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Middle Ages was different in reality

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Arnulf Floyd

Arnulf Floyd

Captain
Oct 22, 2018
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Hello, I am a fan of middle ages, I enjoy playing games with this period. I not understand why people taken 19th century Romantic, Hollywood and HBO depictions of age as real( I hate movies and TV shows). I know as AGOT is very popular and loved but fans which were not lovers of history believe as medieval Europe means only sadistic murder, nudity and sex. I love how age is presented in videogames despite many inaccuracies but offers a light approach, devs not must criticised but Hollywood for this thing. My problem with Braveheart was as director portrays Scotsmen as klit-wearing unarmoured savages with painted faces, in reality they were light armoured and Highland chieftains wear mail. Kingdom of Heaven makes as people believe as flag of Jerusalem was light blue, also I believe as Baldwin IV not was masked in battles how movie depict him
 
Of course movies and TV shows focus on showing the sexy, murdery, nudity-y parts of the stories they are telling, because those things are interesting! A story that just consists of average ordinary life would be boring regardless of what era it was set in. Yeah the real middle ages weren't like GoT, but neither is the modern age anything like our action movies.

Braveheart was a great movie and anyone who opposes it for any reason needs to take a long look at their direction in life and perhaps think of being a different sort of person.
 
Arnulf Floyd said:
Hello, I am a fan of middle ages, I enjoy playing games with this period. I not understand why people taken 19th century Romantic, Hollywood and HBO depictions of age as real( I hate movies and TV shows). I know as AGOT is very popular and loved but fans which were not lovers of history believe as medieval Europe means only sadistic murder, nudity and sex. I love how age is presented in videogames despite many inaccuracies but offers a light approach, devs not must criticised but Hollywood for this thing. My problem with Braveheart was as director portrays Scotsmen as klit-wearing unarmoured savages with painted faces, in reality they were light armoured and Highland chieftains wear mail. Kingdom of Heaven makes as people believe as flag of Jerusalem was light blue, also I believe as Baldwin IV not was masked in battles how movie depict him
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It's the same with any TV show. Even modern settings aren't that real ... Oh to be Barney in HIMYM!
 
I agree as no TV show not reflect reality, same thing happens with novels:)
 
Fishman786 said:
Braveheart was a great movie and anyone who opposes it for any reason needs to take a long look at their direction in life and perhaps think of being a different sort of person.
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No
 
Movie and TV depictions of Medieval society are seldom sadistic enough to be realistic. Braveheart for example cut out alot of the punishment recieved by William Wallace. Most movies also skip the rape of women in sacked towns (especially when it is the ”good guys” who do the sacking).

The main characters who die before reaching adulthood are of course the most underrepresented in movie and TV depictions of the middle ages.
 
I agree with this thing, children cant reach adulthood were eliminated as characters in movies, TV shows and games(except CK2), but a problem for me were battles in movies, I know as length not permits. I criticise cinematography and TV because I hate them, this is my personal opinion. I as a professional writter trying to represent middle ages a bit realistically with violence without going in gritty side(I exclude detailed depictions of nudity and sex) If we speaking of medieval novels, many prefers epic fantasy than historical(both were not to be historical-accurated but I love latter because allows semi-fantasy settings)
 
Braveheart was a perfect example of Hollywood taking a very "gray" situation and depicting it in stark black and white: good versus evil. That's fine for an action movie, but there are too many people who view it as some sort of documentary, as if there's anything realistic about the situation other than the names of the main characters. They don't bother to mention that many of those happy Scots frolicking in the forests were raiding settlements, attacking traders, and doing all sorts of less than innocent stuff of their own. The English were certainly no saints, but the Scots were far from innocent as well.

The most egregious point that I took exception to was the silver credit card armor (supposed to be Brigandine?) that the English army wore near the end. Everyone knows that using credit cards for armor is completely useless, except when you're charging (they're called "charge cards" for a reason).

Then again, it's probably less blatantly wrong than movies like "The Scorpion King" about ancient Egypt, where the army wore partial plate armor (Egypt had almost no workable metals other than some copper and small amounts of gold) and the group of heroes used explosives near the end of the movie (yes, they did admit that the technology came from China, but realistically the Chinese wouldn't invent it for another 3000-4000 years). Of course, an army protected by quilted cloth and dried reed shields isn't nearly as imposing as all that metal, and what movie is complete without an explosion?

Some people should have their artistic licenses revoked, or at least suspended for the duration of the film-making process.
 
I am shocked, SHOCKED, to find out Hollywood changes history to sell movie tickets.
 
Sad but true. I believe as in reality in Middle Ages not exist good versus evil theme which appears in movies. I want to says as Middle Ages not was so bloody as 20th Century.
 
For example, the "prima noctis" thing? (the lord has the right to "test" the newly wed wife)? 19th century invention mostly.

In fact, most of the "known stories" of the Middle Ages come from Romantics. I blame Sir Walter Scott, especially.
 
Kgw said:
For example, the "prima noctis" thing? (the lord has the right to "test" the newly wed wife)? 19th century invention mostly.

In fact, most of the "known stories" of the Middle Ages come from Romantics. I blame Sir Walter Scott, especially.
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Yeah, that's how it usually goes. Popular image of Julius Caesar is based on a play by Shakespeare and in China the widely known narrative of Three Kingdoms period comes from a novel that was written over thousand years after the events it tells about.
 
Arnulf Floyd said:
. I want to says as Middle Ages not was so bloody as 20th Century.
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The large wars of the 20th century were more bloody than anything in the Middle Ages but the constant daily violence of the Middle Ages was much worse. The Amsterdam homicide rates for example reached as high as 47 per 100,000 people in the mid 15th Century compared to 1,6 per 100,000 today.

Then there was the continous low level warfare between feuding lords, cattle raids, etc. All in all you had a higher percentage chance of dying a violent death in the Middle Ages Europe than in the 20th Century Europe.
 
I believe as history is full of misconceptions because sources are written for please people and leaders, I not says as Middle Ages were peacefull times compared to 20th Century also births were difficult in Medieval era few women survives, unfortunely romantics have invented things which were not in reality for exemple Swan Knights, which appear in LOTR as elite cavalry of Dol Guldur dates since 19th Century. Beyond these things and higher rates of mortality, I love Middle Ages so much than modern times
 
As said before, depictions of the medieval period are fake in the same way depictions of everything else is fake - it's fake to make it more interesting to the current reader or viewer. For example, law shows don't show all the research, writing etc. that's 90 % of real law work, because that would be boring. Instead the shows just try to show the interesting parts and tell a story. And quite frankly, I wouldn't want to watch a realistic show - I get all the realism I want in my real life.
 
A interesting story not means only murder, nudity and sex, I like battle scenes because these were cool and make me full of. Why realism is boring? If you look in fiction, 19th and 20th centuries offers many unenjoyable and repetitive realistically novels, I not understand why novelists want to portrays society in a boring way. I as a writter care for interesting stories than unenjoyable realistically accurated ones.
 
It also offer unenjoyable and repetititve unrealistic novels. For one good Tolkien there are hundreds of "elfs and dwarves battling orcs" books.

Also, as a writer you'll find that realism is useful for your reader's (and your own!) sense of belief.
 
Minodrin said:
For example, law shows don't show all the research, writing etc. that's 90 % of real law work, because that would be boring. Instead the shows just try to show the interesting parts and tell a story.
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I think everyone understands that, but there's a difference between then just being blatantly wrong about what you actually do show and introducing some sort of artistic freedom to make things more interesting for viewers/readers. You can easily include a sentence like "all the research we did on this case is driving me nuts!" and show a pile of paperwork in the background. Or, I don't know; in Janet King you have this sorta bookish dude they always ask for specific laws and such and then he just spurts a bunch of random lawyer stuff.

Do I know whether that's accurate? No clue. Probably not.

But it gets the idea of "research -> case preparation" across.

Meanwhile, in worse fiction the lawyer would just randomly charge into the court room and immediately and on the spot come up with some sort of incredibly statement that would instantly lead to a conviction/acquittal. ^^

And it's the same for history, imo. I understand you need to squeeze things into a 120 minute or so frame. I also understand that movies typically want to follow some sort of sympathetic dude, so the conflict is probably favoring one side over the other (on the other hand, we all love anti-heroes these days, so I'm not sure how necessary that is anymore...). But that's no excuse for just butchering all the facts.
 
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