US: Vikings - anyone else watching this ?

What was up with Ragnar asking him for a threesome? It made no sense, he'd just met the guy and he was his slave. And if this is supposed to be something not unusual in Viking culture, then why wasn't he having 3-ways with his wife and his mate? She rebuffed him in the first episode but then is up for a threesome with a complete stranger.
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It was a test...

Cant be bothered to answer the rest of your post.

Most people agree it's a good show and not just on this forum
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
None of the characters are likeable. I know they are supposed to be bad guys, but it's possible to make bad guys likeable (see Spartacus).
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What, you actually liked some of the Romans?
I thought it was wrote that well that the viewer wanted all Romans dead.

Anyway, if I had Vikings, Spartacus and GOT on my hard drive to watch I choose Vikings first, Ragnar is a great character.
 
BTW FutileBreadMachine

If you time traveled back to the era this show is set in you wouldn't be able to understand anyone in england ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_language

maybe he can understand english people from it basically being Germanic :P
English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders and/or settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually became predominant.

The English language underwent extensive change in the Middle Ages. Written Old English of AD 1000 is similar in vocabulary and grammar to other old Germanic languages such as Old High German and Old Norse, and completely unintelligible to modern speakers, while the modern language is already largely recognisable in written Middle English of AD 1400. The transformation was caused by two further waves of invasion: the first by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language family, who conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries
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the dating of Ragnar's death has been alternatively stated as 840 or 865.
guess that explains it then?

BTW there was once a documentary on the bbc where some guy showed how using Germanic English he was able to communicate fairly well with modern men in Holland , Germany etc
I guess there languages didn't change as much as the English language did

Maybe you would like the show to be authentic and have the English people not speak an English language we can understand one that is not to different from the language the Vikings spoke? one that more than likely allowed some people to communicate because most languages in Europe were fairly similar at the time
 
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arknor said:
It was a test...

Cant be bothered to answer the rest of your post.

Most people agree it's a good show and not just on this forum
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Haha I started typing a long reply then thought the same.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure there would be enough spare time sailing from Scandinavia to England twice to learn some language, especially given how relatively similar they were. English changed massively due to the Norman invasion too, many modern English words come from French.

I always choose to watch this first on a monday night over GoT, it's the best show on at the moment IMO
 
robmol said:
Haha I started typing a long reply then thought the same.
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Yea I don't know what made me bother trying to explain it's highly likely they would be able to get the grasp of what someone from England was saying along as it was a part of England that used that dialect
 
arknor said:
BTW FutileBreadMachine

If you time traveled back to the era this show is set in you wouldn't be able to understand anyone in england ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_language

maybe he can understand english people from it basically being Germanic :P

the dating of Ragnar's death has been alternatively stated as 840 or 865.
guess that explains it then?

BTW there was once a documentary on the bbc where some guy showed how using Germanic English he was able to communicate fairly well with modern men in Holland , Germany etc
I guess there languages didn't change as much as the English language did

Maybe you would like the show to be authentic and have the English people not speak an English language we can understand one that is not to different from the language the Vikings spoke? one that more than likely allowed some people to communicate because most languages in Europe were fairly similar at the time
Click to expand...

I was thinking he could understand English because he asked the captured Priest to teach him it .... anyway

JafIhEa.jpg
 
Dimple said:
What, you actually liked some of the Romans?
I thought it was wrote that well that the viewer wanted all Romans dead.

Anyway, if I had Vikings, Spartacus and GOT on my hard drive to watch I choose Vikings first, Ragnar is a great character.
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The villians on Spartacus were the "love to hate" kind, where even though they were *******s, they were entertaining *******s. Batiatus is a fan-favourite character even though he is the season 1 main villain. Crassus was also a respectable and worthy opponent. Did you not feel sympathy for Batiatus when he got beaten to a pulp and peed on? And when Lucretia got stabbed and her baby killed and she crawled to Batiatus as she was dying?

Regarding the language on Vikings, I know full well the language was different to now, that wasn't my point. I was wondering how he learned such good English over such a short time. Anyone who's learned a foreign language knows it takes ages to keep up with what people are saying even when you know the words. Perhaps in the show the time period is far longer than indicated, but it seems like only a month or less since they returned (needs a montage!).

I am very interested in the relationship between languages and I know there are many shared words between English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages. I was waiting for Ragnar's men to start recognising some words used by the Englismen. I understand Afrikaans, German and Russian to varying degrees so it's interesting spotting things like mother is Mutter in German, ma in Afrikaans, moeder in Dutch and mat in Russian.

Things are more interesting in episode 4, but they went and killed off the best viking, the big blonde guy who was the viking chief in The Thirteenth Warrior (which was an awesome viking movie, even with Antonio Banderas playing an Arab). I would have preferred him in the lead, the actor playing Ragnar is so softly spoken, even when he was on trial and might have been put to death.

His smiling all the time might be down to something I read about him being called Lodbrok, which means hairy-breeches, because he sowed sone hairy breeches to wear whilst fighting a dragon and he always smiled when he sewed.
I see they used brok for breeches, whilst Dutch uses broek and Russian uses bruki.

Sorry, long post!
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
The villians on Spartacus were the "love to hate" kind, where even though they were *******s, they were entertaining *******s. Batiatus is a fan-favourite character even though he is the season 1 main villain. Crassus was also a respectable and worthy opponent. Did you not feel sympathy for Batiatus when he got beaten to a pulp and peed on? And when Lucretia got stabbed and her baby killed and she crawled to Batiatus as she was dying?

Regarding the language on Vikings, I know full well the language was different to now, that wasn't my point. I was wondering how he learned such good English over such a short time. Anyone who's learned a foreign language knows it takes ages to keep up with what people are saying even when you know the words. Perhaps in the show the time period is far longer than indicated, but it seems like only a month or less since they returned (needs a montage!).

I am very interested in the relationship between languages and I know there are many shared words between English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages. I was waiting for Ragnar's men to start recognising some words used by the Englismen. I understand Afrikaans, German and Russian to varying degrees so it's interesting spotting things like mother is Mutter in German, ma in Afrikaans, moeder in Dutch and mat in Russian.

Things are more interesting in episode 4, but they went and killed off the best viking, the big blonde guy who was the viking chief in The Thirteenth Warrior (which was an awesome viking movie, even with Antonio Banderas playing an Arab). I would have preferred him in the lead, the actor playing Ragnar is so softly spoken, even when he was on trial and might have been put to death.

His smiling all the time might be down to something I read about him being called Lodbrok, which means hairy-breeches, because he sowed sone hairy breeches to wear whilst fighting a dragon and he always smiled when he sewed.
I see they used brok for breeches, whilst Dutch uses broek and Russian uses bruki.

Sorry, long post!
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You need to pay more attention , time periods in this show are in months
Did you not notice is was winter in one episode and then spring/summer in another ?
The priest's hair and beard growing pretty long ? no just for men in those days
 
This appears to have been the final episode :|
I found it a bit disappointing tbh and I'm routing for ragnars brother even though I used to think he was a bit of a nob.
he just does a creepy smile all the time.
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yea this episode was full of it and it just seems disrespectful all the time and not how you would imagine a viking leader it's almost childish like hes seen a naked woman in a school text book and gone all giggly..
He just needs the beavis and buthead laugh and all is complete
hes already got the facial expression down to a t...
 
contains MASSIVE spoilers!
seriously the trailer shows massive spoilers! almost like it's a season 2 finale recap lol or the season hits the ground running hard at the start of next season
 
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