Sounds like @Doctor_Faustus and @Ryuthrowsstuff share a common interest in studying Norse culture.
So where does The Vinland Saga stack up, historically speaking? Out of 10 for accuracy, with these turds in MN being 1?
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LARPing as assholes.
Why didn’t I think of that?
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I’m not familiar. Manga and Anime isn’t really my thing. And I’m not a professional like @Doctor_Faustus, neither am I much more than interested in the subject (and apt to listen to Faustus).
Brushing through the wiki article, it doesn’t look like it even presents itself as particularly historically accurate. And it doesn’t seem to break with current fads for very loosely adapting events from around that time period, caked in macho warrior tropes and leather.
Having not seen it I don’t expect I’d put it too much higher than the knobs on the scale. Just because it looks like it falls very neatly into the exact same popular conception of Vikings the knobs tend to be fixated on.
Which is not to say it’s automatically no good, or you shouldn’t like it. Just don’t go looking for accurate information in historical fantasy.
Especially when it comes to TV and Film the intent even with “accurate” media is often to accurately adapt literature, rather than accurately representing history.
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My favorite historic Vikings:
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I’m afraid I also don’t know a lot about manga. And ever since the Vikings TV show came out there has been a flood of early medieval Scandinavian themed media, so I couldn’t even keep up if I tried. From the synopsis it does seem like it loosely follows a few sagas, but it should be noted that the sagas themselves are high medieval literature, not history, that were written centuries after they supposedly took place. Which, as @Ryuthrowsstuff says, isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just that we shouldn’t expect to get our historical education from popular media.
I’d also like to add to @Ryuthrowsstuff’s excellent post on Ibn Fadlan that the Rus had eastern steppe nomad influence in their culture in addition to Scandinavian and Slavic ones. A few generations after the Rurik dynasty took over some of the rulers called themselves “khagans”, a Turkic title, and are described as wearing eastern hair styles and jewelry. Ibn Fadlan is really not a good source for Scandinavian customs. In addition there was never a unified pan-Scandinavian religion. Place name evidence makes it pretty clear that different regions worshipped different deities in the Viking age.
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Credit where credit’s due I’m pretty sure you and other posters here with a professional background pointed me towards that info. Years and years ago I think.
Probably @Medievalist too who does what it says on the tin.
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The photo is of the Ásatrúarfélagið gathering at Þingvellir. They are most assuredly not racist and have done everything they can to condemn and disassociate themselves from people who have taken aspects of Icelandic paganism and used it to promote white supremacy.
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Vikings left all kinds of things behind them
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It isn’t just that the town would lose eventually, but that every step of the process would strengthen the racists. A church who is denied under a land use ordinance can have their case carried forward by the DOJ under RLUIPA, so they bear no costs, but the city risks fighting the feds for the several years it would take to work the case through the courts. If the DOJ doesn’t take the case awards for attorney fees are still the standard, so private action has the same result. The law is unambiguous enough that a loss is certain. Groups like this use the publicity as a major fundraising opportunity.
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If Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga has taught me anything, it’s that one rule in Iceland is absolute.
Don’t fuck with the elves. They will mess you up.
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I don’t know the details, and obviously any amount of legal cost is no joke for a lil’ town. Realistically, they could only take it just far enough to make a point – maybe all they can afford is a strongly-worded statement – but then, that makes it all the more important to do what they can.
It’s frustrating because, if this were the Satanic Temple trying to open a branch in some conservative town, of course the town would make a quixotic effort to oppose that. Regular folks find it easy to be heroes when mainstream tastes are threatened; but show them a threat to actual morality, and they go all shy and discover a pious commitment to the rules.
I take your point that groups like this thrive on the publicity of being persecuted. But there’s also a danger in them not being persecuted enough. If your town has a whites-only Klan church, without even token opposition, that might be a sign that white supremacists are getting an easier ride than they should.
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I wonder if the Blood Eagle sacrifices to Odin will be open to the public?
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Oh I think it needs to be opposed, but I think it needs to come from the community more broadly, not the official government apparatus. Using the government strengthens them, but shunning every member, protesting them, boycotting any business that works with them, and possibly engaging in more vigorous opposition is a more viable solution. It doesn’t provide them with cash flow and publicity.
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This has been bothering me so I went to look up the IRS definition of “church” for tax exempt purposes. It doesn’t really have one, just a list of vague characteristics.
It would seem minimally fair (to me) if that tax code were rewritten to include a clause that you only get to enjoy the tax exempt status if you are open to all who do not actively disrupt the proceedings.
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This! It’s an expensive version of the “don’t feed the trollies” hypothesis. The problem with ignoring them is that, well, it doesn’t work. They fester and grow when left to their own devices. Speaking out against fringe beliefs that we don’t want around is always how societies have kept them in check. Speaking out marginalizes those groups and keeps them from getting normalized and creeping into mainstream discourse.
This notion of ignoring trollies came about in the Internet age and I honestly wonder where it came from, because it’s a very bad idea. I think it contributed in some small way to the rise of the alt-right (and ultimately Trump, the King Of trollies).
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That is an interesting question.
I suppose it’s kind of an extension of how polite folk deal with real-life flashers or street-yellers, which is to cross the street. If that’s the logic, there are a bunch of flawed assumptions there.
It probably also has something to do with the boundary-less nature of online spaces. Like, a gibbering nazi can go on Facebook or Amazon and have exactly the same experience as a nice person, whereas at school or Target, the nazi would get kicked out, and be unable to get a diploma or towels. The elaborate shunning infrastructure we rely on in real life just doesn’t have any force on the internet. So genteel NYT-reading netizens clutch their pearls and wait for the trollies to be Dealt With, except it doesn’t work because there are no police or social workers on Twitter.
I often wonder if, in a hundred years’ time, using the internet directly will be considered shameful or low-class, for this exact reason.
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It’s the online equivalent of “ignore the bullies and they’ll go away.” Except that, in both cases, ignoring them just eggs them on.
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Well no, in comment sections, answering their disingenuous asshattery is what eggs them on, often with the result of derailing a discussion. Which is why mods here at bbs, for example, have long asked that the rest of us ignore t r o l l s, except by flagging them. Extensive engagement only brings about a need for a lot of cleanup, and sometimes, the removal as well of answering comments that sincere people put a lot of time into.
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Good points there, and maybe I’m thinking too much of Another Site™ where flagging is pointless.
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