5
DaddySpoons 5 points ago +5 / -0

Swarthy just means darker. And in a region where parts of the country dont experience daylight for a month every year people are going to be very white, so anyone slightly darker than them will be 'swarthy'. The vikings also raided as far as the Mediterranean and even Greenland, so they would come home pretty tanned.

9
DaddySpoons 9 points ago +9 / -0

Theres descriptions of "swarthy" Vikings that some claim to mean black or tanned, but this description is often used to refer to the Rus or Sami peoples who lived the East and sometimes integrated with the Norsemen and Danes. It just means they have a ruddy complexion compared to the super pale Northmen

30
DaddySpoons 30 points ago +30 / -0

This. The Western Empire went through an eerily similar series of crisis' as the west faces today. Mass immigration, foreigners seizing the highest mantle of government and ruling against the interests of the Empire, a corrupt and bloated ruling elite, suburban and city squalor, huge inflation resulting in the breakdown of industry. Weak military rulers and a slackening of the legions, even ( if you believe in it) climate change with a lot of Romes wine economy becoming infertile with lowering temperatures, Religious tensions and a disregard for tradition, even a transgender Emperor before it was vogue.

3
DaddySpoons 3 points ago +3 / -0

I'm reading "The Bothers of Gwynedd Quartet". It's a single volume collection of a four part series by Ellis Peter's, the pen name of Edith pargeter. Its fictionalised account of the life of the last true native born Prince of Wales Llywellyn ap Gruffyd and the struggles he had trying to unify Wales against the English and the politicking of his own family. I'd highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in medieval history. It's well researched, and from an English author it's very patriotic towards Wales. Plus men are men, women are women and God is great.

The author has a few classics, "A bloody field by Shrewsbury" is a great battle novel, and she had a long running series of Medieval crime dramas following a Benedictine monk called Cadfael solving murders with 'the Anarchy' as a backdrop.

1
DaddySpoons 1 point ago +1 / -0

You will have to link me to something corroborating that statement as I couldnt find anything like that. All my knowledge of the continuation war was that Finnland was very hands off, not wishing to fully engage and generally only capturing territory lost in the winter war. Hitler was generally exacerbated by the Finns reluctance to fully commit and push beyond their established borders (they did send troops into land never claimed by Finland in the north but this was the only incident I could find). Further the leningrad front was under German command including all Finnish forces and the Northern front, including German forces was under Finnish command.

And even if what you say is true and Mannerheim was heavily involved in the direct siege of Leningrad, rather than just cutting off Russian access to the Borth of the city, I'd be hesitant to call a siege of a major Russian city (it's old capital, bearing the name of the founder of the soviet state no less) a war crime in the same way as the deliberate targeting and murder of civilians is a war crime

4
DaddySpoons 4 points ago +4 / -0

Egypt was invaded by the Kushites (Nubians) who were sub saharan, they ruled for about 100 years before being defeated by the Assyrians. So one black dynasty of about of 33 to rule over Egypt....

3
DaddySpoons 3 points ago +3 / -0

Shit man, I was watching this feeling all comfy for a rural way of life watching an old man live a good life on a farm, similar to Clarkson. Now I'm a bit depressed realising this man is a modern Cincinnatus and we will never again see his like again in politics...

10
DaddySpoons 10 points ago +10 / -0

Not just this, but the humans were forced into this universe by the conjunction of the spheres, they were an oppressed people who were able to rapidly breed and out compete their oppressors to become the dominant species. The elves are doing everything they an to try and reclaim their power and would absolutely eradicate humanity if they could. Even the 'good' ones

13
DaddySpoons 13 points ago +13 / -0

It's basically the same situation. Our knowledge and understanding of human history outside of Europe, and a few exceptions like Japan, are totally lacking because those places are dangerous shitholes. You cpuldnt take an archaological team to Syria or Iraq to investigate ancient Babylonians because its honestly too dangerous, and suggesting there was history before Mohammed would get your ass killed out there. If it wasnt for the British Empire and its stabilising influence on the regions it controlled and a few rich English eccentrics who splashed their cash on digging up old and rare things, we would know virtually nothing of the ancient world outside of Europe.

I left mainly because there was no money in the field. Lots of contact work that dried up in the winter or during economic hardships so it was a stressful career to make work financially.

In terms of finds, my most interesting dig was working for the National Museum of Serbia tracking down paleolithic sites along the Danube, we were trekking up mountains with local guides taking us to caves that hadn't been used since Tito and his rebels used them to fight the Germans in ww2, and taking core samples, then if we found anything interesting we would do a full excavation. Coolest thing we found in a cave in Montenegro was a fully articulated Auroch head and spine. Aurochs were an ancestor to modern cows but about twice the size and horns nearly 2 metres in length, this thing was a beast to look at. Not very significant but coolest thing to look at.

Most important find would be at ham hill in Somerset. The place is a huge hill fort dating to the bronze age, we found a series of grain pits, most were empty but one had been filled with human remains along with a beautifully polished stone axe which are super rare. They believe the grain pits when not used for grain storage would be symbolically used in burials because of their association with rebirth and life. So the bodies weren't dumped in a hole but carefully placed there with their prized belongings for rebirth in the afterlife.

20
DaddySpoons 20 points ago +20 / -0

I used to be an archaeologist over 10 years ago now, and this has been slowing taking over the field since the 60's. It used to be that we used to study the differences and traits of cultures that inhabited certain areas. For example in the British isles we would take the varying styles and designs in buildings, pottery and clothing, etc.. to give distinct names to the people of different eras and looking at the influences from elsewhere for changes in designs when they occured, we used to take it too far and before advancements in genetic research it was believed that wave upon wave of invasions or migrations would replace ethnic groups, e.g The beaker peoples, Celtic, Saxon and a viking Invasions, the first three of which have since been largely disproven. This all focused on material remains so whenever something new or distinct appeared it was big news. Around the 60s there was a wave of theory know as 'New Archaeology' which I'm convinced was just a front for Communism taking over the field, which shifted away from great events, places, people in history and focused on the hidden lives of normal people, the interconnectivity of societies and so on. All of this wasnt a bad thing in theory for the field but the manner it was wielded meant that distinct finds would be destroyed or ignored, and inconvenient evidence contrary to 'New Archaeological' theory would be quietly shelved, and archaeologist who published contrarian opinions would lose all credibility.

It's one of the reasons I left the field, besides there being no money in it, was that it felt like a lot of private digs were setting out to prove a theory and fitting the evidence to suit it rather than letting the evidence and data points speak for themselves. I even saw entire periods or prehistory just refused to be investigated because it touched upon modern taboos, for example early human evolution and the genetic differences between races. A lot of evidence is starting to discredit the out of africa theory and instead suggest that humans evolved separately and differently globally from a far more distant ape relative than previously believed. Aboriginal peoples are essentially a completely different species to Western Caucasians, sharing wildly different genetics. They share a much closer genetic makeup to the denisovan hominins who were thought to have gone extinct around the time of the Neanderthals, where as Western Europeans can often share up to 20% of our genetics to Homo Neanderthalis which is none existent outside of Caucasians.

When this was all first discovered it was massive news and had articles with every Archaological magazine and national geographic etc... now it's been essentially memory holed and you have to seriously dig deep, ironically, online to find any articles on it

16
DaddySpoons 16 points ago +16 / -0

Shit man, I'd help you with this sounds awesome.

I used to be an archaeologist, honestly the idea we went around stealing artifacts is plain bollocks, the vast majority were purchased, and the few we just took were legitimately saved from destruction. Take the Rosetta stone for example, arguably the most important discovery in Egyptian archaeology, it had been taken from its temple by the mamuluks and used as a building stone in Fort Julien, then discovered by the French during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign then captured by the British. Egypt's honestly a great example for all this because the Arabs that had conquered and ruled Egypt didnt give a shit about its ancient past and so the tombs were all robbed and destroyed whenever found, it's only British and French antiquarian's who gave a shit about this stuff that saved it.

19
DaddySpoons 19 points ago +21 / -2

I want to scream aloud at you so often when you post. Its masculine vs feminism yes!! But women follow the most masculine popular opinion as is their role in society. They must be controlled because they are creatures controlled by emotion and it is our role as men to control them via our masculinity

6
DaddySpoons 6 points ago +6 / -0

Oddly I kind of liked the movie for this reason. My girlfriend is a massive normie, but is hesitant for vaccines because of her heart condition which isolated her from some of her family, so when we watched this movie she related so hard with the covid pandemic and it redpilled her faster than I ever could have Edit* Dont look up I mean

9
DaddySpoons 9 points ago +9 / -0

Arwens romance is pretty integral to Aragorns character but in the books this is all relegated to an appendices, so the decision was made to replace a minor character (plot wise) with Arwen to flesh out hers and Aragorns relationship. That's not woke it's just sensible story telling. Jackson even cut scenes he was going to have her in because he realised it was too much and made no sense.

12
DaddySpoons 12 points ago +15 / -3

That stands for most rulers. Your description of the Queen could equally be applied to the President. I would rather be ruled by a Monarch than a politician.

30
DaddySpoons 30 points ago +30 / -0

I grew up with Tolkiens works. Read them back to back I dont even know how many times, and I own every book published by him and his sons.

Really cuts me deep to see his work treated this way. I can live with every other franchise destroyed but Tolkiens work is on another level and it really does make me depressed to see this. A real black pill...

3
DaddySpoons 3 points ago +3 / -0

Mayan Empire collapsed waaaay, way before the Spanish arrived in America. You're thinking of the Aztecs who were fighting constant flower wars with their neighbours for slaves, so when the Spanish arrived all the smaller tribes welcomed them with open arms to help fight against their oppressors

23
DaddySpoons 23 points ago +23 / -0

Lord Castallen Creed was a hero of the imperium, the planet fell before he did. Now GW has replaced him with his daughter and made point of saying it wasnt nepotism that got her that position but her own ruthlessness and her raw talent.... except her complete absence from the lore until now..m Dont know what, but I've given GW a lot of leeway but this announcement irritated me. I dont know how many years I've waited for new Inperial guard plastics and this is what they give us?!

3
DaddySpoons 3 points ago +3 / -0

Theres a lot of references to ritual dances in the Saga's and Christian sources. Old tribal culture was very musical. Harald Hadrada (Hard Ruler) who was the quintessential viking ruler, wrote tons of Poetry and the guy had been a warrior king his whole life and even died on the battlefield. Most northern germanic and Scandinavian sources we have are songs and poems meant to be sung in the mead halls which was the center of their life. So I can fully get behind the dancing in this movie.

14
DaddySpoons 14 points ago +14 / -0

Ex archaeologist with a speciality in Post Roman up to the Viking Age here. This movie blew me away. The attention to detail, the focus on slavery, the costumes, warfare, relation to their beliefs. All superb, a 10/10 as far as historical epics go. Absolutely zero political messaging that I could see. And it didnt shy away from how brutal life could be. Theres also a small moment where some vikings act horrified and terrified of Christian belief "they worship a corpse nailed to a tree!" Which was a breath of fresh air, usually pagans are depicted as having nothing but disdain for christianity which doesnt hold true considering they would all eventually convert. I would recommend anyone with even a passing interest in the vikings or good story telling.

2
DaddySpoons 2 points ago +2 / -0

The British Empire had been undergoing a decolonisation push for some time, it had only been put on hiatus because of the second world war. It had always intended to withdraw from India but on its terms, so Ghandi worked to their advantage for the most part.

7
DaddySpoons 7 points ago +7 / -0

Europa Universalis IV It's a grand strategy game by paradox and the graphics are very limited but the scale is Huge.

You can pick any country that existed from 1444 all the way through to late 1800s and control every aspect of that country from its politics, economy, expansion and warfare. And of course its colonies. You can pick one of the big four colonisers (Portugal, Spain, Britain and France) and colonise the New world either through sending colonists to unsettled lands, conquest or diplo annexing native tribes. You can even pick countries that never colonised like the Poland or even the Pope and ahistorically create a global Empire. Or if you want a challenge pick a native tribe like the Creek, Aztecs, Mohawk etc.. It's a game with immense replay ability and an incredibly amount of depth if you like those grand strategy country management kinda games.

6
DaddySpoons 6 points ago +6 / -0

I've not seen the latest season, and I've not read the books, but yes I have and I'd say it's very good. It gets the gist of the period quite well and is fairly accurate. Only area I'd say it lacks in is props, some of the battle sequences/ tactics/ gear could have been better. The biggest flaw is its portrayal of the native brita, welsh and scots. They are portrayed as barely Christian, almost pagan heathens living in huts where as reality they had been orthodox Christian's for nearly 700 years and styled themselves as the British successors to Rome. But honestly I like it and would recommend it, despite this

16
DaddySpoons 16 points ago +16 / -0

So I was a professional archaeologist many years ago and post Roman Britain is my area of expertise. What the media has done with Vikings hurts me to my soul. First few seasons of Vikings captured the feel well enough but they fell down the "shield maiden" myth pretty hard to the point I couldnt tolerate the show. Dont even get me started on Assassins Creed Valhalla...

So when I saw the trailer for Northmen on youtube I thought "Oh another garbage Vikings movies/series" but then I watched it... and now I'm excited. This is easily the best looking historical rendition of the period I've seen in a long time. And if the directors other works are anything to go by then I'm all In.

Just my 2 cents