11/12/2007 CE
My God, is this movie a historical nightmare. Just as a warning, do not see it if you have any love for history, as a dumb action flick MAYBE, but still... meh. Most of my fans in Colombia and Dixie were getting pretty confused about the history stemming from it and the issues it faced. So I thought I’d lend a hand.
First, I think we need some backstory. In the late 6th century, most put it at about 570, the Ænglic invaders had spread over a massive amount of Eastern Britannia, including a large amount of what is now Brytan, they weren’t united at all and basically just wandering tribes (NOT like in “
Burn Bright”, there was no King of Ænglia at the time and he didn’t go around eating babies, Ængles didn’t do that, my Mum was an Ængle and she certainly never ate me!) but the Celts were just the same, being pushed further and further back. One of the most powerful Celtic Kingdoms at the time was Dumnonia, the predecessor to modern Brytan and throughout the 6th century they had been expanding at an incredibly rapid rate, being one of the first kingdoms to expand since the fall of Roman Britain in CE 62. When the old King died in 571 or 572 (accounts differ and the Ænglic Chronicle and Encylopedia Brytannorum disagree) his daughter Maya inherited the throne.
She became renowned as a warrior queen and built upon her father's expansion. Within two months the entirety of South West Brytan was under Dumnonia’s flag and by 573 she had conquered all of Brytan, according to the film, whilst in reality it took two years and still amounted to just under half of modern Brytan. This conquest still had many of her subjects as Ængles, whilst in the film all of them are Brytans. These region would adopt the language and customs in time but it would take just that, time. Her kingdom was by far the largest on the isles and stretched far beyond it's "natural" or "cultural" borders.
In real life the reigns of this alliance were taken by the Picts but in the film the Picts and the Scots of Sudreyar are ignored entirely in favour of MORE VIKING DUDES. :|
As for the Ængles, they are simplified into two groups in the film, Deira and Mercia. Deira are the clear good guys out of the two, being funny, jovial viking-types whilst the Mercians are an abominable horde raping their way across the land. In real life there were over fourty distinct groups of Ængles though the Deira and Mercians were the largest by far. The Mercians are also shown as the Kings of Ænglia, which they most certainly weren't as the title hadn't been invented yet
Boom, awesome set up, hell, that could have been a movie in itself, you know how long they spent on that? 10 minutes. 10 minutes on some of the most important parts of Bryton history and the first coming together of the tribes? Goddamn it.
In the beginning Fighting was light and not well recorded due to the damage that the Encyclopedia Brytannorum received at the time, so the film assumed that Maya won every battle, of course. It doesn't help that most of these battles are repetitive and involve very similar fights between similar combatants. It finally starts to heat up about an hour in, having subdued nearly the entire south of Brytan with alliances and shows of force, Maya forayed north east, in an attempt to capture Ebacorum. This is where it gets interesting; “The Battle of Seven Armies” occurred on the 11th of December 575. For those in the know, the six armies were Maya’s and her allies in the Powys against The Picts, Scotch Sudreyar, the Brytans who stood against her (Mostly Northern tribes) and the Ænglic Kings of Mercia and Deira. According to the film however it was her one army of Maya's against six teeming hordes of Ænglic warriors. Likewise in the film you will have seen the young and beautiful Maya seduce, Skall, King of Deira and win him to her side on the eve of the battle. The real story, if far more boring, was that Maya had been scheming with Skall for many years and their marriage was less a romantic affair as it was a marriage of convenience, creating an alliance between the two which would allow them to carve up the region. The Battle took place at night, not dawn as in the film, and numbers were far more even. Far from the one thousand versus ten times that number, was four thousand against six, a massive battle for the time no doubt, but the odds weren’t quite so dramatic. Maya won anyway, quite handily and with a similar strategy to the film, which can be lauded. The credits role with Maya becoming the first
Rex Brytanniarum and her husband, Skall, becoming
Rex Ænglia. They claimed hegemony over all people of their cultures and got it to a certain extent, though their direct rule was limited. Brytan consisted of Maya's conquests pre-575 along with large swathes of mercia and Ænglia included Deira and most of the northern Ænglic kingdoms.
The two were technically separate kingdoms but ruled jointly by the royal couple from Corinium, which is still the capital today. It is also worth mentioning that the kingdoms didn't consist of their modern borders, both lacked their northern provinces, still held by small tribes of both Brytans and Ængles alike. Brytan also lacked the eastern provinces, see the map below. Frankly, the ending was stupid and inaccurate but also seems a bad business decision, by having the rest of the kingdoms already conquered you cut out Maya’s son Arthur (Or Æthur, to give him the Ænglic name) who both has the name Arthur, which means they could run with the whole Excalibur thing and was an awesome conqueror, unifying the kingdoms and invading Francia!
Map of the Two Kingdoms, Brytan in Green and Ænglia in Red
The Acting was awful anyway, Davith Rowe being it’s sole redeeming feature as the old king Uther, Maya’s father, who dies in the first five minutes of the film. Maya herself is played by Emile Cleur, a Dixie Actress whose accent was spot on but just didn’t look Bryton, too short and too skinny. Johan Ruman played a laughably bad villain in the role of King Niem, an Ænglic King with a Danish accent who, as I mention earlier, literally eats babies.
Geh, sorry, I tend to rant and a lot of the issues are quite nitpicky. Overall I’d give it 4/7, not awful really not fantastic. Anyway, this will be my last post before I go visit Lizabet in Dixie, I’ll be back in a couple weeks with an update on the trip!
4/7