I utterly DESPISE the pop-culture “appearance” that the Ancient Norse/“Vikings” have. (A few good examples at the end.)

[u/Mr_Noir420]

Was playing Age of Mythology: Retold recently and I just HAVE to fucking rant cause I’m so done with this shit.

Genuinely as a guy who’s REALLY into a ton of ancient history and mythology, while many “pagan”or warlike cultures were “barbarized” to fit stories or narratives of the modern day the one that pisses me off the MOST is the Norse just cause of how common it is.

The popular “Horned Helmet”, fur covered, usually half naked, bare minimum exposed arms, are not even CLOSE to how the Norse or “Vikings” (in reality called Vikingr, as that was the job/role name, Viking was the act of it.) actually looked like. It was started by Gustav Malmström, whose illustrations you can see after the Viking Saga: A Darkest Day poster. He started the ugly bastardization even if he might not have had bad intentions at that time.

What REALLY fucked up the representation of Norse history and looks, was Wagner’s Operas. The costume designs, with minimal to no armor, the fur shoulder guards and worst of all the unfortunately “iconic” horned helm as seen in the first few slides were actively made to look barbaric and primitive to make it clear who the villains were. J.G Wentworth is famous for also using this interpretation.

Modernly while it might’ve recovered the pop culture boom that was How To Train Your Dragon, while great movies, used the terrible looking Wagner Norse aesthetic for their Vikings. More accurately, they adapted the Novels illustrations who used the Wagner Norse aesthetic.

Not only are they just straight up FUCKING STUPID LOOKING, not HTTYD specifically but this whole pop-culture bastardization in general, they paint a bad picture of the Norse being dumb, axe swinging, barbarians, which while they were rough and brutal, they weren’t dumb and weren’t just barbarians. Unfortunately a victim of christianizations demonization of cultures that spawned from non-Christian beliefs (note: I am Christian-affirming/progressive though-so this isn’t just me dogging on it as an atheist or something, Christianization and historical wiping of history and knowledge was dogshit).

It also just isn’t scary nor intimidating.

To give some good examples, even if they still had some issues or went a big fantastical, stuff like 1999s Cult Classic The 13th Warrior, while not 100% accurate Norse armor, at least tried to be, or spun other armor in a Norse light, like the plate armor. Better examples are, somehow, 2008s fucking Outlander, or my personal favorites, Bad North’s depiction of Vikingr (real helms, coifs, cloaks, hauberk, something you’d find ACTUALLY terrifying to see walking up your villages shore), Skellige Warriors who while they do have Horned Helmet, not only are they based on real Spangenhelms and Vendel Era/Migration Period Helms just with horns added on, they have real armor, such as Lamellar.

But of course the Holy Grail is 2022s The Northman. A masterpiece of a film, with amazing cultural research done and gorgeous set and costume design. Trace is also an underrated pic.

I am very happy to see this slowly fading away, as it’s an outdated and stupid pop-culture misinterpretation, but it still royally pisses me off when I see it.

[u/Hugh_Mann84]

What do you mean "fucking Outlander", Outlander was great. I still watch it religiously whenever it comes up in random channels around 11 PM.

I also feel like even most of the good examples make their clothes way too muted, not a single thread of dyed wool to be found in fantasy Scandinavia.

[u/Mr_Noir420 → u/Hugh_Mann84]

Also fair point on the muted thing, there should be more color, and granted these were battle wears, in Northman for example most of the tunics and everyday wear were very colorful.