella with the blunted prop sword.”

But you know, it’s light, it’s fun, and if nothing else it’s a spur to finding out what the Vikings were actually like.

The show is based on the semi-legendary Viking hero Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel), a simple farmer who first leads his men west to raid the British Isles, the success of which attracts the jealousy of powerful enemies at home, including Earl Harald (Gabriel Byrne) and King Horik (Donal Logue). He defeats them both and becomes king, though he finds this is an empty reward. He is eventually betrayed and murdered by the Anglo-Saxons, which in later seasons spurs his quarrelsome sons to seek revenge by raising an army and invading England.

AHISTORICAL HISTORY

Making your main characters bloodthirsty Vikings poses some challenges in terms of making them sympathetic to the audience. The Vikings TV show’s response has been to completely ignore all that, and portray the Vikings as basically nice people who are constantly done dirty by the scheming, duplicitous Anglo-Saxons.

There is a little bit of bloodthirsty butchery in season one, though always instigated by someone other than Ragnar, of course: His brother Rollo (Clive Standen) mistrusts some Saxon emissaries and slaughters the lot of them; the eccentric boat-builder Floki (Gustaf Skarsgard) kills a priest despite Ragnar’s attempts to avoid bloodshed; a raider attempts to rape a woman but is killed by one of his fellow-countrymen.

Even this ludicrous whitewashing is abandoned after season one however, featuring instead scenes of peaceful Viking settlers being butchered by bloodthirsty Anglo-Sax—and wait a fucking moment. This is completely and utterly bonkers, 100% things which did not happen, indeed the opposite of what happened, you know that. Right? There’s hagiography, then there’s just silly wish-fulfillment, and this show is just frothingly, shield-bitingly, berserkly determined to paint the Vikings in the best possible light.

For a show that was made for the History Channel, it’s blithely cavalier about historical accuracy. This extends across everything from the way people dress, to the activities, ages and relationships among historical figures. A full accounting of all the inaccuracies would probably take as long again as the series has already lasted, but a few random highlights:

• The Vikings are portrayed as being completely oblivious to the existence of the English Isles before the first raid on Lindisfarne in 793 AD (they weren't)
• The Anglo-Saxons are shown wearing scale armor (they didn’t) and fielding massive cavalry armies (which might have come in handy at Hastings)
• In one episode, the Anglo-Saxons crucify an apostate who has joined the Vikings, although there is no evidence Christians ever did this, and indeed, considering the whole Jesus thing it seems unlikely they’d have tried
• Rollo, the founder of the Duchy of Normandy and thus ancestor to William the Conqueror, appears as the brother of Ragnar Lothbrok, though the two were completely unrelated and indeed lived about a century apart
• Speaking of Rollo, he goes from not speaking any French at all to becoming completely fluent in about two episodes, or one year of ‘real’ time, which is not how learning languages works and as someone who has spent years learning and mastering a foreign language this drives me a little bit bonkers
• Prince Burgred of Mercia is murdered by his sister Kwentrith after being captured by the Vikings: The historical Burgred was only distantly related to Kwentrith, became king and ruled Mercia for about 20 years before an invasion led by Ragnar’s sons drove him into exile in Rome
• English princess Judith (Sarah Greene) is portrayed as the daughter of Northumbrian king Aella: She was actually the daughter of the Frankish king Charles the Bald (who also appears in the show, portrayed by the wonderfully-named Lothaire Bluteau with a full and luxuriant head of hair and a Salvador Dali moustache)
• Scheming Count Odo of Paris (Owen Roe) is executed by the Frankish king, when the historical Odo was about 10 years old when Charles the Bald died, and actually became king himself and ruled for 10 years

For all that, one of the good things about the show is that it may inspire you (as it did me) to research the original stories and history the show is based on. A funeral scene, for example, is clearly based on an account of Norse burial practices by Arab Muslim writer Ibn Fadlan. While Ragnar Lothbrok exists mainly in legend, his sons Bjorn Ironside, Ivar the Boneless and others are likely historical, as is Ecbert of Wessex, his son Athelwulf, Frankish king Charles the Bald, Count Odo and a host of others.

In that sense, the real joy of the show has come after each episode, playing detective and trying to figure out what really happened during the events portrayed.

SHOW LOGIC

The writing cleaves strongly to what I’d call Show Logic rather than Character Logic. The serial TV show creates certain requirements for drama, surprise and action to be evenly spaced out within each 40-odd minute episode or 10 to 20-episode season.

A well-written TV show can meet these demands, but have them make internally consistent sense—you can see why the characters did what they did, how the conflict was caused or resolved. Character Logic. A less well-written one figures out what they want to happen first, and then tries to write around character motivation second. Show Logic.

Vikings, alas, is often not a well-written show.

Having a cast of thousands means you need to give those cast members something to do each week, even if there’s nothing especially going on in their part of the story at the moment. So what could be tight, punchy story lines are reduced to wandering, flabby affairs by the need to cut back to Ragnar’s wife and kids getting up to their usual go-nowhere hijinks, just to keep that particular juggler’s ball in the air. For a show about master navigators, it wanders dreadfully to and fro, with no goal in sight.

Episodes often end in abruptly in very odd places, just because they need a dramatic ending. In one early episode, the show resolved the main action with 10 minutes left to spare, so a Saxon prisoner randomly asks, “So, what is Ragnarok?” and a blind seer suddenly appears and everyone has apocalyptic visions, and then the episode ends and none of this is ever mentioned again.

Later, Ragnar turns from raiding to thoughts of settling in England, so agrees to meet King Ecbert of Wessex (Linus Roache), who casually mentions the existence of the City of Paris. Hearing of its glories, peace-loving Ragnar promptly decides the best thing to do is raise a massive army so he can murder-fuck the entire city. This leads to the Siege of Paris, which is admittedly one of the best arcs in the entire show—though the siege itself is a bit too dependent on James Bond gadgets like floating siege towers and rolling spike balls—but makes zero sense based on what we’ve been shown of Ragnar’s transformation from raider to ruler.

Similarly, the relationship between Ragnar and his brother Rollo swings from friendly rivalry to murderous hate almost at random, depending on the needs of the story. In another case, shield-maiden Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) falls in love with her enemy, Earl Kalf, gets pregnant by him, then murders him on their wedding day because Game of Thrones did something similar and whoops, think I just cracked the code.

Travis Fimmel’s portrayal of Ragnar Lothbrok is, um, eccentric, filled with lunatic twitchy smiles and ticks, like suddenly picking up a goat when caught in an uncomfortable confrontation between his wife and his new lover, or skinning and eating a live rat when talking to the king. It’s hard to fathom why anyone would follow this madman as far as the next piss-up, much less off the supposed edge of the world.

In another scene, Ragnar executes his rival Jarl Borg by the blood eagle, which essentially means cutting open a man’s back and pulling his lungs out. This is played as a touching moment of mutual respect between two men forced by circumstances to be enem … okay, hang on again. He’s literally murdering him in the nastiest, most painful, bloodiest, most gruesome manner the Norse could imagine, and they were no slouches on this score.

THEN WHY ARE YOU WATCHING?

The show is not without its attractions though.

The opening theme song, “If I Had a Heart” by Fever Ray, is nice and moody, for a start.

For another, the show is largely filmed outdoors, and the sweeping panoramas of Ireland, subbing for Norway, are absolutely, piercingly beautiful.

For all that I’ve complained about the acting, the byplay among the Viking leaders, and between Ragnar and King Ecbert does have its moments—contrasting the collegiate leadership style of the Vikings with the more authoritarian Anglo-Saxons.

The siege of Paris arc in season 3 is another standout, partially because it brings almost all the key cast together so we don’t have to go wandering off every five minutes for a superfluous 30-second cameo scene just to remind you who everyone is. Instead, the show can finally focus on the planning, scheming and action, and deliver tense, action-packed and suitably Vikings-y brutal scenes.

Last but not least, as I mentioned above although the show itself is about as historical as Charlton Heston’s wristwatch in “The Ten Commandments”*, the show + looking up the history and mythology on your own is actually quite enjoyable. 

(*Joke within a joke: He never wore a watch, it's an urban legend)

So while I find it hard to recommend the show, I’d recommend the overall “Vikings” experience as a kind of starting point for engaging with history, a doorway rather than a destination itself.