FROM THE ARCHIVES: Viking Heroes for the Modern Age (Hiccup vs Ragnar)

FROM THE ARCHIVES note: This post is from an older blog of mine that has since been taken down from the internet. It is presented here with minimal editing because I still find it interesting enough to share. The original post was published on 8 June 2014.

I've been meaning to do this post for months, to be honest. Last semester my big 20-page research paper for one of my classes was entitled "From Hávamál to Horned Helmets: An Examination of Vikings in Popular Culture". In the paper, I analysed how the role of Vikings has changed in pop culture, from the Wagnar operas of the Victorian age all the way up to History Channel's "Vikings" TV series. I'd like to share the whole paper, but for fear of plagiarism after I worked so hard on it for months, I cannot do so.

However, with the newest installment in the "How to Train Your Dragon" franchise coming out in less than a week (I AM SO EXCITE), I absolutely can reference that paper to create a blog entry that talks a bit about the modern role of Vikings in our movies and TV shows.

You see, it used to be in movies that Vikings were largely considered villains. Horned barbarians, hell-bent on murder and pillage, something straight out of an 8th-century monk's worst nightmare. But recently that has started to change - Viking enthusiasts have fought back against this unfair stereotype of what were really a highly technologically advanced society. And with this backlash, we have a new type of Viking character in modern popular culture. The Viking hero is cunning, brave, often strong in an unconventional way. And I feel this new Viking hero has two great examples on the air right now:

Now, Hiccup and Ragnar aren't perfect. While they are good examples of a Viking hero for a more modern audience, their intelligence is still presented as being in contrast to their peers. But it is better than Viking fans are used to. Let's start with looking at the first "How to Train Your Dragon" movie, since it came out a couple of years before the "Vikings" television series. Although it is a fantasy film, it does reflect how modern pop culture's view of the Vikings - or, more properly, the Norse - is beginning to change.

(Note: using the term "Vikings" to refer to all of Old Norse society is a big fat no no. "Vikings" were the raiders of the society who went and attacked monasteries and such; the farmers and fishers back home were not called such. I will be using both terms, since people are so used to hearing it, but properly it should just be the Norse, not the Vikings. Capiche?)

The first HTTYD film does not cast the Norse (see?) as villains or someone the hero, Hiccup, must learn to work with, but rather as the protagonists themselves.

Even if their helmets are, frankly, ridiculous.

Up until like Act 3 of the first movie, the conflict Hiccup has comes from the fact that he, our audience surrogate character who feels more at home in an indie Michael Cera fare than in a historical fantasy, is considered different from what the film presents as the ideal Viking. Unfortunately, the movie still uses the older stereotypes, and the cultural ideal on Berk is a brutish warrior who kills dragons and has little use for Hiccup's brains. It's like Hiccup's classmates at Dragon Academy say:

Tuffnut: "Wait, you mean read?!"
Ruffnut: "While we're still alive?!"
Snotlout: "Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?"

Hiccup even says himself at one point, "The food that grows here [on Berk] is tough and tasteless. The people who grow here are even more so."

I mean, I get it. It's a narrative device. Using the popular perception of Vikings makes Hiccup stand out. He is "different" - and thus, he is relatable.

He doesn't want to die at James Franco's house.

But I give the movie credit because it doesn't make the Norse living on Berk into antagonists, not really, even though it easily could have. Instead of an internal struggle within Berk's society, one common enemy is projected: the dragons. Or rather, the evil Green Death dragon.

Don't yell "Spoilers" at me.  It came out in fucking 2010.  It's your own damn fault if you haven't seen it yet.

This trend, the Norse as well-meaning protagonists, continues on with "Vikings". I mean, I'm not 

saying "How to Train Your Dragon" inspired Michael Hirst to create the "Vikings" TV show. But, you know, I'm not not saying it either. (Though, if we're being honest, we all know it's riding on the coattails of "Game of Thrones") The show, if you haven't watched it, centers around a fictionalised version of a character from the historic Norse sagas, Ragnar Lodbrok (or Lothbrok but that spelling looks dumb to me and thus I refuse to use it).

I mean, it's not a perfect depiction either. Like Hiccup, Ragnar is depicted as being a rather progressive thinker in the face of his more conservative contemporaries. Some people have a problem with this. And... well... honestly, as someone who studies the Norse, I can kinda see their point. The first season of the show portrays the government of Ragnar's home village as being autocratic, rather than essentially democratic as pre-Christian Norse society, with it's Things, really was. I know it's hard to believe but it's true. Viking-age Norse government had more in common with modern democracies than it did with its contemporary feudal kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England and Carolignian France.

What does this have to do with Ragnar? When pushed by an overbearing Jarl, like the show's Jarl Haraldsson, the Norse would have pushed back, In fact, one of the Old Norse Thing laws makes it a civil duty to rebel against a Jarl who tries to over-assert his power at a Thing. But in the show, guess who is the only character to do this?

"Who, meeee?"

Another criticism mentions the depiction of the Norse as essentially ignorant of the existence of the British Isles - until, of course, Ragnar discovers them. Essentially, he's too perfect. The other Norse are dumbed down, barbarianised (barbarian is a verb now), to make perfect Ragnar Lodbrok look better, And honestly? It's kind of lazy screenwriting. "Vikings' wants to be the next "Game of Thrones", but the writers don't have the sense of subtlety and moral ambiguity they are so desperately trying for. The show suffers for this. But okay, this isn't about my criticisms of the show's writing, I'll get off my soapbox and get back to our scheduled comparison of Hiccup and Ragnar...

"How to Train Your Dragon" (and time will tell if the sequel is any better about this) and "Vikings" are, at least, evidence that we're beginning to reexamine how we think of the Norse. Although the Vikings presented in both of these are still for the most part fierce warriors, they're still the protagonists. They're allowed to be more three-dimensional than media in the past has allowed them.

"Vikings" even got rid of the horrible horned helmets.

In HTTYD, Hiccup doesn't look down on the other citizens of Berk for their ways - rather he tries (with sometimes disastrous results) to emulate their behaviour. He even says at one point, "I just wanted to be like you guys." Also, the Vikings of Berk do have consciences. They do have morals. Sure they're a bit brutish, but they only want to do what's right for Berk. (Except for the twins, who seem to just wanna have fun and cause chaos. They're the Lokeans of the group I guess.) When Hiccup and Toothless show them that what they thought was right is, in fact, wrong, they don't punish him for it. No, they change their ways and adapt to life with dragons.

Like Hiccup, Ragnar also uses his brains to solve problems that being a brutish warrior alone cannot possibly solve. The plot of the first season of "Vikings" is largely driven by Ragnar's desire for knowledge. He even says, "Odin gave his eye for knowledge - but I would give far more!" (Of course, this is before his character derailment in season 2 where he becomes a power-hungry douche, but we don't talk about that here.) He even befriends Athelstan, a captured English monk, as part of this search for knowledge, learning Athelstan's religion, language, and culture. (Interestingly, Athelstan himself begins to adapt to Norse ways and abandon his Christian faith.)

So neither Hiccup nor Ragnar is perfect, no, but they're a start. I'll take heroes like Hiccup and Ragnar over hyper-masculine Leif Eriksson from 1928's "The Viking" any day!

Far vel, vér sjáumst,

Nym